Father Corapi's Biography

121 St. Faustinus & Jovita martyrs
Bríxiæ natális sanctórum Mártyrum Faustíni et Jovítæ fratrum, qui sub Hadriáno Imperatóre, post multa præclára ob Christi fidem suscépta certámina, victrícem martyrii corónam accepérunt.       At Brescia, in the time of Emperor Adrian, the birthday of the holy martyrs Faustinus and Jovita, who received the triumphant crown of martyrdom after many glorious combats for the faith of Christ.

On April 18 the Roman Martyrology names the martyr St Calocerus, who figures largely in the legendary history of S. Faustinus and Jovita, whose heroic confession he is said to have witnessed when, as a court official, he accompanied Hadrian to his native city Brescia and was present in the amphitheatre. The constancy of the two confessors and the refusal of the wild beasts to touch them brought about his conversion, and he was baptized by Bishop Apollonius with 12,000 other citizens. He was tortured and imprisoned in several Italian towns, notably in Asti, where he instructed St Secundus who visited him in gaol. Event­ually, we are told, he was taken to Albenga in Liguria and beheaded on the seashore.

They decided to follow the Benedictine rule of Monte Cassino and, besides their own abbey of Palazzuolo, they built at a distance of about eighteen miles a convent for women, in which their wives and Walfrid’s daughter Rattruda took the veil. 

The king of Sweden, whose name also was Olaf, was himself converted by St Sigfrid, who baptized him at Husaby in a spring which afterwards bore Sigfrid’s name and was the channel of many miracles. St Sigfrid continued his labours successfully for many years, and at his death was buried in the church pf Växjö. Tradition has added many details to the accounts of St Sigfrid’s labours. It is said that when he first arrived at Växjö he began by planting a cross and building a wooden church in which he celebrated the divine mysteries and preached. The twelve principal men of the district were converted by him, and one of them, who died almost immediately, received Christian burial and had a cross placed on his grave. So wonderfully did the truth spread, that within a short time the faith was planted in all Varend. The fountain in which St Sigfrid baptized the catechumens long retained the names of the first twelve converts, engraved on a monument. It is said that he ordained two bishops, for East and West Gothland. His three nephews, Unaman a priest, Sunaman a deacon, and Vinaman a subdeacon, were his chief assistants.

After a time, St Sigfrid entrusted the care of his diocese to these three and set off to carry the light of the gospel into more distant provinces. During his absence, a troop, partly out of hatred for Christianity and partly for booty, plundered the church of VaxjO and murdered Unaman and his brothers, burying their bodies in a forest and placing their heads in a box which they sank in a pond. The heads were duly recovered and placed in a shrine, on which occasion, we are told, the three heads spoke. The king resolved to put the murderers to death, but St Sigfrid induced him to spare their lives. Olaf compelled them, however, to pay a heavy fine which he wished to bestow on the saint, who refused to accept a farthing of it, notwithstanding his extreme poverty and the difficulties with which he had to contend in rebuilding his church. He had inherited in an heroic degree the spirit of the apostles, and preached the gospel also in Denmark. Sigfrid is said, but doubtfully, to have been canonized by Pope Adrian IV, the Englishman who had himself laboured zealously for the propagation of the faith in the North over one hundred years after St Sigfrid. The Swedes honour St Sigfrid as their apostle.

1306 BD ANGELO OF BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO the body of Bd Angelo remained entire down to the year 1583, exhaling, it is asserted, a sweet fragrance, and that the veneration paid to his remains at Borgo San Sepolcro as those of a saint has been continuous.

THE decree emanating from the Congregation of Sacred Rites, which in 1921 confirmed the cultus of this Augustinian hermit, frankly admits that the life of Angelo said to have been written by John of St William has perished. We are consequently very ill-informed regarding his career. His family name was Scar­petti, and he was born at Borgo San Sepolcro in Umbria. He seems to have taken the Augustinian habit about the same time as his more famous contemporary St Nicholas of Tolentino. The decree referred to states that he spent part of his religious life in England and was instrumental in founding several Augustinian houses in this country. Two anecdotes are also recorded which are believed to illustrate the high favour he enjoyed with Almighty God. We are told that once when he had sternly rebuked a man of scandalous life the offender in a passion raised his arm to strike him. It was, however, instantaneously paralysed, and the miscreant only recovered the use of it by the prayer of Bd Angelo. On another occasion an innocent man who had been sentenced to death recommended himself to Angelo’s prayers. He was hanged in accordance with the sentence, but when the Brothers of the Misericordia came to cut him down and bury him, they found him still alive, and the man declared that Angelo had supported him all the time so that his neck was not broken. Obviously such stories, reported at fourth or fifth hand, are not very convincing but there appears to be better evidence that the body of Bd Angelo remained entire down to the year 1583, exhaling, it is asserted, a sweet fragrance, and that the veneration paid to his remains at Borgo San Sepolcro as those of a saint has been continuous.

