EUSTOCHIA
A Child of Sin—Born 1444—Her Early Peculiarities—Physical
Possession by Evil Spirits—Sent to a Convent—A Life
of Devotion—Eustochia a Novitiate—A Supernatural
Accident—Belief that She Was a Hypocrite—Resignation—The
Evil Spirit in Possession-Frightful Torments—Evil Portents—A
Sorceress?—Imprisonment—Persecutions by Invisible Powers—Regaining
Good Esteem—A Nun—Her Sanctity and Constancy—Her Death and Burial.
The story of her, who was baptised by the name of Lucrezia Bellini and
is now revered by the Church under that of Eustochia, which she assumed
on becoming a Benedictine nun, in the year 1461, is one of the very
strangest that even the Italian Quattrocento has to show. For it is the
story of a child of sin who was tormented all her days by the Adversary
of mankind, and who was yet a saint.
In these, our own latter days, when the world at large is recovering
somewhat from the prolonged epidemic of materialism from which it had
been suffering during the greater part of the Nineteenth Century, the
fact of supernatural “possession” is coming to be recognised by many of
the strongest scientific intellects as the only possible and rational
explanation of certain among the numerous cases of mental perversity
that fill our modern prisons and asylums. Even—so I have been given
to understand—the “Salpêtrière” itself has been known to express
opinions favourable to the theory of possession in some instances.
So that the story of Eustochia may not be deemed to be unworthy of
attention—even by those persons who ordinarily find it difficult to
believe anything unless it has already received the endorsement of
their fellow-creatures’ belief.
The natural daughter of a dissolute citizen of Terra di Gemola in
the Veneto, Lucrezia was born in shame and secrecy in the year 1444,
at Padua, and was sent at once to her father, Bartolomeo Bellini, at
Gemola. Bartolomeo Bellini was, alas! a married man with a lawful wife
and family of his own; none the less, he received the child with some
show of gladness and immediately saw to her being properly baptised,
giving her the name of Lucrezia; after which he handed her over to a
nurse under whose care the little Lucrezia remained until she was four
years old, when Bellini sent for her to come and live with him and his
family in his own house. By this time she had become very pretty, as
well as being already endowed with considerable charm and brightness of
spirit.
On seeing her again, her father came to love Lucrezia with an especial
tenderness; but, to his wife, not unnaturally, the sight of the
little girl was gall and bitterness, in its reminder of her husband’s
infidelity to her; and the Signora Bellini soon grew to hate the
presence of Lucrezia.
Nor were Bellini’s own good sentiments towards his daughter suffered to
endure for long.
It seemed to those with whom she was in daily and hourly contact that
there was something odd about Lucrezia; for all her charm and goodness,
the child, in some indefinable way, was not as other children, but
rather as one mysteriously marked down by Providence for some especial
purpose of Its own.
And then, suddenly, Lucrezia’s peculiarities began to take definite
shape, and to manifest themselves in the most disconcerting manner by
a nervous inability to control the movements of her own limbs—as it
were a kind of Saint Vitus’ dance. Even against her express wish, she
would constantly find herself compelled to do this or that; she was
even, occasionally, raised bodily by some invisible force above the
ground. Her confessor declared himself of the opinion that she was
under some strong preternatural influence, but of what kind, precisely,
he was unable at once to determine. For, although she was frequently
moved to certain movements by some will other than her own, yet her
mind was entirely subject to her own control; consequently, one cannot
quite think her to have yet been actually in a state of possession, her
condition appearing to approximate rather to one of slight epilepsy.
But this was only the beginning of Lucrezia’s long trial. In spite of
her very real sufferings, her spirit maintained the calm of a constant
recollection in God, together with the unceasing interior practice
of the most meritorious acts of resignation and faith. As time went
on, however, the fact of her physical possession by evil spirits
became self-evident, and Lucrezia herself an object of the utmost
aversion—nay, of fury—to her father, who refused to recognise in his
child’s condition the anger of Heaven upon himself for the sin of her
birth.
So matters came to the point of Lucrezia’s being brought to the
Bishop—Monsignor Pietro Donato, I fancy—that he might exorcise
the spirit that tormented her; which, as it seemed at first, he
successfully did, for during some weeks after the exorcism Lucrezia was
able to pursue the practice of her religion without let or hindrance;
so that she was considered permanently healed.
