abbey of Manlieu, now of the
order of St. Bennet, and after having made a pilgrimage to Rome, died of
the gout at Lyons on the fifteenth of January in 710, being eighty-six
years old. His relics were enshrined in the cathedral at Clermont; but
some small portions are kept at Paris, in the churches of St. Germain
l'Auxerrois, and St. Bont, near that of St. Merry. See his life, {158}
written by a monk of Sommon in Auvergne, in the same century, published
by Bollandus, also le Cointe, an. 699. Gallia Christiana Nova, &c.

ST. ITA, OR MIDA, V. ABBESS

SHE was a native of Nandesi, now the barony of Dessee in the county of
Waterford, and descended from the royal family. Having consecrated her
virginity to God, she led an austere retired life at the foot of the
mountain Luach, in the diocese of Limerick, and founded there a famous
monastery of holy virgins, called Cluain-cred-hail. By the mortification
of her senses and passions, and by her constant attention to God and his
divine love, she was enriched with many extraordinary graces. The lesson
she principally inculcated to others was, that to be perpetually
recollected in God is the great means of attaining to perfection. She
died January 15, in 569. Her feast was solemnized in her church of
Cluain-cred-hail; in the whole territory of Hua-Conail, and at Rosmide,
in the territory of Nandesi. See her ancient life in Bollandus, Jan.
xvi., and Colgan, t. 1, p. 72, who calls her the second St. Bridget of
Ireland.

JANUARY XVI.

ST. MARCELLUS, POPE, M.

See the epitaph of eight verses, composed for this Pope, by St. Damasus,
carm. 48, and Tillemont, t. 5.

A.D. 310.

ST. MARCELLUS was priest under pope Marcellinus. whom he succeeded in
308, after that see had been vacant for three years and a half. An
epitaph written on him by pope Damasus, who also mentions himself in it,
says, that by enforcing the canons of holy penance, he drew upon himself
the contradictions and persecutions of many tepid and refractory
Christians, and that for his severity against a certain apostate, he was
banished by the tyrant Maxentius.[1] He died in 310, having sat one
year, seven months, and twenty days. Anastatius writes, that Lucina, a
devout widow of one Pinianus, who lodged St. Marcellus when he lived in
Rome, after his death converted her house into a church, which she
called by his name. His false acts relate, that among his other
sufferings, he was condemned by the tyrant to keep catt