Felix

ON ST. FELIX, BISHOP AND MARTYR,

IN THE VALLEY OF GARDUMUM IN THE TYROL.

A Syllogeconcerning his cult and miracles.

Felix, Bishop and Martyr, at Gardumum in the Tyrol (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

That this holy Felix is venerated as a bishop and martyr, the Tyrolese, so to speak, all assert; The Saint of whom we here treat the concourse of innumerable people to his sacred relics proves it; most frequent miracles are proclaimed; a chapel has been built in his honor by lawful authority; his relics have been translated and honorably exposed; his image is carried about, which we shall exhibit below engraved on copper: in a word, there cry out sure monuments which can be brought forward for vindicating anyone's sanctity; although meanwhile neither any ecclesiastical Calendars, nor any writer of a somewhat greater antiquity, whom at least I know, have anywhere made mention of him, unless he be confounded with some namesake, to which matter every way seems closed, since separate cities claim for themselves patrons of the same name, and each exhibits the bodies of its own Saints. But concerning his age, his deeds, or the time of his martyrdom, just as little is drawn out: nor is it in my power to bring hither other things besides those which were lately supplied to me by our Father James Schmid, who wrote on Tyrolese matters, together with the image which it has seemed good to reproduce here.

[2] That most learned and most diligent man sought out and collected, while he was occupied in writing his Tyrolese History in German, whatever he judged could pertain to the glory of the Saint, however unknown elsewhere; and when he had learned that we were occupied in illustrating the month of August, known only to the Tyrolese and since the memory of that Saint is wont to be kept festively on the XIV of this month, he held nothing more important than that he should supply us with those things which could be recorded on that day in our work; which, translated into Latin by himself from his praised history, I shall here most faithfully subjoin, having first set forth the likeness printed at Vienna, whence it may also appear that the veneration of this holy Felix has long since been extended even into Austria and other regions. From the image itself it sufficiently appears that St. Felix is venerated as a bishop; the matter is more clearly explained by the words subscribed in this manner: St. Felix, Bishop and Martyr, wonder-worker, in the archpresbyteral and parish church of the Valley of Gardumum in the Tyrol.

[3] To the image there is wont to be attached a brief Italian narration concerning the almost daily miracles and benefits which are wont to be obtained by every kind of men, is honored with a famous cult. which we shall give below more fully from Schmid. Let it suffice here to subjoin the prayer translated from the Italian:

A DEVOUT PRAYER

To be made on every fitting occasion to the wonder-working St. Felix.

℣. In all our miseries and calamities of soul and of body,

℞. Help us and pray for us, O St. Felix.

Almighty, eternal, and most merciful God, who are wonderful in your Saints, especially in the glorious St. Felix, bishop and martyr, by whose patronage and protection you pour forth with the highest kindness the treasures of your inexhaustible goodness upon every faithful Christian who most humbly supplicates: be merciful to me, a wretched sinner, and, through the powerful intercession of your prodigious servant Felix, deign to heal in me, though an unworthy creature of yours, every misery and infirmity, both spiritual and bodily, that by your immense grace and kindness I may unceasingly give you thanks, praise you, love and adore you with my whole heart, serve and bless you with all my strength, being most fully refreshed by your holy divine blessing and ineffable mercy, here in time, and there in eternity. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.

There is added: three times the Lord's Prayer, three times the Angelic salutation, and three times the Glory be to the Father, etc. For the rest, let there now follow the tradition of the Tyrolese and the miracles, collected from various accounts and documents, and sent hither by our already praised Father James Schmid, in these words:

[4] Although from immemorial time this most glorious holy bishop and martyr Felix has had a notable cult in the archpresbyteral church, in the place which is here described from which it obtained its name, yet especially in our times that cult has been very greatly increased on account of the very many benefits which God has wrought by the patronage of this Saint, and has been diffused widely into all the neighborhood. The territory of Gardumum lies in the province or county of the Tyrol, of the diocese of Trent, and belongs to the Most Illustrious Counts of Castelbarco, being situated at the foot of the castle of Gresta *. It comprises seven or eight villages, furnished also with their own churches, by whose inhabitants St. Felix has been chosen as the common patron of all.

