Saint Odilo of Cluny

Saint Odilo of Cluny
Statue of St. Odilo of Cluny in Basilica of St. Urban, Troyes, France.
Born	c. 962 AD
Died	1 January 1049 AD
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	11 May; 19 January (Cluny); in Switzerland on 6 February.

Saint Odilo of Cluny (c. 962 – 1 January 1049) was the fifth Benedictine Abbot of Cluny, holding the post for around 54 years.

Odilo was descended from an illustrious noble family of Auvergne (central France). The son of Berald de Mercoeur and Gerberga, his widowed mother became a nun at the convent of St. John in Autun after his father's death. Odilo had eight brothers and two sisters. One of his sisters married and the other became an abbess.

When he was a child, he was partially paralyzed and had to be carried by the family servants on a stretcher. One day while the family was travelling, they came to a church and Odilo was left with the luggage at the church door. The door was open, and little Odilo felt God was calling him to crawl to the altar. He got to the altar and tried to stand up, but failed. He tried again and finally succeeded: he was able to walk around the altar. It was believed that he had been cured of the unnamed malady by the intervention of Our Lady.

As a child, he developed a great devotion to the Virgin Mary as a child. While still quite young, he entered the seminary of St. Julien in Brioude, where he became a specialist in canon law. William of Dijon persuaded him to enter the monastery of Cluny. In 991, at the age of twenty-nine, he entered Cluny and before the end of his year of probation was made coadjutor to Abbot Mayeul, and shortly before the latter's death (994) was made abbot and received Holy orders.

His fifty years as Abbot were distinguished for the exceeding gentleness of his rule. It was usual with him to say, that of two extremes he chose rather to offend by tenderness, than a too rigid severity. He was known for showing mercy indiscriminately even to those who people said did not deserve it. He would say in response, ‘I would rather be mercifully judged for having shown mercy, than be cruelly damned for having shown cruelty."

Of small stature and insignificant appearance, Odilo was a man of immense force of character. He was a man of prayer and penance, with a great devotion to the Incarnation and to the Blessed Mother. He encouraged learning in his monasteries, and had the monk Radolphus Glaber write a history of the time. He erected a magnificent monastery building, and furthered the reform of the Benedictine monasteries. It was during his abbacy that Cluny became the most important monastery in western Europe.

During a great famine in 1006, his liberality to the poor was by many censured as profuse; for he melted down the sacred vessels and ornaments, and sold the gold orb the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II had presented to the abbey, in order to relieve the hunger. During the great famine of 1028–33, he also exercised his active charity and saved thousands from death.