Saint Odilo: A Life Close to Mary

Saint Odilo was the fifth Benedictine Abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in France.

He was born in Auvergne (c. 962). As a child, he was unable walk normally due to a form of childhood paralysis. During a journey, while visiting a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, he grabbed the altar cloth and was immediately cured. This event is thought to be at the origin of his great love for the Mother of God.

When he consecrated himself to the Holy Virgin in the shrine of Our Lady of Le Puy (France), to emphasize his intention to give up his personal freedom for her, while he pronounced this prayer he put a rope around his own neck and placed the other end on the altar of the Virgin:

"O Most pious Virgin, Mother of the Savior of all time, from this day on take me as your servant. In every circumstance, be with me always, O merciful advocate. For I do not place anyone above you except God; and as your servant, I am now under your authority."

For Odilo, this vow entailed very practical commitments and, above all, the imitation of Mary's virtues and example concerning the unshakable faith, sincere humility, rigorous chastity, and radical poverty that she had practiced in her life.

What Saint Ambrose said of Mary—that when her body was at rest her spirit was awake in a state of vigil—Odilo's biographer, Jotsaud, applied to the prayer life of the holy abbot:

"Oftentimes he was surprised by sleep while singing the psalms in bed; yet, the psalm never left the mouth of the sleeper."

A man of great abilities, Odilo strengthened and developed the Clunisian Reform by bringing the number of foundations affiliated to the Monastery of Cluny from 37 to 65. His Marian thought is especially expressed in his sermons (for the feasts of the Nativity, Purification and Assumption). St Odilo is an excellent witness of the Marian doctrine that existed before him. His most original contribution is the way he applied Marian devotion to monastic life.

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Excerpt from: L. GAMBERO, Maria nel pensiero dei teologi latini medievali, ed San Paolo, 2000.