1409 BD JAMES STREPAR, ARCHBISHOP OF Galich; joined the Franciscans and became guardian of their friary at Lvov; a zealous defender of the mendicant friars; the miracles at his tomb showed that he was still mindful of his people.
     THE Friars Minor entered Poland not many years after their foundation and when they were well established extended their preaching to the reconciliation of dissident Orthodox and the conversion of pagans in Lithuania. Thus was inaugurated the Latin church in Galician Ukraine, which was organized into dioceses during the fourteenth century. Bd James Strepar was a member of a noble Polish family settled in Galicia. He joined the Franciscans and became guardian of their friary at Lvov, where he played a conspicuous part in very troubled ecclesiastical affairs, the city having been laid under an interdict.
   He was a zealous defender of the mendicant friars, who were bitterly attacked by the secular clergy, and at the same time keenly concerned about the dissident Orthodox. He worked among these for over ten years, making great use of the Company of Christ’s Itinerants, a sort of missionary society of Franciscan and Dominican friars, and put at the head of the Franciscan “mission“ in western Russia.  As a missionary preacher and organizer Bd James had great success, and in 1392 called to govern the see of Galich. He had himself evangelized a considerable part of his diocese, and was now in a position to consolidate his work.
  He built churches in remote districts and obtained experienced priests from Poland to take charge of them, founded religious houses, and established hospitals and schools. Though a senator of the realm as well as archbishop he sometimes carried out visitations on foot, and always wore the modest habit of his order at a time when prelates not infrequently copied the ostentatious clothes of lay lords. Bd James governed his large diocese till his death at Lvov on June 1, in 1409 or 1411. During his life he had been called “protector of the kingdom“ and the miracles at his tomb showed that he was still mindful of his people. His cultus was confirmed in 1791.

There is more than one life in Polish, but only summaries seem to be available in languages more generally known. See, however, Scrobiszewski, Vitae episcoporum Halicensium (1628) Stadler, Heiligen Lexikon, vol. iii, pp. 111 seq.; Leon, Aureole séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. ii, pp. 312—315. 

1419 St. Vincent Ferrer Patron of Builders Dominican at 19 simply "going through the world preaching Christ," eloquent and fiery preacher St Vincent declared himself to be the angel of the Judgement foretold by St John (Apoc. xiv 6). As some of his hearers began to protest, he summoned the bearers who were carrying a dead woman to her burial and adjured the corpse to testify to the truth of his words. The body was seen to revive for a moment to give the confirmation required, and then to close its eyes once more in death. It is almost unnecessary to add that the saint laid no claim to the nature of a celestial being, but only to the angelic office of a messenger or herald—believing, as he did, that he was the instrument chosen by God to announce the impending end of the world.

1419 ST VINCENT FERRER

THE descendant of an Englishman or a Scotsman settled in Spain, St Vincent Ferrer was born at Valencia, probably in the year 1350. Inspired by pro­phecies of his future greatness, his parents instilled into him an intense devo­tion to our Lord and His blessed Mother and a great love for the poor. Moreover they made him the dispenser of their bountiful alms, and from them also he learnt the rigorous Wednesday and Saturday fast which he continued to practise all his life. On the intellectual side he was almost equally precocious. He entered the Dominican priory of Valencia, where he received the habit in 1367, and before he was twenty-one he was appointed reader in philosophy at Lerida, the most famous university in Catalonia. Whilst still occupying that chair he published two treatises, both of which were considered of great merit. At Barcelona, whither he was afterwards transferred, he was set to preach, although he was still only a deacon. The city was suffering from famine: corn which had been despatched by sea had not arrived and the people were nearly desperate. St Vincent, in the course of a sermon in the open air, foretold that the ships would come in that day before night­fall. His prior censured him severely for making predictions, but the ships duly appeared—to the joy of the people who rushed to the priory to acclaim the prophet. His superiors, however, deemed it wise to transfer him to Toulouse, where he remained for a year. He was then recalled to his own country, and his lectures and sermons met with extraordinary success. Nevertheless it was to him a time of trial. Not only was he assailed by temptations from the hidden powers of darkness, but he was also exposed to the blandishments of certain women who became attached to him—his good looks were exceptional—and strove first to beguile him and then to blacken his name. From these trials the saint emerged braced for the strenuous life which lay before him, as well as for the priestly office which was conferred upon him. He soon became famous as a preacher, whose eloquence roused to penitence and fervour multitudes of careless Catholics, besides converting to the Christian faith a number of Jews, notably the Rabbi Paul of Burgos, who died bishop of Cartagena in 1435.

That terrible scandal had begun in 1378 when, upon the death of Gregory XI, sixteen of the twenty-three cardinals had hastily elected Urban VI in deference to the popular cry for an Italian pope. Under the plea that they had been terrorized, they then, with the other cardinals, held a conclave at which they elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva, a Frenchman. He took the name of Clement VII and ruled at Avignon, whilst Urban reigned in Rome. St Vincent Ferrer, who had been amongst those who recognized Clement, naturally upon his death accepted as pope his successor, Peter de Luna or Benedict XIII as he was called, who summoned the Dominican to his side. [* Because of their anomalous position this Clement VII and Benedict XIII are not referred to as antipopes but as “called popes in their obedience”.]

