Saint Gerlac

Feastday: January 14

“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”

(Matthew 5:8)

Gerlac was a hermit of the 12th century affiliated with the Norbertine Order. After leading a worldly and restless life as a soldier, he was struck by the sudden death of his young wife. Renouncing his military career, he became a pilgrim and penitent. He did rigorous penance and lived in a hollowed-out tree trunk. He filled it with rocks which served as his bed. Thus he lived for forty years in the strictest austerity. Under his white Norbertine habit, he always wore a penitential belt and a hairshirt. He usually ate his bread with ashes and only drank water. Strict with himself, he was charitable to all who came to him, showing great affection and liberality to the less fortunate, the poor, and pilgrims. Each morning, he would make a pilgrimage to Maastricht to venerate the relics of St. Servatius and, on Saturdays, he would honor Our Lady by a pilgrimage to Aix-la-Chapelle. It is related that while away on one of these pilgrimages, certain jealous enemies destroyed and tore down Gerlac’s tree. Gerlac remained steadfast and simply moved into a small hut where he continued to celebrate the Divine Office and mortify himself in penance. So recollected had he become within the hermitage of his own heart that the outward destruction of his former dwelling could not turn him away from his purpose. He became a much sought-after spiritual director for both priests and the laity. At his death, however, there was no priest to administer the last sacraments to him, and so St. Servatius himself, to whom he had faithfully prayed throughout his life, came to do so. Gerlac died in the peace of Christ on Epiphany in the year 1170. Buried in the place where he had lived as a penitent, his body was later exhumed and is said to have been incorrupt.

(Saint drawings courtesy of Saint Norbert Abbey, De Pere, Wisconsin.)