ON ST. RAYMOND NONNATUS, CONFESSOR, CARDINAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, OF THE ORDER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY OF MERCY FOR THE REDEMPTION OF CAPTIVES,
AT CARDONA IN CATALONIA,
About the year MCCXL.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, at Cardona in Catalonia (St.)
BY J. P.
§ I. It is uncertain when he came into the light; his nobility; his education; his calling to the Order by the admonition of the Mother of God; his apostolic labors; his journey to Italy and return.
Cardona, says Baudrand, a stronghold of Spain in Catalonia, on the river of the same name, commonly Cardoner, The time, where there are famous salt mines, and it is distinguished with the title of a duchy of the ancient family of the Folchs, called de Folchs, three leagues distant from Solsona to the south toward Manresa, and seven from Montserrat. This is the place in which our Saint, after having borne very many apostolic labors, passed to heaven. The year and day on which he saw the first light are variously fixed by various writers: for the author of the Latin Life which we shall give prefers the month of December of the year 1200. In Alfonso Remón * — he was an alumnus of the said Order, and published in Spanish its general History, printed at Madrid in the year 1618 — in volume 1, book 3, from folio 91 verso, I find no year. Philippe Colombo of the aforesaid Order caused a Life of St. Raymond Nonnatus in the Spanish tongue to be printed at Madrid in the year 1676, in which, book 1, chapter 2, page 6, he mentions the year 1200, 1204, or 1198; but he confesses that nothing certain is established on this matter. Baillet in the Saint's Life has the year 1204. But which of these years I should choose as the truer, I have not ascertained.
[2] Colombo, cited above, observes in his Prologue to the reader in which he came into the light: that Bernard de Vargas, whom he alleges in book 1, chapter 32 of the Latin History, set down that our Saint came into the light in the year 1279, and he carps at him as departing from the common opinion, which asserts that St. Raymond lived under St. Peter Nolasco, the first General of the Order. Of the day of his birth I have nothing sufficiently certain: for in place of the month of December just noted there is set down in Colombo, chapter 4 of the Life, book 1, page 24, a Friday, upon which the feast of the Purification of the Mother of God is indicated to have fallen, from the most illustrious Fr. Melchior Rodríguez de Torres, book 3, chapter 25, §2.
[3] The nobility of his family the biographer whom we publish describes at number 1. nobility of family: certain wonders in the Saint's earliest age. Remón, designated before, affirms that he found some light in the papers of the archives, that the Saint sprang from the illustrious family of the Folchs and of Cardona; and many of our writers, he says, to whom he adds ancient and modern authors, have written this: yet he confesses that there are others of them who thought otherwise, and attributed to him a humbler origin. Colombo, book 1, chapter 1, indicates that he was born of the royal blood of the family just named, and treats at length of his nobility. But how so great a splendor of family agrees with the humble office of a shepherd of sheep, which the Saint is related to have discharged at his father's command, I do not indeed sufficiently understand. Colombo endeavors to answer this difficulty at page 3; but since writers do not agree about this nobility, as Remón indicated, it would have been desirable that Colombo could have brought forward one or another passage from a contemporary writer, and of fit authority for proving this matter: for although so great a splendor of family and a shepherd's office are not so at war that they could not have been joined together in our holy Youth, yet the question remains whether they really were joined. But in favor of his illustrious nobility the same Colombo names at page 3 most ancient documents; at page 4 ancient papers of the archive of Cardona, and a book of great antiquity, as he will have it, etc. We therefore leave the Saint in doubtful possession of the nobility which is attributed to him by writers. We here add in few words the things which are reported to have befallen him in his earliest age. Colombo, book 1, chapter 4, narrates that the Infant did not suck his nurse's breasts on Fridays and Saturdays, but nevertheless took them at the end of those days. Likewise that upon the palms of his hands were imprinted the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, one on each. But the marvels which are recorded in the place cited Colombo concludes on the credit of Melchior Rodríguez de Torres, bishop of Ross in Ireland, whom Nicolás Antonio in the Library of the Writers of Spain calls titular bishop of the church of Ross in Ireland. But he cannot be commended for antiquity, since he adds that he died in the year 1644.