St Vincent duly arrived in Avignon where he had great favour shown him, including the offer of a bishopric, which he refused; but he found his position very difficult. He soon realized that Benedict by his obstinacy was hindering all efforts that were being made towards unity. In vain did Vincent urge him to come to some sort of understanding with his rival in Rome. Even when a council of theologians in Paris declared against his claim, the Avignon pontiff would not stir an inch. The strain upon the saint as his confessor and adviser was so great that he fell ill. Upon his recovery he with great difficulty obtained permission to leave the court and devote himself to missionary work. His object was not primarily to escape from the intrigues and worries of the papal court, but to obey a direct call, for it is said that during his illness our Lord had appeared to him in a vision with St Dominic and St Francis and, after making him understand that he was to go and preach penance as those two had done, had then instantaneously restored him to health.

He set forth from Avignon in 1399 and preached to enormous congregations in Carpentras, Arles, Aix, Marseilles. Besides the inhabitants of the districts he visited, his audience consisted of a number of men, women and even children who followed him from place to place. These people, at first a heterogeneous crowd, were gradually weeded out, organized and brought under rule until, as “Penitents of Master Vincent”, they became valuable helpers, when necessary staying behind in places where the mission had been held to consolidate the good work begun. It is worthy of note that, in a lax age, no breath of suspicion appears to have attached to any member of that mixed company. Several priests travelled with the party, forming a choir and hearing confessions.
Between 1401 and 1403 the saint was preaching in the Dauphiné, in Savoy and in the Alpine valleys: he then went on to Lucerne, Lausanne, Tarentaise, Grenoble and Turin. Everywhere crowds flocked to hear him; everywhere innumerable conversions and remarkable miracles were reported. Vincent preached mainly on sin, death, hell, eternity, and especially the speedy approach of the day of judgement; he spoke with such energy that some of his hearers fainted with fear, whilst the sobs of his congregation often compelled him to pause, but his teaching penetrated beyond the emotions and bore fruit in many cases of genuine conversion and amendment of life. At the Grande Chartreuse, which he visited several times, his brother Boniface being prior, the Carthusian Annals record that “God worked wonders by means of these two brothers. Those who were converted by the preaching of the one, received the religious habit at the hands of the other.”
In 1405 St Vincent was in Genoa, from whence he reached a port from which he could sail for Flanders. Amongst other reforms he induced the Ligurian ladies to modify their fantastic head-dress—“the greatest of all his marvellous deeds”, as one of his biographers avers. In the Netherlands he wrought so many miracles that an hour was set apart every day for the healing of the sick. It has also been supposed that he visited England, Scotland and Ireland, but of this there is no shadow of proof. Although we know from the saint himself that beyond his native language he had learnt only some Latin and a little Hebrew, yet he would seem to have possessed the gift of tongues, for we have it on the authority of reliable writers that all his hearers, French, Germans, Italians and the rest, understood every word he spoke, and that his voice carried so well that it could be clearly heard at enormous distances. It is impossible here to follow him in all his wanderings. In fact he pursued no definite order, but visited and revisited places as the spirit moved him or as he was requested. In 1407 he returned to Spain.
Grenada was then under Moorish rule, but Vincent preached there, with the result that 8000 Moors are said to have asked to be baptized. In Seville and Cordova the missions had to be conducted in the open air, because no church could accommodate the congregations. At Valencia, which he revisited after fifteen years, he preached, worked many miracles, and healed the dissensions which were rending the town.
According to a letter from the magistrates of Orihuela, the effects of his sermons were marvellous: gambling, blasphemy and vice were banished, whilst on all hands enemies were being reconciled. In Salamanca he converted many Jews, and it was here that, in the course of an impassioned open-air sermon on his favourite topic, St Vincent declared himself to be the angel of the Judgement foretold by St John (Apoc. xiv 6). As some of his hearers began to protest, he summoned the bearers who were carrying a dead woman to her burial and adjured the corpse to testify to the truth of his words. The body was seen to revive for a moment to give the confirmation required, and then to close its eyes once more in death. It is almost unnecessary to add that the saint laid no claim to the nature of a celestial being, but only to the angelic office of a messenger or herald—believing, as he did, that he was the instrument chosen by God to announce the impending end of the world.
St Vincent of course had never ceased being deeply concerned at the disunity within the Church, especially since after 1409 there had been no less than three claimants to the papacy, to the great scandal of Christendom. At last the Council of Constance met in 1414 to deal with the matter and proceeded to depose one of them, John XXIII, and to demand the resignation of the other two with a view to a new election. Gregory XII expressed his willingness, but Benedict XIII still held out. St Vincent went to Perpignan to entreat him to abdicate, but in vain. Thereupon, being asked by King Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon to give his own judgement in the matter, the saint declared that because Benedict was hindering the union which was vital to the Church, the faithful were justified in withdrawing their allegiance. Ferdinand acted accordingly, and at length Benedict, Peter de Luna, found himself deposed. “But for you”, wrote Gerson to St Vincent, “this union could never have been achieved.”
The last three years of the saint’s life were spent in France. Brittany and Normandy were the scene of the last labours of this “legate from the side of Christ”. He was so worn and weak that he could scarcely walk without help, but in the pulpit he spoke with as much vigour and eloquence as though he were in the prime of life. When, early in 1419, he returned to Vannes after a course of sermons in Nantes, it was clear that he was dying, and on the Wednesday in Passion Week 1419 he passed away, being then in his seventieth year. His death was greeted by an outburst of popular veneration, and in 1455 St Vincent Ferrer was canonized.
Amid all the honours and applause which were lavished upon him, St Vincent was remarkable for his humility. It seemed to him that his whole life had been evil. “I am a plague-spot in soul and body; everything in me reeks of corruption through the abomination of my sins and injustice”, he laments in his treatise on the spiritual life. It is ever thus with the great saints. The nearer they are to God, the baser do they appear in their own eyes.