1367 BD JULIA OF CERTALDO, VIRGIN

1682 St. Claude la Colombière special day for the Jesuits spiritual companion, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

1682 BD CLAUD LA COLOMBIERE He so accustomed himself to refer everything to God that human respect and worldly motives became impossible to him.

A CONTEMPORARY artist has left us the portrait of Bd Claud taken when he was between thirty-five and forty-one years of age—a longish face, eyes small but bright and penetrating, a broad forehead, a well-proportioned mouth and rather a pointed chin. We are told that when he entered the Society of Jesus he was fairly strong physically, of a lively disposition, with very high ideals and in every way wise and gracious. Such gifts were to be carefully cultivated in the religious life. His intellect was trained and developed so that his outlook was broad and his judgement acute and sound. He was a lover of the fine arts; and Olivier Patru, a member of the French Academy in 1640, corresponded with him and speaks of his writings in high praise. But these gifts would have been of little use in his work for souls if they had not been united to the interior spirit of the perfect religious animated by zeal for the glory of God. The source of his inner life was union with God in prayer, which occupied him continually. He so accustomed himself to refer everything to God that human respect and worldly motives became impossible to him. This wonderful detachment was indeed his distinguishing feature.

Bd Claud was born at Saint-Symphorien d’Ozon near Lyons in 1641. His family was well-connected, pious and in easy circumstances. There are no special records of his childhood till he was sent to the Jesuit college at Lyons for his studies. Though he acknowledged a strong aversion to the idea of a religious vocation, he conquered himself, and when he applied to be received into the Society he was at once accepted. He made his novitiate at Avignon, and after the usual two years passed into the college in that city to complete his course of philosophy. When this was ended, he was at first put to teach grammar and then the humanities, in which occupations he spent the years from 1661 to 1666. Since 1659 Avignon had been in a state of unrest there was continuous friction between the nobles and the people. In 1662 came the unfortunate affray in Rome between the papal guard and the suite of the French ambassador, which resulted in the occupation of Avignon, at that date still papal territory, by the troops of Louis XIV. The pupils’ studies, however, were not interfered with, and the simultaneous increase of Calvinism only served to redouble the zeal of the Jesuit fathers who spent themselves in apostolic labours in the town and in the neighbouring country.

With the return of peace the townspeople of Avignon celebrated the canoniza­tion of St Francis de Sales, and the older of the two convents of the Order of the Visitation in that city was the scene of a great ecclesiastical function. This was the first occasion on which Bd Claud’s gifts of oratory were displayed. He, though not yet ordained, was one of those chosen to preach the saint’s panegyric in the convent church. His text was: “Out of strength has come sweetness” (Judges xiv, 14), and the sermon was pronounced magnificent. Meanwhile it had been decided to send the young Claud to Paris to finish his course of theology, and here he found himself in the very centre of the intellectual life of France. Here also a great honour was conferred on him the two sons of the famous Colbert were put under his care. Most probably Colbert realized how gifted his sons’ tutor was, and therefore, though he was no friend to the Jesuits, he had chosen Claud for such an important post. However, his connection with the Colbert family came to an abrupt conclusion, as unfortunately a satirical phrase in an article which Claud had written was brought to the great minister’s knowledge. He was much offended, and asked that Claud might be recalled to his own province. This, however, could not be till 1670.

The young priest was in 1673 appointed festival preacher in the college church at Avignon. He took immense pains with his sermons, which are models of the art of preaching both for their sound doctrine and their beauty of language. The same sermons seem to have been preached later in England, and the name of the Duchess of York (Mary of Modena, afterwards queen when James II succeeded to the throne), in whose chapel they were delivered, is traditionally attached to them in the printed editions. During his time in Paris he had come into contact with Jansenism with its network of untruths and calumnies. He could now from the pulpit combat these errors, animated as he was by that special love of the Sacred Heart which was to prove a most potent antidote. At the end of 1674 Father La Chaise, Bd Claud’s rector, was directed by the father general to admit him to solemn profession after he had made a month’s retreat at the outset of what is called the third probation. The retreat brought Claud many graces. He was led to consecrate himself specially to the Sacred Heart, and in addition to the vows of profession he took a private vow to practise exact obedience to the rule of the Society of Jesus in every detail which it prescribed. He notes that he had for some time lived as he was now pledged by this vow to live, and that he had bound himself thus formally in order to insure his perseverance. At this date he was just thirty-three years old, the age at which our Lord died, and the inspiration came to him that he must now die still more completely to the world and to himself. As a spiritual note of his records “It seems right, dear Lord, that I should begin to live in thee and for thee alone, at the age at which thou didst die for all and for me in particular.”