But it was not fated to be so; her foe had only changed his tactics,
and now, although still capable of constant interior acts of devotion,
the hitherto gentle girl began, to the amazement of all who knew her,
to show herself undocile, rough of speech, and extremely resentful of
the Signora Bellini’s unkindness to her. This new development, which
was altogether contrary to her own inclinations, only brought upon
her the increased anger and dislike of her father, who, together with
his wife, proceeded to treat her so harshly as to bring her more than
once to the verge of the grave. Beaten, starved, and neglected, the
friendless child knew not where to find refuge from her misery save
only in God, to whom she had completely given herself.
She was now seven years old, timid and crushed by suffering, but with
her heart full of charity and faith; nevertheless, her father, being
tempted by the father of lies, fell into the belief that Lucrezia, in
revenge for his cruelty to her, was minded to poison him—and so he
resolved to murder her. From this intention, however, the tempter,
having no mind presumably that Lucrezia should be killed and pass
in all her innocence to a better world—dissuaded Bellini, so that he
changed his mind and sent her instead to the Convent of San Prosdocimo,
in the city of Padua, there to finish her education.
Now, during the latter half of the Fifteenth Century, in Italy it was
not unusual to find convents of religious orders in which the strict
practice of the rules laid down centuries earlier for their guidance
by the holy founders of those same orders had become in the course of
time somewhat relaxed. The Rule—the very backbone, so to speak, of
a religious community—had grown, through long, indulgent gentleness
on the part of Superiors, so mild as to be no longer suitable to
the special necessities of the enclosed life; there was too much
intercourse allowed with the outer world, the affairs and interests
of which had come in consequence to occupy too large a part in the
thoughts and natural sympathies of those called by their vocation
to lead the higher spiritual existence of the cloister. And so we
find that many bishops and abbots and abbesses devoted themselves
particularly to the task of bringing back their “houses” to the close
observance of their various original “Rules”—Franciscan, Dominican,
Benedictine, and others.
The convent of San Prosdocimo belonged to the Benedictines, but,
unhappily, it was one of those houses that had fallen into slackness,
and into which had crept the habit of worldly conversation and of
carelessness in regard to the strict observance of the regulations,
imposed by their most illustrious father and founder, for the guidance
of his spiritual children.
It was, then, to the care of the somewhat relaxed sisterhood of San
Prosdocimo that Lucrezia was committed by her father; and, within
a short time of her entry as a pupil into the convent, although the
youngest of its occupants in years, she showed herself far the ripest
in all goodness, the best balanced, and the most intelligent.
Of a cheerful temperament, a lively and captivating personality,
Lucrezia was never frivolous or superficial; but, preserving her
habitual state of recollection in calm and solitude, her life was one
continual prayer. For her patrons she chose three—the Mother of God,
Saint Jerome, and Saint Luke the evangelist.
Nine years the girl lived thus without being more than very slightly
troubled by the evil spirit who sought her destruction; until the
year 1460, when the death of the Abbess brought about great changes
in the convent. Upon that event Monsignor Zenoni, who had succeeded
Monsignor Donato as Bishop of Padua, considered that the time was come
to introduce a more strict administration in the convent and to revive
among its inmates the spirit of Saint Benedict. With this object he
forbade the nuns to elect their next Superior from among their number
until the reformations that he considered necessary should have been
brought about in their community. The nuns, though, dismayed by the
uncompromising words “reform” and “strict observance,” took fright at
Monsignor Zenoni’s salutary projects and transferred themselves in a
body with their pupils to another house of the order.
The only one of all the convent’s inmates to accept the Bishop’s
ordinance and to remain faithful to her post was the sixteen-year-old
Lucrezia; abandoned by her superiors and companions, Lucrezia kept
watch and ward alone in the deserted building until the Bishop sent
over to join her a body of sisters from the convent of Santa Maria
della Misericordia, appointing Donna Giustina Lazzara, a noble lady
of Padua, to be their Abbess. With the coming of Donna Giustina and
her companions, the primitive practice and regular observance of Saint
Benedict’s Rule became again the life of the house of San Prosdocimo.
