Saint Victor the Hermit

Profile

Born to the nobility and raised in a pious, well-educated family. Priest. Hermit at Arcis-sur-Aube in the Champagne region of France. His life and wisdom caused many conversions. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux composed an Office and several hymns about him.

Readings

Now placed in heaven, he beholds God clearly, revealed to him, swallowed up in joy, but not forgetting us. It is not the land of oblivion in which Victor dwells. Heaven does not harden or straiten hearts but makes them more tender and compassionate; it does not distract minds, nor alienate them from us; it does not diminish, but it increases affection and charity; it augments bowels of pity. The angels, although they behold the face of their Father, visit, run, and continually assist us; and shall they now forget us who were once among us, and who once suffered themselves what they see us at present labor under? No: ‘I know the just expect me till you render to me my reward.’ Victor is not like that cup-bearer of Pharaoh, who could forget his fellow-captive. He has not so put on the stole of glory himself as to lay aside his pity, or the remembrance of our misery. – sermon #2, by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux