confirmation of the prophetical gifts of Francesca, who accurately
foresaw and foretold them when nothing presaged their occurrence. At the
time when this storm was about to burst over Italy, and the beginning of
sorrow was at hand, she was doomed to experience another of the heavy
afflictions that life had yet in store for her. Vannozza, her cherished
companion, her sister, her counsellor, her bosom friend, was summoned to
receive her heavenly crown; and she herself to add to all her virtues a
more perfect detachment from all earthly ties. They had been united by
every link that affection, sympathy, and similarity of feeling, tastes,
and opinions can create between two hearts devoted to God, and through
Him to each other. Their union had not been obscured by the smallest
cloud. Together they had prayed, suffered, and laboured; and in trials
and joys alike they had been inseparable. Francesca had been warned in
a vision of the approaching end of her sister-in-law; and at length,
strong in faith, she stands by her dying-bed; and when the Evil One,
baffled in life, makes a final effort to disturb the departing soul,
she prays for the beloved of her heart, sprinkles holy water on that
much-loved form, reads aloud the history of the Passion of our Lord;
and Vannozza, supported by those sacramental graces which Satan cannot
withstand, followed almost beyond the verge of life by that watchful
tenderness which had been her joy on earth, sees the evil spirit retire
before the might of Francesca's angel, and breathes her last in perfect
peace. The soul which had served and loved God so fervently upon earth
was carried up to heaven in a form visible to the eyes of her friend; a
pure flame, enveloped in a light transparent cloud, was the symbol of
that gentle spirit's flight into its kindred skies.
The mortal remains of Vannozza were laid in the church of the Ara Coeli,
in the chapel of Santa Croce. The Roman people resorted there in crowds
to behold once more their loved benefactress,--the mother of the poor,
the consoler of the afflicted. All strove to carry away some little
memorial of one who had gone about among them doing good; and during the
three days which preceded the interment, the concourse did not abate. On
the day of the funeral, Francesca knelt on one side of the coffin, and,
in sight of all the crowd, she was rapt in ecstasy. They saw her body
lifted from the ground, and a seraphic expression in her uplifted face.
They heard her murmur several times with an indescribable emphasis the
word, "When? when?" (_Quando? quando?_) When all was over, she still
remained immovable; it seemed as if her soul had risen on the wings of
prayer, and followed Vannozza's spirit into the realms of bliss. At last
her confessor ordered her to rise, and to go and attend on the sick.
She instantly complied, and walked away to the hospital which she had
founded, apparently unconscious of every thing about her, and only
roused from her trance by the habit of obedience which, in or out of
ecstasy, never forsook her.
From that day her visions grew more frequent and more astonishing. She
seemed to live in heaven; and during those hours of mystical intercourse
with saints and angels, and with the Lord of angels and of saints, to
obtain supernatural lights which guided her in the foundation of her
new congregation. The Blessed Virgin revealed to her that St. Paul, St.
Benedict, and St. Mary Magdalene were to be its protectors; and that Don
Giovanni Mattiotti, her director, Fra Bartolommeo Biondii, of the order
of St. Francis, and Don Ippolito, of the Olivetan Obedience, were to
co-operate with her in its establishment. To Don Giovanni a particular
message was sent to confirm him in the intention of forwarding the work,
and to warn him against discouragement from the many difficulties it
would meet with. Wonderful were the sights which it was given her to see
in those long ecstasies, during which her soul seemed to absent
itself from her all-but spiritualised body. Sometimes a speechless
contemplation held all her faculties in abeyance; at others, in burning
words, she described what passed before her mental sight. At times her
motionless attitude almost wore the semblance of death; while often
she moved about and performed various actions in connection with the
subjects of her visions. In the churches which she frequented,--in Santa
Croce in Gerusalemme, in Santa Maria in Trastevere, in the Chapel of the
Angels in Santa Cecilia, in her own oratory,--she is favoured with the
presence of celestial visitants. The various ecclesiastical feasts of
the year bring with them analogous revelations; she spends her time in
the cave of Bethlehem and the house of Nazareth, on the mountains, where
Jesus was wont to pray, where He was transfigured, where He agonised,
and where He died. She adores with the shepherds and the wise men; she
listens to His voice with the disciples and the devout multitude; she
suffers with the Mother of sorrows, and weeps with the Magdalene at
the foot of the Cross. The beauties of the New Jerusalem, the lovely
pastures, the fresh waters, the bright flowers, the precious stones,
which typify the glories of the world to come, are spread before her
in those mystic trances. Deeper and more mysterious revelations are
vouchsafed, wonderful secrets disclosed to her under expressive symbols,
and St. Paul is her guide through those regions where he was ravished in
spirit while still, like her, an inhabitant of earth. One day that she
was in ecstasy a voice of more than common sweetness addressed to her
these words--"Thy path is strewn with thorns, Francesca, and many an
obstacle will stand in thy way, ere thy little flock can be gathered
together in our abode. But remember that hail does not always follow
upon thunder, and that the brightest sunshine often breaks through the
darkest clouds."
Encouraged by this intimation, the Saint began in earnest to consider of
the means of establishing her congregation. During a short absence which
her husband made from Rome, she invited all the Oblates to her house,
and having made them share her slight repast, she assembled them around
her, and spoke to them to the following effect: "My dear companions, I
have called you together in order to impart to you the lights which I
have received from the Lord and His blessed Mother with regard to our
congregation. For seven years we have been especially consecrated to her
service, and have bound ourselves to live in chastity and obedience, and
to observe the rules prescribed to us; and I have long thought that as
we have been united in spirit and in intention, so ought we to be in our
outward mode of life. For a while I fancied that this my desire
might only be the result of my maternal affection for you, and of my
solicitude for your advancement. But the Lord has at last revealed to me
that it is His will that I should found a new spiritual edifice in this
city, the ancient stronghold of religion and of faith. It will form an
asylum for those persons of your sex and of your rank who have conceived
the generous resolution of forsaking the world and its allurements; I
have tagged of the Lord to select for His purpose one less unworthy than
myself, but I dare no longer withstand the manifestation of His will. I
am prepared to accomplish His bidding; but without you, my sisters what
can I do? You are the foundations of the building, the first stones of
the new spiritual house of His mother. You are the seed from which a
plentiful harvest is to spring. Earthly cares, the temporal affairs of
life, must no longer take up your time. He summons you to a retreat,
where you will live in His presence, imitate His example, and copy the
virtues of Mary, where you will pray for Rome, and turn away His wrath
from the degenerate and guilty city. Have you not heard how two years
ago the thunderbolts fell on her sacred towers? Do you not see how every
day fresh miseries are gathering on the devoted heads of her people? But
God is full of mercy; when most incensed at our sins, He casts about for
souls that will appease His anger. He has turned His eyes upon us.
He bids us unite, and stand in the breach between Him and the daring
sinners who each day defy Him. Why tarry we longer? why further delay?
The arms of the Blessed Virgin are wide open to receive us. Shall we
draw back from her embrace?--No, rather let us fly to her feet."
As she pronounced these last words Francesca fell into an ecstasy, which
lasted for some time, and during which she pleaded with God for those
who were to belong to the new institute. Her companions gazed upon her
with silent veneration; and when she came to herself, all with one
accord, and with tears of joy, professed themselves ready to make every
sacrifice which God might require of them, and to adopt the mode of life
and the rule which Francesca might suggest. But their assent was only a
preliminary step in the undertaking. It was necessary to find a house
suitable to their purpose, to obtain the consent of the still existing
parents of some of the Oblates, to fix in a definitive manner their
rule and constitutions, and finally to procure the sanction of the Holy
Father, and his approval of the new order. Francesca attended in turn
to each of these objects. To the first place she consulted her three
coadjutors on the choice of a house; and difficulties without number
arose on this point. The priests were alarmed at the sensation which
this undertaking would produce, and were quite at a loss to find money
for the purchase. Francesca had long since given away almost all that
she possessed. What little remained was devoted to works of charity
which could not be abandoned, and all agreed that she was on no account
to have recourse on this occasion to her husband or to her son. While
they were deliberating, Francesca was favoured with a vision, in which
the divine assistance was promised to the Oblates, and their protectors
(Don Giovanni in particular) exhorted to perseverance. Encouraged
by these assurances, they looked out for a house adapted to the
requirements of a religious community; and after many researches Don
Ippolito proposed to Don Giovanni a building in the Campitelli district,
on the spot where the old tower, known by the name of "Tor di Specchi,"
used to stand, directly opposite to the Capitol, and not far from the
Santa Maria Nuova. Various obstacles arose to the purchase of this
house, which was neither as large nor as convenient as might have been
wished; but they were finally overcome, and the acquisition completed
towards the end of the year 1432. This house, which was at first
considered only as a temporary residence, was subsequently added to,
and has remained to this day the central house of the order; and in the
pontifical bull the congregation is designed by the name of "Oblates
of Tor di Specchi." This matter once arranged, Francesca succeeded in
dissipating the objections raised by the parents of some of the younger
Oblates, and to reconcile them to the proposed alteration in their
daughters' mode of life. It was doubtless a trial to her that while she
was removing all the difficulties in the way of the more perfect life
which her companions were about to lead, she herself could only, like
Moses, look on the promised land of spiritual seclusion which they, her
disciples and her children, were entering on, and after which she had
yearned from the days of her childhood. But she never hesitated as to
her line of duty; it was clear before her. Lorenzo had released her from
all obligations but one--that of residing in his house and watching
over his old age. His infirmities were increasing, and her attentions
indispensable to his comfort. No one could supply to him Francesca's
care. She offered up to God the daily self-denial of her existence; and
by fresh tokens of His favour He rewarded her obedience.
Her next anxiety was the formation of the constitution and of the
rules which were to govern the infant congregation; and in frequent
conferences with her pious coadjutors the subject was discussed. After
many deliberations, during which they could arrive at no conclusion,
it was agreed that the matter should be laid before God in prayer; and
their hope was not deceived. In a series of visions,--in which St. Paul
in the first instance, and on other occasions the blessed Virgin and St.
