Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BC  Lay Saints 

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Life in this world is a period of separation from God, which is full of sorrow, and pain:
Sorrow is the bedstead, Pain the fiber with which it is woven, And separation is the quilt See this is the life we lead, O Lord.  Absorption in the affairs of the world, in forgetfulness of God, is regarded by Sheikh Farid
as desertion by a woman of her husband and going over to an alien house.  1266 Baba Sheikh Farid Ji

1614 Camillus de Lellis_Priest. To him the only people that mattered were the sick, for in serving them he was serving God charity was the only thing that made life worth living, the surest way of bringing man closer to God, the only true life-blood of the Church for the first time the patients were separated into different wards according to the nature of their maladie RM

1601 St. Germaine Cousin 400 miracles parted waters{see below for more}
Her remains were buried in the parish church of Pibrac in front of the pulpit. In 1644, when the grave was opened to receive one of her relatives, the body of Germaine was discovered fresh and perfectly preserved, and miraculously raised almost to the level of the floor of the church. It was exposed for public view near the pulpit, until a noble lady, the wife of François de Beauregard, presented as a thanks-offering a casket of lead to hold the remains. She had been cured of a malignant and incurable ulcer in the breast, and her infant son whose life was despaired of was restored to health on her seeking the intercession of Germaine. This was the first of a long series of wonderful cures wrought at her relics. The leaden casket was placed in the sacristy, and in 1661 and 1700 the remains were viewed and found fresh and intact by the vicars-general of Toulouse, who have left testamentary depositions of the fact. Expert medical evidence deposed that the body had not been embalmed, and experimental tests showed that the preservation was not due to any property inherent in the soil.
In 1700 a movement was begun to procure the beatification of Germaine, but it fell through owing to accidental causes. In 1793 the casket was desecrated by a revolutionary tinsmith, named Toulza, who with three accomplices took out the remains and buried them in the sacristy, throwing quick-lime and water on them. After the Revolution, her body was found to be still intact save where the quick-lime had done its work. The private veneration of Germaine had continued from the original finding of the body in 1644, supported and encouraged by numerous cures and miracles. The cause of beatification was resumed in 1850. The documents attested more than 400 miracles or extraordinary graces, and thirty postulatory letters from archbishops and bishops in France besought the beatification from the Holy See. The miracles attested were cures of every kind (of blindness, congenital and resulting from disease, of hip and spinal disease), besides the multiplication of food for the distressed community of the Good Shepherd at Bourges in 1845. On 7 May, 1854, Pius IX proclaimed her beatification, and on 29 June, 1867, placed her on the canon of virgin saints. Her feast is kept in the Diocese of Toulouse on 15 June. She is represented in art with a shepherd's crook or with a distaff; with a watchdog, or a sheep; or with flowers in her apron.
Her feast is kept in the Diocese of Toulouse on 15 June.

1601 St. Germaine Cousin
Born in 1579 of humble parents at Pibrac, a village about ten miles from Toulouse; died in her native place.
When Hortense decided to marry Laurent Cousin in Pibrac, France, it was not out of love for his infant daughter. Germaine was everything Hortense despised. Weak and ill, the girl had also been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Hortense replaced the love that Germaine has lost when her mother died with cruelty and abuse. Laurent, who had a weak character, pretended not to notice that Germaine had been given so little food that she had learned to crawl in order to get to the dog's dish. He wasn't there to protect her when Hortense left Germaine in a drain while she cared for chickens -- and forgot her for three days. He didn't even interfere when Hortense poured boiling water on Germaine's legs. With this kind of treatment, it's no surprise that Germaine became even more ill. She came down with a disease known as scrofula, a kind of tuberculosis that causes the neck glands to swell up. Sores began to appear on her neck and in her weakened condition to fell prey to every disease that came along. Instead of awakening Hortense's pity this only made her despise Germaine more for being even uglier in her eyes.
Germaine found no sympathy and love with her siblings. Watching their mother's treatment of their half-sister, they learned how to despise and torment her, putting ashes in her food and pitch in her clothes. Their mother found this very entertaining. Hortense did finally get concerned about Germaine's sickness -- because she was afraid her own children would catch it. So she made Germaine sleep out in the barn. The only warmth Germaine had on frozen winter nights was the woolly sheep who slept there too. The only food she had were the scraps Hortense might remember to throw her way.
The abuse of Germaine tears at our hearts and causes us to cry for pity and justice. But it was Germaine's response to that abuse and her cruel life that wins our awe and veneration. Germaine was soon entrusted with the sheep. No one expected her to have any use for education so she spent long days in the field tending the sheep. Instead of being lonely, she found a friend in God. She didn't know any theology and only the basics of the faith that she learned the catechism. But she had a rosary made of knots in string and her very simple prayers: "Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my mother. And help me to please you." Out of that simple faith, grew a profound holiness and a deep trust of God.

1601 St. Germaine Cousin  The Rosary was her only book, and her devotion to the Angelus was so great that she used to fall on her knees at the first sound of the bell, even though she heard it when crossing a stream.
And she had the most important prayer of all -- the Mass. Every day, without fail, she would leave her sheep in God's care and go to Mass.
Born in 1579 of humble parents at Pibrac, a village about ten miles from Toulouse; died in her native place.
When Hortense decided to marry Laurent Cousin in Pibrac, France, it was not out of love for his infant daughter. Germaine was everything Hortense despised. Weak and ill, the girl had also been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Hortense replaced the love that Germaine has lost when her mother died with cruelty and abuse.
Laurent, who had a weak character, pretended not to notice that Germaine had been given so little food that she had learned to crawl in order to get to the dog's dish. He wasn't there to protect her when Hortense left Germaine in a drain while she cared for chickens -- and forgot her for three days. He didn't even interfere when Hortense poured boiling water on Germaine's legs.
With this kind of treatment, it's no surprise that Germaine became even more ill. She came down with a disease known as scrofula, a kind of tuberculosis that causes the neck glands to swell up. Sores began to appear on her neck and in her weakened condition to fell prey to every disease that came along. Instead of awakening Hortense's pity this only made her despise Germaine more for being even uglier in her eyes. Germaine found no sympathy and love with her siblings. Watching their mother's treatment of their half-sister, they learned how to despise and torment her, putting ashes in her food and pitch in her clothes. Their mother found this very entertaining.

Hortense did finally get concerned about Germaine's sickness -- because she was afraid her own children would catch it. So she made Germaine sleep out in the barn. The only warmth Germaine had on frozen winter nights was the woolly sheep who slept there too. The only food she had were the scraps Hortense might remember to throw her way.  The abuse of Germaine tears at our hearts and causes us to cry for pity and justice. But it was Germaine's response to that abuse and her cruel life that wins our awe and veneration.  Germaine was soon entrusted with the sheep. No one expected her to have any use for education so she spent long days in the field tending the sheep. Instead of being lonely, she found a friend in God. She didn't know any theology and only the basics of the faith that she learned the catechism. But she had a rosary made of knots in string and her very simple prayers: "Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my mother. And help me to please you." Out of that simple faith, grew a profound holiness and a deep trust of God. She frequented the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, and it was observed that her piety increased on the approach of every feast of Our Lady.
 The Rosary was her only book, and her devotion to the Angelus was so great that she used to fall on her knees at the first sound of the bell, even though she heard it when crossing a stream.
And she had the most important prayer of all -- the Mass. Every day, without fail, she would leave her sheep in God's care and go to Mass. Villagers wondered that the sheep weren't attacked by the wolves in the woods when she left but God's protection never failed her. On several occasions the swollen waters were seen to open and afford her a passage without wetting her garments..
No matter how little Germaine had, she shared it with others. Her scraps of food were given to beggars. Her life of prayer became stories of God that entranced the village children.
But most startling of all was the forgiveness to showed to the woman who deserved her hatred.
Hortense, furious at the stories about her daughter's holiness, waited only to catch her doing wrong. One cold winter day, after throwing out a beggar that Germaine had let sleep in the barn, Hortense caught Germaine carrying something bundled up in her apron. Certain that Germaine had stolen bread to feed the beggar, she began to chase and scream at the child. As she began to beat her, Germaine opened her apron. Out tumbled what she had been hiding in her apron -- bright beautiful flowers that no one had expected to see for months. Where had she found the vibrant blossoms in the middle of the ice and snow? There was only one answer and Germaine gave it herself, when she handed a flower to her mother and said, "Please accept this flower, Mother. God sends it to you in sign of his forgiveness."
As the whole village began to talk about this holy child, even Hortense began to soften her feelings toward her. She even invited Germaine back to the house but Germaine had become used to her straw bed and continued to sleep in it.
At this point, when men were beginning to realize the beauty of her life, God called her to Himself. One morning in the early summer of 1601, her father finding that she had not risen at the usual hour went to call her; he found her dead on her pallet of vine-twigs. She was then twenty-two years old, overcome by a life of suffering.
With all the evidence of her holiness, her life was too simple and hidden to mean much beyond her tiny village -- until God brought it too light again.
When her body was exhumed forty years later, it was found to be undecayed, what is known as incorruptible.
As is often the case with incorruptible bodies of saints, God chooses not the outwardly beautiful to preserve but those that others despised as ugly and weak. It's as if God is saying in this miracle that human ideas of beauty are not his. To him, no one was more beautiful than this humble lonely young woman.

After her body was found in this state, the villagers started to speak again of what she had been like and what she had done.
Soon miracles were attributed to her intercession and the clamor for her canonization began.
Her remains were buried in the parish church of Pibrac in front of the pulpit. In 1644, when the grave was opened to receive one of her relatives, the body of Germaine was discovered fresh and perfectly preserved, and miraculously raised almost to the level of the floor of the church. It was exposed for public view near the pulpit, until a noble lady, the wife of François de Beauregard, presented as a thanks-offering a casket of lead to hold the remains. She had been cured of a malignant and incurable ulcer in the breast, and her infant son whose life was despaired of was restored to health on her seeking the intercession of Germaine. This was the first of a long series of wonderful cures wrought at her relics. The leaden casket was placed in the sacristy, and in 1661 and 1700 the remains were viewed and found fresh and intact by the vicars-general of Toulouse, who have left testamentary depositions of the fact. Expert medical evidence deposed that the body had not been embalmed, and experimental tests showed that the preservation was not due to any property inherent in the soil. In 1700 a movement was begun to procure the beatification of Germaine, but it fell through owing to accidental causes. In 1793 the casket was desecrated by a revolutionary tinsmith, named Toulza, who with three accomplices took out the remains and buried them in the sacristy, throwing quick-lime and water on them. After the Revolution, her body was found to be still intact save where the quick-lime had done its work.
The private veneration of Germaine had continued from the original finding of the body in 1644, supported and encouraged by numerous cures and miracles.
The cause of beatification was resumed in 1850. The documents attested more than 400 miracles or extraordinary graces, and thirty postulatory letters from archbishops and bishops in France besought the beatification from the Holy See. The miracles attested were cures of every kind (of blindness, congenital and resulting from disease, of hip and spinal disease), besides the multiplication of food for the distressed community of the Good Shepherd at Bourges in 1845. On 7 May, 1854, Pius IX proclaimed her beatification, and on 29 June, 1867, placed her on the canon of virgin saints. Her feast is kept in the Diocese of Toulouse on 15 June. She is represented in art with a shepherd's crook or with a distaff; with a watchdog, or a sheep; or with flowers in her apron.

In this way, the most unlikely of saints became recognized by the Church. She didn't found a religious order. She didn't reach a high Church post. She didn't write books or teach at universities. She didn't go to foreign lands as a missionary or convert thousands. What she did was live a life devoted to God and her neighbor no matter what happened to her. And that is all God asks.
In Her Footsteps:   Do you make excuses not to help others because you have so little yourself? Share something this week with those in need that may be painful for you to give up.
Prayer:   Saint Germaine, watch over those children who suffer abuse as you did. Help us to give them the love and protection you only got from God. Give us the courage to speak out against abuse when we know of it. Help us to forgive those who abuse the way you did, without sacrificing the lives of the children who need help. Amen

He accepted a martyr's death on 4 April 1602, and from the mid-XVII Century he is deeply venerated for manifold manifestations of grace in help of infirmities, in sorrow and in desperate straits.
Blessed Vasilii was the son of a not-rich inhabitant of Yaroslavl', Feodor by name, and was taken by a certain rich Yaroslavl' merchant to a place for the selling of his wares in sub-polar Mangazeia -- one of the first Russian cities in Siberia.
Vasilii strictly fulfilled the Christian commandments. From his early years his integrity was obvious to all. Meekness and humility were his finery, and his heart was filled with faith in God and by piety. Love for prayer impelled him during time of Divine-services to leave off with mundane concerns and to go to the holy church.
The devout youth just barely turned age 19, when the All-Supreme, "looking out for his virtue, did intend to summon him to eternal blessedness, the which to attain from this temporal life is impossible otherwise, than by the narrow and afflicted path of an external testing".

The body of the innocent martyr was put in a grave and without Christian burial was committed to the earth, "where it is duly moist from water". But the All-Mighty Lord after the passage of 47 years willed for it to appear from the bosom of the earth and to be glorified by many miracles.
Saint Vasilii many a time helped lost and danger-threatened travelers and fur-hunters; he healed palsy, blindness, and various other maladies; through the prayers of mothers he healed children, and preserved the despondent from suicide. There have been preserved copies of the Life of Saint Vasilii (XVII-XIX Cent.) that testify about the abundant manifestations of grace through prayers to the Mangazeia wonderworker.
In 1659 with the blessing of the Tobolsk metropolitan, Simeon, there was made an inspection of the relics of the saint, and from that time there began to spread veneration of him as one truly God-pleasing. In 1670 with the construction of the Turokhansk monastery of the Holy Trinity, priestmonk Tikhon transferred the relics of Righteous Vasilii into the monastery founded by him. In 1719 this monastery was visited by the great Siberian missionary -- the Tobolsk metropolitan, Philothei (Leschinsky), and he venerated the relics of the saint and compiled a canon to him. Towards the end of the first third of the XVIII Century there were compiled three services and several discourses on the day of memory of Righteous Vasilii.
The veneration of the God-pleasing saint contributed not a little to the conversion from paganism to Orthodoxy of the Tungus, Evenki and Yurak peoples. The peoples of the North turn to Saint Vasilii as a patron saint for the fur-hunter tradesmen.