After this the lives of the sisterly pair became even stricter than before, and daily they went to the hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia to nurse the patients, singling out more particularly those suffering from the most repellent diseases. Their mother-in-law, Donna Cecilia, not unnaturally, was afraid lest they might injure their health, and thought that their avoidance of banquets and entertainments might be misconstrued in society and bring discredit on the family, but her Sons, to whom she appealed, refused to interfere in any way. In 1400 a son was born to Frances, and for a time she modified her way of life to devote herself to the care of little John Baptist (Battista). The following year Donna Cecilia died, and Frances was bidden by her father-in-law take her place at the head of the household. In vain she pleaded that Vannozza was the wife of the elder brother: Don Andrew and Vannozza insisted that she was the more suitable, and she was obliged to consent. She proved herself worthy of this position, discharging her duties efficiently whilst treating her household not as servants but as younger brothers and sisters, and trying to induce them to labour for their own salvation, in all the forty years that she lived with her husband there was never the slightest dispute or misunderstand­ing between them. When she was at her prayers, if summoned by Lorenzo or asked to give orders about the house, she laid all aside to respond to the call of that duty. “It is most laudable in a married woman to be devout”, she was wonton say, “but she must never forget that she is a housewife. And sometimes she must leave God at the altar to find Him in her housekeeping.” Her biographers relate that once when she was reading our Lady’s office a page was sent to fetch her. “Madonna, my master begs you to come to him”, said the lad. She immediately closed the book and went. Three more times this interruption happened; but when at last she opened the book for the fifth time she found the words of the antiphon were written in letters of gold. In addition to the eldest, two other children of Frances are known, a younger boy, Evangelist, and a girl, Agnes; and she allowed no one but herself to look after them during childhood.

Although, like so many other interior souls, Frances was sorely tried all her life by violent, temptations, which in her case sometimes took the form of hideous or enticing visions, and sometimes resembled bodily assaults, still for several years outward prosperity seemed to smile upon her and her family. The first indication of the clouds that were gathering came in the form of a famine and pestilence, mainly the result of the civil wars which were then convulsing Italy. Plague-stricken people were dying in the streets, and disease and starvation decimated Rome. Frances was unremitting in her efforts to relieve the sufferers and, with the help of Vannozza, tried to succour all she came across. Even the plentiful stock of provisions at the Palazzo Ponziano was exhausted at last and the two women went from door to door begging for food for the poor in spite of rebuffs and insults. It was then that she received her father-in-law’s consent to sell her jewels, and she never from that time forth wore any but the plainest dresses.

In 1408 the troops of Ladislaus of Naples, the ally of the antipope, had entered Rome and a soldier of fortune, Count Troja, had been appointed governor. The Ponziani had always supported the legitimate pope, and in one of the frequent conflicts Lorenzo was stabbed and carried home to Frances, to whose devoted nursing he owed his restoration to health. Troja resolved to leave the city after having wreaked his vengeance on the principal papal supporters. Amongst these were the Ponziani, and he not only arrested Vannozza’s husband Paluzzo, but also demanded as a hostage little. Battista but whilst his mother Frances was praying in the church of Ara Coeli the boy was released in circumstances that seemed to be miraculous. Then, in 1410 when the cardinals were assembled at Bologna for the election of a new pope, Ladislaus again seized Rome. Lorenzo Ponziano, who as one of the heads of the papal party went in danger of his life, managed to escape, but it was impossible for his wife and family to follow him. His palace was plun­dered and Battista was taken captive by the soldiers of Ladislaus, though he after­wards got away and was able to join his father. The family possessions in the Campagna were destroyed, farms being burnt or pillaged and flocks slaughtered whilst many of the peasants were murdered. Frances lived in a corner of her ruined home with Evangelist, Agnes and Vannozza, whose husband was still, a prisoner, and the two women devoted themselves to the care of the children and to relieving as far as their means would allow the sufferings of their still poorer neighbours. During another pestilence three years later, Evangelist died. Frances then turned part of the house into a hospital, and God rewarded her labours and prayers by bestowing on her the gift of healing.

