Saint Hermenegild, King and Martyr

 by Father Rohrbacher in 'The Lives of the Saints' (Volume VI, pp. 325-327).

You can read the original source (in Portuguese) here. 

 

Hermenegild was the son of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths in Spain, and of Theodosia, the king’s first wife. After the death of his wife, the Visigothic king married Goswinda, the widow of his brother Athanagild and mother of Brunehaut, wife of Sigebert, king of Austrasia. It was with a daughter of Sigebert and Brunehaut that Hermenegild married.

The wife of the future Martyr was called Ingund and she was Catholic. Now Goswinda, an Arian, harbored great hatred for Catholics and began to persecute her daughter-in-law. At first she used caresses and sweet words, trying to persuade Ingund to receive baptism in the Arian sect. Ingund, courageously and firmly, refused and began to receive the worst treatment from her mother-in-law.

One day, Leovigild, in order to put an end to the disputes between his wife and his daughter-in-law, decided to send Hermenegild and his young wife to Seville. From then on, Ingund sought by every means to lead her husband to the Catholic Faith. She began to catechize him, and Hermenegild, as soon as he understood the Truths that his good wife explained to him, seeing everything with great clarity, abandoned the errors he had embraced since birth and became Catholic.

When Leovigild learned of his son’s conversion, he furiously sought to kill him. The prince, in order to defend himself, allied himself with the Emperor of Byzantium, who was preparing to attack Spain.

One day, Hermenegild received messengers from his father, who said to him:

“Go and seek your father, for you both have matters in common to discuss.”

Hermenegild replied:

“I will not go. My father is my enemy, because I am Catholic.”

Faced with this answer, Leovigild marched against his son, who, calling upon the Greeks for help, advanced against his father. However, when the forces of the Saint encountered the army of the Visigothic king, they scattered and abandoned him. Without any hope, Hermenegild took refuge in a nearby church. There, praying to God, he said:

“May my father not come to attack me, for it is an impious crime for a father to be killed by a son, or a son by his father.”

Leovigild, encamped a short distance away, sent a deputy to him. Soon after, Recared, the young prince’s brother, spoke of the warm welcome their father wished to give him, and added:

“Come, kneel at our father’s feet, and he will forgive everything.”

Upon hearing this, Hermenegild went to meet the old king, who received him with a feigned embrace. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested. The Saint was taken to Seville and placed in a narrow prison. There, longing for Heaven, he prayed to God for strength to persevere to the end. The chains he bore, he carried with great resignation and immense sweetness, as if they were a hair shirt.

Firm in the Faith, Hermenegild was killed in the prison itself, on the orders of his wicked father, on the night of April 13, 586. Miracles were not lacking to manifest the glory of the king and Martyr.

The father, a heretic and parricide, recognized, with repentance, the Truth of the Catholic Faith, but, fearing the reaction of the nation, did not have the courage to embrace it [the end of the lukewarm is well known: they will be vomited out by God]. And Recared, after Leovigild’s death, did not follow his father’s example, but rather that of his martyr brother: he converted and became a good Catholic.

At the request of King Philip II, Pope Sixtus V authorized his cult throughout Spain, and Urban VIII extended the cult to the whole Church.

Saint Hermenegild is the patron saint of Seville.