ST. FIACRE 



lost friends, so they came to test the holiness of this 

 man of the woods, and found him good, and true, and 

 full of peace. And they marvelled to find a garden in 

 the wood, and, being entreated, eat of its produce, and 

 heard the holy man preach, and saw him heal. Then 

 the Saint was forced to build another hut for those of 

 his visitors who came from far to consult him, and, as 

 the crowds grew greater he was forced to go to the Bishop 

 to ask for more land. 



Saint Faron, the Bishop of Meaux, to whom all the 

 forest belonged, knew his man. One can imagine two 

 such men leading lofty and spiritual lives meeting in the 

 monastery. I like to think of the Bishop as one of those 

 thin men full of years, with a skin like parchment, his 

 holiness shining out of his eyes, a man whose quiet 

 voice, tuned to the silence of the monastery, breathes 

 peace. And Fiacre, bronzed with the open air, rough 

 with labour, with the curious eyes of the mystic, eyes 

 that looked as if they had pierced the veil of a mystery, 

 standing before his Bishop asking for his grant of land. 



Coming from the depths of the heavy wood into the 

 town, leaving the silence of his forest for the noise of the 

 place, he must have felt strange. Those who met him 

 were, I am sure, conscious of the atmosphere he carried 

 with him, the envelope all lonely men wear, the curious 

 reserve common to all dwellers in woods, and wilds. 



The Bishop consented to the demand, and gave him 

 his desire after a curious manner. Perhaps to test 

 this hermit whose fame had already spread so far, 

 perhaps to see how real were the stories he must have 

 heard of his spiritual son, this holy gardener, he granted 

 him as much land as he could enclose with his spade in 

 one day. 



Back went Saint Fiacre to his forest clearing, to his 

 friends the birds, his bubbling wells, his aisles of trees, 



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