Twelve months after the death of Evangelist, as his mother was praying one day, a bright light suddenly shone into the room and Evangelist appeared accom­panied by an archangel. After telling her of his happiness in Heaven he said that he had come to warn her of the impending death of Agnes. A consolation was, however, to be vouchsafed to the bereaved mother. The archangel who accompanied Evangelist was henceforth to be her guide for twenty-three years. He was to be succeeded in the last epoch of her life by an angel of still higher dignity. Very soon Agnes began to fail, and a year later she passed away at the age of sixteen. From that moment, as Evangelist had promised, the angel was always visible to St Frances, though unseen by others. Only when she committed a fault did he fade away for a time, to return as soon as she felt compunction and made confession. The form he took was that of a child of about eight years old. But, weakened by what she had gone through, Frances herself fell a victim to the plague. So ill was she that every hope of recovery was abandoned, but the disease suddenly left her, and she began to regain her health. It was at this time that she had a vision of Hell so terrible that she could never allude to it without tears.

She was now able to carry out a project which had been taking shape in her mind of forming a society of women living in the world and bound by no vows, but pledged to make a simple offering of themselves to God and to serve the poor. The plan was approved by her confessor Dom Antonio, who obtained the affiliation of the congregation to the Benedictines of Monte Oliveto, to which he himself belonged. Known at first as the Oblates of Mary, they were afterwards called the Oblates of Tor de’ Specchi. The society had lasted seven years when it was thought desirable to take a house adapted for a community, and the old building known as Tor de’ Specchi was acquired. Whatever time she could spare from her home duties St Frances spent with the oblates, sharing in their daily life and duties. She never allowed them to refer to her as the foundress, but insisted that all should be subject to Agnes de Lellis who was chosen superioress. Three years later Lorenzo died and was laid beside Evangelist and Agnes; and St Frances announced her intention of retiring to Tor de’ Specchi. On the feast of St Benedict she entered her founda­tion as a humble suppliant and was eagerly welcomed. Agnes de Lellis immediately insisted upon resigning office and Frances had to take her place in spite of her protestations.

Her life was now lived closer than ever to God. Her austerities indeed she could not well increase, for she had long subsisted on dry bread with occasionally some vegetables; she had scourged herself and made use of horsehair girdles and chains with sharp points. But now visions and ecstasies became more frequent, and she sometimes spent whole nights in prayer. One evening in the spring of 1440, though feeling very ill she tried to get back home after visiting Battista and Mobilia. On the way she met her director, Dom John Matteotti, who, shocked at her appearance, ordered her to return at once to her son’s house. It was soon evident that she was dying, but she lingered on for seven days. On the evening of March 9 her face was seen to shine with a strange light: “The angel has finished his task: he beckons me to follow him”, were her last words. As soon as it was known that she was dead, the Ponziani Palace was thronged by mourners and by those who brought their sick to be healed. Her body was removed to Santa Maria Nuova, where the crowds became even greater as the report of miracles wrought there was spread abroad. She was buried in the chapel of the church reserved for her oblates. Her congregation still survives at Tor de’ Specchi, where the oblates carry on educational work; their dress remains that of the Roman noble ladies of the period. St Frances was canonized in it 1608, and Santa Maria Nuova is now known as the church of Santa Francesca Romana.

By far the most important source for the Life of St Frances of Rome is the collection of visions, miracles and biographical details compiled first of all in Italian by John Matteotti and afterwards, with omissions and additions, translated by him into Latin. Matteotti had been the saint’s confessor during the last ten years of her life, but there is no evidence that he had been acquainted with her at an earlier date. The seventeenth-century biography which has been printed under the name of Mary Magdalen Anguillaria, superioress of Tor de’ Specchi, adds little to the materials provided by Matteotti, though it may have incor­porated some new facts from the processes which preceded the canonization. All these sources in a Latin version will be found in the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii. There is a short but very sympathetic life of St Frances in English by Lady Georgians Fullerton published in 1853; and lives in French by Rabory (1884), Rambuteau (1900) and Mrs Berthem-Bontoux (1931), the last a solid but rather prolix work. The Italian text of Matte­otti has been edited by Armellini, but cf M. Pelaez in the Archivio Soc. Pomona di Storia patria, vols. xiv and xv (1891—1892).

1445 BD PETER OF TIFERNO; Dominican;  the friary of Cortona, where he spent the greater part of his life

1447 BD THOMAS OF FLORENCE; a Franciscan lay brother; the gift of miracles; Many urged that Bd Thomas should be canonized with St Bernardino of Siena, whose cause was then in process. To prevent the delay that would have resulted, St John of Capistrano, it is said, went to Thomas’s tomb at Rieti and commanded him in the name of holy obedience to cease his miracles until the canonization of Bernardino should be achieved. They stopped for three years, but Bd Thomas has never been canonized. His cultus was approved in 1771.

THOMAS BELLACCI, a native of Florence, was a Franciscan lay brother, who as a young man had led a wild and disorderly life. Realization of the futility of it all and the wise words of a friend wrought a change in him and he was accepted—with some trepidation, for his excesses were notorious—by the friars of the Observance at Fiesole. But his penitence equaled his former sinfulness, and in time, for all he was a lay brother, he was made master of novices, whom he trained in the strictest ways of the Observance.