[4] his novitiate in the Religious life Of the Saint's youth, passed with the utmost integrity of morals, and of his singular devotion toward the Virgin Mother, and of her heavenly favors toward him, writers write, who also record that by the admonition of the Mother of God he turned his mind to the Order of Mercy for the redemption of captives. Remón from folio 97 verso indicates that writers do not agree about the manner in which the Saint carried his purpose into execution; some saying that, at the persuasion of the lord of Cardona, he was sent by his father to Barcelona for his studies before he entered the Order; others on the contrary holding that he applied himself to the liberal arts and to theology after taking the habit of that Order. For the first opinion Remón alleges a manuscript codex, which he calls most ancient, containing the Saint's Life. But, comparing the years of St. Raymond's age with the deeds performed by him, the same historian judges that he pursued his studies at Barcelona before entering the Order. But when he received its habit, and from whom — namely whether from St. Peter Nolasco or from the Prior of the convent of Barcelona — he has not ascertained. Colombo, book 1, chapter 18, indicates that the Saint was clothed in the year 1221. Remón at folio 102 verso affirms that he made his profession in the hands of the Prior of Barcelona; but Colombo, book 2, chapter 2, page 121, will have it that this was done in the hands of St. Peter Nolasco in the year 1222. But concerning this or another year see the Annotations on chapter one of the Latin Life, letter m.
[5] Remón describes the Saint's various virtues from folio 101. the virtues he practiced therein; his profession: Then he records at folio 103 that St. Raymond was greatly beloved by Serapion; and that when in their conversations the latter often spoke of his desire to die for Christ in the land of the infidels and to preach his law and Gospel, and had declared how great was the merit of this work, our Saint asked him to repeat that discourse to him more often, and most eagerly longed for the time when he might be allowed to accompany Serapion to redeem captives. The said historian also narrates at folio 102 verso that it was revealed to Serapion, persevering in continual prayers and afflictings of the body, that Raymond, even though he did not then go into the land of the infidels, would nevertheless pour out his blood for the name of Christ; and he adds that the same Serapion often urged upon the Order that he might be permitted to go with him to redeem captives, and had persuaded himself that great fruit in all souls would follow from the Saint's presence; but that, because he seemed young in age, that office was not given him at that time, and that he occupied himself in administering the Sacrament of penance, in preaching, and in other pious works, and that with such fervor that he had no other name throughout all Catalonia than the holy Brother. Of Bl. Serapion he writes in book 4, chapter 5 and following. He is honored as a martyr, as appears from the decree of the sacred Congregation of Rites on the
XX of March in the year 1728, to which our most holy Lord kindly assented on the XIV of April of the same year. And he is honored on the XIV day of November, as has been written to me from Rome.
[6] Of the Saint's apostolic expeditions into Africa to redeem captives the Latin Life will speak, his apostolic labors which I shall hereafter cite under this name, and it is that which is read published in Ciaconius. Antonio Bernal del Corral, in the Catalogue of the Masters General of his Order, which is found before its Bullarium printed in the year 1696, §1, page 2, writes this: Several times he exercised the office of redemption: for besides two expeditions in which he was taken as companion by the holy father Nolasco, he accomplished three others as first redeemer: the first at Valencia in the year MCCXXVI, CXL captives being redeemed; the second at Algiers in the year MCCXXIX, in which he restored CL captives to liberty; the third at Tunis in the year MCCXXXI, where, having sent back CCXXVIII captives into Spain, and remaining, burning with zeal for souls, he was cast into prison for the publishing of the name of Christ and the conversion of very many infidels, was afflicted with various punishments, and, his lips being pierced and closed with an iron bolt, long endured a cruel martyrdom.*
[7] and his torments in freeing captives: That new kind of martyrdom Remón narrates, among the things which he writes from folio 105, to have happened at Algiers, whither he had indicated at folio 104 verso that the Saint was sent in the year 1233. The place and year, therefore, do not agree with the said Catalogue. Colombo, book 2, chapter 12: Where that redemption took place our authors do not agree, he says, some attributing it to Tunis, others to Algiers. But which place is to be preferred I leave to others to determine. The Latin Life determines neither place, indicating that this happened in Africa. Now Algerium or Algeria, in Spanish Alger, is a city of Africa infamous for piracy, the head of the kingdom of the same name in Barbary on the Mediterranean sea. Tunetum, in French Tunis, a city of the same region, is well enough known. But how vigorously our Saint bore himself in promoting the salvation of the captives, and how heroically he stood firm amid the reproaches, injuries, and torments inflicted on him both for that cause and for the conversion of others to the faith of Christ, Remón records in chapter 8, which I forbear to transcribe here one by one. Let this be said of the sacred expedition to Algiers or to Tunis; before which Colombo, book 2, chapter 8 and following, sets many and various stories about the Saint, for which let him answer.