John the Evangelist, appeared to Francesca,--directions were given her
so ample and so detailed as to the rule which her spiritual daughters
were to follow, that there remained no room for hesitation. The several
fasts which they were to observe; the length of time which they were
to devote to prayer, to work, and to sleep; the manner in which their
actions were to be performed; the vocal prayers they were to recite; the
solitude, the silence they were to keep; the poverty, the community of
goods which they were to practise; their dress, their occupations, their
separation from the world, their detachment from all earthly ties of
interest and kindred which they were at all times to be inspired with;
the precautions to be taken in procuring the consent of parents, and
securing the free action of the Oblates who might hereafter join the
order, were all indicated with the greatest precision; and instructions
were transmitted to Don Giovanni and his co-operators to enlighten them
as to the guidance and government of the congregation. The miraculous
manner in which the Saint had often read their most secret thoughts, the
miracles they saw her perform, and the admirable tenour of her life, in
which the most active virtues were combined with the deepest humility,
and supernatural favours received with the most profound self-abasement,
were to them a warrant of the genuineness of her revelations, the
substance of which, condensed and reduced into a series of rules, are to
this day observed by the Oblates of Tor di Specchi.
CHAPTER XII.
PROGRESS AND TRIALS OF THE YOUNG COMMUNITY--IT IS CONFIRMED BY THE
POPE--TROUBLES IN ROME AND THE CHURCH TERMINATED THROUGH FRANCESCA'S
INTERCESSION AND THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.
It was on the 25th of March, the Feast of the Annunciation, in the year
1433, that the Oblates, ten in number, met in the church of Santa Maria
in Trastevere, where their holy foundress had so long been in the habit
of resorting. They all heard Mass, and went to communion with the
utmost fervour, and then in procession proceeded to the house they were
henceforward to inhabit. That house, which now-a-days is thrown open
during the Octave of the Feast of San Francesca, where young women come
with their little children, and point out to them the room which they
inhabited in their own childhood, when under the gentle care of the
Oblates of Mary. It is no gloomy abode, the Convent of Tor di Specchi
even in the eyes of those who cannot understand the happiness of a nun.
It is such a place which one loves to see children in; where religion is
combined with every thing that pleases the eye and recreates the mind.
The beautiful chapel; the garden with its magnificent orange-trees; the
open galleries, with their fanciful decorations and scenic recesses,
where a holy picture or figure takes you by surprise, and meets you at
every turn; the light airy rooms where religious prints and ornaments,
with flowers, birds, and ingenious toys, testify that innocent
enjoyments are encouraged and smiled upon, while from every window
may be caught a glimpse of the Eternal City, a spire, a ruined
wall,--something that speaks of Rome and its thousand charms. On Holy
Thursday no sepulchre is more beautiful than that of Tor di Specchi.
Flowers without end, and bright hangings, all sweet and costly things,
do homage to the Lord in the hours of His loving imprisonment.
But on the day when Francesca's companions first entered those walls,
there was nothing very fair or beautiful to greet them, though they
earned there, however, in their hearts, from the altar they had just
left, the source of all light and love; and to the eyes of faith the
scene must have been a bright one. With delight they exchanged then
ordinary dress for that which the rule prescribed: Francesca alone
stood among them no nun in her outward garb, but the truest nun of all,
through the inward consecration of her whole being to God. Agnese de
Sellis, a relation of hers, and a woman highly distinguished for virtue
and prudence was elected superior of the house. There was a truly
admirable spectacle presented to the people of Rome; these women were
all of noble birth, and accustomed to all the comforts and conveniences
of life. Most of them had been wealthy; some of them were still young;
and for the love of God they had given op every thing, and made over
their possessions to their relations; for it was not to lead a life of
ease, of religious quietude, of holy contemplation alone, that they had
separated themselves from the world. It was to imitate the poverty of
Christ, to place in the common stock, as the first Christians did, the
little they had reserved, and to endure all the privations incident on
poverty. Their exact and spontaneous obedience to the gentle Agnese was
as remarkable as the sweetness and humility with which she ruled. Seldom
seen abroad, their hours were divided between prayer, meditation,
spiritual reading, and works of mercy. (Footnote: The rule which they
then adopted remains the same to this day. The Oblates of Tor di Speechi
are not, strictly speaking, nuns: they take no vows, and are bound by no
obligations under pain of sin; they are not cloistered, and their dress
is that which was worn at the period of their establishment by the
widows of the Roman nobles.) Francesca, obliged to be absent from them
in body, was ever present with them in spirit. She was the tenderest
mother to the little flock that had gathered under her sheltering wing:
ministering to their necessities; visiting them as often as she could
leave her husband's side; exciting them on to perfection by her words
and example; consoling the weak, and confirming the strong.
It was not to be expected that the infant congregation could be free
from evil reports, and from the kind of persecution which ever attends
the undertakings and tries the courage of God's most faithful servants.
The mode of life of the Oblates became the general subject of
conversation; and though the wiser and better portion of the community
were filled with respect and admiration for their virtues, there were
not wanting persons to raise a cry against them and against their
foundress, and to complain that women should be allowed to lend an
existence which was strictly speaking neither secular nor religious; a
monastery without enclosure, without vows, without revenues, without any
security for its permanent support. Their comments were not without
effect on the naturally irresolute mind of Don Giovanni Mattiotti and
Fra Bartolommeo Biandii. The former, in particular, grew discontented
and desponding. The direction of the order was a heavy burden to him;
and his faith in Francesca's revelations was shaken by the many worldly
difficulties which he foresaw. The miraculous manner in which the Saint
read his thoughts, and transmitted to him and his companion the reproofs
and encouragements which were supernaturally addressed to them through
the medium of one of her visions, opened their eyes to a sense of their
pusillanimity, and made them ashamed of their misgivings.
Another threatened trial was, by the mercy of God, turned into a
consolation. One of the youngest of the Oblates, Augustina Coluzzi, was
the only child of her mother, who was a widow. This mother had made a
generous sacrifice to God in gladly surrendering this beloved daughter
to the exclusive service of Him who had called her to that high
vocation; but she had miscalculated her sacrifice, or, perhaps, trusted
too much to her own strength. When the sacrifice was made, the human
feelings rose in her heart with terrible violence, and life appeared to
her as one dreary blank, now that her home was shorn of its light, now
that the beloved child of her heart had ceased to gladden her eyes.
Self-reproach for their vain repinings heightened her misery, and misery
at last grew into despair. In an instant of wild recklessness she seized
a knife, and was about to destroy herself, when, like an angel at the
hour of her utmost need, her daughter was at her side, and arrested her
arm. It was so against all rules and all probabilities that she should
have come to her at that moment, that she gazed on her in silent
astonishment. Francesca was in prayer at the moment, when Satan had been
tempting the unfortunate woman; and the dreadful danger she was in was
miraculously revealed to her. She instantly ordered Augustina to leave
what she was about, and hurry to her mother. The young girl arrived in
time; and so great was th« impression which this merciful interposition
produced on the mother, so deep her sense of the peril to which her soul
had been exposed, that she hastened to throw herself at Francesca's
feet, and with blessings on her and on her daughter, she expressed her
gratitude for Augustina's vocation, and her earnest wish that she should
remain faithful to it.
Another trial arose in those early days at Tor di Specchi from the
resolution formed by a wealthy young heiress to join the order. She
belonged to one of the noblest families in Rome, and was bent on
employing her fortune in supporting the infant congregation. Francesca
was reluctant to receive her; but, over persuaded by the opinions of
others, she gave way. A violent opposition immediately arose; and there
was no end to the calumnies and vituperations which were employed on the
occasion. Francesca, again enlightened by a divine intimation, insisted
on restoring the young person to her family; and a rule was henceforward
made that none but persons of a more advanced age should be admitted
into the order.
These and many other difficulties rendered it very desirable that the
approval of the Holy Father should set its seal on the work, and furnish
it with a shield against the malice of the world. The permissions which
they sought were as follows: 1st, that the Oblates should be allowed
the rights to live in community, and to admit other persons into their
society; 2d, that they might elect for themselves a superioress; 3d,
that this superioress should have the power of choosing a confessor for
the house; 4th, that they should have a chapel in which to hear Mass, to
go to confession and to communion, and be exempted from the jurisdiction
of the parish and the parish priests. This scheme was fully approved of
by the three coadjutors; but it was some time before Don Giovanni could
be induced to lay it before the sovereign Pontiff. He alleged that the
disturbed state of Rome, and the many distracting cares which were
besetting the Holy Father, held out no prospect of success in such a
mission; but, urged by various irresistible proofs that God willed that
he should undertake it, he at last consented. The petition was framed in
the name of the Oblates, Francesca absolutely refusing to be mentioned
as the foundress. While he bent his way to the pontifical palace, the
Oblates of Tor di Specchi and the monks of Santa Maria Nuova joined in
fervent prayer to God for the success of his application. Eugenius IV.
received Francesca's messenger with great kindness, and bade him carry
back to her assurances of his favourable disposition towards the
congregation, recommending himself at the same time to her prayers and
to those of her sisters. He commended the examination of the case to
Gaspard, Archbishop of Conza, and enjoined him to verify the facts
recited in the petition, and to communicate on the subject with the
prior and the monks of Santa Maria Nuova; and if satisfied with the
result, to grant the privileges therein requested. The archbishop
applied himself with diligence to the execution of these orders; and the
original document in which this authorisation is recorded still exists
amongst the archives of the monastery. It stipulates that the Oblates
shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the superior and of the monks of
Santa Maria Nuova, and that they may continue to inhabit the house of
Tor di Specchi until such time as they shall have made purchase of
another. A short time afterwards the Oblates, full of gratitude and joy
at the favours which had been granted them, and every day more satisfied
with their abode, solicited and obtained permission to remain in it in
perpetuity. This last transaction took place at the very time when Rome
was given up to anarchy, and frightful disorders reigned within its
walls; when the pontifical magistrates had been thrust aside, and
furious demagogues installed in their places. The Pope had taken refuge
in Bologna, and it is from that town that is dated the last-mentioned
decree. The congregation was successively confirmed by three of the
generals of the Olivetan order; and in 1444 Eugenius IV. extended
still further the privileges and franchises of the Oblates.
