Saint Gregory of Langres, Bishop
  January 4th  

    This saint is well known to us from the writings of St. Gregory of Tours, who was his great-grandson. Of very distinguished birth, he for forty years governed the district of Autun as count (comes), administering justice equitably but sternly. It was only late in life, after the death of his wife Armentaris, that he turned from the world and gave himself unreservedly to God. The clergy and people then elected him bishop of Langres, and for the rest of his days he showed an admirable example of devotion to his pastoral duties. His abstemiousness in food and drink, which he was ingenious in concealing from the knowledge of others, was remarkable, and he often gave the hours of the night to prayer, frequenting especially the baptistery of Dijon, in which town he commonly lived. There the saints came to visit him and join him in chanting the praises of God; in particular St. Benignus, the apostle of Burgundy, whose cultus he had at first neglected, after some words of fatherly rebuke directed him to restore his dilapidated shrine, which has ever since been so famous in Dijon. It was here that Gregory himself, who died at Langres in 539, was brought to be buried in accordance with his own desire. His epitaph, composed by Venantius Fortunatus, suggests that any severity he had displayed as a secular ruler was expiated by the tender charity he showed to all in his last years. Even in the miracles recorded after death he seemed to give the preference to captives who had been arrested by the officers of human justice.

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See Gregory of Tours, Vitae patrum, bk vii; Historia Francorum, bks iii, iv and v; and De gloria martyrum, li. L. Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. ii, pp. 185-186 ; DCB. vol. ii, p. 770.

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Butler's Lives of The Saints, Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. and Donald Attwater Nihil Obstat: PATRICIVS MORRIS, S.T.D., L.S.S., CENSOR DEPVTATVS. Imprimatur: E. MORROGH BERNARD, VICARIVS GENERALIS WESTMONASTERII: DIE XXIII FEBRVARII MCMLIII