Feast day: May 11
St. Mamertus
A bishop of Vienne in Gaul who, amid earthquakes, fires, and disasters, instituted the public penitential processions known as the Rogation Days before the Ascension.
Mamertus was bishop of Vienne, in southern Gaul, in the fifth century, at a time when the Roman order in the West was collapsing and the people were beset by war, earthquake, fire, and other calamities. He is remembered above all for a single, enduring contribution to Christian worship that grew out of those troubles.
About the year 470, as his region suffered a string of disasters, Mamertus instituted special days of public prayer and penance: solemn processions, accompanied by the chanting of litanies, with fasting and abstinence, to beg God's mercy and protection. These came to be called the 'Rogation Days,' from the Latin for 'to ask.'
The custom proved so fitting that it spread rapidly through Gaul and then the whole Western Church, fixed on the three days before the feast of the Ascension. For some fifteen centuries these Rogation processions — often through the fields, to bless the growing crops — were a beloved feature of the Christian year.
Mamertus, who also took part in the theological disputes of his day and defended the work of his brother Claudianus, died about 475. He is honoured as a model bishop who turned his people's fear into prayer.
The springtime Rogation processions to bless the fields, kept across Europe for fifteen centuries, began with him as a response to calamity.
Image: Uncertain (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/09580a.htm
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