In the 6th century, while Spain was awash in the Arianism heresy, the Lord rose up great saints who turned the tide back to the true faith, and changed the History of the World.
Newsroom (21/01/2022 11:33, Gaudium Press) In the 6th century, Arianism was dominant in Spain, and King Leovigildo, father of Hermenegildo and Recaredo, professed this heresy and hated Catholics. When they came of age, Leovigildo elevated Hermenegildo to the throne of Seville and Recaredo to that of Toledo.
Hermenegildo abjures Arianism
Some time later, Hermenegildo married Ingunda, daughter of the King of Austrasia – northeastern France – and a fervent Catholic.
When Leovigildo was widowed, he remarried Gosvinta, who seemed to have vowed to pervert Ingunda to the Arian heresy. Strengthened by divine grace, Ingunda not only remained faithful to her religion, but also succeeded in converting the former defender of Arianism: her own husband. The latter, with great pomp, abjured his error, and was admitted into the Catholic Church by St. Leander, Bishop of Seville.
The King of Seville’s conversion so angered Leovigildo that Leovigildo threatened him with dethronement if he did not return to Arianism. Hermenegildo respectfully replied to his father that he preferred to disobey him rather than God, and was willing to lose his crown to satisfy him.
Sensing that his father wanted to kill him, Hermenegildo sent St. Leander – who was his uncle – to Constantinople to ask Emperor Maurice I for military assistance.
There, Leander met the papal legate Gregory, who later became Pope – St. Gregory the Great – and a great friendship was established between them. He was received by Maurice, who sent Greek troops to Hermenegildo’s aid.
In fact, Leovigildo set out with a large army to attack Seville. But the Greek soldiers, sent by the Byzantines, sold themselves at a golden price and began to fight on behalf of Leovigildo.
First step toward the conversion of all of Spain
Seville is besieged, and after a year of fighting, Hermenegildo is forced to flee, but his father manages to capture him and orders him to be stripped of all royal emblems, and imprisoned in chains at the bottom of a dungeon.
Ingunda, Hermenegildo’s wife, fled to Africa where, finding no protection, she died of starvation.
Hermenegildo received these sufferings with firmness and trust in God. To all proposals of apostasy, he always replied that he would rather lose everything than renounce the Catholic Faith.
One day, an Arian bishop came to bring him Easter communion, by order of the king, but Hermenegildo rejected him. When Leovigildo learned of this, he was so overcome with hatred that he resolved that his son be put to death. This sentence was communicated, for greater effect, to the prisoner by his own executioners. Hermenegildo, in all serenity, knelt down, gave thanks to God, and was beheaded.
Once the crime had been committed, the old king felt haunted by terrible remorse and repented for his sins. When he became seriously ill, he called upon St. Leander and asked him to instruct his son Recaredo in the Catholic Faith.
Hermenegildo’s martyrdom was the first step toward the conversion of all Spain.
The prison where his body lay was illuminated by a supernatural light, and the tomb in which he was buried became a place of public worship. The Church canonized him and his memory is celebrated on April 13.
Recaredo became King of Spain after the death of his father in 586, renounced the Arian heresy, and converted to Catholicism. He received a royal anointing from the hands of St. Leander in 589.
Saint Isidore resurrects a woman
When St. Leander died in 601, his brother St. Isidore succeeded him as Bishop of Seville; they had two other canonized brothers: St. Fulgencio, Bishop of Cartagena, and St. Florentina, abbess of 40 convents. They came from a family of high nobility: they were maternal uncles of the kings Saint Hermenegildo and Recaredo.
Isidore was much younger than Leander, and Leander educated him from his earliest childhood. He was later entrusted to a monastery in Seville, where he caused admiration for his piety and great intellectual capacity.
Besides the apostolate, he dedicated himself intensely to study, acquiring knowledge about the most varied branches of science.
“But he did not study solely for the vain pleasure of knowing; he aimed at a double end: to be useful to his country to subtract it from barbarism and to make the Catholic Faith triumph against the Arian heresy.”
He founded a college in Seville for young clerics which later had famous pupils, among them Saint Ildefonso, Archbishop of Toledo, to whom, in 665, the Blessed Virgin appeared and placed on him a chasuble made by Our Lord Himself.
St. Isidore carried out a fruitful apostolate in various regions, wrote important works, and became very well known. In 619, he traveled to Rome and was received by Pope Boniface V. When he returned to Spain, the crowds welcomed him enthusiastically; a pregnant woman having fallen in the midst of the demonstrations and died, he brought her back to life.
Public Penance
Foreseeing that his death was approaching, Saint Isidore wanted to do a public penance. He asked two bishops to accompany him to the cathedral, and a procession was formed, in which the clergy and a large number of the faithful participated. Inside the church, one of the bishops placed a cilice on him, and the other, ashes. Then, raising his hands to heaven, the Saint prayed aloud for forgiveness of his sins, received the Eucharist, commended himself to the prayers of those present, and had the rest of the money he still possessed distributed to the poor.
He returned to his palace, and four days later, on April 4, 636, delivered his beautiful soul to God.
May the Spanish saints mentioned above obtain for us from Our Lady the grace to increase our devotion to Her, striving always for the exaltation of the Church and the crushing of her internal and external adversaries.
By Paulo Francisco Martos
