This event took place on the first day of the spring of the year 1487, the feast of S. Benedict, the same on which seventy years previous he was born.
The lily had been the favourite symbol of this pure calm soul; the lily in flower, resplendent with a divine glory, was Brother Klaus himself, the humble servant of God, whose name, it is said, even S. Charles Borromeo never pronounced but with uncovered head.
The skeleton of Brother Klaus reposes in a shrine above the high altar of the Church at Sachseln, where also are preserved the habit, staff, and rosary of the saint. A contemporary portrait exists in the town-hall of Sarnen. He is represented as deadly pale, with deep sunk eyes, which are red with constant weeping. His chapel and hermitage are still shown in Melchthal.
[March 23.]
S. Proculus, B. of Verona, 4th cent.
SS. Fingar, Piala, V., and Companions, MM. in Cornwall, circ. A.D. 450.
S. Victorian, Proconsul of Carthage, and Companions, MM., circ. A.D. 484.
SS. Liberatus, Physician, and Companions, MM. in Africa, circ.A.D. 484.
S. Benedict, Monk in Campania, 6th cent.
S. Ethelwold, P.H. in the Isle of Farne, circ. A.D. 723.
S. Alphonso Toribio, B. of Lima, in Peru, A.D. 1606.
B. Joseph Oriol, P. at Barcelona, A.D. 1702.
S. PROCULUS, B. OF VERONA.
(4TH CENT.)
[Modern Roman Martyrology. Maurolycus, Greven and Canisius give Dec. 9th; Galesinus gives both days. The Roman Martyrology says that S. Proculus confessed Christ in the persecution of Dioclesian; all the other Martyrologies, that of Verona included, and all the versions of the Acts extant make a mistake, and say he confessed under Maximin, the emperor, when he was at Milan, before Anulinus the consul. But Maximin never was at Milan; and Annius Cornelius Anulinus was consul in the year 295, when Dioclesian and Maximian were emperors; and Maximian was at Milan more than once. Anulinus was proconsul of Africa in 303, and we meet with him in the Acts of some of the African martyrs. The Acts of SS. Firmus and Rusticus are not precisely in their original form, or this error would not have crept in, of making Maximian into Maximin; otherwise they seem to be trustworthy.]