One of the first icons of Saint Vasilii was written by a novice of the Tobolsk metropolitan Pavel -- the painter Luke, on the occasion of his miraculous deliverance from death. On the holy icons Saint Vasilii is depicted "with a boyish face, and small of stature", "in image of reverence, eyes having a sparkle, gazing intently, and the hair of his head dark blond". On several of the icons of the saint the Trinity Turukhansk monastery is depicted, and over it on a mount is Vasilii praying -- in but a shirt and without footwear. Sometimes also on the icons was depicted the suffering of the saint at the hands of the merchant and military-commander. Depictions of Saint Vasilii of Mangazeia are known of at the Vladimir cathedral in Kiev, at Novgorod, and at Moscow.
One of the first days of memory of the saint was on 22 March, when Holy Church remembers a saint of same name with him -- the PriestMartyr Basil of Ancyra. Afterwards, at the Turukhansk Trinity monastery his memory began to be celebrated on 10 May, in honour of remembrance of the transfer of his relics from Mangazeia to Turukhan. An earlier commemoration of Righteous Vasilii of Manganzeia was done under 6 June, on the day of appearance of his relics.

1604 Bd Juvenal Ancina, Bishop Of Saluzzo supernatural gifts and the performance of miracles
On October 19, 1545, was born at Fossano in Piedmont the first child of Durando Ancina, of a distinguished family of Spain, and his wife Lucy. The boy was baptized John Juvenal, in honour of St Juvenal of Nami, patron of Fossano. He was a pious youth, but at first he had no intention of entering upon other than a secular career; his father proposed that he should be a physician and sent Juvenal at the age of fourteen to begin his studies at the University of Montpellier. From thence he went to the school of Mondovi in Savoy and, after his father's death, to the University of Padua; he was a brilliant student, and when only about twenty-four took his doctorate both in philosophy and medicine at Turin.  Here he was appointed to the chair of medicine in 1569   and he soon had an extensive private practice, especially among the poor, because he treated them free of charge.  It was noticed that Juvenal never took part in games or recreations ; the only relaxations that he allowed himself were chess and the writing of verse in Latin and Italian
   He liked to deal with great affairs of church and state, and publicly declaimed his own ode on the death of Pope St Pius V in 1572.  He continued to write verses and hymns all through his life, and composed two epigrams on St Thomas More.  About this same year he was assisting at a solemn Mass of requiem in a church at Savigliano, when he was suddenly overwhelmed by the tremendous message of the Dies irae he must have heard the hymn often, and as a physician he was very familiar with death, but now he realized as never before that after death comes judgement.   Hitherto his life had been blameless, but now he saw that this was not enough; God required something more of him, though what it was he did not yet know.  He gave himself more than ever to prayer and meditation, trained himself in detachment from temporal things, and accepted the first opportunity that came along to relinquish his post at Turin. This was when Count Frederick Madrucci, ambassador of the duke of Savoy to the Holy See, asked him to become his personal private physician.
  Juvenal arrived in Rome in 1575, and took a lodging near the church of Ara Cueli, in a spot which appealed to him because it was, "close to the prisons, the
hospital, a multitude of the poor, and the prison for young criminals ".  His official work was not arduous and he set himself to the serious study of theology, having for his master St Robert Bellarmine himself; he became acquainted with Don Caesar Baronius, and by him was introduced to St Philip Neri, and so frequented the most learned and most devout society of Rome.  Thus he lived for three years, becoming ever more attracted to the formal religious life, but uncertain what definite step to take.   He received minor orders, attended regularly the exercises at the Oratory, and put himself under the direction of St Philip, on whose advice he accepted a benefice at Cherasco in Piedmont ; but almost at once legal proceedings were taken to dispossess him and he relinquished it without contesting the suit.  The fact was that he was disturbed in mind by the example of a leading lawyer at Turin, who had become a Carthusian monk at Pavia, and thought he saw in that an indication of what he must do.   His brother, John Matthew, with whom Juvenal kept up an intimate correspondence from Rome, was of one mind with him, and eventually they together consulted St Philip Neri.  He unhesitatingly dissuaded them from the Carthusian life, as being unsuited to their temperament and needs, and recommended to them the newly founded Congregation of the Oratory, over which he himself presided.    Juvenal at first dissented, wanting more austerity and solitude, but submitted to his director and on October 1, 1578, was admitted with his brother into the congregation.    Baronius said it had that day received a "second St Basil ".

  When Bd Juvenal had lived four years at the Oratory he was ordained priest, and in 1578 he was sent to the Oratory at Naples, the first house of his congregation to be founded outside Rome.    He was appointed to preach at once, and after a few sermons wrote to his brother, " These Neapolitans require very beautiful things, and they must be substantial as well.    Ordinary things are no use here, where even the cobblers can compose sermons, and make a profession of it.    One has to keep one's wits about one."  But Juvenal succeeded in pleasing even the fastidious Neapolitans, and they remembered the nickname that had been given him by some wit in Rome, "the son of thunder"; " By the grace of God the people are satisfied with me ", he writes.  One of his most sensational conversions was that of Giovannella Sanchia, a singer who was known in the city as "the Siren"-and not solely on account of her singing. She was so touched by hearing him speak of the beauty of holiness that she made a vow never again to sing any vain, improper or profane song, but only sacred songs. Bd Juvenal was very fond of music; we are told that " he wished Vespers to be sung with the best music, or if that were not attainable, with Gregorian chant faultlessly executed "-a critical distinction that is not acceptable to everybody.  He therefore took a great deal of care with the music at the Naples Oratory, not simply from the point of view of the decencies of Christian worship and the honour due to Almighty God, but also because he had a firm belief in its good effect on the soul ; he got hold of all the latest popular airs and wrote devout words to them (whether or not to be sung in the Oratory church does not appear) and published a hymn-book with tunes, called the Temple of Harmony.  One of the Oratorians, Father Borla, took up his quarters at the Hospital for Incurables, which for long had been grossly neglected.    Bd Juvenal supported him and enlisted the interest and assistance of the Neapolitan ladies, whom he formed into a confraternity of " Kind Ladies" ; to ensure that the object for which they were banded together should not be lost sight of, it had its headquarters not at a church but in the hospital itself.  His own material charity was boundless; its most unusual manifestation (but a very useful one) was to have a deposit account with a birber, to whom he sent any poor man whom he saw with unkempt hair or beard; and the barber was under orders when he met any such to use his skill on them and " put it down to Father Juvenal ".  How much he was respected and loved by the whole city he betrays himself in a letter written to St Philip, when convalescent from a serious illness. He obediently accepted the comforts that were provided for him by his brethren and took a reasonable pleasure in them.
   About the year 1595, when he had been in Naples nearly ten years, Juvenal was tormented on the one hand by a desire for the cloistered and contemplative life, and on the other by the sight of so much wretchedness and wickedness around him which he could do relatively little to alleviate and reform.   But in 1596 Baronius was made a cardinal and the fathers of the Roman Oratory recalled Bd Juvenal from Naples to fill the vacant place in their community.  Greatly fearing what responsible dignities might be thrust on him in Rome, he obeyed at once, to the great grief of the Neapolitans;  he carried on quietly for a year and then suddenly three episcopal sees fell vacant.  Bd Juvenal had good reason to think that he would be preferred to one of them; he went out from the Oratory one day and did not return, and after hiding for a time in the city fled from Rome.  He spent the next five months wandering from place to place.  At San Severino he received an imperative order to come back to Rome, and found when he got there that the danger of his being made bishop was, for the moment, over. During the next four years he worked with great energy on behalf of the Piedmontese, and met and entered into intimate friendship with St Francis de Sates.

   In 1602 the duke of Savoy asked Clement VIII to fill the two vacant sees in his dominions, and the pope personally charged Bd Juvenal to accept the charge of one of them.  "It is time to obey and not to fly ", said he, and on September 1 was consecrated bishop of Saluzzo by Cardinal Borghese. His troubles began at once.  When he went to take possession of his see he found that, owing to certain actions of the duke of Savoy, he could do so only either by compromising the rights of the Church or breaking with his prince. So he withdrew to Fossano, wrote a pastoral letter for his diocese, and devoted himself to good works for the benefit of his native town; supernatural gifts and the performance of miracles were, not for the first time, freely attributed to him.   After four months he was able to take possession of his cathedral, and one of his first acts was to observe the "Forty Hours" therein, for the first time in Piedmont. Towards the end of 1603 Bd Juvenal set out on a visitation of his diocese.  Supernatural happenings again attended his progress, especially by way of healing and prophecy-Juvenal had at all times a disconcerting habit of correctly foretelling people's approaching death.  Both before and during this visitation he had foretold his own, and he had only been back in Saluzzo a few weeks when his prophecy came true.
   There was in the town a certain friar who was carrying on an intrigue with a nun ; this came to the ears of Bd Juvenal, who reasoned gently with them both but warned them that if their conduct was continued he would use strong measures to stop it.  On the feast of St Bernard he went to officiate for and to dine with the Conventual Franciscans, it being the name-day of their church, and the criminal friar took the opportunity to poison the bishop's wine. Before Vespers he was taken ill; four days later he had to retire to bed; and by the dawn of August 31 Bd Juvenal Ancina was dead.  "He died ", wrote a Carthusian monk, "for virtue, for religion, for Christ, and therefore a martyr's death " ; like St John the Baptist, he "received martyrdom as the reward of fearless speech".      Marvels attended his lying-in-state and burial, Masses of the Holy Ghost were celebrated rather than requiems, and the cause of his beatification was introduced at Rome in 1624; this received several set-backs and postponements and was not finally achieved till 1869, when the Vatican Council had just assembled.

He was famous for his charity to the poor and his power to heal sickness (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1609 St John Leonardi, Founder of The Clerks Regular of The Mother Of God

John Leonardi was a young assistant to an apothecary in the city of Lucca in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was of a religious disposition, became a member of a confraternity founded by Bd John Colombini, and after a time began to study privately with the object of receiving holy orders.  After he had been ordained he was very active in the works of the ministry, especially in hospitals and prisons, and he attracted several young laymen to assist him. Their headquarters was at the church of St Mary Della Rosa in Lucca, and they lived in common in a house near by.
    It was a time when the Council of Trent and the ravages of Protestantism had filled serious Catholics with a passion for reform, and John Leonardi and his followers, several of whom were studying for the priesthood, soon projected a new congregation of secular priests. When this scheme was spread abroad it at once provoked powerful opposition in the Lucchesan republic. This opposition was political, and rather difficult to understand, but was formidable enough to keep the founder an exile from Lucca for practically the rest of his life except when he was able to visit there under special papal protection.
   In 1580 he secretly acquired the church of Santa Maria Cortelandini (or Nera) for the use of his followers, who three years later were recognized officially by the bishop of Lucca, with the approval of Pope Gregory XIII, as an association of secular priests with simple vows (they were granted their present name and solemn vows in 1621). St John received the encouragement and, help of St Philip Neri, who gave up to him his premises at San Girolamo della Carità, together with the care of his cat; and of St Joseph Calasanctius, with whose congregation his own was fused for a short time.
    Father Leonardi and his priests became so great a power for good in Italy that Clement VIII confirmed their congregation in 1595. This pope had a very great regard for the character and capabilities of St John, and appointed him commissary apostolic to superintend the reform of the monks of Vallumbrosa and Monte Vergine. He obtained from Clement the church of Santa Maria in Portico, and Cardinal Baronius was made cardinal protector of the congregation.

St John’s miracles and his zeal for the spread of the faith are referred to by the Roman Martyrology, but the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God have had only one house outside of Italy. By the deliberate policy of their founder they never had more than fifteen churches, and they form today only a very small congregation. The saint was associated with Mgr J. B. Vives in the first planning of a seminary for foreign missions, instituted by Pope Urban VIII in 1627 as the College de Propaganda Fide.
   John Leonardi died on October 9, 1609, from disease caught when tending the plague-stricken. He was canonized in 1938, and his feast was added to the general calendar in 1941.
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 7, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square.
Dear brothers and sisters! 
The day after tomorrow, Oct. 9, will be the 400th anniversary of the death of St. John Leonardi, founder of the religious order of Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, canonized on April 17, 1938, and chosen patron of pharmacists on Aug. 8, 2006. He is also remembered for his great missionary zeal.

Together with Monsignor Juan Bautista Vives and Jesuit Martin de Funes, he planned and contributed to the establishment of a specific Congregation of the Holy See for the missions, that of Propoganda Fide, and to the future birth of the Pontifical Urbanian Athenaeum "De Propoganda Fide," which in the course of centuries has forged thousands of priests, many of them martyrs, to evangelize peoples. We are speaking, therefore, of a luminous priestly figure, which I am pleased to point out as an example to all presbyters in this Year for Priests. He died in 1609 from influenza contracted while he was giving himself to the care of all those who had been stricken by the epidemic in the Roman quarter of Campitelli.
 
John Leonardi was born in 1541 in Diecimo, in the province of Lucca. The last of seven siblings, his adolescence was sprinkled with rhythms of faith lived in a healthy and industrious family group, as well as the assiduous frequenting of a shop of herbs and medicines in his native town. At age 17 his father enrolled him in a regular course in pharmacy in Lucca, with the aim of making him a future pharmacist, that is, an apothecary, as they were called then. For close to a decade young John Leonardi was vigilant and diligent in following this, but when, according to the norms established by the former Republic of Lucca, he acquired the official recognition that would have allowed him to open his own shop, he began to think if perhaps the moment had not arrived to fulfill a plan that he had always had in his heart.

After mature reflection he decided to direct himself toward the priesthood. And thus, having left the apothecary's pharmacy, and acquired an appropriate theological formation, he was ordained a priest and celebrated his first Mass on the feast of Epiphany of 1572. However, he did not abandon his passion for pharmaceutics because he felt that professional mediation as a pharmacist would allow him to realize fully his vocation of transmitting to men, through a holy life, "the medicine of God," which is Jesus Christ crucified and risen, "measure of all things."
 
