Almire — called also Almer and, in Latin, Almirus — was born in the country of the Arverni, the region of Auvergne, in the first half of the sixth century. While still of tender years he attached himself to Saint Avitus, who would become the third abbot of Saint-Mesmin de Micy near Orléans, and to Saint Calais, that other great light of monastic Gaul. When these two left the abbey of Menat, the boy went with them, and so came to dwell in the cloisters that Saint Maximin had raised on the bank of the Loire opposite Orléans. Tradition counts him among the most illustrious of the disciples of Micy.
For some years Almire lived the common life in that monastery, learning the psalmody, the silence, the obedience, and the manual labor that formed the sons of Micy. But Avitus and Calais, hungry for a deeper hiddenness, withdrew to bury themselves in the forests of Maine and of the Perche; and Almire, who had followed them out of Auvergne, followed them once more into the wilderness. He would not be separated from the masters who had taught him the way of God.
He chose for himself a cell on the banks of the river Braye, at the foot of a hill ringed about with woods, in the place where today stands the village of Gréez-sur-Roc, in the Sarthe. There he built an oratory in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and close beside it a small hut for himself. His hope was simple and entirely evangelical: to live alone, in converse with God and the angels, forgotten by men. But Providence had other designs for him, and to those designs he submitted without complaint — which is itself a sign of his sanctity, for he had sought solitude not as a private pleasure but as obedience to God.
Soon his cell became a refuge for fervent Christians who wished to serve God perfectly under his direction. In a short time more than forty monks were gathered around him, and the hermitage had become a monastery. Almire gave himself before all else to the care of his religious and his disciples. He taught them to live according to the rules of the first Fathers of monastic life, and his example always confirmed his teaching; he asked nothing of them that he did not first do himself.
To give still greater authority to his words and his virtues, heaven deigned at times to work wonders through him. One day, when he was at work in the fields with the brethren, a heavy rain came on. All fled at once and took shelter in a nearby cabin, but Almire remained alone to finish the task he had begun. The rain kept redoubling, until at last the thatched hut could no longer keep the water off the monks who had run there for shelter. The abbot, meanwhile, went on with his work and stayed at it until everything was entirely finished. When he came at length to rejoin the brethren, all marveled to see how fidelity to the observance had wholly protected him: not a single drop had touched him.
When the blessed abbot saw the time of his death drawing near, he announced to his brethren the day and the hour at which he would leave the earth; and when that moment came he fell gently asleep in the Lord. It was the third day before the Ides of September — the eleventh of that month — about the year 560. On that day the Church of Le Mans and the country of the Perche have kept his memory ever since, and the village that grew up around his oratory still bears his name in its churches and chapels, Saint-Almire of Gréez.
His life, preserved in the traditions of the Church of Le Mans and gathered by the hagiographers of Micy, teaches a lesson as plain as it is demanding: the love of hiddenness that never refuses the neighbor God sends, and the quiet perseverance that finishes the day's work when others have fled the rain.
May Saint Almire of Gréez obtain for us that same steadfast fidelity, and let us today finish faithfully, for love of God, the small duty we would rather abandon.
