St. Leander
Name: St. Leander
Date: 27 February
Saint Leander was born of an illustrious family at Carthagena in Spain. He was the eldest of fivebrothers, several of whom are numbered among the Saints. He entered into a monastery ofSeville very young, where he lived many years and attained to an eminent degree of virtue andsacred learning. These qualities occasioned his being promoted to the see of Seville; but hischange of condition made little or no alteration in his way of life, though it brought on him agreat increase of solicitude. Spain at that time was held in possession by the Visigoths. These Goths, being infected withArianism, established that heresy wherever they came, in such wise that at the time Saint Leanderwas made bishop, it had already reigned in Spain a hundred years. This was his great affliction. Nonetheless, by his prayers to God and by his most zealous and unwearied endeavors, he becamethe happy instrument of the conversion of that nation to the Catholic faith, as his story makesclear. The holy archbishop had converted, among others, his own nephew Hermenegild, who was theking’s eldest son and heir apparent, and for this he was banished by King Leovigild, his ownbrother-in-law. The pious Catholic prince, now known as Saint Hermenegild, was put to death inprison by his unnatural father in the following year, for refusing to receive Communion from thehands of an Arian bishop. Afterwards, touched by grace and filled with remorse, the king recalledSaint Leander. When Leovigild fell sick and found himself past hopes of recovery, he sent for Saint Leander, andrecommended to him his other son Recared. This son, by listening to Saint Leander, became aCatholic, and finally brought the whole nation of the Visigoths to the faith. The new kingRecared also brought the Suevi back to Catholic unity; they were a people of Spain whom hisArian father Leovigild had perverted. Saint Leander was no less zealous in the reformation of morals than in restoring the purity offaith, and planted the seeds of the zeal and fervor which produce martyrs and Saints. He receivedfrom Saint Gregory the Great a painting of the Mother of God by the hand of Saint Luke,Evangelist, since known as Our Lady of Guadelupe (of Spain). It is he who, as a refutation ofArianism, added to the liturgy of Spain the recitation during Mass of the Nicene Creed, whichpractice spread to Rome and then to the entire Church. This holy doctor of Spain died about theyear 596, on the 27th of February. |