As a result of the “reunion council” at Florence in 1439, Friar Albert of Sarzana was sent as papal legate to the Syrian Jacobites and other dissidents of the East, and he took Thomas with him, although he was in his seventieth year. From Persia Albert commissioned him to go with three other friars into Ethiopia. Three times on their way the Turks, who treated them with great cruelty, seized them. But Bd Thomas insisted on preaching to the Mohammedans, and eventually they had to be ransomed by Pope Eugenius IV, just before their captors were going to put them to death. Bd Thomas could not get over that God had refused the proffered sacrifice of his life, and in 1447, aged as he was, he set out for Rome to ask permission to go again to the East. But at Rieti he was taken ill, and died there on October 31.  Many urged that Bd Thomas should be canonized with St Bernardino of Siena, whose cause was then in process. To prevent the delay that would have resulted, St John of Capistrano, it is said, went to Thomas’s tomb at Rieti and commanded him in the name of holy obedience to cease his miracles until the canonization of Bernardino should be achieved. They stopped for three years, but Bd Thomas has never been canonized. His cultus was approved in 1771.

1450 Bd Stephen Bandelli; doctor of canon law, University of Pavia professorship, honoured as a saint and a wonder-worker;

One of the most successful preachers of the Dominican Order in the first half of the fifteenth century was Friar Stephen Bandelli. He was born in 1369 in northern Italy, and received the Dominican habit at Piacenza. His piety and obedience were an inspiration to his brethren, while his learning obtained for him the degree of doctor of canon law and a professorship in the University of Pavia. But it was in the pulpit and in the confessional that he specially shone. Wherever he preached, in Liguria and elsewhere, crowds assembled to hear him, and innumerable sinners were converted from the error of their ways. He died at the age of eighty-one at Saluzzo, in the diocese of Turin, and was honoured as a saint and a wonder-worker. Thirty-seven years after his death, when Saluzzo was surrounded by a hostile force, strange forms appeared in the sky, which were held to be those of our Lady and Bd Stephen; the enemy withdrew without laying siege to the town, and the people of Saluzzo, in gratitude to Bd Stephen, instituted an annual procession in his honour. Pope Pius IX. confirmed his ancient cultus in 1856.

1468 BD ELIZABETH OF MANTUA, VIRGIN

1487 Nicholas of Flüe, Hermit fighting "with a sword in one hand, and a rosary in the other!" often rapt in ecstatic prayer, experiencing visions and revelations as a hermit in almost perpetual prayer for 21.5 yrs, he took no food for the body; patron saint of Switzerland. (RM)
NICHOLAS VON FLUE (“Bruder Klaus”) occupies a unique place in the estimation of his countrymen. Ecclesiastics, patriots, politicians, historians and poets of all creeds have sung his praises, and it may safely be asserted that no religious figure in the history of Switzerland has given rise to so varied and voluminous a body of literature.

The holy man, who was born near Sachseln in Unterwalden in 1417, belonged to a much respected family of small farmers, owners of the Kluster Alp or pasture in the Melchthal and of the estate of Flüeli on the Sachsterberg, from which they derived their surname. His father Henry also held a civil post in the cantonal service, whilst his mother, Emma Robert, was a native of Wolfenschiessen. She was a deeply religious woman who brought up her two sons, Nicholas and Peter, to belong as she did to the brotherhood of the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde). The members of this society were scattered over Germany, Switzerland and the Nether­lands, and were drawn from both sexes and all classes. Adhering loyally to the Catholic Church, they sought by strictness of life as well as by constant meditation on the passion of our Lord and similar devotions, to enter, as their name implied, into specially close relationship with God. Some of them lived in their own families, others formed small communities, and a few retired from the world altogether to lead an eremitic life. Nicholas was specially responsive to the training he received, and was remarkable from childhood for his piety, his love of peace and his sound judgement.

At the age of twenty-two, and in spite of his peace-loving disposition, Nicholas fought in the ranks in the war with Zurich. Fourteen years later, on the occasion of the occupation of the Thurgau, he again took up arms, but this time he was captain of a company. The high esteem in which he was held caused him to be appointed magistrate and judge and to be sent on various occasions as deputy for Obwalden to councils and meetings, where his clear-sighted wisdom carried great weight. He was repeatedly offered the highest post of all, that of landamman, or governor, but he could never be induced to accept it. He had married a religious-minded girl called Dorothea Wissling, and their union had been a happy one. Of their ten children, John, the eldest son, became landamman during his father’s lifetime, and the youngest studied at the University of Bale, and was afterwards for many years parish-priest of Sachseln.

Throughout the years of his married life, Nicholas had continued the devout practices of his youth. To quote the testimony of his eldest son: “My father always retired to rest at the same time as his children and servants; but every night I saw him get up again, and heard him praying in his room until morning. Often too he would go in the silence of the night to the old church of St Nicholas or to other holy places.” In obedience to what seemed to him a supernatural call to contemplation, for he had many visions and revelations, he used at times to withdraw into solitude in the valley of the Melch, but when he was about fifty he felt irresistibly drawn to abandon the world altogether and to spend the rest of his days far from home as a hermit. His wife did not oppose him, for the Friends of God recognized such vocations as sent from on high. Nicholas resigned his offices, took leave of his wife, his father and his children in the early autumn of 1467 and set forth barefoot and bareheaded, clad in a grey-brown habit and carrying his rosary and his staff.

