Saint Fiacre, the brother of Saint Syra of Troyes, was born in Ireland, about the end of the sixth century. He was raised in an Irish monastery, which in the 7th century were great repositories of learning, including the use of healing herbs, a skill studied by Fiacre. On being ordained a priest, he retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the townland Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny, still preserves the memory.
His knowledge and holiness caused followers to flock to him, which destroyed the holy isolation he sought. He sailed over into France in quest of closer solitude, in which he might devote himself to God, unknown to the world. He arrived at Meaux, where Saint Faro, who was the bishop of that city, gave him a solitary dwelling in a forest which was his own patrimony, called Breuil, in the province of Brie.
There is a legend that St. Faro offered him as much land as he could turn up in a day, and that St. Fiacre, instead of driving his furrow with a plough, turned the top of the soil with the point of his staff. He cleared the ground of trees and briers, made himself a cell with a garden, built an oratory in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and made a hospice for travellers which developed into the village of Saint-Fiacre in Seine-et-Marne.
Many resorted to him for advice, and the poor, for relief. His charity moved him to attend cheerfully those that came to consult him; and in his hospice he entertained all comers, serving them with his own hands, and sometimes miraculously restored to health those that were sick.
His fame for miracles was widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands; blindness, polypus, fevers are mentioned, and especially a tumour or fistula since called "le fic de S. Fiacre".
The fame of Saint Fiacre's miracles of healing continued after his death and crowds visited his shrine for centuries. Mgr. Seguier, Bishop of Meaux in 1649, and John de Chatillon, Count of Blois, gave testimony of their own relief. Anne of Austria attributed to the meditation of this saint, the recovery of Louis XIII at Lyons, where he had been dangerously ill; in thanksgiving for which she made, on foot, a pilgrimage to the shrine in 1641. She also sent to his shrine, a token in acknowledgement of his intervention in the birth of her son, Louis XIV. Before that king underwent a severe operation, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, began a novena of prayers at Saint-Fiacre to ask the divine blessing.
His relics at Meaux are still resorted to, and he is invoked against all sorts of physical ills, including venereal disease.
He is also a patron saint of gardeners and of cab-drivers of Paris. French cabs are called fiacres because the first establishment to let coaches on hire, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was in the Rue Saint-Martin, near the Hôtel de St-Fiacre, in the Rue St-Martin, Paris. Many miracles were claimed through his working the land and interceding for others.
The Saint is often depicted with a shovel, or a spade or is shown as a man carrying a spade and a basket of vegetables beside him, surrounded by pilgrims and blessing the sick.
Saint Fiacre's feast is observed in some dioceses of France, and throughout Ireland.
Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Margaret Ward
2. Saint Pammachius
3. Saint Theodosius of Oria
4. Saint Fantinus of San Mercurius
5. Saint Rumon of Tavistock