Animated by the conviction that, more than any other thing, all human beings need such medicine, St. John Leonardi tried to make the personal encounter with Jesus Christ the fundamental reason of his existence. It is necessary to "start anew from Christ," he liked to repeat very often.

The primacy of Christ over everything became for him the concrete criterion of judgment and action and the generating principle of his priestly activity, which he exercised while a vast and widespread movement of spiritual renewal was under way in the Church, thanks to the flowering of new religious institutes and the luminous witness of saints such as Charles Borromeo, Philip Neri, Ignatius of Loyola, Joseph Calasanzius, Camillus of Lellis and Aloysius Gonzaga.

He dedicated himself with enthusiasm to the apostolate among youth through the Company of Christian Doctrine, gathering around himself a group of young men with whom, on Sept. 1, 1574, he founded the Congregation of Reformed Priests of the Blessed Virgin, subsequently called the Order of Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. He recommended to his disciples to have "before the mind's eye only the honor, service and glory of Christ Jesus Crucified," and, like a good pharmacist, accustomed to giving out potions according to careful measurements, he would add: "Raise your hearts to God a bit more and measure things with him."
 
Moved by apostolic zeal, in May 1605 he sent newly elected Pope Paul V a report in which he suggested the criteria for a genuine renewal of the Church. Observing how it is "necessary that those who aspire to the reform of men's practices must seek especially, and firstly, the glory of God," he added that they should stand out "for their integrity of life and excellence of customs thus, rather than constraining, they gently draw one to reform." Moreover, he observed that "whoever wishes to carry out a serious moral and religious reform must make first of all, like a good doctor, a careful diagnosis of the evils that beset the Church so as to be able to prescribe for each of them the most appropriate remedy." And he noted that "the renewal of the Church must be confirmed as much in leaders as in followers, high and low. It must begin from those who command and be extended to the subjects."

It was because of this that, while soliciting the Pope to promote a "universal reform of the Church," he was concerned with the Christian formation of the people, especially of the young, educating them "from their early years ... in the purity of the Christian faith and in holy practices."
 
Dear brothers and sisters, the luminous figure of this saint invites priests, in the first place, and all Christians, to tend constantly to the "high measure of the Christian life," which is sanctity -- each, of course, according to his own state. In fact, only from fidelity to Christ can genuine ecclesial renewal spring.

In those years, in the cultural and social passage between the 16th and 17th century, the premises of the future contemporary culture began to be delineated, characterized by an undue separation of faith and reason. This has produced among its negative effects the marginalization of God, with the illusion of a possible and total autonomy of man who chooses to live "as if God did not exist." This is the crisis of modern thought, which many times I have had the opportunity to point out and which often leads to a form of relativism.

John Leonardi intuited what the real medicine was for these spiritual evils and he synthesized it in the expression: "Christ first of all," Christ in the center of the heart, in the center of history and of the cosmos. And humanity -- he affirmed forcefully -- needs Christ intensely, because he is our "measure." There is no realm that cannot be touched by his strength; there is no evil that cannot find remedy in him, there is no problem that cannot be solved in him. "Either Christ or nothing!" Here is his prescription for every type of spiritual and social reform.
 
There is another aspect of the spirituality of St. John Leonardi that I would like to highlight. In many circumstances he had to confirm that a living encounter with Christ is realized in his Church: holy but fragile, rooted in history and in a sometimes dark future, where wheat and weeds grow together (cf. Matthew 13:30), but, nevertheless, always the sacrament of salvation. Having a clear awareness that the Church is the field of God (cf. Matthew 13:24), he was not scandalized by her human weaknesses. To oppose the weeds he chose to be good wheat: He decided, that is, to love Christ in the Church and to contribute to render her an ever more transparent sign of him.

He saw the Church with great realism, her human frailty, but also her being "God's field," the instrument of God for the salvation of humanity. And not only this. For love of Christ he worked with alacrity to purify the Church, to render her more beautiful and holy. He understood that every reform is made within the Church and never against the Church.

In this, St. John Leonardi was truly extraordinary and his example is always timely. Every reform certainly involves structures, but in the first place it must be engraved in the hearts of believers. Only the saints, men and women who allow themselves to be guided by the divine Spirit, ready to carry out radical and courageous choices in the light of the Gospel, renew the Church and contribute, in a decisive way, to building a better world.
 
Dear brothers and sisters, St. John Leonardi's existence was always enlightened by the splendor of the "Holy Face" of Jesus, kept and venerated in the Cathedral Church of Lucca, becoming the eloquent symbol and the indisputable synthesis of the faith that animated him. Conquered by Christ like the Apostle Paul, he pointed out to his disciples, and continues to point out to all of us, the Christocentric ideal for which "it is necessary to divest oneself of every self interest and only look to the service of God," having "before the mind's eye only the honor, service and glory of Christ Jesus Crucified."

Along with the face of Christ, he fixed his gaze on the maternal face of Mary. She whom he chose patroness of his order, was for him teacher, sister and mother, and he felt her constant protection. May the example and intercession of this "fascinating man of God" be, particularly in this Year for Priests, a call and encouragement for priests and for all Christians to live their own vocations with passion and enthusiasm. [Translation by ZENIT]
 
[The Pope then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]
 Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This week marks the four hundreth anniversary of the death of Saint John Leonardi, the founder of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God and a priest whose missionary zeal found expression in the establishment of the congregation of Propoganda Fide. Saint John was born near Lucca, and after training as a pharmacist, became a priest committed to offering "the medicine of God" to the men and women of his time. At a period of great reform and renewal in the life of the Church, he made the crucified Christ the centre of his preaching and the criterion of all his activity. John understood that all true reform is born of fidelity to Christ and love for the Church. It was love for Christ which inspired his efforts to catechize the young, to promote missionary activity and to renew Christian life and practice. Saint John was convinced that Christ is the true measure of man, and so he worked with great realism and zeal to promote holiness and the reform of society. During this Year for Priests, may the figure of this great missionary inspire priests and laity alike to "start anew from Christ" and embrace their vocation with passionate enthusiasm.

I offer a warm welcome to the English-speaking visitors at today’s Audience, including the Sisters and friends of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of their foundation by Mary Ward. My particular greetings go to the groups of faithful from Iraq, from the Archdiocese of Samoa-Apia, and to the Diaconate ordination candidates from the Pontifical North American College accompanied by their families and friends. Upon all of you I invoke God’s blessings of joy and peace! © Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vatican

Pontiff Notes Saint's Light in Trying Times VATICAN CITY, OCT. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).-
Cardinal, Clerks Regular Remember Giovanni Leonardi
St. Giovanni Leonardi made the light of Christ shine in difficult times, Benedict XVI said in a message read today at a Mass to mark the 400th anniversary of the founder's death. The Mass today in St. Peter's Basilica was celebrated by Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

St. Giovanni Leonardi founded the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. He is also the patron of pharmacists. The Pope reflected on his teaching and role during the general audience two weeks ago. The papal message was addressed to Father Francesco Petrillo, rector general of the order.

Cardinal Dias repeated this point in his homily, saying that Leonardi, “with his luminous life, brought God back to men.”
St. Giovanni Leonardi, the cardinal said as the Church marks today's World Mission Sunday, wanted an entirely missionary Church, “without the interference of political or administrative patronage,” but intimately directed toward man.

At the close of his customary Sunday recitation of the Angelus, the Pope greeted the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, who had come for the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of St. Giovanni Leonardi’s death, along with the students of the Colleges of the Propaganda Fidei and representatives of pharmacists, who have the saint as their patron, calling on them “to follow him on the path of holiness and to imitate his missionary zeal.”

A few days later, Patriarch Joseph died and was buried next to St Job.

See V. Castillo, Vita del B. Giovanni de Ribera (1796); M. Belda, Vida del B. Juan de Ribera (1802) and P. Boronat y Barrachina, Los Moriscos españoles y su Expulsion (1901).

He usually preached with a crucifix in his hands and the fire of the Holy Spirit in his words.

The second time he was condemned to death. He did not die, so he was banished instead.

Many miracles were reported in the acts of his beatification (Benedictines, Husenbeth).

1614 Camillus de Lellis, Priest To him the only people that mattered were the sick, for in serving them he was serving God charity was the only thing that made life worth living, the surest way of bringing man closer to God, the only true life-blood of the Church for the first time the patients were separated into different wards according to the nature of their maladie RM
Born at Bucchianico, Abruzzi, Italy, 1550; canonized in 1746; feast day formerly July 18. To Saint Camillus de Lellis the only people that mattered were the sick, for in serving them he was serving God. With other people he was hard, brusque and obstinate, but with the sick he was gentle and loving. In his eyes charity was the only thing that made life worth living, the surest way of bringing man closer to God, the only true life-blood of the Church; charity that Saint Paul had said was greater even than faith and hope.

Once a cardinal asked to see him while he was busy tending the sick.
 "His Excellency will have to excuse me," said Camillus. "For the moment I am with Our Lord. I will see His Excellency when I have finished."
To another cardinal, who was a member of the administrative council for the hospitals in Rome, he said:

If the administration was slow in giving him the supplies that he needed, he would go out on foot or with a little donkey and beg from door to door. "I do not think," he said, "that in the whole world there is a field of flowers whose scent could be sweeter to me than is the small of these hospitals." "These holy places," as he once called the hospital, were also the best places to convert souls to God.
His charity was not confined within the walls of the hospitals.

Nor did he confine himself to Rome, for he and his companions, the Camillans, extended their activities to Milan, Genoa, Florence, Mantua, Messina, Palermo, to the battlefields of Hungary where the Austrian and Italian armies were fighting against the Turks (1595- 1601), travelling on foot in shabby and travel-stained clothes, indifferent to the bitter cold of winter the scorching heat of summer.

1639 ST MARTIN DE PORRES
AMONG the people to whom the epithet “half-caste” is often given as a term of contempt, the first of whom it is recorded that he practised Christian virtue in an heroic degree is this Dominican lay-brother. He was born in Lima in Peru in 1579, the natural child of John de Porres (Porras), a Spanish knight, and a coloured freed-woman from Panama, Anna by baptism. Young Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother, which was a matter of vexation to the noble Porres, who nevertheless acknowledged the boy and his sister as his children, but eventually left Martin to the care of his mother. When he was twelve she apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon; but three years later, having received the habit of the third order of St Dominic, he was admitted to the Rosary convent of the Friars Preachers at Lima, eventually becoming a professed lay-brother.
   “Many were the offices to which the servant of God, Brother Martin de Porres, attended, being barber, surgeon, wardrobe-keeper and infirmarian. Each of these jobs was enough for any one man, but alone he filled them all with great liberality, promptness and carefulness, without being weighed down by any of them. It was most striking, and it made me [Brother Fernando de Aragones] realize that, in that he clung to God in his soul, all these things were effects of divine grace.”
   Martin extended his care of the sick to those of the city, and was instrumental in establishing an orphanage and foundling-hospital, with other charitable institutions attached; he was given the office of distributing the convent’s daily alms of food to the poor (which he is said sometimes to have increased miraculously); and he took upon himself to care for the miserable slaves who were brought to Peru from Africa. He was greatly desirous of going to some foreign mission where he might earn the crown of martyrdom, but this was impossible, so he made a martyr of his own body; and as well as of his penances much is said of his aerial flights, bilocations and other supernatural gifts. Brother Martin’s charity embraced the lower animals (which seems to have surprised the Spaniards) and even vermin, excusing the depredations of rats and mice on the ground that the poor little things were insufficiently fed, and he kept a “cats’ and dogs’ home” at his sister’s house.

ST Martin’s protégé, Juan Vasquez Parra, shows the lay-brother as eminently practical in his charities, using carefully and methodically the money and goods he collected, raising a dowry for his niece in three days (at the same time getting as much and more for the poor), putting up the banns, showing Parra how to sow camomile in the well-manured hoof-prints of cattle, buying a Negro servant to work in the laundry, looking after those who needed blankets, shirts, candles, sweets, miracles or prayers—the procurator apparently both of the priory and the public. Don Balthasar Carasco, a jurist, wanted to be Brother Martin’s “adopted son” and to call him “father”. Martin objected: “Why do you want a mulatto for a father? That would not look well”.—“Why not ? It would rather be said that you have a Spaniard for a son”, retorted Don Balthasar. On one occasion when his priory was being dunned for a debt, Martin offered himself in payment:  “I am only a poor mulatto; I’m the property of the order: sell me.”

ST Martin was a close friend of St Rose of Lima as well as of Bd John Massias, who was a lay brother at the Dominican priory of St Mary Magdalen in the same town. Martin was at the Rosary priory, and he died there on November 3, 1639:  prelates and noblemen carried him to his grave. He was beatified in 1837, after long delays, and canonized on May 6, 1962. He is patron of social justice.

Fr Van Ortroy adopted in this case a course unprecedented in earlier volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, for he printed a tolerably full account of the servant of God in a modern language. Fr B. de Medina gave testimony regarding Martin de Porres before the apostolic commission in 1683 his evidence was translated into Italian for the benefit of the C.R.S. in Rome, and this version Fr Van Ortroy reproduced. But see also With Bd Martin (1945), pp. 132—168, and the Fifteenth Anniversary Book (1950), pp. 130—158, publications of the Blessed Martin Guild, New York, edited by Fr Norbert Georges, where are printed trans­lations of the evidence of ten witnesses at the apostolic process. The appropriate adoption of Bd Martin in America and elsewhere as patron of work for inter-racial justice and harmony has led to the publication of several popular and devotional works on him, such as that of J. C. Kearns (1950). There is a life in French by S. Fumet (1933), rather uncritical. See Fr C. C. Martindale in The Month, April 1920, pp. 300—313 and M. C. de Ganay in Vie spirituelle, vol. ix (1923—24), notably pp. 54—61.   

