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St. Sola of Solnhofen

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Saints and feasts

St. Sola of Solnhofen

Hermit

Sola was an English disciple of Boniface who became a priest and hermit in Germany. Butler remembers his friendship with Willibald and Winebald and his gifts to Fulda.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Formation: Disciple of Boniface
Butler records his ordination by Boniface and later friendships with Willibald and Winebald.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Sola, Hermit,” p. 83.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Sola, Hermit,” p. 83.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 3, “St Sola, Hermit,” p. 83.

Sola travelled from England to Germany and became a disciple of St. Boniface, who ordained him priest. With his teacher’s advice he withdrew to a solitary life near the river Altmühl, at the place now associated with Solnhofen.

After Boniface’s martyrdom, Willibald and Winebald continued to visit him. Butler remembers the encouragement they received from his spiritual conversation. Sola’s solitude remained joined to the wider life of the Church through those friendships.

When land was given to him by the king, he transferred it to the abbey of Fulda. The account presents a man who sought prayer and penance rather than the honours offered to him. After his death, a chapel marked the place of his oratory and his remains were later enshrined.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

The support given by Willibald and Winebald is a personal relationship in the source, not a declaration of patronage. Exact death and translation years are not asserted here.

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