Not much is known about today’s saint, who, by what accounts we have, died in 559 A.D. And those accounts date only from the 11th century. He was apparently converted under the reign of the first Catholic king of France, Clovis – himself a former pagan, baptized in 508. Leonard was a member of the royal court, and apparently his prayers helped the Queen bear a male child. Leonard was also a disciple of Remigius, bishop of Reims, who gave him the prerogative to visit prisons, and free anyone he deemed should be freed. (He is fittingly the patron of women in childbirth and of prisoners) A later legend claimed that prisoners’ shackles would break just by catching a glimpse of the saintly Leonard. Offered a bishopric, Leonard refused, and instead fled into the wilderness as a hermit, in the region of Limousin. Disciples flocked to him, and he eventually founded the abbey of Noblac, where an eponymous village now stands.
Although somewhat obscure, Saint Leonard of Noblat became one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, with 177 (!) churches in England alone named after him. Part of this may rest in the fact that his place of rest is on the route of the Santiago de Compostela. Crusader kings including Richard the Lionheart and Bohemond – visited his tomb, for prayers and thanksgiving. We too may invoke Saint Leonard in the troubles of our own time, as we fact threats not much unlike his own, with the very fate of Europe and Christian civilization hanging in the balance. What one holy soul can do! As Judas Maccabeus says to his fainthearted soldiers in today’s reading from the Office:
It is easy for a great number to be routed by a few; indeed in the sight of heaven deliverance, whether by many or by few, is all one; for victory in war does not depend on the size of the fighting force; it is from heaven that strength comes. They are coming against us in full-blown insolence and lawlessness to destroy us, our wives and our children, and to plunder us; but we are fighting for our lives and our laws, and he will crush them before our eyes; do not be afraid of them
Just so.