Benoit Joseph Labre

Biography

Elder of a family of fifteen children, it is accommodated at the twelve years age in his uncle the priest of Érin, which gives him an education aiming its entry to the Séminaire. But it gives up the priesthood, “being afraid to lose its heart by saving that of the others”. After refusebeing refused by the order of the Trap door, it makes an attempt in the order of the Carthusian monks, of which it is driven out like not having the specific vocation of this kind, it is again refused by the Trap door, and takes the habit with the Abbaye of Sept-Fons in 1769. It must leave the abbey when it falls ill. It goes then to Paray-le-Monial, then to the approach of Lyon, to Dardilly, Pierre Vianney, the grandfather of Jean-Marie Vianney, her hospitality offers to this vagrant.

Because, rejected of any share, Benoit-Joseph Labre finally chose a life of beggar and pilgrim, energy of sanctuaries in sanctuaries. The product of its begging generally goes to the other poor, which is worth a reputation of holiness to him. Thus sees it one singing with conceal-head the litanies of the Blessed Virgin close to the ventilator of a prison and giving to the prisoners the parts that one had thrown to him by charity. He becomes member of the third-order Franciscain. He also makes wish not be washed, by mortification. Its absence of hygiene and its vermin became proverbial. Its perpetual wandering, more commune with the Moyen-âge, golden age of the great pilgrimages, is, at the 18th century, in shift with the time of the Lumières, which adds to its holiness. It makes a pilgrimage with Rome, where it arrives in December 1770, with Saint-Jacques-with-Compostelle (1773), again Rome in 1774, Lorette in 1777. It is fixed at Rome the following year. According to the legend, he lived six years in the ruins of the Colisée, before dying in 35 years, the April 16th 1783 (one holy Wednesday), in the residence of a butcher who had found disappeared it on the steps of the church Madonna dei Monti (known also under the name of Santa Maria have Monti). The news of its death would have been widespread in Rome by the children with the cries of “It died the saint! ”. It seems however that he spent the nights to the Old people's home evangelic of Saint-Martin-with-Mounts.

Its burial with the church of the Madonna dei Monti gave place to demonstrations of popular faith, and its body rested under a marble stone.

It was béatifié in 1860 and was canonized in 1881.

Posterity

He is patron saint of the parish of Amqui, with the Canada, of the commune of Marçay in France, of the single people, the beggars, the homeless person, the pilgrims, the itinerants and the unsuited people.

Two artists represented it of alive sound, the fashion being to take a model in the beggars:

by the sculptor Andre Bley, for a head of the Christ, who was used as model for engravings;
by the Cavalucci painter, whose table is preserved at Rome.

Its confessor, the Marconi abbot, publishes his biography the same year; the memories of its passage in Germanic country of language are published by Stutter in 1789. It is béatifié in 1860 in front of 40.000 people and is canonized in 1883.

Its relics rest partly in its commune of birth, partly in the basilica of Marçay which is dedicated to him, and where it was the subject of a pilgrimage.

See too

Internal bonds

Benoit XVI: Why the pope take did the name of Benoit XVI?

External bonds

Site indexing all the places of worship to him being devoted, and the religious institutions placed under its invocation
Poem of Verlaine on Saint Benoit-Joseph Labre

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