Born at Lima, Peru 1579 St. Martin de Porres'  father was a Spanish gentleman and his mother a coloured freed-woman from Panama. At fifteen, he became a lay brother at the Dominican Friary at Lima and spent his whole life there-as a barber, farm laborer, almoner, and infirmarian among other things.
Martin had a great desire to go off to some foreign mission and thus earn the palm of martyrdom. However, since this was not possible, he made a martyr out of his body, devoting himself to ceaseless and severe penances. In turn, God endowed him with many graces and wondrous gifts, such as, aerial flights and bilocation.
St. Martin's love was all-embracing, shown equally to humans and to animals, including vermin, and he maintained a cats and dogs hospital at his sister's house. He also possessed spiritual wisdom, demonstrated in his solving his sister's marriage problems, raising a dowry for his niece inside of three day's time, and resolving theological problems for the learned of his Order and for bishops. A close friend of St. Rose of Lima, this saintly man died on November 3, 1639 and was canonized on May 6, 1962. His feast day is November 3.

Martin de Porres, OP (AC)
Born at Lima, Peru, on November 9, 1579; died November 3, 1639; beatified in 1837; canonized on May 5, 1962, by Pope John XXIII; feast day formerly November 5.
Martin was the illegitimate child of Juan de Porres, a Spanish knight (hidalgo) from Alcantara, and Anna Velasquez, a free Panamanian mullato. Martin inherited his mother's features and dark skin, which upset his father, but John acknowledged his paternity of Martin and his sister while neglecting them. He was left to the care of his mother, and at 12 he was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon, who taught him the healing arts.

Martin's prayer life was rich even in his youth. He had a deep devotion to the Passion of Our Lord, and continually prayed to know what he could do in gratitude for the immense blessings of redemption.
    Martin de Porres
Deciding upon the religious life, at the age of 15, Martin received the habit of the Third Order of Saint Dominic and was admitted to the Dominican Rosary Convent at Lima as a servant. He gave himself the lowliest duties of the house. Finally, his superiors commanded him to accept the habit of a lay brother-- something Martin felt was too great an honor for him--and he was professed.

He served in several offices in the convent--barber, infirmarian, wardrobe keeper--as well as in the garden and as a counsellor. Soon Martin's reputation as a healer spread abroad. He nursed the sick of the city, including plague victims, regardless of race, and helped to found an orphanage and foundling hospital with other charities attached to them. He distributed the convent's alms of food (which he is said sometimes to have increased miraculously) to the poor. Martin especially ministered to the slaves that had been brought from Africa.

He cured as much through prayer as through his knowledge of the medical arts. Among the countless many whose cures were attributed to Martin were a priest dying from a badly infected leg and a young student whose fingers were so damaged in an accident that his hopes for ordination to the priesthood were nearly quenched.

1640 St. Joan de Lestonnac Foundress many miracles different kinds occurred at her tomb
St. Joan de Lestonnac was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1556. She married at the age of seventeen. The happy marriage produced four children, but her hasband died suddenly in 1597.
After her children were raised, she entered the Cistercian monastery at Toulouse. Joan was forced to leave the Cistercians when she became afflicted with poor health.
She returned to Bordeaux with the idea of forming a new congregation, and several young girls joined her as novices. They ministered to victims of a plague that struck Bordeaux, and they were determined to counteract the evils of heresy promulgated by Calvinism. Thus was formed the Congregation of the Religious of Notre Dame of Bordeaux. In 1608, Joan and her companions received the religious habit from the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Joan was elected superior in 1610, and many miracles occurred at her tomb. She was canonized in 1949 by Pope Pius XII.

Jeanne de Lestonnac, Widow Foundress (RM)(also known as Jane or Joan de Lestonnac) Born in Bordeaux, France, in 1556; died there February 2, 1640; beatified in 1900;

The story of Joan's long life reflects the importance of the domestic church in forming God's servants. Our saint triumphed over ill-health and the evil plottings of a wicked woman. Joan was the daughter of a good Catholic father of a distinguished family at a time when Calvinism was flourishing in Bordeaux.
 Her mother, however, was Joan Eyquem de Montaigne, the apostate sister of the famous essayist Michael de Montaigne. Her mother continually tried to undermine Joan's faith; when her attempts failed, she would abuse the child. These troubles, however, turned Joan's heart more fervently to God and made her long for a life of prayer and mortification.

At age 17 (1573), Joan was happily married to Gaston de Montferrant, who was related to the royal houses of France, Aragon, and Navarre. Joan was devoted to her husband and bore him one son and three daughters. After 24 years of deeply happy marriage, Gaston died in 1597. She continued to care for her children until they were old enough to be independent.

Two of Joan's daughters had felt drawn to religious life, and, at age 47 (1603), Joan herself then decided to enter the Cistercian monastery of Les Feuillantes at Toulouse despite the objections of her son and her anxiety over leaving her youngest daughter. The harsh regimen of life there caused her to become seriously ill.

She wanted to die in the convent, yet her wise superiors perceived what an exceptional woman Joan was and understood that God had other plans for her. They encouraged her to attempt a great service for God by founding an order of women devoted to Our Lady.
She miraculously recovered her health the moment she left the convent. Joan gathered a band of young girls on her estate, La Mothe in Périgord, where she spent two quiet years. Returning to Bordeaux, their first task became bravely serving as nurses during a savage plague that struck the people of Bordeaux.

A number of priests, including the Jesuit fathers Jean de Bordes and Raymond, had come to recognize the utter devotion of Joan, and realized the devastation Calvinism was working among young girls of all classes who were deprived of Catholic education. They saw the need for an order to educate young girls as the Jesuits educated boys.

To both of these priests the assurance was given simultaneously, while they were celebrating Mass, that it was the will of God that they should assist in founding an order to counteract the evils of the surrounding heresy, and that Mme de Lestonnac should be the first superior.
In 1606, Fathers de Bordes and Raymond helped Joan persuade Cardinal de Sourdis, archbishop of Bordeaux, to support her religious order.

The congregation was affiliated with the Benedictines, but its rule and constitutions were founded on those of Saint Ignatius Loyola. Her scheme was approved by Pope Paul V in 1607. The following year the sisters received the habit from the cardinal and, in 1610, Joan became the mother superior on the first house in Bordeaux of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

Seeking only the barest necessities for themselves, her sisters founded schools throughout the region, welcoming into them any girl who could come, with the aim of stemming the tide of Calvinism. But while this work prospered, exceeding all expectations but God's, two problems arose at Bordeaux.
The archbishop of Bordeaux resented attempts to gain extradiocesan freedom, and one vicious sister named Blanche Hervé, the director of one of the houses, began to spread lies about Joan. The authorities, including the cardinal, believed the concoctions, and Joan was dismissed as superior and Blanche intruded in her place as superior.

Here her great meekness triumphed. For three years Joan was beaten and humiliated, but she bore all so patiently that even Blanche Hervé was moved to confess her own maliciousness and the two reconciled. Joan de Lestonnac no longer wished to work as mother superior, but passed her last years highly honored by her order.

From 1625 to 1631, Joan visited each of the other 26 houses in turn. By the time she had returned to Bordeaux, two of her daughters and at least one grand-daughter had joined the Company of Mary, for which the revised rules and constitutions were drawn up in 1638. Meanwhile, her health began to fail and she died. Miracles of different kinds were reported at her tomb in Bordeaux. Her nuns now number about 2,500 and serve in 17 countries (Attwater, Attwater2, Benedictines, Bentley, Coulson, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Walsh).

1645 St. John de Massias  Dominican monk at Lima austerities, miracles, and visions
Peru. He was born in Ribera, Spain, to a noble family and was orphaned at a young age. John went to Peru to work on a cattle ranch before entering the Dominicans at Lima as a lay brother, assigned to serve as a doorkeeper, or porter. He was known for his austerities, miracles, and visions. John cared for all the poor of Lima, dying there on September 16. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1975 .

1645 Saint John Masias Marvelous Dominican Gatekeeper of Lima, Peru truly a "child of God." saint of simplicity charity levitated Many miracles were attributed saved souls in Purgatory
(1585-1645) Some saints have been brilliant leaders who steered their way through complicated courses.  Others have been renowned rather for their childlike simplicity.  St. John Masias of Lima, Peru, a friend and fellow Dominican of St. Martin de Porres, was like Martin, truly a "child of God."
John, a native of Rivera, Plasencia, Spain, is said to have been descended from a noble family that had become impoverished.  Whatever his lineage, he was orphaned at an early age, and raised by an uncle, who made him tend sheep to support himself and his brothers and sisters.  With no opportunity for schooling, Juan grew up illiterate.  The solitude of shepherding, however, gave him, as it has given to other saints, ample opportunity for recollection and prayer.  Sometimes as he recited the rosary, he sensed the presence of Our Lady and St. John the Evangelist.
When he was 21, he felt inspired by St. John the Evangelist to migrate to South America--a popular choice of many Spaniards in those days when Spain was colonizing Latin America.  The merchant who took him across the Atlantic abandoned him at Cartagena, Colombia, because he could neither read nor write.  Making his way gradually to Lima, John entered the employ of a landholder who assigned him to work with his cattle and sheep.  "On retreat" again among the animals, Masias resumed his old devotional schedule.
Around 1621, Juan decided to apply for entry into the Dominicans as a lay brother.  Giving away what remained of his savings, he was clothed in the Dominican habit at the Lima convent of St. Mary Magdalen.  During his Dominican career Brother John held only one post, that of porter of the convent, but it was in this role that he earned heaven.
The monastic life suited John to a "T".  He embraced penitential practices so harsh that his prior ordered him to tone them down.  Though he had lost the sheepfold as a favored place of private prayer, he found a hidden corner in the monastery garden that he called his Gethsemane.
But John became noted particularly for his works of charity.  Every day the poor, the sick and the abandoned would come to the door to receive bread from him. (The convent still preserves the basket he used to hold the loaves.) If his beloved poor were too shy to come begging at the convent, he would search them out in their own homes.
Collecting the food to give was his preliminary duty.
To save himself time in begging door to door, he trained the priory's donkey to go about town alone with baskets on its back.  When the people saw it coming, they would put food and clothing into its baskets for Brother Juan to distribute.  Nor did John content himself with silent almsgiving.  His contact with the needy gave him an opportunity to advise them and encourage them to love God and live good lives.  There is no doubt that Blessed Juan copied this style of apostolate from his good friend, fellow-Dominican lay brother and fellow townsman, the holy mulatto St. Martin de Porres.  Many miracles were attributed to Brother John.
Historians have often criticized the Spaniards who colonized Peru and other parts of Latin America for greed and harshness.  But we must not forget the bright side, the holy side of their colonial efforts.
Thus, Lima itself could boast of two saints early canonized: St. Rose of Lima and Archbishop St. Toribio de Mogrovejo.  More recent popes have added to that calendar two more, saints of simplicity and charity: St. Martin de Porres (canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII) and St. John Masias (canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI).  Of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Name/Title: Saint John Masias - Marvelous Dominican Gatekeeper of Lima, Peru
Author:      Mary Fabyan Windeatt No. Pages:     156
"I'm going to see Father Prior about this!" sputtered old Father Francis, as the little group of priests and brothers peered into the chapel at Brother John. Brother John was praying ardently-several feet off the floor! "There is no need to have these... these acrobatics! And right in the sanctuary, too!"
The others did not know what to say. `Brother John is a saint," ventured one brother.
Father Francis, however, dismissed the wonder with a wave of his hand. "I'm quite sure that Brother John is a saint," he declared, "but I still see no reason for him to float about in the air! Some of our younger brothers may think they should be able to float in the air too!"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed one young priest. "That won't happen!"
"That's what you think!" came the reply. "I shall speak to Father Prior and ask him to put a stop to all such exhibitions. Brother John will have to obey him!"
What would the Prior say? Would he agree with Father Francis?
This book gives the answer. It also tells how John Masias came from Spain to the New World, how he was fired from a job because of his poor education, how he went on miraculous travels, how he fought the Devil, and how he freed over a million souls from Purgatory. All in all, this is the wonderful story of St. John Masias, the marvelous Dominican gatekeeper of Lima. Peru.

1642 Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye led beggars life worked many miracles after death
was a nobleman, but he concealed his origin and led the life of a beggar. He walked through the villages and for free sewed half-coats and other clothes, primarily for the poor. While doing this he deliberately failed to sew something, either a glove, or a scarf, for which he endured abuse from his customers.

The ascetic wandered much, but most often he lived at a churchyard of the village of Merkushinsk not far from the city of Verkhoturye (on the outskirts of Perm). St Simeon loved nature in the Urals, and while joyfully contemplated its majestic beauty, he would raise up a thoughtful glance towards the Creator of the world. In his free time, the saint loved to go fishing in the tranquility of solitude. This reminded him of the disciples of Christ, whose work he continued, guiding the local people in the true Faith. His conversations were a seed of grace, from which gradually grew the abundant fruits of the Spirit in the Urals and in Siberia, where the saint is especially revered.

St Simeon of Verkhoturye died in 1642, when he was 35 years of age. He was buried in the Merkushinsk graveyard by the church of the Archangel Michael.

On September 12, 1704, with the blessing of Metropolitan Philotheus of Tobolsk, the holy relics of St Simeon were transferred from the church of the Archangel Michael to the Verkhoturye monastery in the name of St Nicholas.

St Simeon worked many miracles after his death. He frequently appeared to the sick in dreams and healed them, and he brought to their senses those fallen into the disease of drunkenness. A peculiarity of the saint's appearances was that with the healing of bodily infirmities, he also gave instruction and guidance for the soul.

1654 Saint Athanasius III Patelarios, Patriarch of Constantinople, Wonderworker of Lubensk relics  glorified by numerous miracles and signs, rest in the city of Kharkov, in the Annunciation cathedral church
In the world Alexis, was born in 1560 on the island of Crete, into the pious Greek family Patelarios. Despite his education and position in society, Alexis was attracted by the life of Christian ascetics. After his father's death, he became a novice in one of the monasteries of Thessalonica with the name Ananias. From there, he he later went to the monastery of Esphimenou on Mt. Athos, where he fulfilled his obedience in the trapeza (dining area).

From Athos he journeyed to the Palestinian monasteries, and he was tonsured with the name Athanasius. Upon his return to Thessalonica he was ordained presbyter and spread the Gospel of Christ among the Vlachs and the Moldovians, for whom he translated the PSALTER from the Greek. Sometimes, the saint went to Mt. Athos for solitude, and to ask God's blessing on his pastoral work. The holiness of his life attracted many Christians who wished to see a true preacher of the Orthodox Faith.