Two months after his solemn profession in February, 1675, Claud was made superior of the college at Paray-le-Monial. It was unusual to put a young professed at the head of a house, and on the other hand gifts such as he possessed seemed hardly to have sufficient scope in a small residence of only four or five fathers such as was Paray. We may well believe that he was sent by God for the sake of an elect soul who needed him. That soul was St Margaret Mary Alacoque. She was suffering and perplexed because of the extraordinary revelations of the Sacred Heart which were granted her and which became every day clearer and more intimate. In obedience to her superior, Mother de Saumaise, she had told everything to a priest, a learned man, but one who had no knowledge of these extraordinary ways. He insisted that she was suffering from delusions, and her distress was only in­creased. She prayed for help and believed that our Lord answered that His faithful servant and perfect friend should be sent her.

Father La Colombière*]* The “de “ was added after his death.] came one day to give the community an instruction. “As he spoke”, the saint tells us, “I heard in my soul the words ‘He it is I send you’.” The first time she went to confession to him he behaved as if he knew what was passing within her. She felt a repugnance and shrank from speaking openly to him, though she knew it was God’s will she should do so. When next he came he told her he was glad to be the means of giving her an opportunity of making a sacrifice to God, and thereupon “without my feeling any pain”, she says, “he opened out my heart and showed me its depths, good and bad. He consoled me greatly and told me not to fear God’s leading as long as I was obedient, that I must give myself entirely to Him to be treated as He willed. He taught me to cherish the gifts of God and to receive His communications with faith and humility.”

Thus he was of the greatest service to her personally, and he did much to further the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the Church in general, realizing that this devotion was the best antidote to Jansenism.

Father La Colombière was not long at Paray. His next mission was very different on the recommendation of Father La Chaize, the confessor of Louis XIV of France, he was sent to London as preacher to Mary Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of York. In England he preached by word and by the example of his holy life. The love of the Sacred Heart became his favourite subject. His process tells us of his work for souls in this country and of the many Protestants he converted. The position of Catholics in England was extremely difficult as the hostile feeling against them was just then intense. An agitation was set on foot to exclude the Duke of York, who had become a Catholic, from the royal succession and to put the Prince of Orange or some other in his place. The story of a spurious “Popish Plot”, a tale fabricated by the infamous Titus Oates and his abettors, convulsed the country and in this Father La Colombière amongst the rest was supposed to be implicated. The object of the plot was said to be the murder of King Charles II and the destruction of the Established Church. Claud La Colombière was accused of having exercised his ministry and of having converted Protestants and lapsed Catholics. He was imprisoned in the King’s Bench, but did not win the martyr’s crown, as through the intervention of Louis XIV he was simply banished from England. His already bad health was completely broken by his imprisonment, and when he returned to France at the beginning of 1679 it was only to lead the life of an invalid. Although there were intervals when he rallied and active work was possible, his lungs were seriously attacked. His superiors, hoping that the air of his native province would be beneficial, sent him to Lyons and to Paray, and it was on a second visit to Paray that by the direct counsel of St Margaret Mary he remained there to die. After setting an example of great humility and perfect patience he passed away on the evening of February 15, 1682, and it seems that the next morning St Margaret Mary was supernaturally assured that his soul was in Heaven and needed no prayers. Bd Claud was beatified in 1929.

See A Jesuit at the English Court, by Sister Mary Philip (1922), and the lives written in French by Fr Seguin and by Fr Charrier, the former of which exists in an English translation but the most up-to-date biography, fully-documented, is by Fr C. Guitton (1943), Mrs M. Yeo’s These Three Hearts is a reprint of a life published first in 1940. See also Frs Monier­-Vinard and Condamin, Bx. Claude...Notes spirituelles (1929), and the Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. ii, cc. 939-941. Bd Claud’s complete works, containing a good deal of autobiographical detail, have been more than once published, and some of them translated.