Saint Hugh

Bishop of Grenoble (1053-1132)
Feast – April 1

Eleventh century Europe was Catholic. Earthly rulers sought blessings from the Pope before assuming the throne. The Catholic Church was the primary patron of education. Schools, which typically fell under a large church, taught subjects such as Latin, rhetoric, Greek arithmetic and various sciences. Catholic kings, Catholic schools teaching Catholic doctrine and a strong, prosperous, influential Catholic Church, some may call it heaven on earth. The problem is the enemy never sleeps and is working hard to corrupt people’s souls; to him the most beneficial is a corruption of priests and civil authority. In spiritual warfare good times tend to be the most dangerous, easy going and lukewarmness usually follow them. In eleventh century the good, loving, and caring God called St. Hugh to rescue the See of Grenoble from this disease. He was born at Chateauneuf in Dauphiné, France, in 1053. His parents were pious Catholics who’d devoted their lives to serve God. His father, Odilo, holding an honorable post in the army following the commandment of love and, without neglecting his duty to his prince, strove to restrain vices, especially those of impurity and lying, to make his soldiers faithful servants of their Creator. By the advice of his son, St. Hugh, in his later years he became a Carthusian monk and lived for eighteen years in great humility and austerity under St. Bruno and his successors until his death at the age of one hundred.

His mother was seeking salvation through motherhood, perseverance in faith, love and holiness, self-control, years of prayer, fasting, and abundant almsgiving. St. Hugh fulfilled his obligations as a son and as a priest assisting both of them in their final hours.

From his youth, St. Hugh was distinguished through his exceptional success in studies accompanied with unusual piety which is why he was offered canon in the cathedral of Valence. He accepted the proposition which fulfilled his desire to serve God in an ecclesiastical state, that he might always dwell in his house and be occupied in his praises.

His great sanctity, extraordinary talents and learning were noticed by papal legate cardinal Hugues de Dié.

He was so charmed at first sight of the saint when he happened to come to Valence that he would not be content till he had taken the good man into his household. He employed him in extirpating simony (buying and selling of church offices), and in many other affairs of importance. In 1080 the Council of Avignon was held under the presidency of the papal legate, in which Aicard, usurper of the See of Arles, was deposed, and Gibelin put in his place.  Problems and abuses in the Diocese of Grenoble, which had no bishop at the time, were discuss. St. Hugh, at age 27, as the person best qualified by his virtue and prudence to reform and restore the ancient glory of that church, was elected bishop, even though he was still a layman. Three bishops-elect, Lautelin of Embrun, Hugues of Grenoble and Didier of Cavaillon accompanied the legate to Rome and were consecrated by Pope Gregory VII.

After his ordination, inspired by the Pope and full of zeal, St. Hugh rushed to his flock but upon his arrival at Grenoble he found corruption so rampant that he couldn’t supply his own necessities. Revenues of the bishopric were dissipated. His people in general were immersed in a profound ignorance and negligence of essential duties of religion. Many plunged in vice and immorality, committed sins without any scruple or sign of remorse. He immediately set to the task of reforming the abuses in his new diocese. He stormed heaven with prayers, tears, and rigorous fasting and as an excellent and assiduous preacher he stormed people hearts and minds. He clashed with Count Guigues III of Albon over the possession of ecclesiastic lands.

Humbled and overwhelmed with work, he must have overlooked the first signs of progress and successes of his labor and after two years he resigned his bishopric, retiring to the austere abbey of Casa Dei, or Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne. There he was a perfect model of all virtues in a monastery filled with saints, until Pope Gregory commanded him, in the name of holy obedience, to resume his pastoral charge, saying: Go to your flock; they need you. The people of Grenoble recognized how great a gift from God was their new bishop and how great a lost was his absence that at his return a year later they open their ears to his forceful preaching which touched hearts and moved crowds. In the confessional he wept with his penitents and aroused them to a deeper contrition. In few short years, the face of his diocese had changed. This time his sanctity brought forth great good in souls.

In 1084 young St. Bruno of Cologne and his six companions came to him for counsel, in their pious design of forsaking the world. St. Hugh after seeing them under a banner of seven stars in a dream, assisted them in the foundation of the Carthusian Monastery in a snowy and rocky Alpine location called Chartreuse in the diocese of Grenoble. He frequently visited them in their solitude, to join them in their exercises and austerity, and adopted much of their way of life.

In order to relieve the poor, he had long denied himself everything that had even the slightest appearance of luxury. He sold, in a time of famine, a gold chalice and his episcopal gold ring. Many rich moved by St. Hugh’s example and bestowed their treasures to the needy, ensuring that all the poor of his diocese were supplied.

The remembrance of divine love, or of his own and others’ spiritual miseries frequently produced a flood of tears from his eyes. In hearing confessions, he frequently mingled his tears with those of his penitents, or first excited theirs with his own. At his sermons it was not unusual to see the whole audience melt into tears together.

Always filled with a profound sense of his own unworthiness, he earnestly solicited three Popes for leave to resign his bishopric, that he might die in solitude, but was never able to obtain his request. God was pleased to purify his soul by a lingering illness, headaches and pains in the stomach, before He called him to Himself. He closed his penitential course on the 1st of April in 1132, two months before completing his eightieth year. Miracles attested the sanctity of his death, and he was canonized only two years afterwards by Pope Innocent II.

References and Excerpts

[1]          “Saint Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble.” https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_hugh_of_grenoble.html (accessed Apr. 14, 2021).

[2]          “St. Hugh of Grenoble | EWTN,” EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/hugh-of-grenoble-608 (accessed Apr. 14, 2021).

[3]          “Hugh of Châteauneuf,” Wikipedia. Mar. 05, 2021, Accessed: Apr. 14, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hugh_of_Ch%C3%A2teauneuf&oldid=1010495751.