Francesca was deeply impressed with the responsibility she had incurred
in the establishment of her congregation, and felt herself bound to
advance more and more in virtue herself, as well as further the piety of
her spiritual daughters. During her visits to the convent she used to
work indiscriminately in the kitchen or in the parlour; waited at table,
and cleaned the plates, as it might happen; and could not bear to be
treated with the least distinction. In coming in, and in going away, she
always reverently kissed the hand of Agnese de Sellis the superioress,
and asked for her blessing. She sometimes accompanied the sisters to her
vineyard near St. Paul without the Walls, where they gathered wood,
and carried it back to Rome bound in faggots for burning. She gently
reproved one of the Oblates who, on one of these occasions, sought to
screen her from observation when an illustrious personage was passing
by. She took them with her to visit the hospitals and the poverty-houses
in the city: and the miraculous cures which she performed in their
presence confirmed their faith, and inflamed them with the most ardent
desire to imitate her example.
At the time that the misfortunes of Rome were at their height, Francesca
appeared one morning at the monastery, and gathering around her her
spiritual daughters, she thus addressed them: "What shall we do, my
children? The wrath of God is warring fierce against our unhappy
country; Rome is in the hands of cruel and lawless men; the Holy Father
in exile; his ministers prison, his life sought after as if he were
an odious oppressor, and we know not when to look for his return.
Immorality is increasing, vice triumphant, hell yawning for souls which
Christ's blood has redeemed, and those who ought to extinguish do but
excite the flame, and draw upon us the just judgment of God. The Blessed
Virgin requires at our hands more fervent prayers, more tears, more
penances. We must supply for the great dearth of love. Mortifications
and prayer are the weapons we are furnished with; our hearts are the
victims which must he slain for men's sins; our tears must quench those
unholy fires; we shall not be true Oblates until we have made a complete
sacrifice of ourselves, of our souls and of our bodies, to the Lord. We
are few; but do not doubt the strength of prayer. Let us be fervent
and persevere, and soon we shall reap the fruit of our intense
supplications, of our long-continued pleadings; and liberty, peace, and
all God's blessings, will be restored to Rome." Francesca's exhortations
had their effect, and the fervent prayers they drew forth had theirs
also; for in the same year the Bishops of Recaunti and of Turpia
reassumed, in the Pope's name, possession of the city; and the Romans,
wearied with anarchy, gladly welcomed their rule.
A more terrible evil, a more appalling danger now threatened not only
Rome but the whole Catholic world. The undutiful conduct of the Council
of Basle, with the violence of their language with regard to the Holy
See, brought matters to such a point that a deplorable schism appeared
inevitable. Pope Eugenius was divided between the fear of hurrying
it on, and that of compromising by undue concessions the legitimate
authority of the Chair of Peter. It was at this juncture that the
Blessed Virgin appeared one night to Francesca, surrounded by saints and
apostles, serenely beautiful, and with a compassionate expression in
her countenance. After some preliminary spiritual instructions, she
intimated to the Saint that God was waiting to have mercy, and that His
wrath had to be softened by assiduous prayers and good works. She named
certain religious exercises, certain penitential practices; which
were to be observed on the principal feasts of the ensuing year; and
recommending to the faithful in general, and more particularly to the
Oblates, a great purity of heart, a sincere contrition for past sin,
and a spirit of earnest charity, she charged Francesca to see that her
orders were complied with; and disappeared after bestowing her blessing.
It was in vain, however, that this revelation was communicated by Don
Giovanni to the clergy of Rome. They rejected it as the dream of a pious
and sickly woman; and even the most earnest amongst them absolutely
declined to attach to it the slightest importance. Not so the Vicar of
Christ, when Francesca's confessor carried to him at Bologna the message
of the saint; he listened to it with reverence and gratitude, and sent
back by his means all the necessary mandates for the execution of the
orders which the Blessed Virgin had given. When he arrived at Tor di
Specchi, Francesca met him; and before he could open his mouth, she gave
him an exact account of all that had taken place on his journey, and of
the very words which the Holy Father had used during their interview.
The Pope's directions were attended to, the appointed Masses said, the
processions organised; and in a short time it was seen that a favourable
result ensued. The Pope was happily inspired to convene the council that
met at Ferrara, and subsequently continued its labours at Florence. This
at last put an end to the pretensions of the illegal assembly at Basle,
and the wounds of the Church were gradually healed. There was but one
opinion at the time as to the cause of this favourable change in the
aspect of affairs. It was unanimously ascribed to the prayers of
Francesca and to the Pope's compliance with the orders she had received;
and in the process of her canonisation this point is treated of at
length, and satisfactorily established; and those who are acquainted
with the extreme caution observed on these occasions in admitting
evidence on such a subject, will he impressed with the conviction that
she was used as an instrument of God's mercy towards His suffering
Church.
CHAPTER XIII.
DEATH OF FRANCESCA'S HUSBAND--SHE GOES TO RESIDE WITH THE COMMUNITY OF
TOR DI SPECCC--HER LIFE AS SUPERIORESS.
FRANCESCA had been forty years married to Lorenzo Ponziano; and through
her married life, the heart that had been consecrated to God from the
first dawn of existence had been faithful in its love to him whom God
Himself had appointed to be her chief earthly care: and blessed had been
the course of that union; blessed by the tender affection which had
reigned between the husband and the wife, and by the exercise of no
common virtues, multiplied by the pursuits of one common object.
Francesca had led the way; in meekness, in humility, in subjection; but
with a single aim and an unwavering purpose. Many and severe trials had
been their portion at different epochs of their lives; but the latter
part of Lorenzo's existence had been comparatively tranquil. Lorenzo was
the first to be called away. God spared him the trial he had probably
dreaded. We seldom are called upon to suffer the particular grief that
fancy has dwelt upon. His health had been breaking for some years
past, and now it utterly failed, and his disease assumed an alarming
character. Francesca, though apparently worn out with toil, with
abstinence, and mental and bodily labours, found strength for every
duty, and energy for every emergency. During Lorenzo's prolonged
and painful illness, she was always at his side, nursing him with
indefatigable tenderness, and completing the work which her example had
wrought. His passage from life to eternity appeared but a journey. The
efforts of Satan to disturb him on his death-bed, though often repeated,
were each time frustrated. Lorenzo had been a just man, and his death
was the death of the righteous. Few men would have shown themselves as
worthy as he did of such a wife as Francesca. From the moment of
his marriage he had appreciated her virtues, rejoiced in her piety,
encouraged her good works, and to a great extent shared in them. No
mean feelings of jealousy, no human respect, no worldly sentiment of
expediency had influenced him. When he saw her renouncing all the
pleasures and vanities of the world, dressing like a poor person,
wearing herself out in the zeal of her charity, turning the half of his
palace into a hospital, he did not complain, but rather rejoiced that
she was one of those "whom fools have for a time in derision, and for
a parable of reproach; whose life is esteemed madness, and their end
without honour; but who are numbered amongst the children of God, and
whose lot is amongst the saints." He had his reward; he had it when his
sight failed him and his breath grew short, when he felt that his hour
was come. He had it when in his dying ears she whispered words of peace;
and Satan, with a cry of despair, for ever fled away from his couch; and
when the everlasting portals opened, and the sentence was pronounced
at the immediate judgment that follows death. Masses, prayers, fervent
communions, and pious suffrages followed him beyond the grave; and when
the saint, who had been the model of wives, stood by that grave a widow,
her earthly task was, in one sense, done: but work remained; but it was
of another sort. From her earliest youth she bad been a nun in spirit;
and the heart which had sighed for the cloister in childhood yearned for
its shelter in these her latter days. She must go and live in the shade
of the tabernacle; she must be alone with her Lord during the few
remaining years of life. This must have been foreseen by her children;
and yet, like all trials of the kind, however long looked forward to, it
came upon them at last as a surprise. When she said, "I must go," there
was a loud cry of sorrow in the Ponziano palace. Baptista, the only son
of her love, wept aloud. Mobilia threw herself into her arms, and with
impetuous grief, protested against her leaving them. "Are you not
afraid for me?" she exclaimed, "if you abandon me, you who have taught
me to love God and to serve Him I What am I without you? Too much, too
tenderly you have loved me. It cannot be that you should forsake me. I
cannot endure existence without you." Her grandchildren also, whom she
was tenderly attached to, clung to her, weeping. Moved by their tears,
but unshaken in her resolution, she gently consoled them; bade them
recollect that she was still to inhabit Rome; that her affection for
them would be unchanged, and that she would always be at hand to advise
and to aid them; but that her vocation must now he fulfilled, and the
sacrifice completed. Then turning to Mobilia, as to a dearly-beloved
child, she fondly said, "Do not weep, my daughter; you will survive
me, and bear witness to my memory." This prediction was fulfilled;
for Mobilia was alive at the time that the process for Francesca's
canonisation was commenced, and the testimony she gave to her virtues
and to her miracles was on that occasion most important, and the most
detailed.
After this, Francesca took leave of her family, and went straight to
the Tor di Specchi. It was on the 21st of March, the festival of St.
Benedict, that she entered its walls, not as the foundress but as a
humble suppliant for admission. At the foot of the stairs, having taken
off her black gown, her veil, and her shoes, and placed a cord around
her neck, she knelt down, kissed the ground, and, shedding an abundance
of tears, made her general confession aloud in the presence of all the
Oblates; described herself as a miserable sinner, a grievous offender
against God, and asked permission to dwell amongst them as the meanest
of their servants; and to learn from them to amend her life, and enter
upon a holier course. The spiritual daughters of Francesca hastened to
raise and to embrace her; and clothing her with their habit, they led
the way to the chapel, where they all returned thanks to God. While she
remained there engaged in prayer, Agnese de Sellis the superioress,
assembled the sisters in the chapter-room, and declared to them, that
now that their true mother and foundress had come amongst them, it would
be absurd for her to remain in her present office; that Francesca was
their guide, their head, and that into her hands she would instantly
resign her authority. They all applauded her decision, and gathering
around the Saint, announced to her their wishes. As was to be expected,
Francesca strenuously refused to accede to this proposal, and pleaded
her inability to the duties of a superioress. The Oblates had recourse
to Don Giovanni, who began by entreating, and finally commanded
her acceptance of the charge. His orders she never resisted; and
accordingly, on the 25th of March, she was duly elected to that office.