[8] his journey to Rome, and various For in the chapter just designated he reports that he was sent to Rome by St. Peter Nolasco as procurator of the Order, that he was held in great esteem by Pope Gregory IX, and was greatly fruitful to the Church by his holy preachings. In chapter 9 he affirms that he preached in the Pontifical court; that he was appointed by the supreme Pontiff as apostolic preacher into France to promote the expedition for the Holy Land; that he departed from the said court in the year 1235; and that, setting out for Paris, he visited St. Louis the king; but when he found both him and others so occupied with the sacred expedition that it did not seem necessary to the Saint to remain in France, having received his blessing he returned into Catalonia. These few things out of many I have gathered into a compendium from Colombo. In chapter 10 he narrates that St. Raymond was sent to Rome by St. Peter Nolasco, that the Order founded by him might be able to serve under the rule of St. Augustine; and he will have it that Raymond obtained on this matter an apostolic Bull from Pope Gregory IX, which is found in the Bullarium of the Order cited, page 2; and on the same occasion he weaves a very long disputation in the same chapters 9 and 10, that that Brief is different from the Bull by which the same Order was confirmed by the Apostolic see.
[9] and on his return Whence did Colombo draw all these things, and on what credit do they rest? Indeed that Italian journey, upon which other matters are built as upon a foundation, is asserted by him upon a weak reason. For in chapter 8, page 149, he says: Doctor Barbosa, whom he says is cited by another, affirms this journey, and from an ancient book two witnesses affirmed it: one a priest who read this; the other who fifty years ago and more heard the abbot of Solsona, whom he served, reading it; and both agree, etc. But I do not find here the sufficient antiquity which I desire. Nor indeed do I any more acquiesce in what he reported about Raymond with St. Louis, which, as it is expressed above, does not agree with the year 1235, in which that holy king is not even known to have thought of taking the cross, or of the business of a sacred expedition to be undertaken by him, being so occupied through those times with his own cares in France that he was busy with his own affairs. Consult the Commentary preliminary to the Lives of St. Louis on the XXV day of August, in volume V of that month from page 342. But he took the cross for the expedition overseas in the year 1244, and promoted it in the year 1245. See what is said there at pages 389 and 390.
[10] Colombo also had little regard for historical credit in chapter 9, circumstances are examined. when he records these or like things as spoken by him to the Pontifical court, which by no means suit that assembly, nor the Saint's modesty and profession, nor his age and prudence. Here are the words, which from the Spanish I render into this sense: Courtiers of the supreme court, since you have been reared in the schools, answer me to this syllogism, by which in the name of divine truth I convict you. I gave you my law (said God) with the penalty of eternal damnation upon the transgression of it. You violate it: the eternal penalty presently awaits you. The first proposition is evident. The second — what happens at Rome, and is so done today in this court — is certain and notorious: would that it could be denied! Whence it comes about that the consequence, which concludes your condemnation, is necessary. Who will answer? There is none who answers. And so, sons of holy Church, I anxiously seek your amendment, and I do not wish your despair. More follows; but this is enough for a specimen. The same biographer at page 154 affirms that the Saint was in the city of Rieti in the year 1234 at the canonization of St. Dominic, and that in those days he weighed his heroic virtues in a sermon. But these things smack rather of an episode than of a true historical narration. The Latin Life indicates indeed that the Saint was at Rome, but records nothing of appendages of this kind.
Annotations\ Elsewhere, Ramon*.
\ Algeriæ*
§ II. From what Pontiff he received the cardinalatial dignity; a miracle; his journey to Rome prevented by death; the Eucharist brought to the Saint by divine means before his death; the dispute about his body decided from heaven; the chapel of St. Nicholas given to the Order of the Mercedarian Fathers.
By what Pontiff the cardinalate The Latin Life says: Gregory, the Roman Pontiff, who had co-opted Raymond among the Cardinals, had called him to Rome in order to keep him with himself. Remón at folio 108 indicates that those err — and deservedly — who say that he was created Cardinal by Boniface VIII. For since the latter presided over the chair of Peter from the year 1294 to 1303, while our Saint died about the year 1240, this is at war with the chronology. Remón at folio 108 verso indicates that he was honored with this dignity by the aforesaid Pontiff Gregory in the third creation of Cardinals made at Rome in the month of December in the year 1237. In Wion, in the Lignum Vitae, book 1, part 1, chapter 87, it is said that by Pope Gregory IX, in the third creation of Cardinals made at Rome in the year of the Lord MCCXXXIV, the eighth of his Pontificate, in the month of December, he was declared cardinal deacon of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Eustachius. Remón at folio 109 affirms that this author errs in the year and in the creation, because the last creation which that Pontiff made at Rome was the fourth, in the year 1237; yet before he had placed it in the third creation, as we have just reported.