Lucrezia’s whole being rejoiced exceedingly in the new order of things
in the convent and she determined to become, if possible, a nun and
a sister in religion of those about her. When she confided her desire
to them, however, she met with no encouragement; the truth was that,
although they had no fault to find with her personally, yet knowing her
history and that of her parents and seeing that she had been brought up
hitherto under the influence of more or less careless elders, the nuns
could not help feeling rather doubtful of Lucrezia’s fitness for the
religious life. Her very piety they were inclined to consider merely
superficial, and possibly a trifle simulated in one as yet untried by
discipline. At first even Donna Giustina was drawn to this opinion;
but, on reflection, she came to the conclusion that, after all, such
prejudices might well constitute a grave injustice, and, remembering
how Lucrezia had remained in the convent when the others had fled, she
at length consented to accept her as a postulant for the stupendous
honour of a bride of Christ. And so, to the dissatisfaction of her
companions, Lucrezia was invested with the habit of their order,
January 15, 1461; in honour of her patron, Saint Jerome, she took the
name of Eustochia, the daughter of Saint Paula and the pupil of Saint
Jerome. The ceremony, however, was marked for Lucrezia by an untoward
incident which served to create a further unfavourable impression
towards her on the part of the other nuns; for, as the priest was
giving her the Communion, the Sacred Host slipped from his fingers and
fell to the ground, an accident which they chose to regard as a mark of
the Divine displeasure towards her.
From the day of her thus taking the veil, the real martyrdom of
Eustochia began. Until then, since her entry into the convent, her
sufferings at the hands of the Adversary had been comparatively light
and she had been able to conceal his attacks upon her. But now his
possession of her became more malignantly active, manifesting itself
by controlling her movements so as to make her commit some slight
exterior fault of deportment against the Rule, so that her companions,
witnesses of Eustochia’s small breach of discipline, were more than
ever confirmed in the opinion that she was a hypocrite. By degrees this
feeling increased among them until it arrived at the point of her being
shunned by them as a moral leper.
And all the while Eustochia, in exquisite, faithful humbleness, gave
thanks to Heaven for Its just judgment upon her, as she deemed it,
accusing herself before God and the Abbess of having brought these
punishments upon herself by her sins—so that, while she lost the good
opinion of those about her, she gained incessant merit in the eyes of
her Creator. And now the hour of Eustochia’s long darkness sounded,
during which she was destined to drink to the dregs the cup of trial.
A month before the feast of Saint Jerome—that is, towards the end of
August—that same year of 1461, Eustochia felt herself much perturbed
and ill at ease in her heart; and her countenance, to the disquiet
of the whole house, took on an expression at once sombre and menacing
and quite unaccountable to the beholders, with the exception of Father
Peter Salicario, the chaplain of the convent, who alone grasped the
terrible meaning of it.
Father Salicario at once proceeded to prepare Eustochia for the coming
assault of her foe by counselling and exhorting her; moreover, the
good man straightway warned the Abbess and her nuns of the approaching
storm. What effect this had upon Donna Giustina’s relations with
Eustochia, I do not know precisely, but the nuns themselves were, as
may easily be imagined, greatly agitated by it; also, they were only
the more inclined to resent the presence in their midst of one in
whom the evil spirit had apparently taken up his abode. The horror
of Eustochia’s proximity seemed to them unbearable, and they joined
in protesting to Donna Giustina against any further continuance of
it. She, however, was of a more courageous nature than they, and had
perfect faith in the protection of the convent by Heaven.
The feast of Saint Jerome passed uneventfully enough (as though in
unwilling tribute to his splendour and the power of his patronage), but
on the next day the tempest broke loose.
We are told that it was as if a subterranean mine had been exploded
in the quiet convent; and as if the Devil had entered there as an
executioner with every circumstance of fear and horror. The agonised
contortions of Eustochia were frightful to see as she twisted herself
like a serpent in the extremity of her torments, the while her cries
filled all the place with their lamentation.