By his remarkable abilities and spiritual gifts he attracted the attention of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril I (Lukaris) (1621-1623). Summoning the ascetic, Patriarch Cyril appointed him a preacher of the Patriarchal throne. Soon St Athanasius was consecrated bishop and became Metropolitan of Thessalonica.

At this time Patriarch Cyril was slandered before the sultan and imprisoned on the island of Tenedos. St Athanasius assumed the Patriarchal throne on March 25, 1634, on the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos.

Patriarch Athanasius led an incessant struggle against heretics, Jesuits, and Moslems. After only forty days on the Patriarchal throne, he was deposed through the intrigues of the enemies of Orthodoxy, and Cyril I was returned.

The saint went to Athos, where for a certain time he pursued asceticism in solitude. Then he became Patriarch again, but was deposed after a year. After this, he returned to Thessalonica and renewed his connections with the Holy Mountain. In view of the intolerable persecution of Christians by the Moslems, St Athanasius was repeatedly (from 1633 to 1643) obliged to send petitions to the Russian tsar Michael (1613-1645) seeking alms for the hapless Church of Constantinople.

When living at Thessalonica became impossible for the saint, he was forced to journey to Moldavia under the protection of its sovereign, Basil Lukulos, and he settled there in the monastery of St Nicholas near Galats, but he longed for Mount Athos. He visited it often and hoped to finish his life there, but God ordained something else for him.

In 1652 after the death of Patriarch Cyril I, St Athanasius was returned to the patriarchal throne. He remained only fifteen days, since he was not acceptable to the Moslems and Catholics. During his final Patriarchal service he preached a sermon in which he denounced papal pretensions to universal jurisdiction over the whole Church.

Persecuted by the Moslems and Jesuits, physically weakened, he transferred the administration of the Church of Constantinople to Metropolitan Paisius of Laureia, and he withdrew to Moldavia, where he was appointed administrator of the monastery of St Nicholas at Galats.

Knowing the deep faith and responsiveness of the Russian nation, St Athanasius undertook a journey to Russia. In April 1653 he was met with great honor in Moscow by Patriarch Nikon (1652-1658) and Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich. Having received generous alms for the needs of the monastery, Patriarch Athanasius left for Galats in December 1653. On the way he fell ill and stayed at the Transfiguration Mgarsk monastery in the city of Lubno in February 1654.
Sensing his impending death, the saint wrote his last will, and he fell asleep in the Lord on April 5. Igumen Petronios and the brethren of the monastery buried the Patriarch. By Greek custom the saint was buried in a sitting position. On February 1, 1662 St Athanasius was glorified as a saint and his Feastday was designated as May 2, the Feast of St Athanasius the Great.

1640 St. John Francis Regis Confessor of the Society of Jesus:  True virtue, or Christian perfection, consists not in great or shining actions, but resides in the heart, and appears to great edification, though in the usual train of common and religious duties constantly performed fidelity and fervor.

There are many excellent lives of St John Francis Regis (who was canonized in 1737) especially in French. The biography by C. de la Broüe, printed ten years after his death has a special charm, but much fuller detail is available in more modern works, especially those of de Curley and L. J. M. Cros. An excellent short life is that of J. Vianney in the series "Les Saints". See also L. Pize, La perpetuelle mission de St jean François Regis (1924); the admirable account by Fr Van Ortroy in the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. viii. pp. 464-465, and that by Fr Martindale which forms a chapter of his little book, In God's Army.

He was born on the 31st of January, in 1597, at Foncouverte, a village in the diocese of Narbonne in Languedoc. His parents, John Regis, who was descended from a younger branch of the noble house of Deplas, in Rovergue, and Magdalen Darcis, daughter to the lord of Segur, were distinguished amongst the nobility of Lower Languedoc by their virtue.
Their eldest son was killed in the siege of Villemur, in a rally made by the Huguenot garrison. Francis was one of the youngest brothers.

At five years of age he fainted away hearing his mother speak of the horrible misfortune of being eternally damned; which discourse made a lasting impression on his tender heart. In his childhood he never discovered any inclination to the amusements of that age. The same disposition made him refuse at his school to join his companions in the innocent diversions of an age generally too eager for play.
His first master was one of a morose, hasty temper, under whom this modest and bashful child had much to suffer; all which he bore without the least complaint.

The Jesuits having opened a public school at Beziers, he was one of the first whom the reputation of its professors drew to the new college. His gravity increased with his years, nor was he to be seen in the beautiful walks which were chiefly crowded by his school fellows. Avaricious of his time, he scarcely allowed himself any for necessary relaxation. Sundays and holidays were a most precious time to him, and he divided them entirely between pious reading and devotions at home and in the church.

He was often seen on those days retired in a chapel and bathed in tears in the presence of Jesus Christ, the tender object of his affections. His conduct made him for some time the subject of his young companions' score and railleries; which his constancy changed at last into veneration. He performed many exercises in honor of the Blessed Virgin, with a particular confidence in her patronage, especially after he was enrolled in a confraternity under her name erected in the Jesuits college. He had a singular devotion to his good angel, and improved every escape from any danger into a motive of redoubling his fervor and gratitude towards God.
By the influence of his holy example, and by his religious discourses, which were animated with a peculiar unction and divine fire, he inflamed many of his companions with the love of virtue, and reclaimed several from dangerous courses. Six of the most fervent associated themselves with him in the same lodgings, and formed a kind of regular seminary, looking upon him as their living rule, and honoring him as a saint and their master in a spiritual life.
In the eighteenth year of his age he was visited with a dangerous sickness, under which his patience and piety moved exceedingly all that came to see him. Soon after his recovery he made a spiritual retreat to deliberate on the choice of a state of life; and finding in his heart a strong impulse to devote himself to labor in procuring the salvation of souls in the Society of Jesus, and being confirmed by the advice of his confessor that this desire was a call of God, he earnestly begged to be admitted, and was readily received by F. Francis Suarez, provincial of the Jesuits, then at Beziers, upon his visitation of that college .

The postulant entered his noviceship with great joy at Toulouse, in the nineteenth year of his age, on the 8th of December, 1616. Here being no longer divided between study and prayer, he gave himself to so close a union with God as to seem to he never without attention to his presence.  His punctual exactness and fervor in the minutes actions and duties, raised them all to a great value: and by the excellence and purity of his motives, they became steps to an eminent into nor perfection.  Here he laid the deep foundation of those virtues which formed his distinguishing character during his whole life, humility, contempt of the world, holy hatred of himself, charity to the poor, and love of God, and zeal for his glory.

The meanest employs were his delight, such as the most humbling duties of a religious state, to wait at table, and cleanse the house: also to make the beds, and dress the sores of the poorest and most loathsome patients in the hospital, where he considered Jesus Christ in his most afflicted members.  He was as austere to himself as he was tender to others, which made his companions say, that he was his own eternal persecutor. He seemed never to do anything to indulge his senses, which he studied to curb and mortify. The spirit of prayer accompanied all his actions. The interior fire of his breast appeared in his looks.

After two years of probation, he made his religious vows in 1618, and was then sent to Cahors to finish his rhetoric, and the following year to Tournon to perform his course of philosophy; but to preserve the fire of devotion in his heart under the dissipation of those studies, he joined to them frequent visits of the blessed sacrament, pious reading, and set times of holy recollection, though he made even his studies a continuation of his commerce with God, in a continual recourse to him by devout aspirations. Such was his fidelity in every action, that his superiors attested they never observed in him the least breach of any college duty; which procured him the name of the angel of the college.
Desiring to form himself principally to the sacred function of teaching the poor the ways of salvation he undertook, by his superior's consent, the charge of instructing the menial servants, and the poor of the town of Tournon, to whom he distributed the alms of the college.  On Sundays and holidays he preached in the adjacent villages, and summoned the children to catechism with a little bell. The little township of Andance having the happiness to fall under his particular care, it quite changed its face: the saint's zeal soon banished out of it drunkenness licentiousness, and swearing, restored the frequent use of the sacraments and established there first the confraternity of the blessed sacrament, the rules of which this holy man, then only two-and-twenty years old, but full of the spirit of devotion, drew up, and which was afterwards propagated to other places. He regulated families, composed differences, and reformed all manner of irregularities: such was the authority which his sanctity and holy prudence procured him.
Having finished his course of philosophy in 1621, he was sent to teach the schools of humanity at Billom, Auch, and Puy; in which employ he spared no application for the assistance of his scholars, both in their studies and in exciting them to virtue, loving them as a tender mother does her children, and being beloved and reverenced by them as a saint.
He was particularly diligent in procuring them all relief in sickness, and by his prayers obtained the sudden recovery of one whose life was despaired of but he was most sensible to their spiritual infirmities.

The edifying example, simplicity, humility, modesty, and penitential air of the master, was a most moving and continual sermon to them; and such was the powerful influence it had, that they were visibly distinguished from others by the regularity of their lives.

His union with God was perpetual; and from hence flowed his other virtues, particularly his saintly exterior comportment. To animate himself in spirit, notwithstanding the fatigues of his employment, he added many other devotions to the daily hour's meditation, and other prayers enjoined by the rules of the society. He often begged leave of the superior to make extraordinary communions, besides those that were regular in the house; and having obtained it, broke out in transports of joy, which testified his insatiable desire of, and the great comfort he received from that divine food. He prepared himself to receive it by private austerities and public humiliations, and by spending a great part of the night before in the church.  On Sundays and holidays he continued to instruct the poor people with wonderful unction and fruit, and even in his familiar conversation turned all to some spiritual advantage.   After he had taught the lower classes seven years; two at Billom, one at Auch, and four at Puy; he began the study of divinity at Toulouse, in 1628, in which, by his assiduity and the pregnancy of his wit, he made an uncommon progress; yet, out of a fear of applause, he sought to make himself contemptible by an affected simplicity and pretended ignorance.
In the vacation, at the time which the students spent in their country-house for the necessary relaxation of their mind, Regis withdrew into private places to converse with God almost the whole day; and in the night, after a short sleep, he arose and stole secretly into the domestic chapel; which a companion having discovered, and informed the superior thereof, he received this answer: "Interrupt not the sweet communications of that angel with God."
  Notice being given him by his superiors, in the beginning of the year 1630, to prepare himself for holy orders, he felt in his breast the struggle of the strongest sentiments of an humble terror and a glowing zeal; but as he saw the will of God intimated in the order of his superiors, his fears were calmed, and he disposed himself for that sacrament, by retirement, austerities, prayer, and fervorous desires. He then longed for the happiness of approaching the altars, so that he promised his superior to say thirty masses for him, because he had hastened the time of his ordination. When ordained, he took time to prepare, by prayer and penance, to offer the divine sacrifice, and celebrated his first mass with the most tender devotion, and in one continued torrent of tears, so that those who were present could not contain theirs, and, by the divine fire which sparkled in his countenance, thought him like an angel than a man at the altar.

The same year, Toulouse being afflicted with a violent plague, Francis made pressing instances to obtain leave to serve the sick. In 1631, after the course of his studies was over, he made the third year of his novitiate, during which he was obliged to go to Foncouverte to settle some family affairs, where he spent his time in visiting the poor and sick, catechizing the children every morning, and preaching to the people twice a day. His begging for the poor, going through the streets followed by crowds of them and children, and carrying upon his shoulders a fagot, a straw bed, or such like things for the necessitous, drew on him many insults, once from the very soldiers, and bitter remonstrances from his brothers and other friends; but he rejoiced in the humiliations of the cross, and answered that they became a minister of the gospel which had been established by them. Their contempt of him was at last converted into admiration, and everyone discerned in his actions a divine wisdom and zeal which differs from worldly prudence, and rejoices with David if its simplicity appeals contemptible to men.

He lived among his kindred as one truly deal to the world: not like those religious persons, who, wanting the spirit of a their vocation, seek earthly comforts among them. Having composed the differences his relations, and edified them by his humility and heavenly life, he was ordered to go to the college of Pamiers to supply the place of a master who was fallen sick.
In the mean time his superiors, from the experience they had of his vocation and talents for an apostolic life, resolved to apply him solely to the missions; in which he accordingly spent the last ten years of his life, beginning them in Languedoc, continuing them through the Vivarez, and ending them with his life in the Velay, of which Le Puy is the capital.

F. Regis entered upon his apostolic course at Montpellier in 1631 arriving there in the beginning of summer; and immediately opening his mission by instructing the children and preaching to the people upon Sundays and holidays in the church of the college.  His discourses were plain and familiar; after a clear exposition of the Christian truth, which he had taken for his subject, he closed them with moral and pathetic exhortations he delivered them with such vehemence that sometimes his voice and strength failed him; and with such unction that both preacher and audience often were dissolved in tears, anti the most hardened left the church with hearts full of compunction.
He was always resorted to by a numberless audience of all ranks, though principally of the poor. A famous preacher was astonished to see how his catechisms were admired, and the great conversions they effected, while elegant sermons had so few to hear them, and produced so little fruit.  The reason was, the word of God became a two edged sword in the mouth of Regis, who spoke it from a heart full of the spirit of God, whereas it was lost under the pomp of an affected rhetoric
The saint never refused himself to the rich, but he used to say they would never want confessors,

and that the poor destitute part of Christ's flock were his share and his delight.
He thought that he ought to live only for them.

He spent usually the whole morning in the confessional, at the altar, or in the pulpit; the afternoon he devoted to the hospitals and prisons, sometimes forgetting his meals, having, as he once said, no leisure to think of them.  He begged from door to door for the poor; procured them physicians and all necessaries when sick, and dressed himself their most loathsome sores. 
He was seen loaded with bundles of straw for them; and when laughed a by the children, and told that this made him ridiculous, he answered:

"If my labors hinder one sin they will be well bestowed."