[12] and in what creation it was conferred: In Ciaconius, in the Lives and Deeds of the Roman Pontiffs and of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, brought out with a vast enlargement by our Oldoini, volume 2, column 86, this is read: In the year from the Virgin's childbearing MCCXXXI, according to Ciaconius, the V of his Pontificate, in the month of September, at Rieti; but according to Panvinio MCCXXXIV, the VIII of his Pontificate, in the month of December, at Rome, Gregory IX … made his third creation of Cardinals: among whom there are named in that place Romanus and Rainald. Then the deeds of two others are subjoined; but of Robert Ummarcote, or de Somercote, an Englishman, one of them, this is noted at column 88: Panvinio mentions him without expressing his name, but only with the first letter of the name, in this manner: R … cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius; and it is written there that he died under Celestine. But in the fourth creation, which follows there, and which is marked as made in the year 1237 according to Ciaconius, but 1240 according to Panvinio, only one, Geoffrey, is named. But notices are given of several placed under the same creation, and among them is numbered St. Raymond Nonnatus at column 90, and his Life is given.
[13] his title. But from what has been said a great difficulty here occurs. For if that Robert of whom we have treated was made Cardinal of St. Eustachius in the third creation, and died under Celestine IV, the successor of Gregory IX, who began to sit in the year 1241, how was St. Raymond created Cardinal under the title of St. Eustachius, since in Ciaconius, column 94, he is placed among the Cardinals who died under Gregory IX, the year of his death being marked 1240? For indeed in the same place, column 89, in the account of Guido, is this: Ciaconius names him cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius. But since, as we have said, in these times Robert de Somercote the Englishman, cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius, was living, this Guido could not have presided as deacon of St. Eustachius, since it was not the usage that two cardinals should govern the same church at the same time. But must not this same difficulty be solved, according to the premises, in the case of St. Raymond Nonnatus? For my part I do not see how I may extricate myself from these tangles. But whatever be the case as to the title of his cardinalatial dignity, it does not follow from what has been said that it is to be doubted, against the common agreement of authors.
[14] The Saint's miracle in raising an infant: Colombo, book 2, chapter 18, reports a notable miracle, which he affirms was wrought by the Saint while living, and says he places it there because the year in which it happened is not marked. Understand the fact in brief. A certain countrywoman had borne an infant; and since she had no other, she loved him tenderly. Her husband on a certain day rose early to go to his work; and the woman, rising to prepare breakfast, in her haste did not think of the infant, and left him so placed that on her return she found him smothered. The afflicted woman took up the dead infant, and setting out for Barcelona, by God's disposition arrived at the time when St. Raymond was coming out to celebrate Mass. She went to the altar bathed in tears, and, laying the cold infant upon it, related the matter to him
, saying that if he did not call him back to life she would cast herself into the sea from a rock, that she might not expose herself to her husband's cruelty. St. Raymond offered to God the tears of that afflicted woman, who, her tears being joined with the Saint's intercession, returned joyful with her infant alive. The condition added by that woman seems too harsh, and the time seems less probable.
[15] Remón from folio 114, Colombo in chapters 18 and 19, the year and day of his death: and the Latin Life write that the holy Confessor, being summoned to Rome by Pope Gregory IX, was seized with sickness at Cardona and prevented by death, and in a wonderful manner, before he expired, received the sacred Viaticum. In what year and on what day the Saint died is not certainly established. The Roman Breviary, Colombo at page 207, and Baillet write the year 1240; but the Latin Life affirms that he flew to the heavenly powers about the said year. Remón at folio 115 verso sets down no year. I have marked above about the year 1240. Nor do we know the day of his death. The Roman Breviary, Remón, and Colombo note the last Sunday of August; but Baillet the XXXI of August; the Latin Life has no day.
