ST. FRANCES was born at Rome in 1384. Her parents, Paul de Buxo and
Jacobella Rofredeschi, were both of illustrious families. She imbibed
early sentiments of piety, and such was her love of purity from her
tender age, that she would not suffer her own father to touch even her
hands, unless covered. She had always an aversion to the amusements of
children, and loved solitude and prayer. At eleven years of age she
desired to enter a monastery, but, in obedience to her parents, was
married to a rich young Roman nobleman, named Laurence Ponzani, in 1396.
A grievous sickness showed how disagreeable this kind of life was to her
inclinations. She joined with it her former spirit; kept herself as
retired as she could, shunning feastings and public meetings. All her
delight was in prayer, meditation, and visiting churches. Above all, her
obedience and condescension to her husband was inimitable, which engaged
such a return of affection, that for forty years which they lived
together, there never happened the least disagreement; and their whole
life was a constant strife and emulation to prevent each other in mutual
complaisance and respect. While she was at her prayers or other
exercises, if called away by her husband, or the meanest person of her
family, she laid all aside to obey without delay, saying: "A married
woman must, when called upon, quit her devotions to God at the altar, to
find him in her household affairs." God was pleased to show her the
merit of this her obedience; for the authors of her life relate, that
being called away four times in beginning the same verse of a psalm in
our Lady's office, returning the fifth time, she found that verse
written in golden letters. She treated her domestics not as servants,
but as brothers and sisters, and future co-heirs in heaven; and studied
by all means in her power to induce them seriously to labor for their
salvation. Her mortifications were extraordinary, especially when, some
years before her husband's death, she was permitted by him to inflict on
her body what hardships she pleased. She from that time abstained from
wine, fish, and dainty meats, with a total abstinence from flesh, unless
in her greatest sicknesses. Her ordinary diet was hard and mouldy bread.
She would procure secretly, out of the pouches of the beggars, their dry
crusts in exchange for better bread. When she {551} fared the best, she
only added to bread a few unsavory herbs without oil, and drank nothing
but water, making use of a human skull for her cup. She ate but once a
day, and by long abstinence had lost all relish of what she took. Her
garments were of coarse serge, and she never wore linen, not even in
sickness. Her discipline was armed with rowels and sharp points. She
wore continually a hair shirt, and a girdle of horse-hair. An iron
girdle had so galled her flesh, that her confessor obliged her to lay it
aside. If she inadvertently chanced to offend God in the least, she
severely that instant punished the part that had offended; as the
tongue, by sharply biting it, &c. Her example was of such edification,
that many Roman ladies having renounced a life of idleness, pomp, and
softness, joined her in pious exercises, and put themselves under the
direction of the Benedictin monks of the congregation of Monte-Oliveto,
without leaving the world, making vows, or wearing any particular habit.
St. Frances prayed only for children that they might be citizens of
heaven, and when she was blessed with them, it was her whole care to
make them saints.
It pleased God, for her sanctification, to make trial of her virtue by
many afflictions. During the troubles which ensued upon the invasion of
Rome by Ladislas, king of Naples, and the great schism under pope John
XXIII. at the time of opening the council of Constance, in 1413, her
husband, with his brother-in-law Paulucci, was banished Rome, his estate
confiscated, his house pulled down, and his eldest son, John Baptist,
detained a hostage. Her soul remained calm amidst all those storms: she
said with Job: "_God hath given, and God hath taken away._ I rejoice in
these losses, because they are God's will. Whatever he sends I shall
continually bless and praise his name for." The schism being
extinguished by the council of Constance, and tranquillity restored at
Rome, her husband recovered his dignity and estate. Some time after,
moved by the great favors St. Frances received from heaven, and by her
eminent virtue, he gave her full leave to live as she pleased; and he
himself chose to serve God in a state of continency. He permitted her in
his own life-time to found a monastery of nuns, called Oblates, for the
reception of such of her own sex as were disposed to embrace a religious
life. The foundation of this house was in 1425. She gave them the rule
of St. Benedict, adding some particular constitutions of her own, and
put them under the direction of the congregation of the Olivetans. The
house being too small for the numbers that fled to this sanctuary from
the corruption of the world, she would gladly have removed her community
to a larger house; but not finding one suitable, she enlarged it, in
1433, from which year the founding of the Order is dated. It was
approved by pope Eugenius IV. in 1437. They are called Collatines,
perhaps from the quarter of Rome in which they are situated; and
Oblates, because they call their profession an oblation, and use in it
the word offero, not profiteer. St. Frances could not yet join her new
family; but as soon as she had settled her domestic affairs, after the
death of her husband, she went barefoot, with a cord about her neck, to
the monastery which she had founded, and there, prostrate on the ground,
before the religious, her spiritual children, begged to be admitted. She
accordingly took the habit on St. Benedict's day, in 1437. She always
sought the meanest employments in the house, being fully persuaded she
was of all the most contemptible before God; and she labored to appear
as mean in the eyes of the world as she was in her own. She continued
the same humiliations, and the same universal poverty, though soon after
chosen superioress of her congregation. Almighty God bestowed on her
humility, extraordinary graces, and supernatural favors, as frequent
visions, raptures, and the gift of prophecy. She enjoyed the familiar
conversation of her angel-guardian, as her life and the process of her
canonization {552} attest. She was extremely affected by meditating on
our Saviour's passion, which she had always present to her mind. At mass
she was so absorbed in God as to seem immoveable, especially after holy
communion: she often fell into ecstasies of love and devotion. She was
particularly devout to St. John the Evangelist, and above all to our
Lady, under whose singular protection she put her Order. Going out to
see her son John Baptist, who was dangerously sick, she fell so ill
herself that she could not return to her monastery at night. After
having foretold her death, and received the sacraments, she expired on
the 9th of March, in the year 1440, and of her age the fifty-sixth. God
attested her sanctity by miracles: she was honored among the saints
immediately after her death, and solemnly canonized by Paul V. in 1608.
Her shrine in Rome is most magnificent and rich: and her festival is
kept as a holyday in the city, with great solemnity. The Oblates make no
solemn vows, only a promise of obedience to the mother-president, enjoy
pensions, inherit estates, and go abroad with leave. Their abbey in Rome
is filled with ladies of the first rank.
In a religious life, in which a regular distribution of holy employments
and duties takes up the whole day, and leaves no interstices of time for
idleness, sloth, or the world, hours pass in these exercises with the
rapidity of moments, and moments by fervor of the desires bear the value
of years. There is not an instant in which a soul is not employed for
God, and studies not with her whole heart to please him. Every step,
every thought and desire, is a sacrifice of fidelity, obedience, and
love offered to him. Even meals, recreation, and rest, are sanctified by
this intention; and from the religious vows and habitual purpose of the
soul of consecrating herself entirely to God in time and eternity, every
action, as St. Thomas teaches, renews and contains the fervor and merit
of this entire consecration, of which it is a part. In a secular life, a
person by regularity in the employment of his time, and fervor in
devoting himself to God in all his actions and designs, may in some
degree enjoy the same happiness and advantage. This St. Frances
perfectly practised, even before she renounced the world. She lived
forty years with her husband without ever giving him the least occasion
of offence; and by the fervor with which she conversed of heaven, she
seemed already to have quitted the earth, and to have made paradise her
ordinary dwelling.