Saint Gerald of Braga

Almost nothing is certain about his early life. ² Anne Bernet, writing for the French edition of Aleteia, says he was born in Quercy into a family of minor nobility that entrusted him as a boy to the Benedictine monks of Moissac, and that he stayed and took his vows as soon as he was old enough. ² The Archdiocese of Braga calls him a Benedictine monk from the region of Moissac. ¹

At Moissac, Aleteia says, he taught grammar, which in the Middle Ages covered all literary learning, and music, which he loved; he was made master of the choir and librarian, and was content to stay. ²

In the 1090s Bernard of Sédirac, the new archbishop of Toledo, stopped at Moissac on his way home from Rome with the title of papal legate. ² Aleteia says he was so taken with the singing that he decided to bring its choirmaster to train the choir of his cathedral, and when the abbot tried to keep Gerald, Bernard answered that refusing the legate was refusing the pope. ² The abbot gave way and ordered Gerald to go. ² In Toledo, Aleteia says, his charity and love of the poor became known through the peninsula, and people credited him with the gift of prophecy. ²

The church of Braga had been without a bishop for a long time, since the deposition of Bishop Peter. ¹ The archdiocese says the vacancy ended with Gerald's arrival before January 26, 1099, and that he had been ordained bishop at Sahagún before he came. ¹ Agência Ecclesia, the news agency of the Portuguese Church, gives his years as archbishop as 1099 to 1108. ³ Aleteia says the see was offered to him in 1100, and that he still had no taste for honors. ²

In 1100 he went to Rome and received the pallium and a papal bull, and on the way back he attended the council of Palencia, held from December 5 to 8 of that year, where he presented them as proof that his rights as metropolitan were recognized. ¹

Aleteia describes what he found: a diocese long left to decay, a few Catholic communities that had kept the faith, and knights who had come as liberators and then helped themselves to the lands and revenues of the Church. ² His work, as Aleteia puts it, was at once spiritual, in tireless missionary preaching; material, in rebuilding ruined churches; and legal, in making those lords give back what they had taken. ²

José Marques, writing for the archdiocese, calls him "a defender of the Gregorian Reformation." ¹ He continued the building of the cathedral, kept up the common life of its chapter, and encouraged the chapter's school. ¹

He also began replacing the old Hispanic liturgy with the Roman liturgy, which the archdiocese says is the basis of the so-called Rite of Braga. ¹ The archdiocese adds that his good relations with Count Henry were well known, as were the firmness with which he condemned moral abuses even among the powerful and the frequency of his pastoral visitations. ¹

Preaching on his feast in 2012, Archbishop Jorge Ortiga of Braga called him, in Agência Ecclesia's report, "reconstrutor da cidade nos edifícios e na solicitude pelas populações": the rebuilder of the city in its buildings and in his care for its people (the translation is ours). ³ His greatness, the archbishop said, lay above all in that care. ³

He died during one of his visitations, at Bornes, in Vila Pouca de Aguiar, on December 5, 1108, the archdiocese says, "with numerous proofs of holiness." ¹ Aleteia, which gives the year as 1109, says he fell ill at the end of November and took to his bed. ²

The story told of his last days is about fruit. ²³ Aleteia says this man who had denied himself all his life suddenly wanted fresh fruit, peaches, cherries, apricots, figs, at a season when there was none, and some of the clergy feared the wish was a temptation sent to rob him of the merit of his penances. ² Then, looking out of the window, his priests saw the trees of the orchard covered with fruit, as at the height of summer. ² Agência Ecclesia reports the same miracle as tradition, placing it at Bornes, when he was weakened by illness. ³

He was buried in the cathedral, and Aleteia says the garlands of fruit on his tomb, in his chapel there, recall the miracle. ² On his feast, Agência Ecclesia reports, fruit is placed on the altar; in 2012 Archbishop Ortiga asked that it be taken as a sign of putting bread and the other necessities of life on the table of every citizen. ³

Saint Gerald is the patron saint of the city of Braga. Agência Ecclesia calls him "padroeiro da cidade," patron of the city, and reports the archdiocese keeping his feast as such in its cathedral. ³ No source used for this page names any other patronage. ¹²³

Saint Gerald of Braga's feast day is December 5, the day he died. ¹² The current Roman Martyrology commemorates him that day at Braga, in Portugal, as a bishop who shone in the work of renewal. ⁴ Aleteia says he is kept on December 5, and Agência Ecclesia reports the Archbishop of Braga celebrating his liturgical feast in the cathedral on that day. ²³

By Aleteia's account he did not want to leave his monastery, and went because he was ordered to. ² What he was asked to do in its place was a long task of rebuilding: a cathedral, a chapter, a school, a liturgy, a diocese that had been left without a shepherd. ¹²

He did a good part of it on the road. ¹ The archdiocese remembers the frequency of his visitations, and he died during one. ¹

He also corrected the powerful, the archdiocese says, with firmness. ¹ His successor, preaching in his cathedral nine centuries later, said that what made him great was his care for the people of the city. ³

The story of his death is a story of a small wish granted to a man who had denied himself for years. ² The fruit still goes on the altar on his day. ³