THE house of Pegnafort, or, as it is pronounced, Pennafort, was
descended from the counts of Barcelona, and nearly allied to the kings
of Aragon. Raymund was born in 1175, at Pennafort, a castle in
Catalonia, which in the fifteenth century was changed into a convent of
the order of St. Dominick. Such was his rapid progress in his studies,
that at the age of twenty he taught philosophy at Barcelona, which he
did gratis, and with so great reputation, that he began then to be
consulted by the ablest masters. His principal care was to instil into
his scholars the most perfect maxims of a solid piety and devotion, to
compose all differences among the citizens, and to relieve the
distressed. He was about thirty years of age when he went to Bologna, in
Italy, to perfect himself in the study of the canon and civil law,
commenced Doctor in that faculty, and taught with the same
disinterestedness and charity as he had done in his own country. In 1219
Berengarius, bishop of Barcelona, who had been at Rome, took Raymund
home with him, to the great regret of the university and senate of
Bologna; and, not content with giving him a canonry in his church, made
him his archdeacon, grand vicar, and official. He was a perfect model to
the clergy, by his innocence, zeal, devotion, and boundless liberalities
to the poor, whom he called his creditors. In 1222 he took the religious
habit of St. Dominick at Barcelona, eight months after the death of the
holy founder, and in the forty-seventh year of his age. No person was
ever seen among the young novices more humble, more obedient, or more
fervent. To imitate the obedience of a Man-God, who reduced himself to a
state of subjection to his own creatures, to teach us the dangers and
deep wound of self-will, and to point out to us the remedy, the saint
would depend absolutely on the lights of his director in all things. And
it was upon the most perfect self-denial that he laid the foundation of
that high sanctity which he made the object of his most earnest desires.
The grace of prayer perfected the work which mortification had begun. In
a spirit of compunction he begged of his superiors that they would
enjoin him some severe penance, to expiate the vain satisfaction and
complacency which he said he had sometimes taken in teaching. They
indeed imposed on him a penance, but not such a one as be expected. It
was to write a collection of cases of conscience for the instruction and
conveniency of confessors and moralists. This produced his Sum, the
first work of that kind. Had his method and decisions been better
followed by some later authors of the like works, the holy maxims of
Christian morality had been treated with more respect by some moderns
than they have been, to our grief and confusion.
Raymund joined to the exercises of his solitude the functions of an
apostolical life, by laboring without intermission in preaching,
instructing, hearing confessions with wonderful fruit, and converting
heretics, Jews, and Moors. Among his penitents were James, king of
Aragon, and St. Peter Nolasco, {201} with whom he concerted the
foundation of the Order of the B. Virgin of mercy for the redemption of
captives. James, the young king of Aragon, had married Eleonora of
Castile within the prohibited degrees, without a dispensation. A legate
was sent by pope Gregory IX. to examine and judge the case. In a council
of bishops of the two kingdoms, held at Tarragon, he declared the
marriage null, but that their son Don Alphonso should be reputed
lawfully born, and heir to his father's crown. The king had taken his
confessor with him to the council, and the cardinal legate was so
charmed with his talents and virtue, that he associated him in his
legation, and gave him a commission to preach the holy war against the
Moors. The servant of God acquitted himself of that function with so
much prudence, zeal, and charity, that he sowed the seeds of the total
overthrow of those infidels in Spain. His labors were no less successful
in the reformation of the manners of the Christians detained in
servitude under the Moors, which were extremely corrupted by their long
slavery or commerce with these infidels. Raymund showed them, by words
full of heavenly unction and fire, that, to triumph over their bodily,
they must first conquer their spiritual enemies, and subdue sin in
themselves, which made God their enemy. Inculcating these and the like
spiritual lessons, he ran over Catalonia, Aragon, Castile, and other
countries. So general a change was wrought hereby in the manners of the
people, as seemed incredible to all but those who were witnesses of it.
By their conversion the anger of God was appeased, and the arms of the
faithful became terrible to their enemies. The kings of Castile and Leon
freed many places from the Moorish yoke. Don James, king of Aragon,
drove them out of the islands of Majorca and Minorca, and soon after, in
1237, out of the whole kingdom of Valentia. Pope Gregory IX. having
called St. Raymund to Rome in 1230, nominated him his chaplain, (which
was the title of the Auditor of the causes of the apostolic palace,) as
also grand penitentiary. He made him likewise his own confessarius, and
in difficult affairs came to no decision but by his advice. The saint
still reserved himself for the poor, and was so solicitous for them that
his Holiness called him their father. He enjoined the pope, for a
penance, to receive, hear, and expedite immediately all petitions
presented by them. The pope, who was well versed in the canon law,
ordered the saint to gather into one body all the scattered decree, of
popes and councils, since the collection made by Gratian in 1150.
Raymund compiled this work in three years, in five books, commonly
called the Decretals, which the same pope Gregory confirmed in 1234. It
is looked upon as the best finished part of the body of the canon law;
on which account the canonists have usually chosen it for the texts of
their comments. In 1235, the pope named St. Raymund to the archbishopric
of Tarragon, the capital of Aragon: the humble religious man was not
able to avert the storm, as he called it, by tears and entreaties; but
at length fell sick through anxiety and fear. To restore him to his
health, his Holiness was obliged to consent to excuse him, but required
that he should recommend a proper person. The saint named a pious and
learned canon of Gironne. He refused other dignities with the like
constancy.
