St. Hubert

St. Hubert was born about 656, of a noble Frankish family, and lived at first as a courtier devoted to worldly pleasures, above all to the hunt. His conversion, according to a later and beloved legend, came while he was hunting on Good Friday, when a stag turned to face him bearing a radiant crucifix between its antlers and a voice called him to turn his life to God; the earliest accounts do not contain this story, which was borrowed from the legend of St. Eustace, but his genuine conversion led him to embrace the Church.

Becoming a disciple of St. Lambert, whom he succeeded as bishop, Hubert labored zealously to evangelize the pagans of the Ardennes forest and is honored as the first bishop of Liège, to which he transferred the see. He died on 30 May 727. Because of the legend of the stag, he became the celebrated patron of hunters, foresters, and the woodlands, and was long invoked against rabies. He is celebrated on 3 November.