Towards winter he went to Sommiers, the capital of Lavonage, twelve miles from Montpellier, and with incredible labor declaring war against vice and extreme ignorance, saw his endeavors crowned with the most surprising success all over that country, penetrating into the most inaccessible places, and deterred by no rigors of weather, living chiefly on bread and water, taking sometimes a little milk; always abstaining from fish, flesh, eggs, and wine;  allowing himself very little rest at night on some hard bench or floor and wearing a hair-shirt.
With a crucifix in his hand, he boldly stopped a troop of enraged soldiers from plundering a church, and another time demanded and obtained of a Calvinist officer the restitution of a poor man's goods which had been plundered, without mentioning the high indignities and ill treatment he had received from the soldiers to the commander's great astonishment.

The Vivarez had been for fifty years the center of Calvinism in France, and the seat of horrible wars and desolation.
The pious bishop of Viviers, in 1633, by earnest entreaties drew Regis into his diocese, received him with great veneration, and took him with him in his visitation, during which the father made a most successful mission over that whole diocese. The count de la Mothe Brion, who had lived as a wise man of the world, was so moved with the unction of the holy man's sermons, as entirely to devote himself to fasting, prayer, and alms. This nobleman, by his zeal and charities, very much contributed to assist the saint in his holy enterprises; in which he was seconded by another gentleman, named De la Suchere, who had formerly been the saint's scholar.

At Puy, Regis undertook the reformation of many negligent pastors, brought many lewd women, and some the most obstinate and abandoned, to become patterns of fervor among the penitents, and converted a Calvinist lady of great reputation at Usez.  About that time God permitted a storm to be raised against his servant for his trial; for amidst these glorious successes he was accused loudly as a disturber of the peace of families by his indiscreet zeal, and as a violent man, who spared no one in his invectives and satires.
The bishop defended him, till wearied out with repeated complaints, he wrote to his superior to recall him, and sending for the saint, gave him a severe reprimand; adding that he found himself under a necessity of dismissing him.

Regis, who had all along neglected to take any measures for his own justification, answered him with such humility, and with such an unfeigned love of humiliations and the cross, that the prelate was charmed with his virtue; and being undeceived by others in regard to him, he praised him in public, and continued him with his employ till the beginning of the year 1634, when the missionary was ordered by his superiors to repair to Puy, but went loaded with letters full of the highest commendations of his virtue and prudence from the good bishop.

The saint wrote earnestly to the general of the society, desiring to be employed on a mission to the barbarous Hurons and Iroquois in Canada, and received a favorable answer; but at the request of count de la Mothe, he returned early the next year to the diocese of Viviers, to labor in the conversion of Calvinists, and in the instruction of the ignorant at Cheylard, and on the other estates of that gentleman. It is incredible how much the apostolic man underwent in this rough country, in the highest mountains, in which he was once locked up three weeks by the snows, lying on the bare ground, eating only black bread, and drinking water, with the addition of astonishing voluntary mortification,- fasts, disciplines to blood, and hair shirts. The count was so edified, and so moved with the inexpressible fruits of his labors, that he founded a perpetual mission for two Jesuits at Cheylard, giving to it a principal of sixteen thousand livres, and his fine house there for their residence.

Regis made his next mission at Privas with equal fruit, and thence was called by the bishop of Valence to St. Aggreve, a mountainous savage place, the nest of heresy in his diocese. Among his heroic actions and virtues here, it is recorded, that one Sunday going into an inn to stop the excesses committed by lewd company assembled in it, he received from one a box on the ear, without any other reply than this: "I thank you; if you knew me you would judge that I deserve much more."
Which meekness overcame their obstinacy. After three months' labors in this neighborhood, by the same bishop's orders he repaired to Saint Andre des Fangas, and was from thence recalled to Marlhes in the Vivarez about the end of the year 1635

In the first of these two places, a boy falling from the top of a high pair of stairs to the bottom near the holy man,
then at his prayer in a corner, was found without hurt;
in the latter, a woman would take his tapered cloak to mend, keept 2 rags as relics by applying them to 2 of her children,
cured one of a fever, the other her of a formed dropsy.

 "He was indefatigable, and employed both night and day in his sacred functions."

He was under the bitterest affliction whenever he was informed that God had been offended.
Then he forgot his natural meekness, and appearing transported with holy anger, he with a voice of thunder deterred the most resolute libertines.  He would have sacrificed a thousand lives to prevent one sin.  A word from him sufficed to inflame the coldest hearts and to soften the hardest. After the mission, I knew not my own parishioners, so much I found them reformed. No violence of cold, no snows blocking up all passages, no mountains, or torrents swelled by rains, could be an obstacle to his zeal. His ardor communicated an intrepidity to others; for when he went to any place, innumerable troops followed, and met him through all sorts of difficulties and dangers.
I have seen him in the most rigorous season stop in the middle of a forest, to content the crowds, desirous to hear him speak concerning salvation.
I have seen him at the top of a mountain, raised on a heap of snow, hardened by the frost, preach and instruct the whole day, and after that spend the whole night in hearing confessions.

Winter being over he returned to Puy about the end of April, in 1636, testifying that he found his strength and courage not abated, but increased by his labors. He met at the college here his general's refusal of the mission of Canada, which frustrated his hopes of martyrdom. This refusal he imputed to his sins.

The four remaining years of his life were taken up in missions in the Velay, a mountainous country, the winters in the villages, the summers in Puy, the bishop of which city made use of his counsels and ministry to reform his flock. He preached and catechized at Puy, first in the Jesuits' church; but this being too little, he removed to that of St. Peter le Monstiers, belonging to the Benedictines. His discourses were without art, but clear to the meanest capacities, and delivered with that emotion of heart, and so moving a tone of voice, that he seemed transported by a divine fire above himself; and all who heard him declared, that "Francis preached the word of God as it is in itself; whereas others seemed, in comparison of him, to preach themselves." His audience usually consisted of four or fire thousand. His provincial in his visitation, hearing him, wept during the whole sermon. He formed an association of virtuous ladies to relieve the poor, and another in favor of the prisoners; for both which incredible funds were raised; and in times of need God miraculously multiplied the corn he had stored up, three several times: of which verbal processes were drawn up, and juridical information taken before ecclesiastical and secular judges: and these miracles were confirmed by fourteen credible witnesses in the acts of his canonization.

His constant readiness and extreme diligence to run to the sick, and his happy success in assisting them in spirituals, were recompensed by several cures effected on the spot by his prayers, the unexceptionable relation of which may be read at length in F. Daubenton's History of his life. Nor were the conversions of many sinners less miraculous. Among these, a certain voluptuous rich merchant had long endeavored to blacken the saint's reputation by his slanders; who in return bought of him all he wanted for his poor. Having softened him to a more tractable temper by these and other good offices, he laid hold of a favorable opportunity of representing to sum what could be the end of his pains, and the fruit of all his riches which death must soon bereave him of; the man was struck, and having revolved in his mind all night the reflections the words of the man of God raised in him, came the next day to lay open the agitation of his soul to him.

The saint having for some time continued to excite in him still l ivelier apprehensions of the divine judgments, and conducted him through sentiments of hope and divine love to the dispositions of a perfect penitent, he heard his general confession, which the other made with such a flood of tears that the confessor judged the greatness of his contrition might require a smaller penance. The penitent asked him why he had so much spared his weakness. The zealous pastor answered that he took upon himself to discharge the rest of his debt, which mildness added still more to the fervor of this repenting sinner. His meekness and patience made a conquest of those souls which were so hardened as to be able to resist his zeal. A young man enraged that the saint had converted and drawn from him the object of his impure passion, resolved to kill him. The man of God discovered by a divine light his wicked intention, and said to him: "Dear brother, why do you bear this ill-will to one that would hazard his life to procure you the greatest of blessings, eternal salvation?" The sinner, overcome by his sweetness, fell at his feet, begged his pardon, and became a sincere convert.

Three other young noblemen, on a like occasion, resolved revenge Regis met them with courage, saying to them:

"You come with a design upon my life. What concerns me is not death, which is the object of my wishes:
but the state of damnation that you are in, and regard so little."

The libertines stood as if stunned: Regis embracing them with the tenderness of a parent, induced them to repent; and they made their confessions to him, and led regular lives till their deaths.

Addressing drunkards and other sinners, with his eyes all on fire with zeal, he often by one moving sentence reclaimed them from their disorders. When he had received a blow on the cheek, the magistrates could not prevail upon him to denounce the delinquent; but the offender, moved by his charity, became of his own accord his sincere penitent.

The servant of God was extremely solicitous in removing all occasions of sin, and preventing the promiscuous company of young men and women. He converted many prostitutes with the help of charitable contributions, founded a retreat to secure the virtue of such penitents, till his rector fearing that house could not be maintained, forbade him to meddle in it; he moreover gave him many severe reprimands even in public, accused his zeal as too forward, and forbade him to hear confessions, instruct the poor, or visit the sick, only on certain days and at appointed times.

Regis suffered many humiliations and mortification under this superior, without even allowing anyone to speak in his justification; till the succeeding rector, convinced of his innocence and prudence, restored to him the care of the refuge, and the whole field of his former labors.

His zeal exposed him often to occasions of martyrdom, and to open insults; and once he was cruelly beaten. He was also censured bitterly by many, and even by several of his own brethren; but his rector undertook his defense, and God crowned his labors with incredible success; in which he was seconded by the great vicar Peter le Blanc, his constant friend, without whose counsel he undertook nothing.

 This is the summary of his transactions at Puy during the four last summers of his missions: the winters he employed in laboring in the country, the most abandoned part of which was his first care and chief delight.
   The country inhabitants of the Velay in some parts, especially in mountains, were very rustic, and perfectly savage: Calvinism had insinuated itself, and ignorance and the grossest vices prevailed in many of the wilder places. The boroughs and villages are situated in the diocese of Puy Vienne, Valence, and Viviers. The saint's first mission among them was in the beginning of the year 1636, to Fay and the neighboring places. Hugh Sourdon, LL. D. engaged him to lodge in his house.
The man of God finding his kind host's son Claudius Sourdon, aged fourteen years, entirely deprived of all sight for the six months past, from a deflection; upon his eyes, with excessive pain, he exhorted him to confidence in God, and retired into a neighboring room to prayer with some of the family, which he had not ended when the child recovered his sight, and distinguished everybody in the assembly which then met to hear the first catechistical instruction; and from that time never felt any more either of that pain or deflection, as he attested before the bishops of Puy and Valence, being then fourscore years old.

Upon this, another man forty years of age, who had been blind eight years, was brought to the saint, who making the sign of the cross over him, immediately restored his sight. By the fame of these two miracles, this mission was opened with wonderful concourse and fruit. His conduct in it is thus described by Claudius Sourdon, with whom he lodged, in a juridical deposition that grave person gave before two bishops:

John Francis Regis, SJ (PC) (also known as Jean-François Regie)  Born at Fontcouverte near Narbonne, Languedoc, France, on January 31, 1597; died at La Louvesc in Dauphine, France, on December 30, 1640; canonized in 1737; feast day formerly December 31; he may have another feast on July 2.

While John Francis Regis was born into a family of landed gentry, he preferred the company of humble people. His father was a prosperous merchant. He attended the Jesuit college of Béziers before seeking admission into the Society of Jesus when he was 18. After a successful year as a novice, John Francis went to study at Cahors, Le Puy, Auch, and Tournon. While in Tournon, he accompanied the priest who served the town of Andance on Sundays and holidays, and his catechism instruction was so effective that he inspired the parents through their children.

He returned to Toulouse to begin his theology course, and he spent much of each night in prayer. The plague raged in the town for four consecutive years and he was sent into the country. Finally, he was ordained in 1631. He tended the plague-stricken in Saint James Hospital in Toulouse, where "he did the most menial tasks in the kitchens with greater willingness and pleasure than vain people derive from the glory of dignified offices." But when his companion in this work died, he was sent to Pamiers to teach.

So successful was the preaching of John Francis Regis that, in 1632, he was commissioned to devote himself entirely to evangelization of the illiterate farmers in the diocese of Montpellier. The area had suffered tragically during the Wars of Religion, which ended in France with the Edict of Nantes in 1598. The Huguenots had overrun the churches and many Catholics had abandoned their faith. The rest of his life was spent in this missionary work among the lapsed. He worked in Languedoc, throughout the Vivarais, and ended in Velay.

To some people his preaching was "banal and common, mediocre and crude, and even quite vulgar." To such people he appeared as a "man of wretched appearance, dressed in tattered clothes, without any talent for preaching...Father Regis, no matter how saintly he may be, is a disgrace to his ministry because of the triviality and indelicacy of his language."

One of his colleagues said, "Ah, how vainly do we study to polish and ornament our sermons! Crowds hasten to hear the simple catechisms of this man and conversions multiply, while our own studied eloquence produces nothing."

This tall, attractive, physically strong man had a simple, homely style of preaching that drew large crowds. He gained the confidence of the people by speaking to them in their own patois. While people of all ranks were eager to hear him, Regis preferred a congregation of poor and unlettered people, saying "the rich never lack confessors." There was little that he would not do for the poor, and when he was warned that by doing so he appeared foolish, he responded, "So much the better."

He was as severe with himself as he was gentle with others. He loved the poor and wished to associate himself with them. He never ate meat or fish, and his usual diet was apples and black bread. But sometimes there were so many penitents after his preaching, he had no time for any meal. "I cannot remember my dinner," he said, "when I am ministering to these poor wounded souls." Like his admirer, the Curé d'Ars, he spent long hours in the confessional and slept no more than three hours a night. Among the many mortifications he inflicted upon himself, he used to expose his hands to the freezing cold "so that they were sometimes so red and blotched that they aroused compassion."

For ten years he preached his way through France with simplicity, joy, emotion, and fierceness. He concentrated his efforts on the Auvergne and Languedoc. In the summer he preached in the towns and in winter he evangelized in the villages, when the farmers had time to listen. In Montpellier he converted several Huguenots and many lapsed Catholics, and also established hostels for fallen women, called "Daughters of Refuge," for which he was physically assaulted numerous times.

Among his converts were people of wealth and distinction. At Puy Regis devoted himself to the care of the poor, the sick, and prostitutes. He helped the young country girls who did not want to leave the city but could not find employment by providing them materials with which they could make a living. They worked at home, making lace, embroidering, and doing other types of needlework. Regis collected and sold the work for them at the best possible price.