She was favoured with a vision which strengthened and encouraged her in
the new task she had before her. The angel who for twenty-four years had
been by her side, defending and assisting her on all occasions, took
leave of her now with a benignant smile, and in his place another, more
refulgent still, was ordained to stand. By day and by night he was
continually weaving a mysterious woof, the threads of which seemed to
grow out of the mystical palm which he carried. St. Benedict appeared to
Franceses on the day of her election, and explained to her the meaning
of those symbols. Gold was the type of the love and charity which was
to govern her dealings with her daughters, while the palm implied the
triumph she was to obtain over human weakness and human respect. The
unceasing labours of the angel was to mark the unwearied efforts she was
to use for the right ordering and spiritual welfare of the community
intrusted to her care; and truly she laboured with indefatigable zeal in
her new vocation. She had ever before her eyes the words of St. Paul to
Timothy and to Titus: "Preach the word. Be patient in season and out of
season. Entreat, rebuke, in all patience and doctrine. In all things
show thyself an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in
gravity." Preaching far more by her actions than by her words, she gave
an example of the most heroic virtues. It would be difficult to imagine
any thing mom perfect than her life in the world; but the new duties,
the new privileges of her present vocation added each day new splendour
to her virtues. She appointed Agnese de Sellis her coadjutress, and
begged her to share her room, and watch over her conduct, entreating
her at the same time to warn her of every fault she might commit. Her
strictness with her spiritual children, though tempered by love, was
extreme. She never left a single imperfection unreproved, and allowed
of no infractions, however slight, of the rule. Sometimes, when through
shyness or false shame, they concealed some trifling offence which they
were bound to confess, she read their hearts, and reminded them not to
give Satan a hold upon them by such reserve. She was most careful of
their health, and sought to procure them as often as she could some
innocent recreation. They used occasionally to go with her to one or
other of her vine-gardens without the walls, to take exercise in the
pure open air. Francesca's gentle gaiety on these occasions increased
their enjoyment; and the labour of gathering wood and grass, of making
up faggots, and carrying away their spoil on their heads at night, was
a part of their amusement. The conversation that was carried on between
them the while was as merry as it was innocent. These young persons,
born in palaces and bred in luxury, worked like peasants, with more than
a peasant's lightness of heart.
One fine sunny January day--and those who have inhabited Rome well know
how fine a January day can be--Francesca and seven or eight of her
companions had been since early dawn in the vine-gardens of Porta
Portese. They had worked hard for several hours, and then suddenly
remembered that they had brought no provision with them. They soon
became faint and hungry, and above all very thirsty. Perna, the youngest
of all the Oblates, was particularly heated and tired, and approaching
the Mother Superior, with a wearied expression of countenance, she
asked permission to go and drink some water at a fountain some way off
on the public road.
"Be patient, my child," Francesca answered; "the fountain is too
distant." She was afraid of these young persons drinking cold water,
heated as they were by toil and exposure to the sun. They went on with
their work; and withdrawing aside, Francesca knelt down, clasped her
hands, and with her eyes raised to heaven, said, "Lord Jesus, I have
been thoughtless in bringing my sisters here, and forgetting to provide
food for them. Help us in our need."
Perna, who had kept near to the Mother Superior, probably with the
intention of urging her request, overheard this prayer, and, a little
irritated by the feverish thirst she was enduring, said to herself with
some impatience, "It would be more to the purpose to take us home at
once."
Francesca read the inward thought, and turning to the discontented girl
she said, "My child, you do not trust enough in God. Look up and see."
Perna obeyed, and following the direction of Francesca's hand, she saw a
vine entwined around a tree, from whose dead and leafless branches were
hanging a number of the finest bunches of grapes, of that purple and
burnished hue which the fervid sunbeams of August and September impart
to that glorious fruit.
"A miracle! a miracle!" exclaimed the enraptured Perna; and the other
Oblates assembled round the tree in speechless astonishment, for they
had seen all day the bare and withered branches. Twenty times at least
they had passed and repassed before it; and at all events the season for
grapes had long gone by.
After kneeling to give thanks to God for this gracious prodigy, they
spread a cloth on the grass, and gathered the precious fruit. There were
exactly as many bundles as persons present; and with smiling faces and
joyful hearts Francesca's children fed on the supply which her prayer
had obtained for them. Obedience was a virtue of which the Saint herself
gave a most perfect example, and which she unremittingly required of
others. One of the Oblates having refused one day to comply with an
order she had received, Francesca fixed her eyes upon her with an
expression of so much severity, that the person in question suddenly
fainted away, and remained afterwards speechless and in a state of
insensibility. The doctors were sent for, and declared that her life was
in imminent danger. This was a severe trial to the Saint; she could not
reproach herself for a severity which had been a matter of duty, not of
passion, but at the same time she trembled for the soul of one who had
apparently lost the use of reason at the very moment she was committing
a serious fault. After addressing a fervent prayer to God, and invoking
the Blessed Virgin, she went straight to the bed-side of the sister,
and taking her by the hand with great solemnity, addressed to her these
words: "If it be true that our congregation is approved of God, and has
His Holy Mother for its foundress, in the name of Holy Obedience, I
command you to speak to me." The Oblate seemed to awake from a long
dream, and opening her eyes, she distinctly said, "Mother, what would
you have me to do?" From that moment she rallied, and was soon restored
to health.
Another time, when an aged member of the congregation was dying, and
every moment expected to be her last, Franceses prayed that she might
not be allowed to depart in the absence of Don Giovanni, the director of
the house. For six days and six nights the sick woman lingered between
life and death. On the arrival of her spiritual father she revived, went
to confession, and received the last Sacrament Then, as she again sank
into insensibility, Francesca bent over her and said, "Sister Catherine,
depart in peace, and pray for us;" and in that instant the aged woman
expired.
The poverty of the congregration was extreme. The slender means of the
first Oblates had been exhausted by the purchase of the house and the
erection of a small chapel. Francesca had indeed made over to it her two
vineyards of Porta Portese and of St. Paul without the Walls; but the
trifling revenue they furnished was wholly inadequate to the support
of fifteen persons; and moreover the religions were so endued with the
spirit of their foundress, that they never could bring themselves to
turn away a beggar from their doors as long as they had a slice of bread
to bestow. They often went a whole day without eating, rather than deny
themselves the happiness of feeding the poor. Francesca, happy in the
virtues of her children, but tenderly anxious for their welfare, was
indefatigable in her efforts to procure them the necessaries of life.
She used on these occasions to beg of her relations, or even of
strangers; and Almighty God allowed her sometimes to provide for them in
a miraculous manner.
One day that the sister whose turn it was to attend to the victualling
department found herself unable to put upon the table any thing but two
or three small fragments of bread, she went to consult the Saint, who
immediately proposed to go out with her and beg. According to her
invariable custom, she asked Agnese de Sellis, her coadjutoress, for
permission so to do. Contrary to her habit on such occasions, Agnese
refused, and said, that if it was necessary for any one to beg, she,
with another of the sisters, would undertake it. Then Francesca, after a
moment's thought, replied, "I think that God will provide for us
without any one going out of the house;" and calling the Oblates to the
refectory, she asked a blessing on the bread, and distributed it in
minute portions amongst them. Each on beginning to eat her share saw
it multiply apace; and not only were their wants thus supplied at the
moment, but enough remained when they had done to furnish them with food
for the next day.
The gift of prophecy she also exercised more frequently than ever at
this period. Once, when she was praying in her cell, the nuns heard
her exclaim, "O King of Heaven, support and comfort that poor unhappy
mother;" and some hours afterwards, they heard that at that very moment
a young nobleman, Jacobo Maddaleni, had been thrown from his horse and
killed on the spot, to the inexpressible grief of his mother. Lorenzo
Altieri was dying, and his wife Palozza overwhelmed with sorrow; she had
several young children, and was almost in despair at the idea of losing
her husband. The physician had declared his case hopeless; and when she
sent for Francesca her heart was breaking. The Saint came up to her, and
said compassionately, "Dear sister, give up the love and the vanities of
the world, and God will take pity upon you. Lorenzo will yet recover;
he will be present at my burial." The prediction was fulfilled, and
Lorenzo, restored to health, assisted, as she had said, at the funeral
of the Saint; and Palozza, whose heart had been entirely converted at
that moment, and who had vowed in case of his death to retire into a
convent, whenever her children could spare her, led henceforward, in
every respect, the life of a Christian wife and mother.
The Superioress of the Sisters of the third order of St. Francis
consulted her one day on the admission of a young girl, who had
requested to be admitted among them. Francesca had not seen or known any
thing of the candidate, but unhesitatingly answered, that the vocation
was not a real one, and she recommended that she should be refused. "She
will enter another monastery," she added, "and after remaining in it a
short time, will return to the world, and soon after she will die." It
happened exactly as the Saint had foretold: Francesca da Fabrica went
into the convent of Casa di Cento Finestre, on the shores of the Tiber,
gave up the habit before the end of the year, and a sharp fever carried
her off soon after her return. Gregorio and Gentilesca Selli had a
little girl of four years old, who was paralysed, and up to her waist
her frame appeared completely withered. They had often been urged to
have recourse to the spells or charms then so much in vogue, but had
always refused to seek a blessing through such means. They were carrying
the little child to Francesca, full of faith in her prayers, which they
were coming to ask, when she exclaimed at the first sight of them:
"Happy are you who have not sought your child's recovery in unlawful
ways. In three days, my friends, she will be restored to health;" and
the prediction was fulfilled to the letter.
It would be useless to multiply such recitals as these. As she advances
in years, especially since her retirement at Tor di Specchi, more and
more frequent become the exercise of those supernatural gifts with which
God had endowed the gentle Saint of Rome. No day elapses that some new
prodigy does not call forth the grateful enthusiasm of the warm-hearted
and devout Trasteverini. If a child is trodden under foot by a runaway
horse, Francesca is sent for, and at the sight of the Saint he revives.
If a young boatman, in the prime of youth, is thrown into the Tiber, and
curried away by the stream under the arches of the Ponte Rotto, from
whence his afflicted mother receives him into her arms without a symptom
of life, she calls out to her friends, "Run, ran to the servant of God:
go to Francesca dei Ponziano, and bid her pray for the boy." And when
they return, the mother is weeping still over her apparently lifeless
child; but they shout from a distance, "The servant of God says he will
not die;" and in a few instants, Paul Guidolini opens his eyes, and
smiles on his mother, who some years later becomes one of the Oblates of
Tor di Specchi. If Francesca sits down for a moment to rest on the
steps of a church, as she did one Good Friday, after the service at St.