His destination appears to have been Strasbourg, in the neighbourhood of which was a settlement of the brethren, Alsace having been their headquarters. Before crossing the frontier, however, he received hospitality from a peasant whom he discovered to be also a Friend of God, and in the course of conversation his host sought to deter him from leaving the country, assuring him that the Swiss were unpopular in Alsace and elsewhere abroad on account of their rough manners, and that he might fail to find the peaceful retreat he sought. That night there was a terrific thunderstorm, and as Nicholas looked at the little town of Liechstall beyond the frontier, the flashes of lightning made it appear to be in flames. He took this to be a sign which confirmed the advice he had received, and immediately retraced his steps. One evening during the homeward journey, as he lay under a tree, he was seized with such violent gastric spasms that he thought his last hour had come:  the pain passed off, but from that time he lost all desire for ordinary food or drink, and became in fact incapable of taking either. Later that autumn, hunters who had been looking for game in the Melchthal brought home news that they had come across Nicholas on his pasture land of the Klüster, where he had made himself a shelter of boughs under a larch tree. His brother Peter and other friends went to beseech him not to remain there to die of exposure, and he was persuaded to move to Ranft, another part of the valley, where the people of Obwalden soon built him a little cell with a chapel attached.

In this spot, which was situated above a narrow gorge, the loneliness of which was emphasized by the roar of the mountain torrent in the valley below, St Nicholas spent nineteen peaceful years. The hours from midnight to midday were passed in prayer and contemplation, but in the afternoon he would interview those who found their way to his hermitage to seek his advice on spiritual or even on temporal matters. God had given him the spirit of counsel, as he one admitted to his friend Henry Imgrund, and he continued to exercise it as he had done in the past. Strangers also were attracted by the fame of this remarkable man, who was reported to live without eating and drinking. Never very talkative, he was particularly sparing of his words to those who came out of mere curiosity. So also, when questioned as to his abstention from food, he would only reply, “God knows”. That no one brought him provisions the cantonal magistrates proved by having all approaches to his cell watched for a month, and unprejudiced foreigners, such as Archduke Sigismund’s physician and envoys from the Emperor Frederick III, satisfied themselves of the truth of the report and were profoundly impressed by the hermit’s sincerity.

Once a year Nicholas took part in the great Musegger procession in Lucerne, but otherwise he only left his retreat to attend divine service and occasionally to visit Einsiedeln. The gifts of the faithful enabled him in his later years to found a chantry for a priest in connection with his own little chapel, and he was thus able to assist at Mass daily and to communicate often.

At this epoch the Swiss Confederation had just passed through the most glorious phase in its history. Within six years, in the three battles of Grandson, Morat and Nancy, the sturdy mountain folk had vindicated their independence and had routed the hitherto unconquered Charles the Bold, master of the two Burgundies and nearly the whole of Belgium: their reputation was so great that every prince in Europe sought their alliance. The hour of their most signal triumph proved nevertheless to be the hour of their greatest danger, for internal dissensions threatened to undo the success which their arms had won. Quarrels arose over the division of booty and between the country party and the towns. Another source of contention was, the proposal to include Fribourg and Soleure (or Solothurn) in the confederation. At length agreement was reached on most points and was embodied in a document known as the Edict of Stans.

On the subject of the inclusion of Fribourg and Soleure, however, no accommodation could be reached, and feeling ran so high that it seemed that the question would have to be settled by arms. The meeting was breaking up in disorder when the parish-priest of Stans suggested seeking a final opinion from Nicholas von Flue. The deputies gave their consent and he set out to seek the hermit. His suggestion was no casual or sudden inspiration. As we know from the protocols of the Council of Lucerne, that city, which occupied an ambiguous position between the two parties, had, at an early stage of the strife, sent delegates to Brother Nicholas to obtain his advice, and it is quite possible that other districts had done the same. It has been even suggested that the Edict of Stans, a most statesmanlike charter, may have been drafted in the hermit’s cell. In any case, it is greatly to the credit of the deputies that, in the heat of their quarrel, they should have been willing to refer the matter to him. The chronicler Diebold Schilling, who represented his father at the council, tells us that the priest Imgrund arrived back in Stans streaming with perspiration, and that, seeking out the deputies in their lodgings, he besought them with tears to reassemble immediately to hear the message which he must impart to them alone. Schilling does not record the words of that message, but he informs us that within an hour the council had arrived at a unanimous agreement. Fribourg and Soleure were to be admitted into the Swiss Confederation, but upon certain conditions, which were accepted for them by Hans von Stall, the delegate of Soleure. The date was December 22, 1481.

