Saint Séverin de Norique
Abbé en Autriche (✝ 482)
Protecteur de l'Autriche et de la Bavière. Moine inconnu, venu sans doute de l'Asie Mineure après les invasions d'Attila. Il fonda en 454 un monastère à Passau en Allemagne et, de là, il évangélisa toutes ces régions. Il défendit les pauvres contre les petits rois barbares et sut faire vivre en bonne entente les Romains et les Barbares. Il mena une vie ascétique qui impressionnait son disciple et biographe, Eugypius. Il inculqua à tous ses convertis les mœurs chrétiennes.
En Norique, sur les bords du Danube, vers 482, saint Séverin, prêtre et moine, qui vint dans cette province après la mort d’Attila, prince des Huns, y prit la défense des populations sans appui, adoucit ces hommes sauvages, convertit les infidèles, construisit des monastères et instruisit dans la foi les ignorants.
Martyrologe romain
Severinus of Noricum, Hermit (RM)
Died at Favianae in Noricum (Austria), c. 476-78. Severinus was a Roman citizen who gave all his worldly goods to live for a time in the deserts of Egypt. Here he was torn between his desire to live alone and God's call for him to evangelize unbelievers. Guess who's will triumphed? Severinus followed God's call to Austria, which at that time was a highway of invading barbarians, its towns plundered and beleaguered.
About 453, Severinus came as a mysterious and unknown man sent by God in that unhappy hour to bring help to Noricum's suffering people. He gave no information as to who he was beyond his name, which indicated his high rank, and it was obvious from his manner that he was a man of scholarship and distinction. He appeared to be an African Roman from Carthage and a fellow-countryman of Saint Augustine of Hippo. Attila, the Scourge of God, had just died, leaving behind him, with the break- up of his empire, confusion and chaos, and the fair and fertile lands of central and southern Europe were at the mercy of leaderless armies and plundering tribes.
Into this scene of wretchedness and distress came Severinus, who settled as a hermit near Vienna. The work was not easy. Many people ignored all that he preached, but--knowing that God doesn't ask us to be successful, only obedient--Severinus continued to preach and found monasteries along the Danube, seeing these as oases of Christianity in an evil land.
He warned the inhabitants of approaching invasion, but his words went unheeded. They replied with scorn that the proud city of Vienna would never surrender and that they had no fear of the barbarian hordes. But when his words proved only too true, in their helplessness they sent for him, and quietly and calmly he came to their rescue and organized relief. He discovered that a rich woman had hidden away vast quantities of food, which Severinus persuaded her to give to the starving.
He put new heart into the people, gave them courage to go out to meet the wild German horsemen, and strengthened the defenses of the city. Then, providentially, the ice melted on the Danube and the river was filled with ships of food. Thus Severinus stood in the path of the Goths, and the fear of him was to them, we are told, as the hand of God.
During this time Severinus was a great apostle of penance. He redeemed captives, helped to comfort the oppressed and the poor, tended the sick, and undertook many efforts for the instruction of the Catholic people of the Danube valley near Vienna. He also worked miracles. It seems that he drove away a plague of locusts that threatened to bring another famine. Slowly many Austrians accepted his faith. He was saddened that he never managed to heal the blindness of one of his greatest friends, but Severinus continued to trust in God.
When the cloud of terror lifted, he retired to his hermit's cell, but still continued his relief work of securing food, redeeming captives, and conciliating enemy tribes; and to this he added many other works of sanctity and charity. His difficulty was how to preserve a life of detachment amid so much pressure of activity, for the more he longed to dwell in solitude and lead a simple life, the greater were the demands made upon him.
Even the enemies of Austria came under this influence. The proud and desperate Odoacer, the boldest of the barbarians, sought his counsel, but on reaching the cell of the hermit, found it too small for his great height. "Stoop low," said Severinus, and the ambitious Goth willingly stooped and entered to receive his blessing.
Severinus also built many churches and evangelized widely in Austria and Bavaria. To Saint Severinus is attributed the honor of establishing many monasteries, though he himself remained a contemplative, living apart in a spirit of great penance and prayer.
He became the popular saint of that area. He went barefoot, even in mid-winter when the Danube was frozen, and he insisted on possessing only one tunic. It is said that he never ate until sunset and that in Lent he permitted himself only one meal weekly. To the end he preserved a simple and austere life. He refused a bishopric, though it is doubtful whether he was even ordained.
For 30 years this saintly and active man, whose origin remained unknown, carried on his noble and enterprising work, conferring with kings and commoners. It is said that he predicted the day of his death. As he lay dying of pleurisy those around him could hear him singing the words of the Psalmist: "Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord." And so he died happily in peace and tranquility. Six years after his death, his monks were driven from Austria and carried his relics to Naples, Italy, where the great Benedictine monastery of San Severino was built to enshrine them (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia, Gill).