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| Saint Zeno of Verona , Pray for us! |
⛪ Other Names:
Zen • ZenΓ³n • ZΓ©non • Zenone
⛪ Memorials:
• 21 May (translation of relics; Verona, Italy; Cerea, Italy)
• 6 December (episcopal consecration)
• last Sunday in May (Vermezzo, Italy)
• 18 June (Rolo, Italy)
• 16 August (Bolbeno, Italy; Montecastello, Italy)
• 2 September (Naturno, Italy)
• 8 September (Finale Emilia, Italy)
• 9 December (Cassano d'Adda, Italy; Lugagnando Val d'Arda, Italy; Maclodio, Italy; Onigo Pederobba, Italy; San Zeno Naviglio, Italy)
⛪ Born: c.300 at Mauretania near Algiers, North Africa
⛪ Died: 12 April 371
⛪ Patronage:
• Anglers • Children learning to speak • Children learning to walk • Fishermen • Newborn Babies • Diocese of Verona, Italy • 41 Cities
⛪ Symbols:
• Fish • Fishing rod • Bishop with a fish tied to his crozier • Bishop holding a fishing rod
This holy prelate is styled a martyr by Saint Gregory the Great and in several martyrologies. But was honoured only with the title of confessor, in the ancient missal of Verona, before the time of Lewis Lippoman, bishop of that city, in 1548: and it appears, from how Saint Ambrose, who was his contemporary, writing to Syagrius, our saint’s successor, speaks of his happy death and extols his eminent sanctity, that he did not die by the sword. Living in the days of Constantius, Julian, and Valens, he might deserve the title of martyr, by sharing in the persecutions carried on by those princes. Hence, in some calendars, he is styled martyr, and in others confessor.
The Marquis Scipio Maffei, and some others, pretend from his name, that he was a Grecian: but the Ballerini show, from the natural easiness, and the sharpness and conciseness of his style, that he was by birth, or at least by education, a Latin, and an African; which is confirmed from his panegyric on Saint Arcadius, a martyr of Mauritania. From the African martyr, called Zeno, it is clear this name was there in use. Our saint seems to have been made bishop of Verona in the year 362, in the reign of Julian the Apostate. We learn from several of his sermons, that he baptized every year a great number of idolaters, and that he exerted himself with great zeal and success against the Arians, whose party had been exceedingly strengthened in those parts by the favour of the emperor Constantius, and the artifices of the ringleaders of that sect, Ursacius and Valens, and particularly of Auxentius, who held the see of Milan, into which the heretics had intruded him, for twenty years, till 374. He also opposed himself, as a strong bulwark, against the errors of the Pelagians. The church of Verona was purged by his zealous labours and holy prayers, in a great measure, both of heresy and of idols. His flock being grown exceeding numerous, he found it necessary to build a great church, in which he was liberally assisted by the voluntary contributions of the rich citizens. In this church he mentions a cross of wood erected, as it were, to defend the doors. By the precepts and example of this good pastor, the people were so liberal in their alms, that their houses were always open to poor strangers, and none of their own country had occasion even to ask for relief, so plentifully were the necessities of all supplied. And he congratulates them upon the interest which they accumulate in heaven by money bestowed on the poor, by which they not only subdue avarice, but convert its treasures to the highest advantage, and without exciting envy. “For what can be richer than a man to whom God is pleased to acknowledge himself debtor?” After the battle of Adrianople, in 378, in which the Goths defeated Valens, with a greater slaughter of the Romans than had ever been known since the battle of CannΓ¦, the barbarians made in the neighbouring provinces of Illyricum and Thrace an incredible number of captives. It seems to have been, on this occasion, that the charities of the inhabitants of Verona were dispersed like fruitful seeds through the remotest provinces, and by them, many were ransomed from slavery, many rescued from cruel deaths, many freed from hard labour. Saint Zeno himself lived in great poverty. He makes frequent mention of the clergy which he trained up to the service of the altar, and the priests his fellow labourers, to whom retribution was allotted at Easter, according to everyone’s necessities and functions. He speaks of the ordinations which he performed at Easter: also the solemn reconciliation of penitents, which was another function of that holy time. Saint Ambrose mentions, at Verona, virgins consecrated to God by Saint Zeno, who wore the sacred veil, and lived in their own houses in the city; and others who lived in a monastery, of which he seems to have been both the founder and director, before any were established by Saint Ambrose at Milan. Love feasts, or agape, were originally established on the festivals of martyrs in their cemeteries, which, by the degeneracy of manners, were at length converted into occasions of intemperance and vanity. Saint Zeno inveighed warmly against this abuse. Nor can we doubt but he was one of the principal amongst the bishops of Italy, who, by their zeal and eloquence, entirely banished out of their diocesses a custom which gave occasion to such abuse, for which Saint Austin gave them due praise. Saint Zeno extended his charity to the faithful departed, and condemned severely the intemperate grief of those who interrupted by their lamentations the divine sacrifices and public office of the church for their deceased friends, which the priests performed by apostolic tradition at the death and funerals of those who slept in Christ. Saint Zeno received the crown of his labours by a happy death, in 380, on the 12th of April, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. He is honoured at Verona with two other festivals, that of the translation of his relics on the 21st of May, and that of his episcopal consecration, and also of the dedication of his new church in the reign of Pepin, king of Italy, on the 6th of December. The first church which bore his name was built over his tomb, on the banks of the river Adige, without the walls of the city. Saint Gregory the Great relates the following miracle, which happened two centuries after the death of the saint, and which he learned from John the Patrician, who was an eye-witness, with King Autharis and Count Pronulphus. In the year 589, at the same time that the Tiber overflowed a considerable quarter of Rome, and the flood overtopped the walls, the waters of the Adige, which fall from the mountains with excessive rapidity, threatened to drown a great part of the city of Verona. The people flocked in crowds to the church of their holy patron Zeno: the waters seemed to respect its doors, and they gradually swelled as high as the windows, yet the flood never broke into the church, but stood like a firm wall, as when the Israelites passed the Jordan: and the people remained there twenty-four hours in prayer, till the waters subsided within the banks of the channel. This prodigy had as many witnesses as there were inhabitants of Verona. The devotion of the people to Saint Zeno was much increased by this and other miracles; and, in the reign of Pepin, king of Italy, son of Charlemagne, and brother of Lewis Debonnaire, Rotaldus, bishop of Verona, translated his relics into a new spacious church, built under his invocation in 865, where they are kept with singular veneration in a subterraneous chapel.
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| St Zeno's body ready for his feast day procession on 21 May 2012 |
Source: Lives of the Saints, by Father Alban Butler