The greater number of the sisters fled from the vicinity of the poor
possessed, although a few attempted to watch over her at a little
distance lest she should harm herself; but suddenly Eustochia, whom
they had always known as the gentlest of beings, seized a knife and ran
upon them, so that they also ran from her. She even pursued them until
she fell over a bench, down on to which she sank, deprived for a time
of all further power of movement. Father Salicario, on being sent for,
summoned the evil spirit to speak; which it did as usual by the mouth
of its victim, saying that it had been checked in the midst of its fury
by the power of Saint Jerome and confined to the bench. Upon an attempt
to exorcise it, however, it became again so violent that Eustochia had
to be secured for some days lest she should do a hurt to herself or
to others. During that time her torments were indescribable, her enemy
doing all that he could to make an end of her, now by strangling, now
with heavy blows from an unseen hand that beat her to the ground in a
half-dying condition. Not a word of impatience escaped, however, from
the afflicted girl, and in the intervals of her sufferings she never
failed to give thanks for them to God. Eventually, her patience and
fortitude discouraged the demon, and for a space again he left her in
peace. But now the bad opinion already entertained of Eustochia by the
community seemed to receive the strongest confirmation from a series of
unfortunate occurrences. Be it said, frankly, that the rest of the nuns
were firmly convinced that Eustochia was a sorceress and that she was
feigning piety as a cloak to conceal her commerce with the Prince of
this world.
For all at once the Abbess fell ill of a strange malady, the nature of
which it was beyond all the science of the doctors to determine. It was
a kind of slow, wasting sickness without any definite features beyond
the ever increasing debility of the patient; so that, as rumour soon
had it in the convent, Donna Giustina was the victim of some malignant,
supernatural process emanating from Eustochia, upon whom the hostile
scrutiny of all about her was now directed. To make matters worse,
there were found in a corner of the convent some objects—but of what
nature I do not know—which in the common opinion seemed to set the seal
upon this supposition. For her adversary was now compelled to resort to
a new stratagem by which to encompass Eustochia’s destruction.
Without listening to her protestations of her innocence, the
community decided that Eustochia was guilty of the crimes that their
imaginations, stimulated by the tempter, imputed to her; she was
imprisoned in a dark cell far from those of her sisters, and there
began to be talk of her being hanged for sacrilege and magic and—should
the Abbess die—for murder as well! Soon the town of Padua was all agog
with the news that the seemingly pious Eustochia was imprisoned on
these charges and the people flocked about the gates of the convent
clamouring for her to be delivered to them that they might burn her at
the stake and purify their city of her being.
And, all the while, Eustochia sat alone in the dark and narrow cell
with only her enemy, as it seemed to her, for company, despised and
hated and abandoned of all living things; tortured in body and mind,
her days and nights were spent in unutterable desolation, while, as
she afterwards related, her soul was unceasingly attacked by the evil
spirit with every imaginable temptation to impurity and despair. And
yet, in spite of all, she could say with Abraham that she had hoped
against hope. The very solitude and silence of her prison provided her
with the opportunity she so needed of satisfying her supreme desire
for prayer. No books were allowed her, but she found consolation in
reciting over and over again such psalms as she knew by heart. She
had taught herself the five canticles of which the first letters form
the name of Mary—_Magnificat_, _Ad Dominum_, _Retribue servo tuo_,
_Judica me, Deus_, _Ad te levavi_—to each of which she added an anthem
formed from the same letters—_Missus est_, _Assumpta est_, _Rubum_, _In
odorem_, _Ave Maria_, ending with the _Interveniat_. Thus Eustochia
in her gloomy prison was as a lonely dove in its nest, weeping and
sighing, not with impatience, but with Divine love, unceasingly tempted
by the Devil and as unceasingly defeating him by her sweetness.
At long length her confessor obtained access to Eustochia; whereupon
the demon to whom power was permitted over her body spoke by her lips
and lyingly confessed that she had been guilty of the crimes attributed
to her. This took place in the presence of several of the nuns who
were present at Father Salicario’s interview with her; the priest was
thunderstruck and embarrassed by this admission on Eustochia’s part,
but, being persuaded of the diabolical influence at work in the matter,
he obtained leave to speak with her again on the next day. This time he
began the interview with an exorcism, as the result of which Eustochia
was enabled to speak of her own accord and to tell him what was truly
in her heart that was so filled with humility and charity as to flow
over with them.