[5] I moved every stone that I might draw out something certain concerning the acts of this holy Wonder-worker, or in what manner he came into our country, but with fruitless labor, those things only excepted which — chiefly by the effort of the most reverend lord canon Martinius, and whence a few things have been received then vicar general of the bishop of Trent — I had drawn from the letters and account of the very reverend lord Hippolytus Madernini, parish priest of that place, transmitted through the Reverend Father George Tonaver, Rector of our College of Trent; and then also other documents received in a letter from Murium (in Italian Mori), which place is not far distant from Gardumum, from the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Knight of the Holy Roman Empire Jerome de Thunn, parish priest of Mori; and at last from the faithful account which I had drawn while I myself was an inhabitant of the College of Trent. The letter of the lord Hippolytus Madernini says nearly the following, namely that all the more ancient documents concerning St. Felix perished by reason of the hostile inroad of the French into the Tyrol, made in the year 1703.

[6] which testify concerning his martyrdom Yet this is established by the agreeing account of those who are weighty in years, or who are strong in other knowledge of things, that this St. Felix, when he was fleeing a most cruel persecution, was brought hither before the times of St. Vigilius, prelate of Trent, and brought the Christian faith into these regions: moreover that the same holy Man obtained the palm of martyrdom in this very place, when, being cast into a great pit in which, water being poured over it, lime is prepared for making mortar, he was burned up, only the bones, which were afterwards drawn out, remaining untouched. These things from the letters of the lord Madernini. A few things the Most Reverend Thunn adds in his, saying thus: St. Felix was a bishop in the parts of Italy; in the last persecution of the heathen (in the time, as I think, of Diocletian Cæsar) he betook himself to these regions, and, while he preached the Gospel to these peoples, was adorned by them with the palm of martyrdom. Thus the Most Reverend Thunn. In what place the Saint acted as bishop it will be difficult to divine, on account of the multitude of Saints who under a like name presided over various churches in Italy.

[7] referring it to the tenth persecution. More certain things, further, can be said concerning the time of the persecution, which more probably was the tenth, which the cruel bloodsucker Diocletian moved against the Christians in the year 302. This was of all the most long-lasting and the most atrocious; for it raged against the faithful of Christ for fully ten years, and that in such a way that not only did it not slacken, but daily grew into greater furies. Nor did the prefects of cities and regions deal more mildly with the Christians than Diocletian himself, but, carrying out his commands to the letter, they everywhere conspired for the extermination of the Christian name; whence, thinking that this most cruel storm must in some measure be yielded to, according to the counsel of Christ the Savior, St. Felix withdrew himself into these Tyrolese valleys, although, as we said above, he flew to heaven clad in the white purple of martyrdom of the mass of lime into which he was cast. When I compared all these things with myself, I came at last to this opinion, that St. Felix was crowned with martyrdom at the same time in which St. Cassian, bishop first of Brixen in the Tyrol and then of Imola in Italy, shed his blood for Christ, though somewhat later, namely then, when the persecution had extended itself more widely. And the feast day of St. Felix is kept in all that neighborhood of Gardumum on the XIV of August, and is celebrated with an octave. Whether this be that day on which, dying, he was enrolled in the heavens, I should not dare to affirm.

[8] Concerning his sacred relics As regards his sacred ashes and bones, they had already for some hundreds of years rested in the aforesaid parish church, until in the year 1719 they were raised and translated into a new chapel, and that a most elegant one, erected from the foundations, the people most urgently demanding it, and with the assent, nay even the command, of the Most Reverend and Most Exalted Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Bishop of Trent, John Michael Count a Spaur; which solemn translation was carried out in this manner.

[9] On the twenty-sixth of October the reverend lord parish priest of the place, attended for this end by many other witnesses, found in the same place in the midst of the silence of night betook himself to the sacristy of the church, where, after the wall behind the altar had been opened, they found a marble little chest or sarcophagus of very ancient work, in which the sacred bones lay hidden. The little chest then being drawn out of the wall and set upon the altar, the following sacred relics were found. First, the entire sacred head, together with all the teeth and both jaws, which, not without great wonder, the bystanders observed to be still covered with almost visible flesh and skin: moreover the arms, feet, and legs; the ribs, and all the remaining bones which make up an entire body, except a small part of one leg.

[10] The bones of the Saint being surveyed in this manner, the reverend lord parish priest, and magnificently exalted having first been vested in surplice and stole, took the sacred head in his reverent hands, and with it imparted a blessing to the bystanders, then laid it in the sarcophagus, which was again closed and made fast with iron bands. Thence, being translated into the new chapel which we have described, they set it there upon the altar, beside the marble statue which exhibits the Saint. Then, all the bells being rung until the dawn of light, or to the beginning of the XXVII day of the same month, on which, a great multitude of people flowing together, the chapel and the altar being hallowed with a blessing by the rites prescribed by the Church, and Mass being said in it, this whole festal translation was closed with the Ambrosian hymn. In this so precious chapel the holy martyr and bishop Felix is venerated daily with a very great concourse of pilgrims from the surrounding region: which likewise was done before the sacred bones of the holy Felix were translated into this new chapel; for the Most Reverend and Most Exalted Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Bishop of Trent himself betook himself to Gardumum in the year 1710, to venerate there the great Saint.