To handle the rest, Regis made two lists: one of those in need, and the other a register of the devout who were ready to engage in acts of charity. This was the beginning of his social service called the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. To the ladies of high society he offered the "gift" of a few hungry mouths to feed. To others he sent notes such as: "Sir, you will provide food for the poor people who names are listed below and you will give them six sous for their lodging. If you are unable to provide them with food, you will give them a further six sous so that they may buy it themselves. For this is the decision that has been made by the office of the poor at the town hall on May 9, 1631." Pretty audacious, isn't it?

Not really; for the simple reason that he engaged others with his unstinted enthusiasm. Regis established a granary for the poor. Several times it was miraculously refilled. He called for nurses and doctors, asked pharmacists to provide medicine, sought out guardians of the poor, and assigned overseers of prisons to ensure humane conditions. Nothing could deter him: vermin, ulcers, outbreaks of plague. He faced them all and entered hovels and hospitals "with joy, as if he were entering a palace."

He became the infirmarian of sick bodies and sick souls. When a Jesuit visiting from Lyons asked Regis to show him the most interesting sights of Puy, the saint took him to see a sick pauper who "was rotting in his bed." Afterwards the visitor reported, "I was more pleased than if I had seen all the wonders of Europe." Occasionally John effected miraculous cures by commanding something as simple as: "Fever, leave this young girl for she needs her health to earn her living." And the girl was immediately cured. He did not put much stock in this kind of miracle. He was known to say: "Every time that God converts a hardened sinner he is working a far greater miracle."

His greatest effort, however, was the establishment of the Daughters of the Refuge in imitation of Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who opened the Refuge of Saint Martha at Rome for repentent women. When Regis experimented with the idea at Montpellier, he placed the girls in private homes, but found it necessary to house them under one roof. His second and more important Refuge was at Puy. He succeeded with these women because he treated them "in a manner full of honor and respect...So great was his deference and politeness that he might have been talking to queens." The refuge for women and girls was endangered by the vindictive slander of unprincipled people who had lost the supply of females that they wished to exploit, and his activities were stopped for a time. But the bishop of Puy, Just de Serres, stoutly defended Regis before the rector of the Jesuit College.

But Regis did not limit himself to healing bodies; souls were more important. The regions of the Vivarais had experienced civil and religious discord, and the people had become uncivilized. Churches were neglected and some parishes had not received the sacrament for twenty years. In the course of a three-year ministry launched by Bishop de la Baume and his assistants, with John traveling a day or so ahead of them, the mission returned the area to religious observance, in addition to converting a large number of Protestants.

Charges made by those who resented his zeal. Such "signs of simplicity and indiscretion" were forbidden and he was ordered to make reparation by "being recalled to the College from the mission where he is conducting himself so badly." Nor was that enough for "he must also be punished in proportion to his fault." These accusations came close to causing his recall, but the excellent bishop of Viviers, Louis de Suze, recognized them for what they were: the attack of lethargic priests whose comfort had been disturbed. After this, Regis asked to be allowed to go to Canada. But the answer from the Jesuit general in Rome, Father Vitelleschi, was categorically: "Your Canada is the Vivarais."

And, indeed, it was as difficult to evangelize these former Catholics and Huguenots as it would be those who had never heard the name Jesus. In 1629, the Edict of Alès reneged on the guarantees made in the Edict of Nantes. Protestants were now deprived of the "places of security" they had been promised. Those who refused to surrender were subject to the "Dragonnades"--a persecution whereby "dragons" (soldiers) were quartered in Protestant homes with permission to behave as badly as they willed. It was very difficult for a missionary to follow in the wake of these troops and encounter the bitter hostility of the Protestants. Nevertheless, Regis continued. He sought out the peasants in the mountains, slept in barns and forests, often lost his way, and wherever he went he kindled a flame of evangelism. Men hung on his words, were moved by his very presence, and came in their need to seek his guidance and blessing.

One day as he was leaving the church after preaching, he found a group of weary peasants waiting at the gate. "We have walked all night," they said, "we have come 12 leagues to hear you, and now we are too late!" Though Regis himself was exhausted, he answered, "No, my children, you are not too late. Come with me." And returning with them into the church, he preached to them with his usual power.

On another occasion, a Jesuit father, on a journey, saw from a hilltop a swarm of people approaching in the distance and, as they came nearer, heard them singing. He enquired what it meant, and was told: "It is the saint followed by the inhabitants of whole villages who cannot leave him." As he was about to proceed on his way, he was overtaken by another crowd, approaching from the opposite direction. "And who are these?" he asked. "We are going out to meet the saint," was their answer.

When he reached his destination he found the small town full of excitement, with lines waiting at the church doors. Again he asked and again received the answer: "The saint! We are waiting to hear the saint." Then he remembered how in the ancient days men came to Christ from every quarter and the common people heard Him gladly. "That man," said one who went to hear Regis, "is full of God. I do not know his equal. I would walk forty leagues to hear him."

In mid-September 1640 (age 43), Regis had a premonition of his death. He spent the next three days in retreat, made a general confession, and continued his mission to Louvesc, a remote mountain village. Thus, on a cold December day, he travelled to his last mission. Overtaken by a snowstorm, he slept that night in a wayside barn and developed pleurisy. The next day he continued his journey in great pain and discomfort.

They reached the village on Christmas Eve and travelled directly to the church, where Regis began to preach immediately without stopping to rest. He spent the whole of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without intermission conducting services, preaching, and giving counsel. Zealous to save souls, the following day he preached three times in the draughty church and contracted pneumonia. On leaving the pulpit the third time, he fainted. Four days later he died, his last words were: "Jesus, my Savior, I recommend my soul to You."

John Francis Regis was one of those saints, like the Curé d'Ars and Saint Vincent de Paul, who was eminently likeable and approachable. He is one of those saints for whom sanctity is not a personal adventure but something which is to be put to the service of others. His tomb is still the destination of thousands of pilgrims each year (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Gill, Farmer, White).

In art, he is a Jesuit wearing a leather cape and holding a staff surmounted by a crucifix. He is venerated in the Auvergne, particularly Montfauçon and Puy (Roeder). A contemporary portrait shows that Regis was a handsome, distinguished-looking man. John Francis Regis is the patron of lace-makers (Encyclopedia).

The apostolic letter pronouncing the decree of beatification is printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. ix (1917), pp. 257-261, and it contains the usual biographical summary. Bd Anne wrote an autobiography at the command of her superiors; the account is carried down to the first years of her residence in Antwerp, and the original document is preserved in the Carmelite convent there. An incomplete French translation was published in 1646, and Fr Bouix makes limited use of the autobiography in his life, "purement édifiante", of the beata (1872); see also Fr Bruno's La belle Acarie (1942). C. Henriquez published a life in Spanish in 1632, and a modern account in the same language, by Florencio del Niño Jesus, appeared in 1917: this was adapted into French by Abbe L. Aubert (1918). See also H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire..., t. ii, pp. 299-319 (there is an English translation of this volume).

1641 Simon of Volomsk Hosiomartyr received monastic tonsure at the Pinegsk Makariev monastery settled in the Volomsk forest, 80 versts to the southwest of Ustiug at the River Kichmenga grace-filled miracles at his relics
In the world Simon, son of the peasant Michael from the vicinity of Volokolamsk, was born in the year 1586. At 24 years of age, after long pilgrimage through Orthodox monasteries, he received monastic tonsure at the Pinegsk Makariev monastery. In the year 1613 he settled in the Volomsk forest, 80 versts to the southwest of Ustiug at the River Kichmenga. Here he spent five years alone, away from people. He nourished himself with vegetables which he himself cultivated, and sometimes asked for bread in some settlement.

When lovers of the quiet life began to gather to him, St Simon, through a grant of Tsar Michael Theodoreovich and with the blessing of the Rostov Metropolitan Barlaam, built a temple in honor of the Cross of the Lord, and in 1620 was made head of the monastery he founded.
A strict ascetic, serving as an example to all in virtue, love of toil, fasting and prayer, he was wickedly murdered in his own monastery on July 12, 1641. The body of the venerable Simon was buried on the left side of the church he built.

Veneration of the saint began in 1646 after grace-filled miracles at his relics were attested. His Life was written in the seventeenth century.

1663 St. Joseph of Cupertino b.1603 levitating at prayer temptations chains

1663 St. Joseph of Cupertino Franciscan mystic patron saint of pilots /air passengers; From time of his ordination St Joseph’s life was one long succession of ecstasies, miracles of healing and supernatural happenings on a scale not paralleled in the reasonably authenticated life of any other saint.    When Cardinal Lauria asked him what souls in ecstasy saw during their raptures he replied: “They feel as though they were taken into a wonderful gallery, shining with never-ending beauty, where in a glass, with a single look, they apprehend the marvellous vision which God is pleased to show them.”

Anything that in any way could be particularly referred to God or the mysteries of religion was liable to ravish him from his senses and make him oblivious to what was going on around him; the absent-mindedness and abstraction of his childhood now had an end and a purpose clearly seen. The sight of a lamb in the garden of Capuchins at Fossombrone caused him to be lost in contemplation of the spotless Lamb of God and, it is said, be caught up into the air with the animal in his arms.
Auximi, in Picéno, sancti Joséphi a Cupertíno, Sacerdótis ex Ordine Minórum Conventuálium et Confessóris; quem Clemens Papa Décimus tértius in Sanctórum númerum rétulit.
    At Osimo in Piceno, St. Joseph of Cupertino, priest and confessor of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, who was placed among the saints by Clement XIII.