That Christmas was a specially joyful one throughout Switzerland, and the Stans Council expressed in laudatory terms its gratitude to Nicholas for his services. Letters of thanks from Berne and Soleure to the holy man are still extant, as well as a letter written on his behalf by his son John, thanking Berne for a gift which would be expended upon the Church. (He himself could neither read nor write, but used a special seal by way of a signature.) Several of the hermit’s visitors have left accounts of their interviews with him, and that written by Albert von Bon­stetten, dean of the monastery of Einsiedeln, is particularly interesting. He describes the recluse as tall, brown and wrinkled, with thin grizzled locks and a short beard. His eyes were bright, his teeth white and well preserved, and his nose shapely. He adds, “He praises and recommends obedience and peace. As he exhorted the Confederates to maintain peace, so does he exhort all who come to him to do the same.” The dean held him in great veneration, but with regard to the prophetical gifts ascribed to Nicholas in some quarters, he says cautiously that he had received no evidence of them from trustworthy sources. Six years after the Council of Stans, Nicholas was seized with his last illness, which lasted only eight days, but caused him intense suffering. He bore it with perfect resigna­tion and died peacefully in his cell, on his birthday, having attained the age of seventy. Immediately his death became known he was honoured in all Switzerland both as a patriot and as a saint, though it was only in 1669 that his cultus was formally sanctioned: he was canonized in 1947. His skeleton lies in a shrine under a black marble canopied altar which stands close to the entrance to the choir of the present church of Sachseln, and the habit in which he died is preserved in a cupboard in the south apse. The two “Flue houses” at Flüeli date back to the days of St Nicholas, and although they have been greatly modernized one room in his dwelling-house remains intact.

 (also known as Bruder Klaus)
Born at Flüeli near Sachseln, Obwalden (Unterwalden), Switzerland, March 21, 1417; died at Ranft, Switzerland, March 21, 1487; cultus  approved in 1669; canonized 1947; feast day formerly March 21; feast day in Switzerland is September 25.

"My Lord and my God, remove from me all that may keep me from you. My Lord and my God, give me all that I need to bring me to you. My Lord and my God, take me from myself and give me to yourself." --Nicholas von Flüe.
Nicholas was born into a family of prosperous farmers, who owned the Kluster Alp and the estate of Flüeli on the Sachsterberg (near Lucerne), from which their surname derives. At various times Saint Nicholas was a soldier, peasant, patriot, and judge in Switzerland. His father held a civil post; his mother was very devout and raised her sons to belong to the brotherhood of the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde). The society sought to live a strict life, to meditate on the passion of the Lord, and to seek a close relationship with God. They lived with their families in small communities or as hermits. Thus, Nicholas was pious from childhood. He was also illiterate.
In his youth Nicholas fought in defense of Swiss Confederation liberties, especially against the Hapsburgs. After the siege of Zurich in 1439, he was commissioned in the army. He defended women and children and the Church, fighting "with a sword in one hand, and a rosary in the other!"

He loved solitude and prayer, but, by 1447, he married pious and comely Dorothea Wysling, daughter of one of the chief families of Sachseln. In the 30 years of their marriage, he had 10 children: John, Rudolph, Walter, Henry, Nicholas, Dorothea, Marguerite, Katherine, Veronica, and another girl who died in infancy. John was elected Landmann of Unterwald. Nicholas (the youngest) studied at the University of Basle and became a priest; another became a governor of the province. Dorothea's piety led her to be called "the consolation of the Church."

Nicholas would rise at dawn to tend the flocks, eat at 9:00 a.m. with his family and servants at the same table, and again at the end of the day they would gather for Vesperbrod and end the evening with family prayers. While working in the fields, he was often rapt in ecstatic prayer, experiencing visions and revelations. He continued the devout practices of his youth, fasted frequently, and often spent the night in prayer.

In 1460, Thurgau was invaded by Austria and Nicholas commanded 100 men. During this campaign at Katharinental the Swiss troops were faced with a situation that anticipated in miniature that at Monte Cassino in 1944: When the Swiss succeeded in capturing the village of Diesenhofer, many Austrian soldiers sought refuge in the church of the Dominican Convent of Saint Catherine. The Swiss command was going to burn the church, but Nicholas prayed for divine guidance before the crucifix in the cloister, then he asked the command to revoke its order stressing the moral gravity of the act. The order was canceled. Nicholas was awarded a gold medal when peace was declared, in thanks for his services.

Fellow-citizens wanted him to accept the office of Landmann (governor), but he twice refused. He was appointed magistrate, served as judge for the canton, and was sent as a deputy for Obwalden to councils. When, in 1465, a powerful family appealed his fair decision and was rendered an unjust one against a humble peasant, he resigned. "Later he testified that he could see and feel flames of fire, of a disgusting odor, issuing from the mouths of the judges as they pronounced their unjust sentence; and he knew that they already had a foretaste of hell within themselves." Though the elite turned against him and spoke calumnies of him, Nicholas was still sought out by his neighbors and people from the adjoining cantons to settle disputes.

In 1467 (age 50), fourteen months after the birth of the tenth child, Nicholas heard God's command to live as a hermit and told his wife immediately. He resigned his offices and, with his devout wife's permission, left his family to live for the next 20 years as a hermit in almost perpetual prayer. Dorothea was overcome by the news but put no obstacles in his way because she recognized the call. "She wept as she made the supreme sacrifice" of allowing her husband to leave. His relatives and neighbors, however, were full of indignation, which he disregarded. Nicholas and his wife drew up an agreement and told the family and servants that Dorothea was thenceforth head of the family.