For the recovery of his health he returned to his native country, and
was received with as much joy as if the safety of the whole kingdom, and
of every particular person, had depended on his presence. Being restored
again to his dear solitude at Barcelona, he continued his former
exercises of contemplation, preaching, and administering the sacrament
of penance. Except on Sundays, he never took more than one very small
refection in the day. Amidst honors and applause he was ever little in
his own eyes. He appeared in the schools like a scholar, and in his
convent begged the {202} superior to instruct him in the rules of
religious perfection, with the humility and docility of a novice.
Whether he sung the divine praises with his brethren, or prayed alone in
his cell, or some corner of the church, he poured forth an abundance of
tears; and often was not able to contain within himself the ardor of his
soul. His mildness and sweetness were unalterable. The incredible number
of conversions of which he was the instrument, is known only to Him who,
by his grace, was the author of them. He was employed frequently in most
important commissions, both by the holy see and by the king. But he was
thunderstruck by the arrival of four deputies from the general chapter
of his order at Bologna, in 1238, with the news that he was chosen third
general, Jordan of Saxony being lately dead. He wept and entreated, but
at length acquiesced in obedience. He made the visitation of his order
on foot, without discontinuing any of his penitential austerities, or
rather exercises. He instilled into his spiritual children a love of
regularity, solitude, mortification, prayer, sacred studies, and the
apostolical functions, especially preaching. He reduced the
constitutions of the order into a clearer method, with notes on the
doubtful passages. Thus his code of rules was approved in three general
chapters. In one held at Paris in 1239, he procured the establishment of
this regulation, that a voluntary demission of a superior, founded upon
just reasons, should be accepted. This he contrived in his own favor;
for, to the extreme regret of the order, he in the year following
resigned the generalship, which he had held only two years. He alleged
for his reason his age of sixty-five years. Rejoicing to see himself
again a private religious man, he applied himself with fresh vigor to
the exercises and functions of an apostolical life, especially the
conversion of the Saracens. Having this end in view, he engaged St.
Thomas to write his work 'Against the Gentiles;' procured the Arabic and
Hebrew tongues to be taught in several convents of his order; and
erected convents, one at Tunis, and another at Murcia, among the Moors.
In 1256, he wrote to his general that ten thousand Saracens had received
baptism. King James took him into the island of Majorca. The saint
embraced that opportunity of cultivating that infant church. This prince
was an accomplished soldier and statesman, and a sincere lover of
religion, but his great qualities were sullied by a base passion for
women. He received the admonitions of the saint with respect, and
promised amendment of life, and a faithful compliance with the saint's
injunctions in every particular; but without effect. St. Raymund, upon
discovering that he entertained a lady at his court with whom he was
suspected to have criminal conversation, made the strongest instances to
have her dismissed, which the king promised should be done, but
postponed the execution. The saint, dissatisfied with the delay, begged
leave to retire to his convent at Barcelona. The king not only refused
him leave, but threatened to punish with death any person that should
undertake to convey him out of the island. The saint, full of confidence
in God, said to his companion, "A king of the earth endeavors to deprive
us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them."
He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up
one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the
cross, stepped upon it without fear, while his timorous companion stood
trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the
saint was wafted with such rapidity, that in six hours he reached the
harbor of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw
him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering
up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his
monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed,
have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. {203} This
relation is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest
historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed
his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St. Raymund from
that time till the death of the saint. The holy man prepared himself for
his passage to eternity, by employing days and nights in penance and
prayer. During his last illness, Alphonsus, king of Castile, with his
queen, sons, and brother; and James, king of Aragon, with his court,
visited him, and received his last benediction. He armed himself with
the last sacraments; and, in languishing sighs of divine love, gave up
his soul to God, on the 6th of January, in the year 1275, and the
hundredth of his age. The two kings, with all the princes and princesses
of their royal families, honored his funeral with their presence: but
his tomb was rendered far more illustrious by miracles. Several are
recorded in the bull of his canonization, published by Clement VIII. in
1601. Bollandus has filled fifteen pages in folio with an account of
them. His office is fixed by Clement X. to the 23d of January.
* * * * *
The saints first learned in solitude to die to the world and themselves,
to put on the spirit of Christ, and ground themselves in a habit of
recollection and a relish only for heavenly things, before they entered
upon the exterior functions even of a spiritual ministry. Amidst these
weighty employments, not content with reserving always the time and
means of frequent retirement for conversing with God and themselves, in
their exterior functions by raising their minds to heaven with holy
sighs and desires, they made all their actions in some measure an
uninterrupted prayer and exercise of divine love and praise. St.
Bonaventure reckons it among the general exercises of every religious or
spiritual man,[1] "That he keep his mind always raised, at least
virtually, to God: hence, whensoever a servant of God has been
distracted from attending to him for ever so short a space, he grieves
and is afflicted, as if he was fallen into some misfortune, by having
been deprived of the presence of such a friend who never forgets us.
Seeing that our supreme felicity and glory consists in the eternal
vision of God, the constant remembrance of him is a kind of imitation of
that happy state: _this_ the reward, _that_ the virtue which entitles us
to it. Till we are admitted to his presence, let us in our exile always
bear him in mind: every one will behold him in heaven with so much the
greater joy, and so much the more perfectly, as he shall more
assiduously and more devoutly have remembered him on earth. Nor is it
only in our repose, but also in the midst of our employments, that we
ought to have him present to our minds, in imitation of the holy angels,
who, when they are sent to attend on us, so acquit themselves of the
functions of this exterior ministry as never to be drawn from their
interior attention to God. As much as the heavens exceed the earth, so
much larger is the field of spiritual meditation than that of all
terrestrial concerns."
Footnotes:
1. S. Bonav. de Profectu Religios. l. 2, c. 20. p. 604.