Saint Isarn of Marseille

Resolved to embrace the monastic life, he requested his admission to the Cassianite monastery of Saint-Victor of Marseille: he was received there with joy. Planted henceforth in the house of the Lord, he flourished there through the exact observance of discipline. Full of an ardent devotion for the tombs of the Martyrs, he often spent the night venerating those that adorned the monastery. His virtues, the perfumes of which were exhaled afar, raised him to the dignity of claustral prior under Abbot Wilfred, and he knew how to conduct himself in this function with a humility that showed it was for him a burden rather than an honor to command others. After the death of Wilfred, while the abbots of the neighboring monasteries, gathered with the religious of Saint-Victor, were deliberating on the choice of his successor, a child, moved by the Holy Spirit, c ried out: "Isarne is abbot," and Isarne was indeed elected on the spot by unanimous consent.

It was primarily in the fulfillment of this high office that he manifested his gentleness, his humility, his spirit of penance, and his charity toward the poor. Under his administration, a new monastery church was consecrated (October 15, 1040) by Pope Benedict IX who , in the words of the Bull, "sanctified it with the triple blessing, and, by an apostolic privilege, restored it to the honor it once held of absolving sinners." Twenty-three bishops, a large number of abbots and religious, and all the nobility of Provence attended this dedication. Shortly before his death, Isarne made a journey to Spain to attend to the ransom of the r eligiou s whom the Saracens had taken into captivity fol lowing th e devastation of the monastery of Lérins.

The life of the blessed abbot ended in the midst of good works. He fell asleep in the Lord, surrounded by his beloved brothers, on September 24, 1048. His body was placed in the lower basilica of the monastery. As early as 1050, pilgrims traveled in great numbers to the crypt that held his tomb, already illustra ted by several miracles. In our day, the Church of Marseille still celebrates the feast of the illustrious abbot of Saint-Victor every year, but his memory is erased from the minds of the people. The tomb that performed miracles no longer rests in the ancient crypts in the shadow of the underground chapters: it is delivered to the profane gazes of museum visitors. May those who now live in the presence of the last remnants of the old abbey love their holy compatriot, as he was loved by their ancestors eight centuries ago!

Prupee of Toulouse, supplemented with Notes through the kindness of t he Abbé Antoine Ric ard and the Abbé Bayle. — Cf. Life of Saint Isarne, by M. Bayle.