He left barefoot and bareheaded, wearing a drab habit and carrying a rosary and a staff. Thus clad as a pilgrim, Nicholas became known as Brother Klaus. He appears to have been headed for Strasbourg, France, where the headquarters of the Gottesfreunde lay, looking for a hermitage in which to spend his final years. On his way, however, he wandered toward Basle, where he was put up by a peasant who was a Friend of God, who told him that the Swiss were unpopular in Alsace and that he might not find there the life that he sought.

That night during a violent thunderstorm, Nicholas looked at a little town beyond the frontier and saw that lightning made it appear to be in flames. He took this as a divine confirmation of the peasant's advice and turned back. When Brother Klaus decided to follow the peasant's suggestion, he felt a violent pain in his intestines and was surrounded by light. Thereafter, he "never felt the need of human food or drink, and have never used them." Hunters brought back to his family the news that they had seen him living on his pastureland in a shelter of boughs. Family members went to beg him not to stay there and fall prey to exposure.

So, he finally moved to Ranft, where the people of Obwalden built him a cell and a small chapel. He lived many years in this lonely place above a narrow gorge within earshot of the mountain stream spending most of his time in prayer. He prayed and meditated from midnight to midday, attended Mass in Sachseln every Sunday, and paid an annual visit to Lucerne for the Musegger procession. He never ate or drank anything except the Blessed Sacrament.

Abbot Oswald Isner wrote:  "When Nicholas had abstained for 11 days from taking natural food, he sent for me and asked me secretly whether he should take some food or continue to fast. He had always desired to live without eating, the better to separate himself from the world. I touched the parts of his body where little flesh was left; all was dried up; his cheeks were hollow and his lips were very thin.
"When I had seen and understood that it could come only from divine love, I advised brother Nicholas to continue to this test as long as he could stand it without the danger of death. That is what brother Nicholas did; from that moment until his death, that is for about twenty-one and a half years, he continued to take no food for the body.

"Since the holy brother was more familiar with me than with anyone else, I asked him many times how he managed to do it. One day in his cell he told me, in great secrecy, that when the priest celebrated communion he received the strength which alone permitted him to live without eating or drinking."

When those seeking his counsel asked him about eating nothing, Nicholas would reply, "God knows." Cantonal magistrates had his cell watched for a month to ensure themselves of the fact that no one brought him food.
Nevertheless, Nicholas held that "holy obedience is the highest virtue." When Bishop Thomas visited him and commanded him to eat bread and a little wine after 18 months of nothing, Nicholas hesitated to obey. When he did try to eat a tiny fragment of a morsel, he almost choked to death and the bishop finally believed.

Until he had a chaplain, he attended Sunday Mass and Holy Days at the parish church of Sachseln. Nicholas founded a chantry for a priest with donations and thus was enabled to assist at Mass daily. In 1470, Pope Paul II granted the first indulgence to the sanctuary at Ranft and it became a place of pilgrimage. Occasionally Klaus would make a pilgrimage to Engleburg or Einsiedeln.

He received the great (including Emperor Frederick III), the humble, and children. Many pilgrims came for counsel. He could speak with authority to married people and children. His wife and children also attended Mass in his chapel and listened to his spiritual counsel.

In 1481, the Swiss Confederation had gained its independence from Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the rulers of Europe sought its alliance, and it was on the verge of breaking apart over how to divide the spoils gained during the conquests. Internal disputes threatened its solidarity, but an agreement was reached and put forth in the Compromise of Stans. Still unresolved, however, was the issue of the inclusion of Fribourg and Soleure, and it caused such controversy that in 1481 civil war was feared. A parish priest of Stans recommended seeking a final opinion from the 64- year-old Nicholas. This was agreed to, and he went to Nicholas, whose counsel had been sought at various stages of the drafting of the edict, and it has even been said that it was drawn up in his cell. After the priest's return to Stans, the council arrived at a unanimous decision within an hour and maintained the unity of the land.

Despite his lack of education and experience with the world, his mediation led to permanent national unity for Switzerland. He could not even write; he used a special seal as a signature. Letters of thanks to him from Berne and Soleure still survive.

Six years later, he became ill for the last time. He suffered greatly for eight days, received Holy Viaticum, then died peacefully in his cell with his wife and children by his bed. Nicholas was buried at Sachseln and the Flüe family still survives in Switzerland.

His wife and children were probably none the worse for his becoming a hermit. It may be that his prayers and spiritual counsel did more for his family than his remaining with them would have. We do not blame explorers and soldiers for leaving their families, why blame a saint?

His canonization was delayed because a fire destroyed the documents relating to it. Nevertheless, he is the patron saint of Switzerland.

Several accounts survive of visitors' memories of Bruder Klaus: one described him as tall, brown, and wrinkled with then grizzled locks and a short beard, bright eyes, white teeth, and a shapely nose. This corresponds well with a Fribourg portrait of him done in 1492 (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, J. Delaney, S. Delany, Encyclopedia, Farmer, White).

Saint Nicholas is portrayed as a hermit being thrown into a thorn bush by the devil. At other times he may be shown praying in a mountainous landscape or entering a house while carrying a staff tipped with a cross. Nicholas is greatly venerated in Switzerland (Roeder).