Severus

Saint Severus was a priest of southern Gaul, from the region of Bigorre, who lived in the fifth century and reposed around the year 500. The Church honours him for his love of the poor and his pure life, and the village where his tomb lies still bears his name: Saint-⁠Sever-⁠de-⁠Rustan, in south-⁠western France. He is commemorated on 1 August.

A few facts about him were preserved by Saint Gregory of Tours in his book on the holy confessors, which praises two virtues above all: his love of poverty and his charity. Severus came from an aristocratic family of Bigorre and owned great wealth. Once ordained priest, he did not keep his riches for himself but spent them feeding those in need.

On two of his estates, some thirty kilometres apart, he built a church: one at Rustan and the other at Sexiacum, which seems to be the present village of Saux. Every Sunday he served in both, riding the road between them. He furnished the churches with relics of saints and, according to the account, prepared his own tomb in the church at Rustan.

Tradition says that he used to tie together lilies just as they began to bloom and hang them on the wall. Local tradition also tells that at his tomb the dried lilies came back to life each year on the day of his repose; this miracle was recorded in 1753 on the apse of the abbey church.

After his death the faithful honoured him at once as a saint, and his relics were placed in the church at Rustan, which thereafter took his name. His tomb, a sarcophagus of black marble, drew many pilgrims, and around the year 800 Benedictine monks founded a monastery there. The abbey was destroyed and rebuilt several times, and in 1890 its cloister was moved to the Massey garden in Tarbes.

Saint Severus is honoured by the Orthodox who keep the memory of the saints of Gaul from before the separation of the Churches, and his feast is kept on 1 August.