Gerhard, St

Gerhard, St.

was born at Staves, diocese of Namur, in 890. In his youth he served under Berengar, count of Namur. Being once at a hunt, he left his companions and retired to pray in a chapel built on a high cliff near the village of St. Gerhard. Having fallen asleep there, he had a dream in which he thought that he saw the apostles, and that Peter, taking him by the hand, took him around the chapel, afterwards telling him that it was to be enlarged in honor of St. Peter and the martyr Eugene, and that the bones of the latter were to be brought there. Gerhard fulfilled this dream, and in 918 built there a church and also a convemit. Some time after he was sent by Berengar on a mission to count Robert of Paris, after fulfilling which he entered the abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. The relics of St. Eugene and of several other saints were given him by the abbey of St. Densis, which was said to possess enough of them to supply all France! The fame of the miracles wrought by the relics of St. Eugene was soon spread around, and drew crowds of visitors, obliging Gerhard to live in a cell near the church in order to obtain some quiet. After spending twenty-two years in the reformation of convents, he died October 3, 957. He was canonized by Innocent II. See Mabillon, Acta ss. ord. s. Bened. 5:248 sq. — Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 5:39.