(A.D. 1373.)
[S. Andrew died Jan. 6th; he was formally canonized by Urban VIII.,
in 1629, and his festival was transferred to Feb. 4th.
Authorities:--Two lives, one by a disciple, the other by Friar Peter
Andrew Castagna, written a hundred years after his death.]
Nicolas, a member of the illustrious Florentine house of Corsini,
lived with his pious wife, Peregrina, for some time without children,
which was to them a great grief, and they besought God to give them
that blessing which He had hitherto withheld. Their prayer was heard,
and on November 30th, 1302, a son was born to them, who received at
the font the name of Andrew, because he was born on the festival of
that apostle. His parents, who regarded him as the child of prayer,
had already, before his birth, dedicated him to the Lord, and sought,
in his childhood, to inspire him with devotion and morality. But
Andrew was possessed of a vehement, independent spirit, which brooked
no restraint, and he grew up to cause them bitter sorrow by his
disorderly life. Nevertheless father and mother prayed on, hoping
against hope. The wild youth passed for being one among the most
dissolute young men of the city, and was acknowledged as the worst of
a bad set, utterly godless and abandoned. But his parents prayed on.
The mother cast herself before a figure of the Queen of Heaven, and,
in the bitterness of her anguish of soul, cried, "Oh, Mother of my
Saviour! Thou knowest how the soul of my child, for whom thy Son bled,
is sinking to destruction. Thou knowest, Holy One! how, in his
earliest youth, I dedicated my child to thee, and trusted him to thy
protection, how I have done all that earthly mother can do to keep him
clean and unspotted from the world! And now, pity me, weeping over my
guilty son, thou, whose tears flowed for thy innocent Son! Thou, who
art so mighty, entreat thy divine Son, that mine may be moved to true
and broken-hearted repentance."
Thus praying, and with streaming eyes, Andrew lit upon her one day, as
he was going forth to the commission of some new work of evil. He
stood still and looked at her, and a feeling of compunction stirred
his heart. Then, turning her reddened eyes towards him, she said, "I
cannot doubt it; thou art the wolf whom I saw in a dream."
"What mean you, mother?" asked the young man.
She answered: "Before thou wast born, my child, I dreamt that I
brought forth a wolf which rushed into a church, and was there
transformed into a lamb. Thy father and I, on account of this dream,
placed thee under the protection of the Mother of God. My son, thou
art not ours, thou belongest not to the world, but only to the service
of God. Oh, would to heaven, that as the first part of my dream has
been fulfilled, the second part might find its accomplishment also!"
Andrew covered his face, and fell at his mother's feet, and sobbed
forth: "Oh, good, pious mother! the wolf shall indeed become a lamb.
Thou didst dedicate me to God, and to Him will I, also, devote myself.
Pray, pray for me, mother, that I may obtain pardon for all my
grievous offences."
Next day Andrew sought the Church of the Carmelites, and kneeling
before an image of the Holy Virgin, wept bitterly over his past life,
which now appeared to him in all its bare deformity. And he felt so
powerfully called by the grace of God, that he resolved at once to
take refuge from his evil companions and associations, in the
cloister. He, therefore, sought the convent door that same hour, and
asked to be admitted as a novice. He was received, and spent his
novitiate in constant battle with his passions, and in trampling out
the memory of the past, by not suffering his mind for a moment to
repose on the thoughts of the evil he had done, save only for the
purpose of stirring up compunction, and abasing himself in profound
humility. After having been received into the Order, he became a model
of self-restraint and earnestness, so that in the year 1328, at the
age of twenty-six, he was ordained priest. He was shortly after
appointed to preach in Florence; and his fervour and love for sinners
produced very astonishing fruit, in moving many who had lived in sin
to turn in sorrow to the cross, and renounce their evil ways. Andrew
was next sent to Paris, there to prosecute his studies, and was there
invested with the degree of doctor; and after he had completed his
studies with Cardinal Corsini, his uncle, at Avignon, he returned to
Florence, where he was elected prior of his cloister. His renown as a
preacher of righteousness prevailed again, and his sermons produced
such an effect, that he was regarded as the apostle of the land.
After the death of the bishop of Fiesole, the chapter elected Andrew
Corsini to be his successor. But when the news of his election reached
him, he fled away, and hid himself in a Carthusian monastery. He was
sought for long in every direction, without result, and the chapter,
despairing of finding him, were proceeding with the election of
another, in his room, when a child cried out "He who is to be our
bishop is praying in the Carthusian monastery." He was there sought,
and Andrew recognising in this the will of God, yielded, and, in 1360,
was consecrated bishop of Fiesole.
As prelate, he maintained the same discipline over himself, and never
abandoned the penance he had imposed on himself for his youthful sins,
of reciting daily the Seven Penitential Psalms, of sleeping on a
faggot of vine twigs, and of never speaking without necessity. But
however severe he was in his dealing with himself, nothing could
exceed the tenderness and love with which he sought out and dealt with
the greatest sinners in his diocese. And this love which overflowed
from his heart rendered him peculiarly successful in reconciling
enemies. Knowing this, Urban V. sent him to Bologna to appease a
disturbance which had broken out between the nobles and the people,
and he achieved this mission with signal success. In his 71st year, as
he was singing midnight mass on Christmas Eve he felt great
exhaustion, which was followed by a fever, from which he died on
Jan. 6th, 1373.
Relics, in the Carmelite Church at Florence.
In Art he appears between a wolf and a lamb.