Saint of the day November 19: Saint Odón. Catholic Saints

Saint Odon of Cluny was a French monk born around the year 879, known for being the second abbot of Cluny (Burgundy, France), the most famous monastery of his time; as well as for having had more than a thousand monks under his direction, throughout his life, in various monasteries in France and Italy.

Pope Benedict XVI described him as one of the highest spirits of the Middle Ages, due to his contribution to the revival of the religious spirit through the reform of monastic life. Benedict XVI called him “great teacher of spiritual discipline.”

a restless spirit

Odón, as a child, was consecrated by his father to Saint Martin of Tours, a saint from the 4th century, one of the most popular of the time. As a teenager, he began to study the Rule of Saint Benedict and observe its discipline without being a monk yet.

Then, fascinated by the Benedictine way of life, he would leave Tours (France) to enter the Baume Abbey as a monk, from where he would move on to two other monasteries: Aurillac and, finally, Cluny. In this monastery he would become abbot in the year 927.

Every Christian is called to lead authentic changes

From Cluny, converted into a spiritual center, it exerted a great influence on the monasteries of the Old Continent. Odo insisted a lot on praying the psalms fervently and constantly, as well as on the observance of silence within the monasteries. With him, Cluny achieved such spiritual splendor that fifteen other monasteries were built under his tutelage.

In the catechism that Benedict XVI dedicated to the monk Odón in 2009, the then Pope would point out: “Saint Odón was a true spiritual guide for both the monks and the faithful of his time… Given the large number of vices widespread in society, the The remedy that he decisively proposed was that of a radical change of life, based on humility, austerity, detachment from ephemeral things and adherence to eternal things.

“Mother of Mercy”

Another aspect of Odón’s personality and life that the then Pope highlighted was his filial piety to the Virgin Mary: “Odón was still a teenager, about sixteen years old, when, on a Christmas vigil, he felt his lips this prayer to the Virgin: “My Lady, Mother of Mercy, who on this night gave birth to the Savior, pray for me. May your glorious and unique birth be, oh most pious, my refuge” (The life of St. OdoI, 9: PL 133, 747). The appellation “Mother of mercy”, with which the young Odo then invoked the Virgin, will be the way he will always choose to address Mary, also calling her “the only hope in the world… thanks to which the doors have been opened to us.” gates of paradise.”

Recipe for the medieval skeptic: Eucharist and good humor

Saint Odon deserves to be remembered in another exemplary aspect: his “devotion” to the Body and Blood of Christ. The second abbot of Cluny deplored the increasingly widespread negligence of many priests who celebrate the Eucharist as if it were a routine act. Convinced to the core of the real presence, under the Eucharistic species, of the Body and Blood of the Lord, he wrote: “God, the Creator of all, took the bread, saying that it was his Body and that he would have offered it for the world.” , and distributed the wine, calling it his Blood” (Abbot of Odo Cluniac occupationed. A. Swoboda, Leipzig 1900, p. 121).

The monk did not doubt the miracle that occurs in each Eucharist: “It is the law of nature that transformation takes place according to the Creator’s command… immediately nature changes its usual condition: without delay the bread becomes meat, and the wine becomes blood… the substance is transformed” (ibid., p. 121).

Pope Benedict concludes: «A trait of the holy abbot appears here at first sight almost hidden under the rigor of his reformer’s austerity: the profound goodness of his soul. He was austere, but above all he was good, a man of great goodness, a goodness that comes from contact with divine goodness. Odo, as his contemporaries tell us, spread around him the joy with which he overflowed. His biographer testifies that he had never heard “such sweetness of speech” come from the mouth of a man. He used to (according to one of his biographers)… invite the children he met along the way to sing and then give them a small gift (…): “His words were full of joy…, his hilarity infused our hearts with intimate joy” (ib., II, 5: PL 133, 63)».

Saint Odon died holy on November 19, 942.

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If you want to know more about the life of Saint Odon, we recommend this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/San_Od%C3%B3n_de_Cluny.

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