Peter's, a paralytic woman kneels at her feet, and obtains that she
should lay her hand on her withered limbs, which are instantly restored.
There is no illness on record which her prayers, or the touch of her
hand, does not dispel and subdue. She restores sight to the blind, the
dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lame walk at her bidding; pestilence and
madness and fits and wounds and possession itself disappear before the
power with which Almighty God has endued her; and she walks this earth
of ours dispensing blessings, as the faithful handmaid of Him who went
about doing good.
At the same time, more and more ecstatic grew her prayers, more visible
to all eyes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in her soul, more removed
from the natural conditions of existence the tenour of her life. At
the hours of meals, which she observed in obedience to the rule, her
companions notice that she hardly ever eats, but that her face is turned
to the window, and her eyes fixed on the sky, while rays of light
seem to play around her, and her countenance grows dazzling from the
celestial brightness which overspreads it. Longer and longer became her
orisons; often in visiting a church she falls into an ecstasy, which
lasts till night. The sublimity of her vision, the glimpses of heaven
which she enjoys, the sight of angels, and of the Lord of angels,
is occasionally exchanged for the terrific apparitions, the renewed
assaults of Satan, who attack her at times with redoubled violence, now
that her ultimate triumph is at hand, and the crown about to descend on
a brow which already shines with the mystic radiance of sanctity. The
old frescoes of the original chapel of Tor di Specchi represent some of
these mysterious struggles between Francesca and the Evil One; and her
cell bears the impress of that strange violence which Satan is permitted
to exercise at certain moments, and which is the type of the warfare
which is ever waged between him and God's Church. He can shake it at
times by the storms he raises; but vain are his attempts to overthrow
it. The mark of Satan's fury is stamped on the roof of Franceses's lowly
cell; but the relics of the canonised Saint now fill the chamber which,
in his impotent rage, the tempter once sought to destroy. But this life
of wonders, of trials, and of miracles, was drawing to a close. She who
had been the holiest of maidens, of wives, and of widows, had all but
finished her course, and many were the intimations she received of her
approaching end.
On one of these occasions she selected one of the chapels in Santa Maria
Nuova as a place of sepulture for the Oblates, and obtained from the
Olivetan Monks that it should be reserved for that purpose. She often
spoke of her death to the sisters, and told Rita, one of the companions
of her youth, that she would succeed her in the government of the
congregation. Don Ippolito, one of her coadjutors in the foundation of
the order, had often implored two favours of her, that she would look
upon him as her spiritual son, and that she would summon him to her
death-bed. She assured him that the prayers of such a worthless
sinner as herself were not deserving of a thought; but, moved by his
importunities, she promised in the end to comply with his request.
Accordingly, towards the end of the year 1439, when he was in Sienna on
business, he received a letter from Francesca, in which she reminded
him of his desire to be present at her last moments, and in consequence
exhorted him to conclude his affairs, and return to Rome as soon as
possible, which he accordingly did. On Christmas-day and on the Feast
of St. Stephen she had visions of the Blessed Virgin and of the infant
Jesus, which she communicated to Don Ippolito in the church of Santa
Maria Nuova, where she had gone on her way back from San Lorenzo without
the Walls and St. John of Lateran, which she had successively visited.
The religious said to her with emotion: "Mother, you will now grant me
the favour I have so often asked of you."
"Yes," replied the Saint, who had been all day in a kind of ecstasy,
though she moved from one place to another; "yes; I look upon you now as
my father, as my brother, and as my son." And so saying she left him,
and returned to Tor di Specchi, still absorbed in contemplation.
Don Ippolito followed her with his eyes till she had disappeared from
his sight, and joy and sorrow were struggling in his heart; for he felt
that the time was come for her great gain and her children's unspeakable
loss.
CHAPTER XIV.
FRANCESCA'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH.
FRANCESCA was fifty-six years old. Her frame, worn out with labour, with
fastings, and austerities, was enfeebled also by frequent illnesses;
but her activity, her indomitable energy, was still the same. She never
flagged, never wearied, never gave way under the pressure of physical or
moral sufferings. It was probably a trial of the latter description, one
which she had always been keenly alive to, that hurried her end.
A fresh schism broke out in the Church, to the scandal and grief of all
the faithful. The refractory bishops assembled at Basle, ventured to
decree the deposition of Pope Eugenius, and to elect as anti-pope the
aged Amadeus, Duke of Tuscany, who had abdicated in favour of his son,
and was living as a hermit on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The
usurper took the name of Felix V., and this unhappy schism lasted ten
years. Francesca turned to heaven her weary eyes--she besought her Lord
to take her away from this scene of trial: too keenly did she feel
the woes of the Church; too deeply did she sorrow over these renewed
conflicts, and the consequent dangers to which the souls of Christians
were exposed. Perhaps it was given to her in that hour to foresee the
fearful storm that was lowering over the Church,--the monster heresy
that, in less than a century, was to rise against the Mystical Bride of
Christ, and rob her of her children.
On the 3d of March, 1440, Francesca was sent for by her son Baptista,
who was laid up with a sharp attack of fever. She instantly obeyed the
summons; and, on arriving at the Ponziano palace, found him already much
better, and able to leave his bed; but, at the earnest request of the
whole family, she agreed to spend the whole day with them, the Oblate
Augustina, who had accompanied her, also remaining to return with her at
night. Towards evening she grew so weak that she could hardly stand; and
Baptista and Mobilia implored her to stay at the palace, or else to let
herself be carried in a litter to the convent; but she persisted in
setting out on foot. Stopping on her way at the church of Santa Maria
in Trastevere, she went in to ask, for the last time, her spiritual
father's blessing, and found Don Giovanni in the Chapel of the
Angels--that spot where she had so often been favoured with divine
revelations. As he was inquiring after Baptista, he was struck with the
more than habitual paleness of her face, and the evident exhaustion
she was labouring under, and commanded her, as a matter of obedience,
instantly to return to the Ponziano Palace, and to spend the night
there, This order was a severe trial to Francesca, for she felt at once
that if she was not now to return to Tor di Specchi, she would never
again enter those hallowed walls; but, faithful to the spirit of perfect
obedience, she meekly bowed her head in token of submission, and went
back to her son's house.
In the course of the night a virulent fever came on, and in the morning
she was as ill as possible. Francesca's first care was to send for her
director, and to request him to apprise her spiritual daughters of her
illness. Four of them (Agnese, Rita, Catherina, and Anastasia,) hurried
to her side; and when they heard her entreat Don Giovanni not to omit
any of the necessary precautions for her soul's welfare, they all burst
into tears, and seemed at once to understand that their beloved mother
was about to leave them. Francesca gently consoled them, and dismissed
them towards the evening, only keeping with her Augustina, who watched
her during the night, and witnessed the ecstasy during which the
following vision was vouchsafed to the sufferer:--Our Lord appeared,
surrounded with angels and with saints, and announced to her that in
seven days she would die, and receive the crown which was prepared for
her in heaven. Sister Augustina saw her face shining with supernatural
brightness; a radiant smile playing on her lips, and heard her say with
ineffable unction: "Be Thou eternally praised and blessed, O my dear
Lord Jesus Christ! Thanks be to Thee for the unmerited favours I
have received at Thy hands. To Thee, to Thee alone, do I owe all the
blessings I have, and have yet to receive." When Don Giovanni saw her
afterwards, he imagined she was rallying; but she related to him her
vision, and bade him tell her daughters that her end was approaching.
Their tears and their sobs choked their utterance; and the Saint gently
reproved that excess of sorrow, and bade them rejoice with her, and
bless the Divine goodness for the great mercy that was shown to her.
During the next two days she suffered much; but no word or sound of
complaint escaped her. Her face was as serene as if her body had been
perfectly free from pain; and to those who expressed a hope that she
would yet recover, she only answered with a sweet smile, "God be
praised, my pilgrimage will end from Wednesday to Thursday next." She
asked for the Sacraments, confessed, went to communion, and received
Extreme Unction. Ardent ejaculatory prayers, devout aspirations, burning
expressions of love, were ever rising from her heart to her lips. Each
day she repeated, as if she had been in perfect health, the Office of
the Blessed Virgin, the Rosary, and all her usual prayers. The Oblates
watched by her in turns, and Mobilia hardly ever left her side; so that
the smallest particulars of that wonderful death-bed were carefully
recorded. Francesca allowed all those who wished to see her to come in.
She had words of advice, of warning, and of consolation for all.
When the news of her illness was spread in Rome, the heart of the great
city was stirred to its very depths, and a mournful, anxious, loving
multitude beset the palace and the very bed of the dying Saint. Nowise
disturbed or annoyed at this oppressive testimony of their affection,
she had a smile, or a look, or a kind word for each. No cloud obscured
her understanding; no irritability affected her temper. Peace was within
and around her, and heaven's own calm on her brow and in her heart. The
evil spirits, the arch-enemy himself--who, for her sanctification and
the glory of God, had been permitted so often to haunt her path and
assault her during life--are banished now, and stand at bay, gazing, no
doubt, from afar, with envious rage, on that peace which they may no
longer mar. Don Giovanni, who had known so well her former trials, often
inquired, during her last illness, if Satan's ministers were molesting
her. "No," she wouldd answer, with a smile; "I see them no more. God has
conquered; His foes have fled." But the bright archangel, whose task is
nearly at an end, is still at his post; he weaves the last threads of
the mystic woof, and seems to make haste to finish his work. The halo of
light which surrounds him grows brighter and brighter, and Francesca's
dying form reflects that splendour.
On the Monday morning she is still in the same state. Glorious visions
pass before her; divine forms bend over her, and whisper words of
welcome. During Mass, which her confessor says in her room, the Lord
Himself appears to her again; and from the consecrated Host He speaks to
her entranced soul. The Blessed Virgin and the angels surround her, and
the voices of the blest make sweet music in her ears. Late on that day,
when her ecstasy was over, the weeping Oblates surround her bed, and
with suppliant accents implore her to ask of God yet to leave her upon
earth, for the sake of the souls intrusted to her care. It was a hard
request: to have had a glimpse of heaven, and to turn back; to have
tasted the cup of celestial bliss, and to draw back from its sweetness!
Full of love, of pity, of resignation, of holy indifference, she
exclaims: "God's will is my will; His good pleasure mine. If He Chooses
me to tarry yet on earth, so be it then. I am ready to remain in this
miserable world, if He commands it."
