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| St. Amand of Bordeaux (Feast Day - June 18) |
We read in Saint Paulinus of Nola that Saint Amand served God from his infancy; that he was educated in the knowledge of the scriptures, and that he preserved his innocence from those stains which are generally contracted in the commerce of the world. Being ordained priest by Saint Delphin, Bishop of Bordeaux, who employed him in his church, he manifested great zeal for the glory of God.
It was he who instructed Saint Paulinus in the mysteries of faith, to prepare him for baptism. From this time there subsisted between them a most intimate friendship. Paulinus wrote him many letters (Ep. 2, 9, 15, 48), and we see by those that remain of them that he paid the greatest veneration to Amand’s virtue.
After the death of Saint Delphin, Saint Amand was elected to the see of Bordeaux, but shortly after resigned the dignity in favor of Saint Severinus, upon whose death he was again prevailed upon to reassume it. Saint Paulinus tells us that he always conducted himself as a zealous guardian of piety, and of the faith of Christ. Saint Amand also had to fight the Gnostic heresy of the Spanish monk Priscillian.
The precise year of his death is not known, though it was probably 431 or 432. It is to him we are indebted for the preservation of the writings of Saint Paulinus, who died in the year 431.