So strengthened was Salicario in his championship of the girl that he
bent all his efforts to proving her innocence; moreover, the Abbess,
who was now recovering from her indisposition, was equally inclined to
a generous view of the case. Her desire was to get rid of Eustochia
from the convent, in the kindest manner possible, in order to spare
it all further disorder and scandalous notoriety by reason of having
the afflicted novice any longer beneath its roof. With this object,
Donna Giustina persuaded her brother, Don Francesco Lazzara, to see
Eustochia and to try to induce her to withdraw from the convent of San
Prosdocimo; with which request Don Francesco, a man of rare integrity
and uprightness, complied and sought out the possessed in her narrow
cell.
Here, alone with Eustochia, he put the case ably and kindly to her,
urging her to leave the convent—in which, as it appeared to him, it
was not the will of Heaven that she should remain—and to return to the
world outside it, where he promised he would undertake to provide for
her and even to find her a good husband. Since she was not yet tied
to the life of a religious by any vows, he concluded, she need have
no hesitation in adopting a course which was not only permitted by the
Church, but also, indeed, absolutely necessary.
Eustochia heard him out in silence. Then, having thanked him for his
kindness to her, she replied:
“Do not believe that I am as unhappy as the world seems to think”—for
in his argument Don Francesco had spoken of what must be her utter
misery, both from the demon that had her frame in thrall and from the
hostility towards her of the nuns themselves, for whom her presence
was an affliction. “My sufferings are for me only the caresses of my
Celestial Spouse, who permits the wicked spirit to chastise me, and
I am so happy in them that I would not exchange them against all the
delights of the world. Let them continue, or even increase, they do
not disturb me. In calling me to the life of the cloister, God did not
call me to an existence of tranquillity and ease. If I find my path
strewn with thorns, it is a sign that that is the path by which He
wishes to lead me to Him—for it is the same path that was trodden by
Jesus Christ. My sisters here in the convent look upon me, I know, as
an outcast; it hurts me, and I have no one but myself to blame for it,
for I am full of faults. Still, I hope to correct myself in time of
my faults, and so to merit a better opinion from my sisters. I know,
too, that I am a burden on the convent, and that the demon who has
possession of me is an object of horror to the whole community; but
as I am becoming accustomed to his persecution of me, so will they get
over their terror of him. For the rest, as my deliverance from him is
not in my own hands, I can only entreat them to have compassion upon
me.”
On hearing these words, Don Francesco was amazed by the courage and
patience of Eustochia; completely won over by them to the side of
the gentle speaker, he could find no words sufficient to praise her
constancy or to express his enthusiastic approval of her resolution to
cleave to her vocation. All he suggested was that she should change her
convent for another; but this she declined to do.
This interview with Don Francesco resulted, ultimately, in some little
amelioration of Eustochia’s existence; the Abbess now taking her part
against the rest of the community, she was permitted to leave the
cell (in which she had been confined some three months by order of the
higher authorities) for the infirmary, where she was to help in tending
the sick. She was forbidden, however, to appear either in choir or in
church during the hours of service, or to show herself in the parlour,
or to have any relations of any kind with the outside world—and,
most especially, she was not to speak to any one, whosoever, of her
sufferings from the demon. And when she met any of the sisters, they
showed their detestation of Eustochia by lowering their eyes or turning
their backs on her; nobody who could help it came near her, nobody
spoke to her; for to one and all—the chaplain and the Abbess only
excepted—she was an object of horror and of aversion.
Through all these trials nothing had been more painful to Eustochia
than the knowledge that the sisters sometimes believed her to be
only feigning possession in order to obtain their sympathy and
commiseration. But, at this point, it seemed as though the evil spirit
himself was determined to change their mind in respect to the reality
of his presence among them by redoubling the fury of his onslaught
upon Eustochia; thenceforth invisible hands daily inflicted upon her
the most barbarous violence, maltreating her in a thousand ways, so as
often to bring her within a short distance of expiring from the effects
of it. At times it was as if he had scourged her with whips of metal;
while, at others, it seemed as though her body had been slashed with
knives. At times, again, Eustochia was dragged along the ground to
the door of the convent as if her foe were bent upon casting her out
from it into the street; and then she would be lifted up by an unseen
power into the air, and let to fall, senseless and head downward, upon
the stone floor with a crash—so that all wondered how it was that she
escaped without a fractured skull. Again and again a deep puncture
was made by the same unseen agency in the side of her neck, causing an
extensive flow of blood; and once she was carried up on to the tiles of
the convent roof by the invisible power and held suspended in the abyss
over the street below, in the sight of the whole community, that cried
aloud upon Heaven to protect her. And not until the chaplain came, to
command the evil spirit that it should bring Eustochia down immediately
without hurting her, was she restored in safety to her sisters, who by
this time were completely cured of their former disbelief.