But it was not ordained. The next day she grew rapidly worse, and from
that time slept not again. "I shall soon rest in God," she replied to
those who were urging her to repose. The Oblates once more kneel around
her to receive her last instructions: one of them alone, Francesca del
Veruli, is kept away by a severe illness, which confines her to her
bed. Touching were the last words of the dying mother to her spiritual
children; sweet the words of blessing she pronounced on their heads.
_Love, love_, was the burden of her teaching, as it had been that of the
beloved disciple. "Love one another (she said), and be faithful unto
death. Satan will assault you, as he has assaulted me; but be not
afraid. You will overcome him through patience and obedience; and no
trial will be too grievous, if you are united to Jesus; if you walk in
His ways, He will be with you." Then with earnest accents she thanked
Don Giovanni, in her own name and in that of the order, for all he had
done to them; and commended the Oblates to his fatherly care.
At that moment her son Baptista entered the room. His mother sat up in
the bed, and gazing upon him with an expression of anxious scrutiny, she
said: "And can it be that you quarrel with poor shepherds? And do you
rob God of His glory by unlawful dealings with hell?" The persons who
were standing around the bed looked at each other in surprise, and
imagined that Francesca was delirious; but Baptista's countenance and
actions soon undeceived them. Tears rushed into his eyes, and with great
emotion he publicly acknowledged that he had been guilty of striking,
in his anger, some peasants who had injured his fields, and had gone to
consult in secret one of the persons who dealt in occult sciences, as to
the possibility of his mother's recovery. No one but himself knew of his
twofold sin; and the rebuke of the dying Saint came upon him as a direct
reproof from God, and an awful warning for the rest of his life. As the
day advanced, Francesca grew weaker and weaker; but the flame of love
was burning more brightly, as that of life was waning. "What are you
saying?" asked Don Giovanni at one moment, on seeing her lips move.
"The Vespers of the Blessed Virgin," she answered in a scarcely audible
voice. As an infant almost she had begun that practice; and on the eve
of her death she had not yet omitted it. On the seventh day of her
illness, as she had herself announced, her life came to a close. A
sublime expression animated her face; a more ethereal beauty clothed her
earthly form. Her confessor for the last time inquires what it is her
enraptured eyes behold, and she whispers, "The heavens open! The angels
descend! The archangel has finished his task. He stands before me. He
beckons to me to follow him." These are the last words that Francesca
utters; a smile of indescribable brightness beams from her face. The
eyes that have so long been closed to the vanities of life are now
closed in death, and her spirit has taken its final leave of earth.
CHAPTER XV.
FRANCESCA'S FUNERAL, AND HER SUBSEQUENT CANONIZATION.
THE body of the Saint remained during a night and a day at the Ponziano
palace, the Oblates watching by turns over the beloved remains. Their
grief was tempered with joy, for they felt she was in heaven; though
the pang of separation was keen, and their home on earth desolate. Don
Giovanni, Don Ippolito, and Don Francesco dello Schiano recited the
prayers of the Church over the corpse; and though deeply affected
themselves, strove to console the bereaved sisterhood, chiefly by
extolling the rare merits and the heroic virtues of their departed
mother. Almighty God vouchsafed, even during the first night of their
loving watch, to give them a proof of that sanctity which was so soon to
be triumphantly demonstrated. Sister Margaret, of the third order of St.
Frances, had been present at Francesca's death, and remained by her
side during the night that followed. Her arm had been paralysed for six
months, and to all appearance withered. Inspired with a lively faith,
she touched the body of the Saint, and was instantaneously cured. The
Oblates all fell on their knees at the sight of this miracle, and
blessed God for the earnest He thus gave of the wonders which
Francesca's intercession was to accomplish. Each moment they were
confirmed in the blessed assurance of her immediate admission into
heaven; each moment brought with it a new occasion for joyful
exultation. The sweet perfume, the "odour of sanctity," which expression
is so often supposed to be simply metaphorical, whereas it often
indicates an actual physical and miraculous fact, soon pervaded the room
and filled it with fragrance. Francesca's face, which had recently borne
the traces of age and of suffering, became as beautiful again as in the
days of youth and prosperity; and the astonished bystanders gazed with
wonder and awe at that unearthly loveliness. Many of them carried away
particles from her clothes, and employed them for the cure of several
persons who had been considered beyond the possibility of recovery. In
the course of the day, the crowd augmented to a degree which alarmed the
inhabitants of the palace, and Baptista took measures to have the body
removed at once to the church and a procession of the regular and
secular clergy escorted the venerated remains to Santa Maria Nuova,
where they were to be interred.
The popular feeling burst forth on the occasion; it was no longer to be
restrained: a sort of pious insurrection, which the Church smiles upon,
even though it refuses to sanction it; as a mother can scarcely rebuke a
somewhat irregular action in one of her children when it springs from
a generous feeling, even though she feels herself bound to check it.
"Francesca was a saint--Francesca was in heaven." Francesca was invoked
by the crowd, and her beloved name was heard in every street, in every
piazza, in every corner of the Eternal City. It flew from mouth to
mouth; it seemed to float in the air, to be borne aloft by the grateful
enthusiasm of a whole people, who had seen her walk to that church by
her mother's side in her holy childhood; who had seen her kneel at that
altar in the grave beauty of womanhood, in the hour of bereavement, and
now in death; carried thither in state, she the gentle, the humble Saint
of Rome, the poor woman of the Trastevere, as she was sometimes called
at her own desire.
Francesca del Veruli, the Oblate whom illness had detained from the
death-bed of her beloved mother, hears from her sick-room the confused
hum of voices, the sound of hurrying feet, which indicate the approach
of the procession. Full of faith, she starts up, and with clasped hands
exclaims, "Oh, my mother! oh, Francesca! I have not seen you die; I have
not received your last blessing; obtain for me now that I may visit your
remains." With a violent effort, and leaning on one of her sisters, she
contrives to rise and to make her way to the bier. The very instant she
has touched it, her health and strength return. Meanwhile the crowd
augments, and hurries into the church. They press round the precious
body; they refuse to let it be buried. As a favour, as a boon of the
greatest price, they obtain that the obsequies be put oft to the
Saturday; and in the meantime, day and night, there is no limit to the
concourse of people that assemble in the chapel. Still the saintly body
exhales its perfume; still the sweet features retain their beauty; and
to that spot, in an apparently never-ending succession, come the blind,
and the lame, and the halt, and the sick, and the suffering; and each
of those who touch the bier, or to whom is carried something that has
belonged to Francesca, is instantaneously cured. Truly God was wonderful
in this His Saint, and wonderful are the details of the miracles wrought
during those days; and not only were the ills of the body relieved by
contact with the holy corpse, but grace reaches the souls of many who
have been hitherto steeled against its entrance.
Amongst others, two young men of dissolute lives and irreligious
spirits, on hearing of the miracles at Santa Maria Nuova, begin to
jeer and laugh on the subject, and, moved only by curiosity, go to the
church, approach the bier with mock demonstrations of respect. But no
sooner have they knelt before it, than their hearts are simultaneously
touched; a sudden change comes over them. Having come to scoff, they
remain to pray,--they rise from their knees only to seek a confessor;
and return home that night converted to God, and ever after lead the
lives of pious Christians. The miracles wrought before and after
Francesca's burial are so multifarious, that it might be tedious (a
strange word to use on such an occasion, but nevertheless correct) to
attempt to relate them all. Great was the moral effect of this singular
outpouring of God's powers through His servant. Faith grew more timid,
and hope more strong; charity burned in the hearts of many with an
ever-increasing fervour; and the examples which the Saint had given, and
which were now dwelt upon with affectionate veneration, induced many to
walk in the same path, and look to the same end. It was in Lent that she
had died; and from every pulpit in Rome her praises were heard. The most
eminent ecclesiastics of the time all foretold her canonisation; and
the public voice and the public devotion ratified the burst of popular
enthusiasm that had hailed her as a Saint on the very day of her
death, and long preceded the formal recognition of her sanctity by the
authority of the Church.
A few months after her death, her tomb was opened in order to remove
the corpse into a monument which Baptista, Mobilia, and several Roman
noblemen had erected in her honour. It was found in a state of perfect
preservation, and still exhaling the same fragrance as before. The most
exact and detailed examinations were taken in the year of her death,
both as to all the particulars of her life, and as to the supernatural
and miraculous events which had marked its course, as well as those
which had succeeded her death.
From time to time earnest endeavours were made to hasten her formal
canonisation. The materials were ample, and the evidence complete; but a
variety of circumstances interfered with the conclusion of the process;
and though several Popes, namely, Eugenius IV., Nicholas V., Pius II.,
Innocent VIII., and Julius II., promoted the question, it was not much
advanced till the accession of Clement VIII., who had a great devotion
to the Saint, and brought the matter nearly to a close; but his death
occurring in the meantime, and his successor, Leo XI, only outliving
him twenty-seven days, it was Paul V. (Borghese) who decreed the
canonisation of Francesca, to the joy of the Oblates of Tor di Specchi,
of the monks of Santa Maria Nuova, and of the whole people of Rome. Her
festival was appointed to be kept on the 9th of March; and those who
have been in Rome on that day can tell how vivid is the devotion that
still exists,--the worship that is yet paid to the holy Francesca, the
beloved Saint of the Trastevere, the model of Christian matrons; and in
the church of Santa Francesca Romana, as the old Santa Maria Nuova is
now called, and in the Casa dei Esercizii Pii (the old Ponziano Palace),
and in the time-honoured walls of Tor di Specchi, a tribute of love and
of devotion is yielded, which touches the heart, and carries the mind
back to the days when, amidst the strife of war and the miseries or
anarchy, faith, fresh, strong, and pure, asserted its power, and wrought
wonders through such feeble instruments as a woman's heart and a woman's
works.
On the 29th of May, 1608, in the church of St. Peter, then lately
erected, and adorned for the occasion with the utmost magnificence,
after a pontifical High Mass, in the presence of the Sacred College, and
of an immense affluence of strangers as well as of Romans, the decree
was proclaimed which placed Francesca amongst the canonised saints, and
sanctioned the worship which a devout people had paid her, with but few
interruptions, since the day of her death. Rome was illuminated that
night; the fiery cupola of St. Peter, and the sound of innumerable
bells, told the neighbouring plains and hills that "God had regarded the
lowliness of His handmaiden," and that, in her measure, all generations
were to call her Blessed.
