A Franciscan friar was travelling on business of his order when he was
overtaken by three brigands, who stole from him his ass, his saddle,
and his doubloons. Moreover, they told him that if he informed any man
of what they had done they would certainly come after him again and
take his life; for they could only sell the ass and the saddle that
were known to be his by representing that he had sold them to them,
otherwise no one would have bought them.
The friar told no man what had happened to him, for fear of losing
his life; yet he knew that if he could only let his parishioners know
what had occurred, they would soon retake for him all that he had lost.
So he hit on the following expedient: next Sunday, as he was saying
Mass, when he came to the place in the Preface where special additions
commemorative of the particular festivals are inserted, after the
enumeration of the praises of God, he added the words, 'Nevertheless,
me, Thy poor servant, evil men have robbed of my ass and her saddle,
and all my doubloons; but to no man have I declared the thing, save
unto Thee only, Omnipotent Father, who knowest all things, and helpest
the poor;' and then he went on, 'et ideò cum angelis et archangelis,'
&c. [335]
The parishioners were no sooner thus informed of what had occurred,
than they went after the brigands and made them give up all they had
taken. The next time, therefore, the father was out in the Campagna,
the brigands came after him and said:
'Now, we take your life; last time we let you off, saying we would
spare you if you told no man what we had done; but you cannot keep
your own counsel, so you must die like the rest.'
But the good monk showed them that he had not spoken to man of the
thing, but had only lamented his loss before God, which every man was
free to do. And the brigands, when they heard that, could say nothing,
and they let him go by uninjured, him and his beast.
[Such stories are the result of a household familiarity with sacred
matters, and are told with genuine fun without the least infusion
of irreverence. Just as out of the fulness of the heart the mouth
speaks, even so we make jokes on whatever subject we are most occupied
with. Religious offices are so much a part of the daily life of the
Catholic poor that it would be impossible to banish the language of
them from their simple jokes. I have had numbers of such told me
without the least expression that could be called scoffing in the
teller; but I forbear to give more than the two or three in the text
by way of specimens, lest the spirit of them should be misjudged.]