St. Odilo of Cluny

St. Odilo of Cluny was born about 962, of a noble family of the Auvergne in France, and entered the great Benedictine abbey of Cluny, becoming its abbot about 994. Under his long and able rule of some fifty-five years, Cluny reached the height of its influence, and the reforming movement it embodied, marked by fidelity to the Rule of St. Benedict, solemn liturgy, and freedom from secular control, spread to hundreds of monasteries across Europe, so that Odilo was reckoned among the most important churchmen of his age.

He is remembered above all for establishing, about the year 998, the annual commemoration of all the faithful departed on 2 November, the day after the feast of All Saints, throughout the monasteries under his authority. This observance of All Souls' Day, praying for the holy souls in purgatory, spread from Cluny to the whole Latin Church, where it endures to this day. A man of gentleness, charity, and peace, who labored to relieve famine and to promote the "Truce of God" limiting warfare, he died on 1 January 1049 and is venerated as a saint.