In 1633, the tomb of Francesca, which, in consequence of some
alterations in the church, had remained out of sight for a great number
of years, was, through the pious exertions of the Oblates, assisted by
the abbot of Santa Maria Nuova, and the Cardinals Borghese, Barberini,
and Altiere, discovered in the spot where it had been placed two
centuries before. Her bones were exposed to the veneration of the
faithful, and a number of religious processions and services took place
on the occasion. Various miracles again gave testimony to the virtues of
those holy relics, and a magnificent monument was erected beneath that
altar where the Saint had so often prayed. BLESSED LUCY OF NARNI.
BLESSED LUCY OF NARNI.
IT was towards the latter end of the 15th century that Lucia Broccoletti
was horn in the ancient city of Narni, in Umbria, where her father's
house had long held a noble and distinguished rank. Even as a baby in
the cradle, there were not wanting signs which marked her as no ordinary
child; and if we may credit the account given us by her old biographers,
both her nurses and mother were accustomed to see her daily visited by
an unknown religious dressed in the Dominican habit, whose majestic
appearance seemed something more than human, and who, taking her from
her cradle, embraced her tenderly, and gave her her blessing. They
watched closely, to see whence this mysterious visitor came and whither
she went, but were never able to follow her; and the mother becoming
at length alarmed at the daily recurrence of this circumstance, it was
revealed to her that her child's unknown visitor was no other than St.
Catherine of Sienna, to whom she was given as an adopted daughter.
The accounts that have been preserved of Lucia's childhood have a
peculiar interest of their own. Whilst the early biographies of many
saints present us with instances of extraordinary graces and favours
granted to them in infancy, quite as numerous and remarkable as those
bestowed on Blessed Lucy, yet in her case we find them mixed with the
details of a characteristic vivacity of temperament, which give them a
lifelike reality, and show her to us, in the midst of her supernatural
visitations, with all the impetuosity of an imaginative child. When she
was only four years old, her mother's brother, Don Simon, came on a
visit to his sister's house, and brought with him from Rome various toys
and presents for the children. Lucy was given her choice; and whilst the
others were loudly clamouring for the dolls and puppets, she selected a
little rosary with an image of the Child Jesus; and this being given
to her, she took it in her arms, bestowing every name of childish
endearment on it, kissing its hands and feet, and calling it her dear
Christarello, a name which continued to be given to it ever afterwards.
The rest of the day she spent in her own little room, where she arranged
a corner for the reception of the Christarello, and was never tired of
seeing and caressing her new treasure. Henceforth it was here that she
spent the happiest moments of the day. If ever she got into any trouble
in the house, it was here she came to pour out all her sorrow; and the
innocent simplicity of her devotion was so pleasing to God, that more
than once He permitted that the Christarello should wipe away the tears
which she shed on these occasions with His little hand, as was several
times witnessed by her mother, who watched her through the half-open
door. As she grew a little older, she began to accompany her mother
to church; and they frequently went to visit the great church of St.
Augustine, which was close to the house where they lived. Now it
happened that in this church, among other devout images, there was a
small has-relief of the Blessed Virgin holding her Divine Son in her
arms, which took the child's fancy the first time they entered, so that
she stopped to look at it. Her mother observed her as she lingered
behind: "Lucy," she said, "do you know who that beautiful lady is whom
you see there? She is the Mother of your Christarello; and the little
Child whom she carries in her arms is the Christarello also. If you
like, we will come here sometimes; and you shall bring the rosary you
are so fond of, and say it before her image." Lucy was delighted at the
idea; and whenever she could escape from her nurse's hand, she found her
way to the church, to admire this new object of her devotion. One day,
being thus occupied, the thought came into her head, how much she would
like to hold the Christarello for once in her own arms, as she had
learnt to hold her little baby brother. She therefore prayed to the
Blessed Virgin with great earnestness that her request might be granted,
and immediately the marble figure of the little Jesus was extended to
her by His Mother, and placed in her arms. Nor was this all: no sooner
had she received her precious burden, than she felt the cold marble
become a living Child; and, full of delight, she ran home still carrying
Him; and though she met many people on the way, who stopped her as she
hurried along, and tried to take Him from her, she succeeded in getting
safe to her own room at home, where she shut herself up with her
treasure, and remained with Him for three days and nights without food
or sleep, insensible to all the entreaties and remonstrances of her
astonished mother. Conquered at length by fatigue, on the third day she
fell asleep; and when she woke she became sensible of the truth that God
abides only with those who watch with Him; for, on opening her eyes, the
first thing she perceived was that the Christarello was gone. Her cries
of distress were heard by her mother, who, to console her, carried her
once more to the church; and there they found the marble child restored
to the image as before, although for the three previous days its place
in the arms of the Virgin's figure had been empty.
She was accustomed from time to time to pay a visit to the uncle before
mentioned, and when about seven years old she went as usual to spend
some time with him at his country house. She remembered, on the occasion
of a former visit, to have seen a room in some part of the house where
there were some little angels painted on the walls, as it seemed to
her, holding their hands and dancing; and the first morning after her
arrival, she determined to set out on a diligent search after the
dancing angels. The room in which they were painted was in a wing of
the house which had fallen out of repair, and was no longer used by the
family; a staircase had led to the upper story, but this was now fallen
and in ruins; and though Lucy, as she stood at the bottom, could see
the little angels on the wall above her head, all her efforts were
unavailing to climb the broken staircase and reach the object of
her search. She had recourse to her usual expedient, prayer to the
Christarello, and instantly found herself in the empty room, without
well knowing how she came there. But her thoughts were soon busy with
the angels. There they were; little winged children, their heads
garlanded with flowers, their mantles floating as it seemed in the air;
and they danced with such an air of enjoyment and superhuman grace, that
Lucy sat on the ground before them, absorbed in admiration. As she sat
thus, she heard her own name called from the window. She turned round,
expecting to see her uncle or some of the servants of the house; but a
very different spectacle met her eye. A glorious company of saints and
angels stood round the Person of Jesus Himself. On His right was His
Virgin Mother; on His left, St. Catherine and the great Patriarch St.
Dominic, with many others. Then those mystic espousals were celebrated
which we read of in so many other tales of the Saints of God: the Divine
Spouse receiving the hand of the delighted child from His Blessed
Mother, placed a ring on her finger, which she preserved to the hour of
her death; after which He assigned her to the special guardianship of
St. Dominic and St. Catherine, whom from that day she always was used to
call her "father and mother." "And have you nothing to give Me?" He then
asked of His little Spouse; "will you not give Me that silk mantle and
pretty necklace?" Lucy was dressed in the rich fashion of the day, with
a crimson damask mantle over her other garments, and a necklace of gold
and coral beads about her neck; but at these words of her Spouse, she
hastily stripped them off, and lay them at His feet. He did not fail,
however, to give her a richer dress in their place; for she had no
sooner taken off the silk mantle, than St. Dominic clothed her with the
scapular of his order, which she continued to wear during the rest of
her life under her other clothes. When the vision had disappeared, Lucy
found herself full of a new and inexpressible joy. She turned to the
little angels on the wall, the only companions left her after the last
of the heavenly train had faded from her eyes, and with the simplicity
of her childish glee, she spoke to them as though they were alive. "You
dear little angels," she said, "are you not glad at what our Lord has
done?" Then the angels seemed to move from the wall, and to become,
indeed, full of life; and they spoke to her in reply, and said they were
very glad to have her for their queen and lady, as the Spouse of their
dear Lord. And they invited her to join in their dance of joy, and sang
so sweet and harmonious a music, and held out their hands so kindly and
graciously, that Lucy would have been well content never to have left
her happy place of retreat; nor would she have done so, if she had not
been found by her uncle, and carried against her will back to the house.
The death of her father, left her whilst still young, to the
guardianship of her uncle. All her own wishes were fixed on a life of
religion, but her uncle had different views for her; and after long
resistance on her part, he succeeded in inducing her to accept as her
husband Count Pietro of Milan, a young nobleman of considerable worth
and abilities. The marriage was accordingly celebrated; but not until,
in answer to earnest prayers, Lucy had received a divine revelation that
a life so contrary to all her own wishes and intentions was indeed God's
will regarding her.
Doubtless it is one of those cases in which it is not easy for us to
follow the ways of Divine Providence. The marriage was followed by much
suffering to both parties; yet, if we be willing to take the Saints'
lives as they are given us, without seeking to reduce the supernatural
elements we find in them to the level of our own understanding, we shall
not he disposed to doubt the truth of the revelation which commanded it,
or to fancy things would have been much better if Blessed Lucy had never
been placed in a position so little in harmony with her own wishes. On
the contrary, we must admire the grace of God, which would perhaps never
have been so amply manifested in His servant, had she been called to a
more congenial way of life. We are accustomed to admire the wonderful
variety of examples which are presented to us in the lives of the
Saints: that of Blessed Lucy offers us one of a soul with all her
sympathies and desires fixed on the higher life of religion, yet
fulfilling with perfect exactitude the minutest duties of a different
vocation. She sanctified herself in the will of God, though that will
was manifested to her in a position which the world is used to call the
hardest of all to bear--an ill-assorted marriage. She found means to
practise the humiliation of the cloister, without laying aside the
duties, or even the becoming dignity, of her station.
Her first care, on finding herself the young mistress of a house full of
servants, was with them, whom she ever looked on less as menials than as
a cherished portion of her family. And in the beautiful account given
us of her intercourse with them, we must remember that at the period in
which she lived, it was considered nothing uncommon or unbecoming for
ladies of the highest rank to join in the household occupations, and
take their part in the day's employment, working with their servants,
and presiding amongst them with an affectionate familiarity, which,
without rendering them less a mistress, gave them at the same time
almost the position of a mother. Blessed Lucy delighted in the
opportunities, which the simple manners of the day thus afforded her,
of laying aside her rich dress and ornaments, and assisting in her own
kitchen, where she always chose the meanest and most tiresome offices.