[11] Now so frequent a concourse of all ranks to the sacred relics is stirred up by the continual and illustrious miracles by which God from time to time glorifies his Servant; on account of continual miracles. for there is almost no kind of evils, whether of mind or of body, which this holy Benefactor does not heal. Present help above all is felt by sorrowing parents, when they carry to the Saint's altar their offspring dead in their mothers' wombs, and, a sign of life being given, they are washed in the laver of Baptism. To the blind he restores sight, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute; so also the use of feet and of other limbs: but especially do the possessed experience the mighty hand of the Saint, or those oppressed by various delusions and magical enchantments, whom he both frees from malignant guests and renders free from spells. Very many already wrestling with death, as soon as either they themselves or one of the bystanders implored the help of this Saint, were at once restored to health: nor did the matter stand at less with others, when, being caught in straits either of mind or of body, scarcely had they called the Saint into their vows when they at once felt themselves free and unharmed. All which things, duly examined and approved by ecclesiastical authority, have been published everywhere, nay have been clearly made manifest by the daily experience of devout clients; although we would have nothing hereby derogated from the constitution of Urban VIII. Yet certain benefits deserve a special memorial, which, before many others, I have thought should here be added.

[12] A woman suffering in her feet is cured; Margaret Romanella, born in the town of Nogaredo, but now dwelling at Rovereto (a city distant four leagues from Trent toward Italy, in Italian Roveredo, in German Roffereuth), was laboring under so grave an ailment of the feet that she could neither stand upon them nor at all discharge household duties. She vows therefore a pilgrimage to the holy Felix in the year 1713. Gardumum is distant from Rovereto only three hours; but she took fully three days * to traverse it. When at last she had come to the sacred relics at Gardumum, she seemed to herself to hear I know not what voice, as though these words were spoken in her ears:

Margaret, cast the staff from you: obeying the voice that spoke, she at once perceived herself sound and unhurt; and in a short space of time she retraced the way from Gardumum to Rovereto, not without the vast wonder of all, who by common reckoning ascribed the matter to the Saint as truly a great prodigy, since they were astonished that an old woman, now weighty in years, had obtained the entire use of her feet by the patronage of St. Felix.

[13] likewise an epileptic In the year 1718 Nicholas Coo, by the mere touch of the chest in which the sacred bones of the Saint are contained, had driven away a certain kind of epileptic disease by which he was harassed. Not long after, namely on the third of June, Catherine Berlanda, by a like touch of the chest and by anointing with the oil which burned before the Saint's altar, received back sound an arm that was wholly useless for all labors; nay, she also recovered by the same touch her sight, which was now in danger.

likewise one afflicted with madness: John Brigenti from the town of Brentonico *, in this year 1724, had come with his little son to the church of the holy Felix; the poor boy was harassed by the worst evil of madness, besides that he was also mute and incapable of every kind of function: but when, the sacred blessing being imparted to him, he was anointed with the oil which we mentioned above, and had also taken something into his mouth, he at once began to be better. He stayed nevertheless for an hour at the sacred ashes of the Saint, and then indeed not only recovered his speech, but also, what was far more to be wished, being restored to an entire mind, returned to his own home with vast consolation of soul.

[14] another woman crippled in her feet Mary Bonoma from the town of Than, disabled in both feet, was being conveyed in a carriage to the holy Felix; from it, leaning on two crutches, she crept into the church: having conceived what confidence she could in the Saint, and having likewise received the sacred blessing, she at once throws away her crutches, and, being wholly freed from all difficulty of walking, returned unharmed to her own people on the XX of April 1725; whereas a little before, namely on the XXV of March, her own son, Thomas by name, had obtained the same favor from the Saint.

[15] another deprived of her eyes, Finally in the same year Alexander Caurino from the town of Tierno ascribed to the Saint the light of both eyes. He had spent much for recovering the keenness of his eyes, but in vain, when, behold, at the persuasion of a certain pious woman, he vows a pilgrimage to the holy Felix, and there, his conscience being cleansed by confession, and refreshed by the sacred Communion, he obtained the benefit which he had asked from the Saint.

[16] whence he is called a wonder-worker. For the rest, let it suffice to have added this as a crown concerning this illustrious Saint of our country, namely that he so excels in the working of miracles that he has now made the name of Wonder-worker his own in these lands.

* "Gressa" in Italian.

* the journey

* elsewhere, of May