1663 ST JOSEPH OF CUPERTINO
JOSEPH DESA was born June 17, 1603, at Cupertino, a small village between Brindisi and Otranto. His parents were poor and unfortunate. Joseph himself was born in a shed at the back of the house, because his father, a carpenter, was unable to pay his debts and the home was being sold up. His childhood was unhappy. His widowed mother looked on him as a nuisance and a burden, treated him with great severity, and he developed an extreme absentmindedness and inertia. He would forget his meals, and when reminded of them say simply, “I forgot”, and wander open-mouthed in an aimless way about the village so that he earned the nick-name of “Boccaperta”, the gaper.
   He had a hot temper, which made him more unpopular, but was exemplary - even precocious in his religious duties. When the time came for him to try and earn his own living, Joseph was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, a trade he applied himself to for some time, but without any success.
  When he was seventeen he presented himself to be received amongst the Conventual Franciscans, but they refused to have him. Then he went to the Capuchins, and they took him as a lay-brother; but after eight months he was dismissed as unequal to the duties of the order: his clumsiness and preoccupation made him an apparently impossible subject, for he dropped piles of plates and dishes on the refectory floor, forgot to do things he was told, and could not be trusted even to make up the kitchen fire.
   Joseph then turned for help to a wealthy uncle, who curtly refused to aid an obvious good-for-nothing, and the young man returned home in despair and misery. His mother was not at all pleased to see him on her hands again and used her influence with her brother, a Conventual Franciscan, to have him accepted by the friars of his order at Grottella as a servant. He was given a tertiary habit and put to work in the stables. Now a change seems to have come over Joseph; at any rate he was more successful in his duties, and his humility, his sweetness, his love of mortification and penance gained him so much regard that in 1623 it was resolved he should be admitted amongst the religious of the choir, that he might qualify himself for holy orders.
   Joseph therefore began his novitiate, and his virtues rendered him an object of admiration; but his lack of progress in studies was also remarked. Try as he would, the extent of his human accomplishments was to read badly and to write worse. He had no gift of eloquence or for exposition, the one text on which he had something to say being, “Blessed is the womb that bore thee”. When he came up for examination for the diaconate the bishop opened the gospels at random and his eye fell on that text: he asked Brother Joseph to expound it, which he did well. When it was a question of the priesthood, the first candidates were so satisfactory that the remainder, Joseph among them, were passed without examination. After having received the priesthood in 1628 he passed five years without tasting bread or wine, and the herbs he ate on Fridays were so distasteful that only he could use them. His fast in Lent was so rigorous that he took no nourishment except on Thursdays and Sundays, and he spent the hours devoted to manual work in those simple household and routine duties which he knew were, humanly speaking, all he was fitted to undertake.
   From the time of his ordination St Joseph’s life was one long succession of ecstasies, miracles of healing and supernatural happenings on a scale not paralleled in the reasonably authenticated life of any other saint. Anything that in any way could be particularly referred to God or the mysteries of religion was liable to ravish him from his senses and make him oblivious to what was going on around him; the absent-mindedness and abstraction of his childhood now had an end and a purpose clearly seen. The sight of a lamb in the garden of the Capuchins at Fossombrone caused him to be lost in contemplation of the spotless Lamb of God and, it is said, be caught up into the air with the animal in his arms.
   At all times he had a command over beasts surpassing that of St Francis himself; sheep were said to gather round him and listen to his prayers, a sparrow at a convent came and went at his word. Especially during Mass or the Divine Office he would be lifted off his feet in rapture.
   During the seventeen years he remained at Grottella over seventy occasions are recorded of his levitation, the most marvellous being when the friars were building a Calvary. The middle cross of the group was thirty-six feet high and correspondingly heavy, defying the efforts of ten men to lift it. St Joseph is said to have “flown” seventy yards from the door of the house to the cross, picked it up in his arms “as if it were a straw”, and deposited it in its place. This staggering feat is not attested by an eyewitness, and, in common with most of his earlier marvels, was recorded only after his death, when plenty of time had elapsed in which events could be exaggerated and legends arise.
   Whatever their exact nature and extent, the daily life of St Joseph was surrounded by such disturbing phenomena that for thirty-five years he was not allowed to celebrate Mass in public, to keep choir, to take his meals with his brethren, or to attend processions and other public functions. Sometimes when he was bereft of his senses they would try to bring him to by hitting him, burning his flesh or pricking it with needles, but nothing had any effect except, it is said, the voice of his superior. When he did come back to himself he would laughingly apologize for what he called his “fits of giddiness”.
  Levitation, the name given to the raising of the human body from the ground by no apparent physical force, is recorded in some form or other of over two hundred saints and holy persons (as well as of many others), and in their case is interpreted as a special mark of God’s favour whereby it is made evident even to the physical senses that prayer is a raising of the heart and mind to God. St Joseph of Cupertino, in both the extent and number of these experiences, provides the classical examples of levitation, for, if many of the earlier incidents are doubtful some of those recorded in his later years are very well attested. For example, one of his biqgraphers states that: “When in 1645 the Spanish amhassador to the papal court, the High Admiral of Castile, passed through [Assisi] he visited Joseph of Cupertino in his cell. After conversing with him he returned to the church and told his wife: ‘I have seen and spoken with another St Francis.’ As his wife then expressed a great desire to enjoy the same privilege, the father guardian gave Joseph an order to go down to the church and speak with her Excellency. To this he made answer: ‘I will obey, but I do not know whether I shall be able to speak with her.’ In point of fact no sooner had he entered the church than his eyes rested on a statue of Mary Immaculate which stood over the altar, and he at once flew about a dozen paces over the heads of those present to the foot of the statue. Then after paying homage there for some short space and uttering his customary shrill cry he flew back again and straightway returned to his cell, leaving the admiral, his wife, and the large retinue which attended them, speechless with astonishment.” This story is supported in two biographies by copious references to depositions, in the process of canonization, of witnesses who are expressly stated to have been present.
“Still more trustworthy”, says Father Thurston in the Month for May 1919, “is the evidence given of the saint’s levitations at Osimo, where he spent the last six years of his life. There his fellow religious saw him fly up seven or eight feet into the air to kiss the statue of the infant Jesus which stood over the altar, and they told how he carried off this wax image in his arms and floated about with it in his cell in every conceivable attitude. On one occasion during these last years of his life he caught up another friar in his flight and carried him some distance round the room, and this indeed he is stated to have done on several previous occasions. In the very last Mass which he celebrated, on the festival of the Assumption 1663, a month before his death, he was lifted up in a longer rapture than usual. For these facts we have the evidence of several eye-witnesses who made their depositions, as usual under oath, only four or five years later. It seems very difficult to believe that they could possibly be deceived as to the broad fact that the saint did float in the air, as they were convinced they had seen him do, under every possible variety of conditions and surroundings.”
   Prosper Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV, the supreme authority on evidence and procedure in canonization causes, personally studied all the details of the case of St Joseph of Cupertino. The writer goes on: “When the cause came up for discussion before the Congregation of Rites [Lambertini] was ‘promotor Fidei’ (popularly known as the Devil’s Advocate), and his ‘animadversions’ upon the evidence submitted are said to have been of a most searching character. None the less we must believe that these criticisms were answered to his own complete satisfaction, for not only was it he himself who, when pope, published in 1753 the decree of beatification, but in his great work, De Servorum Del Beatificatione, etc., he speaks as follows: ‘Whilst I discharged the office of promoter of the Faith the cause of the venerable servant of God, Joseph of Cupertino, came up for discussion in the Congregation of Sacred Rites, which after my retirement was brought to a favourable conclusion, and in this eyewitnesses of unchallengeable integrity gave evidence of the famous upliftings from the ground and prolonged flights of the aforesaid servant of God when rapt in ecstasy.’ There can be no doubt that Benedict XIV, a critically-minded man, who knew the value of evidence and who had studied the original depositions as probably no one else had studied them, believed that the witnesses of St Joseph’s levitations had really seen what they professed to have seen.”
   There were not wanting persons to whom these manifestations were a stone of offence, and when St Joseph attracted crowds about him as he travelled in the province of Ban, he was denounced as “one who runs about these provinces and as a new Messias draws crowds after him by the prodigies wrought on some few of the ignorant people, who are ready to believe anything”.
   The vicar general carried the complaint to the inquisitors of Naples, and Joseph was ordered to appear. The heads of his accusation being examined, the inquisitors could find nothing worthy of censure, but did not discharge him; instead they sent him to Rome to his minister general, who received him at first with harshness, but he became impressed by St Joseph’s innocent and humble bearing and he took him to see the pope, Urban VIII. The saint went into ecstasy at the sight of the Vicar of Christ, and Urban declared that if Joseph should die before himself he would give evidence of the miracle to which he had been a witness.
   It was decided to send Joseph to Assisi, where again his superiors treated him with considerable severity, they at least pretending to regard him as a hypocrite. He arrived at Assisi in 1639, and remained there thirteen years. At first he suffered many trials, both interior and exterior. God seemed to have abandoned him his religious exercises were accompanied with a spiritual dryness that afflicted him exceedingly and terrible temptations cast him into so deep a melancholy that he scarce dare lift up his eyes. The minister general, being informed, called him to Rome, and having kept him there three weeks he sent him back to Assisi.
   The saint on his way to Rome experienced a return of those heavenly consolations, which had been withdrawn from him. Reports of Joseph’s holiness and miracles spread over the borders of Italy, and distinguished people, such as the Admiral of Castile mentioned above, would call at Assisi to visit him.
   Among them were John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick and Hanover. This prince, who was a Lutheran, was so struck with what he had seen that he embraced the Catholic faith.
  Joseph used to say to some scrupulous persons who came to consult him: “I like neither scruples nor melancholy; let your intention be right and fear not”, and he was always urging people to prayer. “Pray”, he would say, “pray. If you are troubled by dryness or distractions, just say an Our Father. Then you make both vocal and mental prayer.”
   When Cardinal Lauria asked him what souls in ecstasy saw during their raptures he replied: “They feel as though they were taken into a wonderful gallery, shining with never-ending beauty, where in a glass, with a single look, they apprehend the marvellous vision which God is pleased to show them.”
   In the ordinary comings and goings of daily life he was so preoccupied with heavenly things that he would genuinely suppose a passing woman to be our Lady or St Catherine or St Clare, a strange man to be one of the Apostles, a fellow friar to be St Francis or St Antony.
   In 1653, for reasons which are not known, the Inquisition of Perugia was instructed to remove St Joseph from the care of his own order and put him in charge of Capuchins at a lonely friary among the hills of Pietrarossa, where he was to live in the strictest seclusion. “Have I got to go to prison then?” he asked, and departed at once—leaving his hat, his cloak, his breviary and his spectacles behind him. To prison, in effect, he had gone. He was not allowed to leave the convent enclosure, to speak to anyone but the friars, to write or to receive letters he was completely cut off from the world. Apart from wondering why he should be sundered from his fellow Conventuals and treated like a criminal, this life must have been particularly satisfactory to St Joseph. But soon his whereabouts was discovered and pilgrims flocked to the place; whereupon he was spirited away to lead the same sort of life with the Capuchins of Fossombrone.
   The rest of his life was spent like this. When in 1655 the chapter general of the Conventual Franciscans asked for the return of their saint to Assisi, Pope Alexander VII replied that one St Francis at Assisi was enough, but in 1657 he was allowed to go to the Conventual house at Osimo. Here the seclusion was, however, even more strict, and only selected religious were allowed to visit him in his cell. But all this time, and till the end, supernatural manifestations were his daily portion: he was in effect deserted by man but God was ever more clearly with him.
  He fell sick on August lo, 1663, and knew that his end was at hand five weeks later he died, at the age of sixty. He was canonized in 1767.


He was born in Cupertino, Italy. After several attempts to enter the religious life, he was accepted by the Conventual Franciscans at Grattela, where he received ordination in 1628. He soon demonstrated many gifts, including the ability to fly through the air. In 1639, because of the enmity of his fellow monks, Joseph was sent to Assisi. In 1653, the Inquisition sent him to a remote friary and then to another house at Pieterossa, because of the popularity and fame attached to his levitation and other gifts. Joseph was also confined to a house in Fossombrofle until 1657. He died at Osimo and was canonized in 1767. His cult is now confined to local calendars.
1663 St. Joseph of Cupertino b.1603 levitating at prayer temptations chains
Already as a child, Joseph showed a fondness for prayer. After a short career with the Capuchins, he joined the Conventuals. Following a brief assignment caring for the friary mule, Joseph began his studies for the priesthood. Though studies were very difficult for him, Joseph gained a great deal of knowledge from prayer. He was ordained in 1628.
Joseph’s tendency to levitate during prayer was sometimes a cross; some people came to see this much as they might have gone to a circus sideshow. Joseph’s gift led him to be humble, patient and obedient, even though at times he was greatly tempted and felt forsaken by God. He fasted and wore iron chains for much of his life.
The friars transferred Joseph several times for his own good and for the good of the rest of the community. He was reported to and investigated by the Inquisition; the examiners exonerated him.
Joseph was canonized in 1767. In the investigation preceding the canonization, 70 incidents of levitation are recorded.
Comment:  While levitation is an extraordinary sign of holiness, Joseph is also remembered for the ordinary signs he showed. He prayed even in times of inner darkness, and he lived out the Sermon on the Mount.
Quote:   "Clearly, what God wants above all is our will which we received as a free gift from God in creation and possess as though our own. When a man trains himself to acts of virtue, it is with the help of grace from God from whom all good things come that he does this. The will is what man has as his unique possession"

Already as a child, Joseph showed a fondness for prayer. After a short career with the Capuchins, he joined the Conventuals. Following a brief assignment caring for the friary mule, Joseph began his studies for the priesthood. Though studies were very difficult for him, Joseph gained a great deal of knowledge from prayer. He was ordained in 1628.
Joseph’s tendency to levitate during prayer was sometimes a cross; some people came to see this much as they might have gone to a circus sideshow. Joseph’s gift led him to be humble, patient and obedient, even though at times he was greatly tempted and felt forsaken by God. He fasted and wore iron chains for much of his life.
The friars transferred Joseph several times for his own good and for the good of the rest of the community. He was reported to and investigated by the Inquisition; the examiners exonerated him.
Joseph was canonized in 1767. In the investigation preceding the canonization, 70 incidents of levitation are recorded.
Comment:  While levitation is an extraordinary sign of holiness, Joseph is also remembered for the ordinary signs he showed. He prayed even in times of inner darkness, and he lived out the Sermon on the Mount. He used his "unique possession" (his free will) to praise God and to serve God’s creation.
Quote:   "Clearly, what God wants above all is our will which we received as a free gift from God in creation and possess as though our own. When a man trains himself to acts of virtue, it is with the help of grace from God from whom all good things come that he does this. The will is what man has as his unique possession" (St. Joseph of Cupertino, from the reading for his feast in the Franciscan breviary).

1671 Blessed Anthony Grassi devotion to Our Lady of Loreto an outstanding confessor gift of reading consciences @ of the future
ancient statue of Our Lady which is found at Loreto
Anthony’s father died when his son was only 10 years old, but the young lad inherited his father’s devotion to Our Lady of Loreto. As a schoolboy he frequented the local church of the Oratorian Fathers, joining the religious order when he was 17.

Already a fine student, he soon gained a reputation in his religious community as a "walking dictionary" who quickly grasped Scripture and theology. For some time he was tormented by scruples, but they reportedly left him at the very hour he celebrated his first Mass. From that day, serenity penetrated his very being.

In 1621, at age 29, Anthony was struck by lightning while praying in the church of the Holy House at Loreto. He was carried paralyzed from the church, expecting to die. When he recovered in a few days he realized that he had been cured of acute indigestion. His scorched clothes were donated to the Loreto church as an offering of thanks for his new gift of life.

   From the scaffold Bd David made a ringing speech. "I die for conscience and religion, and dying upon such good scores, as far as human frailty permits I die with alacrity, interior and exterior.. Here, methinks, I feel flesh and blood ready to burst into loud cries  `Tooth for tooth, eye for eye, blood for blood, life for life` `No ` exclaims the holy gospel.  `Forgive and you shall be forgiven 'I profess myself a child of the gospel, and the gospel I obey...Friends, fear God, honour your king, be firm in your faith, avoid mortal sin by frequenting the sacraments of Holy Church, patiently bear your persecutions and afflictions, forgive your enemies.  Your sufferthgs are great.  I say, be firm in your faith to the end, yea, even to death...The crowd threatened to stone the proxy hangman, who ran away, and a blacksmith was bribed to take his place-but no one would employ him after at his own trade. The body of Bd David Lewis was buried in the neighbouring churchyard, and within a short time a handkerchief dipped in his blood had been the occasion of the cure of an epileptic child and of other miracles.

  In the case of this martyr we are fortunate in possessing his own account of his arrest, imprisonment and trial  a summary of the proceedings in court, and also a copy of the speech (written out in prison beforehand) which he delivered to the assembled crowd at the time of his execution. All these have been utilized in the admirable sketch contributed to St Peter's Magazine (Cardiff) in 1923 by J. H. Canning under the general title of  "The Titus Oates Plot in S. Wales and the Marches". See also REPSJ., vol. v. pp. 912 seq. MMP., pp. 557-561. T. P. Ellis, Catholic Martyrs of Wales (1932), pp. 129-140; and Catholic Record Society Publications, vol. xlvii (1953), pp. 299-304.

Born at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1616; died at Usk, August 27, 1679; beatified in 1929; canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. David was the son of a Protestant school teacher and a Catholic mother. Amazingly enough, he was the only one of the nine siblings to have been raised as a Protestant--but that did not last for long. After studying law at the Middle Temple in London, he accompanied a nobleman's son to the Continent as his tutor. While visiting Paris, David was converted to Catholicism.
By 1638, he was studying for the priesthood at the English college in Rome. Two years after his ordination in 1642, he joined the Jesuits, who sent him to the English mission for a short time, then recalled him to Rome to serve as the spiritual director for the English college.
In 1648, David was sent to Wales, where he used the alias Charles Baker and a farmhouse at Cwm (Monnow Valley) in southern Wales as his headquarters for the next 31 years. This same inconspicuous building was the College of Saint Francis Xavier, the center for Jesuit missionary activities in western England. When the persecution of Catholics was unleashed by the fictitious Titus Oates Plot, David escaped Cwm but was betrayed by a servant and captured at Llanfihangel Llantarnam. Following a two-month imprisonment at Monmouth, he was tried at Usk. Although no evidence could be found to link him to the conspiracy, he was convicted of being a Catholic priest, hanged, drawn, and quartered.
   He is buried in a now Anglican parish in Usk, with a prominent grave stone giving the details of his canonization in Latin and English. There is an annual, well-attended pilgrimage to Usk, which begins with Mass at the Catholic church and continues with a processional Rosary to Saint David's grave (Benedictines, Delaney).