Feast Day: March 27 Canonized: Pre-Congregation — venerated from the twelfth century; feast in German martyrologies Order / Vocation: Secular clergy — parish priest; Dean of the Church of Saint Andrew, Cologne Patron of: The poor of Cologne · Parish priests · Those who practice radical almsgiving
The Man Who Gave Away His Shirt
He did it literally. Encountering a beggar in the streets of his parish — cold, without clothing adequate to the Rhineland winter — Ensfrid removed the shirt he was wearing and gave it away. This is the detail that his contemporaries preserved and that the tradition has kept as the defining image of his character: not a symbolic gesture of charity or an administrative distribution of alms from the parish funds, but the direct, immediate, slightly embarrassing act of a man who looked at the person in front of him and gave what he had.
It happened more than once. The sources note it in the plural — literally giving the shirt off his back to beggars — which suggests it was characteristic rather than extraordinary, the consistent expression of a charity so immediate it did not pause to calculate consequences.
He was a parish priest in the Diocese of Cologne — first at Siegburg, then at Friedberg, both towns in the Rhineland. He was then called to the city itself and appointed Dean of the collegiate church of Saint Andrew, one of the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne that dotted the riverbank and gave the medieval city its distinctive skyline. The deanship of Saint Andrew's was a position of dignity and moderate wealth, bringing with it income from the collegiate foundation and the administrative responsibility of governing the chapter.
He used the position and its resources with the same directness he had shown as a parish priest. The poor of the surrounding streets received what came through his hands. His colleagues may not always have found this convenient. The tradition does not record their complaints. It records the man without his shirt, standing in the Rhineland cold, having given it to someone who needed it more.
He died on March 27, 1192, at Cologne. He was buried at Saint Andrew's, where the local veneration of him was immediate and durable.
He is for parish priests who take the material care of the poor as personally as they take the sacramental care of their parishioners. He is for those who have resources in trust and give them away without waiting for the appropriate bureaucratic channel. He is for the man who looked at the beggar and took off his shirt.
Prayer to Saint Ensfrid
O God, who in Saint Ensfrid gave the streets of Cologne a priest who practiced charity with the same immediacy that charity actually requires, grant through his intercession that those who care for the poor may give directly and promptly and personally, and that those who hold resources in trust may hold them as he held them — loosely, with open hands, looking at the person in front of them. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Ensfrid of Cologne, pray for us.
| Born | Unknown — Rhineland, Germany |
| Died | 27 March 1192 — Cologne, Germany — natural death |
| Feast Day | March 27 |
| Order / Vocation | Secular clergy — parish priest at Siegburg and Friedberg; Dean, Church of Saint Andrew, Cologne |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation — venerated from the twelfth century |
| Body | Church of Saint Andrew, Cologne (one of the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne) |
| Patron of | The poor of Cologne · Parish priests · Those who practice radical almsgiving |
| Known as | Enfrid · Ensfridus |
%20Virgin%20and%20Martyr.jpeg)
No comments:
Post a Comment