January 1
Hugolinus of Gualdo Cattaneo (+ 1360)
Hermit
Roman Martyrology
At Gualdo Cattaneo in Umbria (now Italy), Blessed Hugolinus, who lived as an anchorite.
Practical advice
Set aside a few minutes of silence without your phone in order to be with God.
Biography
(Italian: Ugolino da Gualdo Cattaneo).
A native of Bevagna, he was a hermit of profound and rigorous spiritual life who divided his day among prayer, silence and manual work. We do not have much information about his life, but enough to outline his holiness. In a document of 1348, Bartolus, bishop of Spoleto, wrote in response to a letter from our blessed, the lay prior and founder of the hermitage of San Giovanni in the woods of Onterio, near Gualdo Cattaneo in Umbria. Hugolinus was therefore the spiritual guide of a group of hermits and had written to ask that the hermitage be placed under the jurisdiction of the Benedictine Abbey of Subiaco. He signed himself Hugolinus Michael “de Mevania,” that is, Bevagna. The authorization was confirmed by Pope Gregory XI in 1374, after Hugolinus had died.
His body rests in the crypt of the Church of Saints Anthony and Antoninus at Gualdo Cattaneo. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage and a source of graces. His cult was confirmed by Benedict XV in 1919.