St. Hugh of Grenoble

St. Hugh of Grenoble was born in 1052 at Châteauneuf in the Dauphiné of France and died on 1 April 1132. Chosen while still a young man and not yet ordained to be bishop of Grenoble, he governed that diocese for some fifty-two years, laboring tirelessly to reform a church weighed down by simony, neglect, and the encroachments of laymen upon its rights, and to restore discipline, learning, and fervor among clergy and people alike.

A man of prayer who longed more than once to retire into monastic solitude, he was each time bidden by the pope to remain at his post for the good of his flock. He is remembered above all as the friend and helper of St. Bruno, to whom he gave the wild mountain valley of the Chartreuse where the Carthusian Order was born, and whom he supported in that great work. Renowned for his humility, his penance, and his charity to the poor, he was canonized only two years after his death, in 1134, and his memory is kept on 1 April.