What was with others only done in compliance with the ordinary habit of
the day, was with her made the occasion of secret humiliations. One of
her servants, a woman of very holy life and disposition, she took into
her confidence, submitting herself to her direction, and obeying her as
a religious superior. On Holy Thursday, she washed the feet of all her
domestics; and that with so touching a devotion as to draw tears from
the eyes of the rudest and most indifferent among them. So perfect was
the discipline she succeeded in introducing among them, that, far from
presenting the spectacle of disorder so common in households filled with
a crowd of feudal retainers of all kinds, her palace had the quietude
and serenity of a monastery. Never was an oath or licentious word heard
among them; the name of God was honoured; and habits of devotion became
cherished and familiar, where before they had been too often an occasion
of mockery. All the family dined at the same table; and during the
repast the Lives of the Saints, or the Holy Scriptures, were read aloud.
If any fault were committed by any of the household, Blessed Lucy
knew how to punish it so rigorously as to prevent a repetition of the
offence; and in this she was often assisted by the gift of prophecy,
which she enjoyed in a remarkable degree. We read an amusing account of
two of her maidens, who took the opportunity of their mistress's
absence at church to kill two fine capons, which they resolved to dress
privately for their own eating. The birds were already on the spit, when
their mistress was heard entering the house. Fearful of discovery, they
took the half-roasted capons from the fire, and hid them under a bed.
Blessed Lucy, however, knew all that had happened. "Where are the
capons," she said, "that were in the court this morning?" "They have
flown away," said the two women, in great confusion: "we have been
looking for them every where." "Do not try to deceive God, my children,"
replied Blessed Lucy: "they are both under your bed; if you will follow
me, I will show them to you." The servants followed her in silent
dismay; but their astonishment was still more increased, when not only
did she lead them to the very place where they had hidden their spoils,
hut calling the birds to come out, they flew out alive, and began to
crow lustily.
In another story of her life, we find her represented with her women
washing the linen of the house by the side of a river that flowed by the
castle. Whilst so engaged, one of them fell into the river and sank to
the bottom; but Blessed Lucy made the sign of the cross over the water,
and immediately the drowning woman appeared on the surface safe and
sound, close to the river's bank.
And in the midst of these simple and homely occupations, the
supernatural life of prayer, and ecstacy, and communion with God, was
never for a moment interrupted. Strange and beautiful sights were seen
by many of those who were present in the church when she communicated:
sometimes a column of fire rested on her head; sometimes her face itself
shone and sparkled like the sun. Once two little children, whom she had
adopted as her own, saw, as they knelt behind her, two angels come and
crown their mother with a garland, of exquisite roses. But the children
began to weep; for they said one to another, "Certainly our mother
cannot have long to live, for the angels are even now crowning her with
flowers."
The beauty of her face, and its extraordinary brilliancy at these times,
had a singular power in controlling those who beheld it. Even Count
Pietro himself was tamed and conquered by a glance from her eye, when it
shone with this more than human splendour.
This mention of Count Pietro's name reminds us that it is tune we should
say something of him, and of his share in a story which has in some
parts, as we read it, the character of a romance. He was not a bad
man; he seems indeed to have had many good qualities, and to have been
possessed in some respects of a degree of refinement beyond what was
common at the time. He was sincerely attached to his saintly wife; but
he could not understand her. They were beings of different worlds; and
the very qualities which extorted his respect and admiration often sadly
perplexed and worried him. Her very affection for himself was above his
comprehension; his own feelings were too much made up of the ordinary
selfishness of the world, for him to know how to measure the love of one
whose love was in God. He felt her power over himself; and whilst he
yielded to it, it irritated him, and not the less because there was
nothing of which he could complain. This irritation showed itself in a
morose jealousy, sometimes varied by fits of passionate violence; in
which he went so far as to confine his wife to her room, and once even
to threaten her life.
All this, and the yet more wearing trial of their daily intercourse,
was borne by Blessed Lucy with unvarying sweetness and gentleness. But
though she accommodated herself in every thing to his sullen temper,
and even showed him a true and loyal obedience, the desire after those
heavenly espousals to which she had been promised whilst still a child
never left her heart; and as time went on, she began to look about for
some opportunity of carrying her wishes into effect. In those days it
was no uncommon spectacle to see a wife or a husband, in obedience to
the interior call of heaven, abandon every tie of flesh and blood for
the retirement of the cloister; nor was the propriety of such a step
ever questioned. Society, as a body, in the ages of faith, acknowledged
the principle, that one whom Christ calls should leave all and follow
Him. When, therefore, we hear that Blessed Lucy at length resolved to
leave her husband's house, and take the habit of religion in the Order
of St. Dominic, we must remember that she was no more acting contrary
to the custom of the age, than when she worked with her servants in the
kitchen. It is not an easy matter at any time for us to judge of the
vocation or conscience of another; but when we have to carry back our
investigation four hundred years, we can hardly hope that the whole
history of a resolution of this nature,--why it was carried out now, and
why it was not carried out before her marriage,--should be laid
open before us like the pages of a book. Of one thing only we cannot
doubt,--God's will had been very clearly and sufficiently declared; both
at first, when she consented to give up her own wishes, and now, when
the time was come for them to be granted. She contented herself at
first with receiving the habit of the third order, and remaining in her
mother's house for a year; during which time she had to endure much from
the indignation of her husband, who expressed his own disapproval of her
step in a very summary way, by burning down the monastery of the prior
who had given her the habit. But her uncles at length took the case into
their own hands; and after considering the very extraordinary signs of a
divine call which had been made manifest in her life, they decided that
she should be suffered to follow it without further molestation, and
placed her in the monastery of St. Catherine of Sienna at Rome.
Within a year from her entrance there, the fame of her sanctity had
become so universal, that Father Joachim Turriano, the General of the
Order, being about to found a new convent of nuns at Viterbo, selected
her as the prioress of the new foundation; on which office she
accordingly entered in the year 1496, being then exactly twenty years of
age. So great was the reputation she enjoyed, that though the number of
religious sent with her to Viterbo by the general was only five, the
crowds that applied for admission as soon as her presence was known was
so great that the convent had to be enlarged; and she soon saw herself
at the head of a numerous and flourishing community.
Meanwhile, her unhappy husband had not abandoned all hopes of inducing
her even yet to return to the world. He had followed her to Rome, and
made vain efforts to see and speak with her: he now followed her also to
Viterbo; and though unsuccessful in his attempts to obtain the slightest
answer to his continual applications and appeals, he continued to linger
about the convent, in the restless mood of one who would not give up
his design as hopeless. Every tongue around him was busy with the fame
of Lucy's saintliness; from one he heard of her almost continual prayer,
from another, of the glory which was seen to hover over her face in the
presence of the Blessed Sacrament: but soon, in the February following
her removal to Viterbo, the interest of all was absorbed in a new
report,--that she had received the sacred stigmata; and that in so
remarkable a manner as to put all doubt on the subject out of the
question. For it was hi the choir, with the other religious, that, being
engaged in profound meditation on the Passion, she was observed by one
of the sisters to look pale and as if suffering acute pain. The sister
went up to her to support her, and was struck with the appearance of
her hands, the bones of which seemed dislocated, and the nerves torn.
"Mother of God!" she exclaimed, "what is the matter with your hands?"
"Nothing," was the faint reply; "they are only gone to sleep." But
within a few moments the agony she was enduring and endeavouring to
conceal overpowered her, and she became perfectly senseless. They
carried her from the choir and restored her to consciousness, so that
she was able to return within an hour and receive Holy Communion; but
the same sister who had first observed her, being convinced something
very extraordinary had happened, continued to watch her, and followed
her to her cell. She then remarked that her hands were livid, and the
skin raised and much inflamed; and by the end of the week the wounds
became large and open, and shed so great an abundance of blood that it
could no longer be concealed. The excitement which followed, when these
circumstances became generally known, can hardly be described. A minute
investigation was first made by the Bishop of Viterbo; after which three
successive commissions of inquiry were appointed by the command of the
Pope to examine the affair, and each of these inquiries terminated in
the declaration that the truth of the miracle was beyond all dispute.
Multitudes flocked to the convent to see and touch the sacred wounds,
and came back full of the wonders which their own eyes had witnessed.
Duke Hercules of Este, the Pope's nephew, made earnest applications to
his uncle to suffer her to be removed to his own city of Ferrara; and
whilst all these things were going on, Count Pietro still remained in
Viterbo.
The world about him was echoing with his wife's renown, but none knew
his own connection with her. Each marvel that he heard did but seem to
widen the gulf between them; yet still he stayed and lingered within
sight of the walls that shut her from him for ever: now bitterly
accusing himself for the blindness of his own conduct towards her; now
striving to keep alive a kind of despairing hope that, could he but once
gain admittance to her presence, he might even yet regain possession of
a treasure which, when it was his, he knew not how to value. At length
his desires were granted. A sudden inspiration induced Lucy to consent
to an interview: it was the first that had taken place since she had
fled from his house, and it was the last they ever had in this life.
It must have been a singular meeting: the two years of their separation
had altered both. As to the Count, his restless despair had worn him to
an old man. He had never seen Narni since the day of her departure for
Rome, whither he had followed her; and had spent the long days of those
two years hanging about the convent-gates like some miserable beggar.
And the same two years had placed Lucy far beyond his reach, as it were
in a supernatural world above him. When she stood before him at the
grate, and he beheld her marked with those sacred and mysterious wounds,
and bearing in her whole appearance the air of one whose sympathies were
for ever removed from the affections of humanity, his heart failed him.
He had thought to speak to her of her home, and the claims which should
recall her to the world; he saw before him something a little lower than
the angels; and falling on his knees, he bent his eyes to the ground,
and remained silent. Then she spoke; and heaven seemed to speak to him
by her voice. The mists of earthly passion rolled away from his heart
as he listened; the world and its hopes died in him at that moment; an
extraordinary struggle tore his very soul, then passed away, and left
it in a profound calm. For the first time he caught a glimpse of that
reality which till now he had treated as a dream; the world and its
unquiet joys were now themselves the dream, and heaven opened on him as
the reality. All life fell away from him in that hour; and when his wife
ceased speaking, she had won his soul to God. He dragged himself to her
feet, and bathed them in his tears; he conjured her pardon for all the
persecutions and violence of the past, and renounced every right or
claim over her obedience for ever. Then, leaving her without another
word, he obeyed the voice which had so powerfully spoken to his heart;
for within a few weeks he took the habit of the Friars Minor of the
strict observance; and persevering in it for many years, died a little
before his wife, with the reputation of sanctity.