But of all these manifestations of unearthly violence towards
Eustochia, perhaps the most remarkable was one that occurred in the
presence of her confessor, that same Father Salicario, who afterwards
bore testimony of it. One day, as he was conversing with her, a large
kitchen knife, lying on a table nearby, rose up suddenly of itself and
struck Eustochia upon her breast, transfixing her habit over which the
blood ran out in streams, the while a voice cried:
“If you do not give yourself to me, I will enlarge the wound until your
heart is visible!”
“So much the better,” gasped Eustochia, as she staggered to the table
and leaned upon it for support. “For, if you do, you will first have to
write the holy name of Jesus upon my breast....”
Which thing Father Salicario laid it upon the evil spirit that it
should do according as Eustochia had said; and a few years later, when
they were preparing her dead body for its resting-place, the nuns, to
their delight and great wonder, found the Holy Name cut deep into the
flesh over the region of Eustochia’s loving heart.
After four years of her terrible novitiate, during which she had never
ceased, in spite of all their unconcealed antipathy with its constant
slights and affronts, to love her sister nuns and to venerate them as
her betters, Eustochia was now, at length, conquering their dislike
of her and acquiring even something of their esteem by the sublime
perfection of her bearing. Of this improvement in their feelings
towards her they gave proof in admitting Eustochia to the number of
professed nuns on March 25, 1465, for which favour she was more than
grateful. On that day, therefore, she made her first vows, kneeling
before Donna Giustina in the chapel and having in her hands the written
formula which, signed by Eustochia herself, is sacredly preserved among
the treasures of her order.
From that day forth Eustochia gave herself up entirely to prayer and
meditation, neither appearing in the parlour nor even speaking to any
of the sisters, except only when absolutely necessary. And the demon
never ceased from tormenting her daily and in many ways; but without
being able to disturb the heavenly serenity of her.
Thus Eustochia entered upon her twenty-third year, and the time was
come (in accordance with the custom in convents of those days) for her
to make her final vows and to take the veil. This she did at the hands
of the chaplain—being confined by her extreme, increasing weakness
to her bed—on September 14, 1467, the feast of the Exaltation of the
Cross. At this time the community, now so altered in its sentiments
towards Eustochia, was in fear of soon losing her from its midst, so
exhausted and emaciated was she in consequence of her persecution by
the spirit that possessed her; but, to the general astonishment, she
proceeded to recover rapidly and, a week after her reception of the
veil almost “in articulo mortis,” Eustochia was once more well enough
to go to church and there to repeat her vows in public.
From being despised and shunned by all as a sorceress and supposed
murderess, an object of horror and suspicion not only to the inmates of
the convent but to the townspeople of Padua as well, Eustochia was now
the glory of her convent and the model of her sisters in it; the whole
town joined them in extolling her constancy in affliction and in doing
honour to her sanctity.
So much for the judgments of this world!
As for Eustochia herself, she remained the same through good and evil
report. From her cell where she passed her time there floated out now
and again a burst of golden song in praise of God, so tender and sweet
as to ravish the hearts of those that heard her; on these occasions the
other nuns thought of her rather as an angel than a human being. It was
during this last phase of her life that there was celebrated at Venice
the marriage of Caterina Cornaro with James, the King of Cyprus. The
report of the splendours in connection with this wedding was brought
to Padua, where for many days there was talk of little else. But “I
would not exchange my pains and dolours against all the pomp of them,”
remarked Eustochia quietly. To such a point of virtue had she attained
that she was only afraid lest Heaven should order the Devil to leave
her in peace—and so she might be in danger of losing her humility.
