FEAST OF SAINT FLEUR OF BEAULIEU

 Today is the feast of Saint Fleur, one of our three illustrious Dame saints.

Saint Fleur (Flora in Latin) was born about 1300 at Maurs in France. At the age of thirteen, she took the veil in the convent of the Sisters of St. John of Jerusalem at Beaulieu, in the diocese of Cahors in France, where she devoted herself to tending the poor and the sick in the hospital attached to the convent, which served the Poor, travellers and orphans, as well as housing a noviciate. The monastic buildings were sacked in 1793, the Dames expelled and killed and the buildings destroyed, all that survives is the Chapter House.

Fleur subdued distractions and temptations in the love of God and in mystical experiences. She had a special devotion to the Passion of Christ Crucified, to Our Lady of the Annunciation, and to Saint John the Baptist, patron of the Order of Saint John. She died in 1347 and her relics were venerated in the Convent. The relics survived and were restored to the nearby parish church of Saint Julien in Issendolus (called Saint-Dolus before the Revolution) in 1852, since when there has been continuous veneration by the villagers as well as members of our Order.

We see in the photograph our friend and confrère Jacques de Saint-Exupéry carrying the relics of Saint Fleur in the annual procession on this feast in Issendolus, presided by the bishop of Cahors, with Madame Alix de Tourtier in front.

Sancta Flora, ora pro nobis.