Adieu until 2011

May you have a blessed Advent and a holy Christmas.  God willing, posting will resume in 2011.

St. Vincent and the Ravens

Those interested in St. Casilda might wonder about the identity of the "San Vicente" after whom the waters where Casilda obtained her miraculous healing were named.

"San Vicente" refers to St. Vincent, the 4th century martyr whose feast day is January 22.  Near where St. Casilda was healed, there was once a monastery dedicated to St. Vincent.  That is how the waters there came to be named after him.

St. Vincent was born at Huesca in Aragon in northeastern Spain.  He served as a deacon in Zaragosa, which is also in northeastern Spain on the Ebro River.  And, he was martyred under the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the eastern coastal city of Valencia in 304.

In the proceedings that resulted in his martyrdom, Vincent was brought to trial along with his bishop, Valerius. It is said that because Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent spoke for both himself and the bishop. The Roman governor became so angry because Vincent was very outspoken and fearless that he had Vincent tortured and killed, whereas he only exiled the bishop.

There is a tradition that after Vincent's martyrdom, ravens protected the saint's body from being devoured by wild animals until his followers could recover it. St. Vincent's remains were then taken to what is now known as Cape St. Vincent.  A shrine was erected over his grave and flocks of ravens continued to guard it.

In 313, less than 10 years after Vincent's martyrdom, the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. But, by the 5th century the Roman Empire had disintegrated.

Next, the Visigoths ruled Spain. Partly through the efforts of Isidore of Seville (560-636) and his brother Leander, around 589, the Visigoth King Reccared and his nobles converted from Arianism to Catholicism. Around 600, the Visigoths began building the Cathedral of Córdoba dedicated to St. Vincent. The people of Visigothic Spain were very devoted to St. Vincent.

The Moors conquered Spain in 711. The Arab geographer Al-Idrisi called St. Vincent's shrine "Kanīsah al-Ghurāb" (Church of the Raven) because of the ravens that guarded it.

Later during the 700s, the Moors took the Cathedral of Córdoba dedicated to St. Vincent through a forced acquisition and used parts of it to build the Great Mosque of Córdoba, constructed between 784 and 987.

During the 1100s, King Alfonso I of Portugal had St. Vincent's remains exhumed and transferred by ship to a monastery in Lisbon named after the saint. Both the flag and the coat of arms of the city of Lisbon show the boat that carried St. Vincent's remains there and the ravens that guarded them

The Córdoba mosque was re-taken by the Christians in 1236 and once again became a Cathedral. The re-conquest of Spain was largely completed by 1238 and entirely accomplished in 1492 by the Catholic Kings, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.

Source:
Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Vincent of Saragossa", supplemented by additional sources.

Image:
Stained glass window depicting St. Vincent Martyr (left, holding the palm of martyrdom) and St. Casilda. From the shrine of St. Casilda near Briviesca.  Both saints have always been venerated at the shrine.

Casilda of the Rising Moon (Borton, 1967)

Casilda of the Rising Moon is an historical novel about the life of Casilda, an 11th century saint.  The book is authored by California-born Elizabeth Borton de Trevino, a convert to Catholicism. The dust jacket says the book is intended for ages 12 and up.

The book was published first in hard cover in 1967 and a paperback followed. Both are out of print but can be purchased second-hand through the usual outlets.

Borton's tale begins with teenage Casilda, a Moorish princess, living in the palace of her father, the Muslim king of Toledo, whom Borton calls "King Alamun". Borton gives Casilda a half-sister, Princess Zoraida, and a half-brother, Prince Ahmed. Borton makes Casilda's father an Arab while describing her mother as a Berber who died giving birth to Casilda. Other principal characters include Sulema, the nurse to both girls, and Ismael Ben Haddaj, a Muslim prince of Jewish ancestry who falls in love with Casilda while Casilda's sister, Zoraida, falls in love with him.

Borton takes the reader through the familiar incidents of Casilda's life -- her concern for her father's Christian prisoners, her secret visits to the dungeons with food and medicine, her discussions with the prisoners about Christian doctrine, the incident when she is confronted by her father while taking food to the captives and the food miraculously appears to be roses, Casilda's illness that brings about her trip to Christian Castile, her baptism in Burgos, her healing by the miraculous waters of San Vicente near Briviesca, and her life there as an anchoress through whom God performed many miracles.

I think the book should be read by any adult with a serious interest in St. Casilda because it was written after Borton had accessed very old church documents that recorded the known information and traditions about Casilda. In her afterword, Borton tells the reader some of what she learned from these materials. Borton also visited Casilda's shrine near Briviesca and writes of her observations.

It is difficult, however, to give the book a very strong recommendation as a juvenile novel to be read by the teenage children of traditional Catholics.  For one thing, Borton's description of St. Casilda's gifts makes them seem more magical than mystical. More importantly, Borton has pacifist and ecumenist biases that are more than a little Modernist.

It is true that in real life Casilda's father (Al-Mamum, the king of the Taifa of Toledo from 1043 to 1075) had a working relationship of sorts with King Ferdinand I of Leon and Castile. Borton, however, idealizes the relationship in such a way that she neutralizes the cultural and religious differences between the two sovereigns.

Also, Borton has Prince Ahmed renounce his militarism and make a pilgrimage to Mecca, after which he becomes a Muslim holy man. And, she has Ben Haddaj convert to the Judaism of his roots. Borton then tells the reader in the afterword, "There are varying legends about Prince Ahmed, Casilda's brother. Some tell that he became a Christian; others recount that he was cruel and unrelenting to his sister. Sulema, Casilda's nurse, is said to have embraced the cross. There is reason to think that Ben Haddaj existed and was a suitor for Casilda's hand."

Regrettably, Borton continues, "I prefer to think that Ahmed and Sulema remained true to their own religion and that Ben Haddaj died in returning to his own, for this underscores something that was wonderful in eleventh-century Spain -- a kind of primitive ecumenism."

Regrettably too, there is a factual mistake in the novel that must have caused Borton some embarrassment after its publication.  In the novel, the wife of Ferdinand I of Leon and Castile (1017-1065) is called "Leonor" when in fact his wife was named Sancha.  Leonor was the wife of Ferdinand I of Portugal (1345-1383).

In short, while I am grateful to Borton for making St. Casilda more accessible to English speaking readers, I think teenagers would be better off reading historical accounts and being taught the traditional Catholic view of ecumenism.

Source:
Borton de Treviño, Elizabeth; Casilda of the Rising Moon (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1967), p. 185.

Image:
Civitas Toletana from the Codex Vigilanes (976).