At this time she ate only once a day, and on two days of each week
abstained altogether from food of any kind.
Towards the end the Demon, despairing almost of her, turned his
activities to Father Salicario, whom he contrived to inspire with the
strongest personal dislike for Eustochia. This design, however, of
separating her from the kind friend of whose services she felt herself
to be hourly more in need, Eustochia defeated by means of commending
her need to the Mother of God and of reciting a hundred times the
“Ave Maria,” the result of which was always to bring the chaplain to
her. As Father Salicario afterward testified to many, he felt himself
compelled by an irresistible force to go to her at such times, his own
disinclination notwithstanding.
It was not until eleven days before Eustochia’s death, at the feast of
the Purification, that the evil spirit seemed to have been commanded
to desist from doing bodily violence upon her; and now he redoubled
his efforts to gain possession of her soul. A week before she died
she received the last Sacraments, which were administered to her in
church—to the general astonishment—in view of her feeble condition.
Having returned to her bed of pain, Eustochia became absorbed in
heavenly contemplation; when, all at once, she was attacked by a legion
of hateful fancies, and there passed before her dying eyes a train
of spectral revellings—from dances, feastings, and wedding banquets
to other and darker things such as she had never given a thought to
in the days of her youth and health. All she told to her friend, a
certain Sister Euphrasia, remarking how the human soul is liable to
such sensual temptations even on the brink of the grave, adding her
conviction that God does not abandon His creatures in their supreme
struggle.
And so the hour of her death—which she had foretold—drew nigh for
Eustochia. On the day—a Sunday—before that appointed from the beginning
of all time for her departure out of this life, Eustochia made her
confession and received absolution for the last time; then, begging
Euphrasia to keep watch with her in the Valley of the Shadow, the
little servant of God waited patiently for the end.
The last night of Eustochia’s life, that of Sunday, February 12-13,
1469, drew on during some hours in utter stillness for Euphrasia,
as she sat beside the bed in the dimly lit cell. Suddenly, towards
morning, she became conscious of a disquieting, stealthy sound, as of
a man climbing up the outer wall of the convent towards the roof—an
altogether unbelievable sound to Euphrasia’s ears, considering the
physical impossibility of such a thing. Nevertheless, as she listened,
incredulous yet affrighted, the slow dragging of hands and feet over
the smooth surface of the wall was distinctly audible to her; until,
at last, the noises passed away into the silence overhead, and all was
quiet once more, save for the laboured breathing of the form on the
bed.
And then Euphrasia’s eyes fell to the face of Eustochia, who was
sleeping, and she saw that it was smiling, and all luminous with a kind
of unearthly brightness; so she understood that what she had heard was
the departure of the evil spirit from the body of her whom he had been
permitted for so long to torment. These sounds were audible to all in
the convent, by whom, and by Father Salicario, they were held to be
those of the demon’s reluctant flight.
In the morning, the Abbess with her nuns came, at her request, to
say farewell to Eustochia, kneeling about the bed in prayer for
her, the while she thanked them, as she expressed it, “for all your
long-suffering and patience with me.” After which she still found
strength to ask their “pardon for all the bad examples I have given you
and all the inconvenience and embarrassment of having me among you.”
Then, having bidden them “_Arrivederci in Cielo_,” so affectionately as
to wring the hearts of all who heard her, Eustochia, folding her hands
upon her breast, fell asleep with a smile. Nor was it until some time
had elapsed that they could bring themselves to believe that she was
really dead.
When Eustochia was laid out in the chapel, all the town flocked to
do honour to the body, which, as we are told, exhaled a very sweet
and noticeable fragrance. She was first buried in the cloister of the
convent, where her remains were disinterred on November 16, 1472, in
the presence of many witnesses, who testified to it that the body was
still precisely as it had been in the moment of her death, perfectly
incorrupt and supple and deliciously fragrant. In 1475, however, the
coffin was transferred to the church and a marble monument raised above
her resting-place; meanwhile, as though to mark the spot formerly
hallowed by being the depository of Eustochia’s body, a spring of
purest water burst up out of her first grave in the cloister; which
spring became a famous resort for the sick, of whom multitudes
recovered their health by drinking of it.