ST JULIAN, Archbishop of Toledo, C. He presided in the 14th and 15th councils of Toledo. King Wemba falling sick, received penance and the monastic habit from his hands, and recovering, lived afterwards a monk, St Julian, has left us a history of the wars of king Wemba, a book against the Jews, and three books On Prognostics, or on death, and the state of souls after death. He teaches that love, and a desire of being united to God, ought to extinguish in us the natural fear of death: that the saints in heaven pray for us, earnestly desire our happiness, and know our actions either in God whom they behold, and in whom they discover all truth which it concerns them to know; or by the angels, the messengers of God on earth: but that the damned do not ordinarily know what passes on earth, because they neither see God, nor converse with our angels. He says that prayers for the dead are thanksgivings for the good, a propitiation for the souls in purgatory, but no relief to the damned. He was raised to the See of Toledo, in 680, and died in 690. fonce of Toledo, Append. Hom. Illustr.

See Ilde

ST DUTHAK, Bishop of Ross, in Scotland, C. His zeal and labours in preaching the word of God, his contempt of himself, his compassion for the poor, and for sinners, his extreme love of poverty, never reserving any thing for himself, and the extraordinary austerity of his life to which he had inured himself from his childhood, are much extolled by the author of his life. The same writer assures us, that he was famous for several miracles and predictions, and that he foretold an invasion of the Danes, which happened ten years after his death, in 1263, in the reign of Alexander III., when with their king Achol, they were defeated by Alexander Stuart, great grandfather to Robert, the first king of that family. This victory was ascribed to the intercession of St Andrew, and St Duthak. Our saint, after longing desires of being united to God, passed joyfully to bliss, in 1253. His relicks, kept in the collegiate church of Thane, in the county of Ross, were resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of Scotland. Lesley, the pious bishop of Ross, (who, after remaining four years in pri

son with queen Mary, passed into France, was chosen suffragan of Rouen, by cardinal Bourbon, and died at Brussels in 1591) had an extraordinary devotion to this saint, the chief patron of his diocese. See Lesley, Descript. Scot. p. 27. and the MS. life of St Duthak, compiled by a Scotish Jesuit, nephew by the mother to bishop Lesley, and native of that diocese. See also King in Calend.

ST ROSA, of Viterbo, Virgin. From her childhood, she addicted herself entirely to the practice of mortification and assiduous prayer; she was favoured with the gift of miracles, and an extraordinary talent of converting the most hardened sinners. She professed the third rule of St Francis, living always in the house of her father in Viterbo, where she died, in 1261. See Wading's Annals, and Barbaza, Vies des SS. du Tiers Ordre, T. 2. p. 77.

ST SENAN, B. C. He was born in the country of HyConalls in Ireland, in the latter part of the fifth century, was a disciple of the abbots Cassidus and Natal, or Naal; then travelled for spiritual improvement to Rome, and thence into Britain. In this kingdom, he contracted a close friendship with St David. After his return, he founded many churches in Ireland, and a great monastery in Inis-Cathaig, an island lying at the mouth of the river Shannon, which he governed, and in which he continued to reside after he was advanced to the episcopal dignity. The abbots, his successors for several centuries, were all bishops, till this great diocese was divided into three, namely, of Limerick, Killaloe, and Ardfert. St Senan died on the same day and year with St David; but was honoured in the Irish church on the 8th of March. A town in Cornwall bears the name of St Senan. See his acts in Colgan, p. 602.

ST PSALMOD, or SAUMAY, Anchoret. He was born in Ireland, and retiring into France, led an eremitical life at Limousin, where he acquired great reputation for his sanctity and miracles. He died about the year 589. See the martyrology of Evreux.

MARCH IX.

ST FRANCES, WIDOW, FOUNDRESS OF THE COLLATINES, OR OBLATES.

Abridged from her life by her confessor Canon Mattiotti; and that by Magdalen Dell 'Anguillara, superioress of the Oblates, or Col. latines. Helyot, Histoire des Ordr. Mon. T. 6 p. 208.

A. D. 1440.

ST FRANCES was born at Rome, in 1384. Her parents, Paul de Buxo, and Jacobella Rofredeschi, were both of illustrious families. She imbibed early sentiments of piety, and such was her love of purity from her tender age, that she would not suffer her own father to touch even her hands, unless covered. She had always an aversion to the amusements of children, and loved solitude and prayer. At eleven years of age, she desired to enter a monastery, but, in obedience to her parents, was married to a rich young Roman nobleman, named Laurence Ponzani, in 1396. A grievous sickness shewed how disagreeable this kind of life was to her inclinations. She joined with it her former spirit; kept herself as retired as she could, shunning feastings and public meetings. All her delight was in prayer, meditation, and visiting churches. Above all, her obedience and condescension to her husband, was inimitable, which engaged such a return of affection, that for forty years which they lived together, there never happened the least dissagree ment; and their whole life was a constant strife and emulation, to prevent each other in mutual complaisance and respect. Whilst she was at her prayers, or other exercises, if called away by her husband, or the meanest person of her family, she laid all aside to obey without delay, saying: "A married woman must, when called upon,

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quit her devotions to God at the altar, to find him in "her houshold affairs." God was pleased to shew her the merit of this her obedience; for the authors of her life relate, that being called away four times in beginning the same verse of a psalm in our Lady's office, returning the fifth time, she found that verse written in golden letters. She treated her domestics not as servants, but as brothers and sisters, and future co-heirs in heaven; and studied by all means in her power to induce them seriously to labour for their salvation. Her

mortifications were extraordinary, especially when some years before her husband's death, she was permitted by him to inflict on her body what hardships she pleased. She from that time abstained from wine, fish, and dainty meats, with a total abstinence from flesh, unless in her greatest sicknesses. Her ordinary diet was hard and, mouldy bread. She would procure secretly, out of the pouches of the beggars, their dry crusts in exchange for better bread. When she fared the best, she only added to bread a few unsavoury herbs without oil, and drank nothing but water, making use of a human skull for her cup. She eat but once a day, and by long abstinence had lost all relish of what she took. Her garments were of coarse serge, and she never wore linen, not even in sickness. Her discipline was armed with rowels and sharp points. She wore continually a hair shirt, and a girdle of horse-hair. An iron girdle had so galled her flesh, that her confessor obliged her to lay it aside. If she inadvertently chanced to offend God in the least, she severely that instant punished the part that had offended; as the tongue, by sharply biting it, &c. Her example was of such edification, that many Roman ladies, having renounced a life of idleness, pomp and softness, joined her in pious exercises, and put themselves under the direction of the Benedictin monks of the congregation of Monte-Oliveto, without leaving the world, making vows, or wearing any particular habit. St Frances prayed only for children that they might be citizens of heaven, and when she was blessed with them, it was her whole care to make them saints.

It pleased God, for her sanctification, to make trial of her virtue by many afflictions. During the troubles which ensued upon the invasion of Rome by Ladislas, king of Naples, and the great schism under pope John XXIII. at the time of opening the council of Constance in 1413, her husband, with his brother-in-law Paulucci, was banished Rome, his estate confiscated, his house pulled down, and his eldest son, John Baptist, detained an hostage. Her soul remained calm amidst all those storms she said with Job: " God hath given, and God "hath taken away. I rejoice in these losses, because they "are God's will. Whatever he sends I shall continually

bless and praise his name for." The schism being extinguished by the council of Constance, and tranquillity restored at Rome, her husband recovered his dignity and estate. Some time after, moved by the great favours St Frances received from heaven, and by her eminent virtue, he gave her full leave to live as she pleased; and he himself chose to serve God in a state of continency. He permitted her in his own life-time to found a monastery of nuns, called Oblates, for the reception of such of her own sex as were disposed to embrace a religious life. The foundation of this house was in 1425. She gave them the rule of St Benedict, adding some particular constitutions of her own, and put them under the direction of the congregation of the Olivetans. The house being too small for the numbers that fled to this sanctuary, from the corruption of the world, she would gladly have removed her community to a larger house; but not finding one suitable, she enlarged it, in 1433, from which year the founding of the Order is dated. It was approved by pope Eugenius IV. in 1437. They are called Collatines, perhaps from the quarter of Rome in which they are situated; and Oblates, because they call their profession an oblation, and use in it the word offero not profiteor. St Frances could not yet join her new family; but as soon as she had settled her domestic affairs, after the death of her hus band, she went barefoot, with a cord about her neck, to the monastery which she had founded, and there, prostrate on the ground before the religious, her spiritual children, begged to be admitted. She accordingly took the habit on St Benedict's day, in 1437. She always sought the meanest employments in the house, being fully persuaded she was of all the most contemptible before God; and she laboured to appear as mean in the eyes of the world as she was in her own. She continued the same humiliations, and the same universal poverty, though soon after chosen superioress of her congregation. Almighty God bestowed on her humility, extraordinary graces, and supernatural favours, as frequent visions, raptures, and the gift of prophecy. She enjoyed the familiar conversation of her angel-guardian, as her life and the process of her canonization at