[16] Concerning the sacred Viaticum with which our holy Cardinal was refreshed before his death, not without an altogether rare and stupendous miracle, from whom he received the sacred Viaticum: some things occur to be observed. The Roman Breviary writes that this was done by the ministry of angels, appearing under the appearance of Religious of his Order. The Latin Life records that this miracle came about by angelic hands. Colombo at page 206 reports that there are many authors who affirm that Christ our Lord with his own hands offered to St. Raymond his precious and glorious body, most ancient paintings, as he indicates, exhibiting the matter so. But the opinion which records that it was done by the ministry of angels pleases me better.
[17] The dispute which arose between the lords of Cardona, among whom the Saint had died, the dispute about his body miraculously decided: and the monastery of Barcelona of the Order of St. Mary the Virgin of Mercy, in which he had put on the religious habit, concerning his body, which the people of Cardona would have to be theirs, and those of Barcelona theirs — this dispute, I say, God settled in an altogether wonderful manner, as the Latin Life and other authors testify. Remón at folio 116 reports that this controversy lasted fifteen days and more, so that it was necessary that the authority of the king, of the bishop of Barcelona, and of St. Peter Nolasco be interposed, until the decision of the matter was committed to God's judgment and settled by the miraculous ministry of a mule. The event is thus narrated in the Roman Breviary: When a contention had arisen about the place of burial, the body of the dead man, enclosed in a chest and placed upon a blind mule, was carried by God's will to the chapel of St. Nicholas, that he might be buried there where he had laid the first foundations of his holier life. Colombo in chapter 20 relates that St. Peter Nolasco venerated his body, and took care that inquiries should be made about his life and miracles; he adds also that the chapel or hermitage of St. Nicholas was obtained by him that it might be a convent of his Order.
[18] Concerning this donation Colombo brings forward in the same place the following document: [the place to which it was wondrously carried is given to the Order of the Mercedarians] Be it plain to all men that we, Gerald, by the grace of God provost of the church of Solsona, and the whole convent of the same, for ourselves and all our successors present and to come, by the authority of the present page give and grant for ever to Brother Peter Nolasco, master of the Order of Captives, and to you Brother Bertrand of the same Order, holding the place of the said Brother Peter Nolasco in the diocese of Urgel, and to all the Brethren of the same Order, the church of St. Nicholas, which is situated within the bounds of the castle of Mediano, and every place and every building … you shall be able to build. Which church is that place in the parish of the church of Portell: which church and place, with all its bounds and appurtenances and all its rights, we give and grant to you Brother Peter the Master, and to the said Brother Bertrand, and to your successors present and to come, that you may have and hold and possess all and each of the aforesaid things ever in peace, except the cure of souls and burial, which belongs to the right of the church of Portell — the burial, however, of your Brethren and of your household and of your messengers being saved and reserved to you and to your successors now and always: and you and your successors shall always, on account of this occasion and donation, pay to us and to our successors two pounds of wax on the feast of the holy Resurrection of the Lord, yearly and for ever, without excuse.*
[19] is given. This was done on the sixth of the Ides of June in the year of the Lord MCCXLV. I, Gerald, provost of Solsona, subscribe. I, Ben. de Balian, Prior, subscribe. I, G. de Catano, subscribe. I, P. Miravall, subscribe. The Chamberlain, I subscribe. I, P. de Conclii , subscribe. I, G. de Pampa, sacristan of Solsona, subscribe. I, G. Gerald Cellarius , subscribe. I, P. de Condus , subscribe. I, G. Reanaldus, confirm. Benedict de Font, priest, who wrote these things, has set upon it this sign* ✠. What is enclosed in brackets [], and here placed in the margin, I have taken from the Spanish version of the preceding document in Colombo.
Annotations\ Read spectat*.
\ In the Spanish, de Conciliis*.
\ Perhaps cellarius*.
\ In the Spanish, Condens*.
§ III. The Saint's public cult; whether he was inscribed in the canon of the Saints.
St. Peter Nolasco invokes him, and learns the day of his own death: Colombo, book 2, chapter 21, writes much about the cult of St. Raymond, of which I gather the following and bring forward on the credit of that same biographer. St. Peter Nolasco, founder of the Order, often visited the sacred building of his beloved Son, glad to see that in so few years his veneration had so increased that the walls did not suffice to hold the votive offerings which the faithful offered for the miracles which, by the Saint's patronage, they had obtained from God. The aforesaid founder of the Order wished to celebrate the feast of the Nativity in the year 1255 with his holy Son; and while he gave himself to prayer before his relics, he spent whole nights with the refreshment with which his soul was suffused. The father asked the Son's patronage with God, that, free from the fear which he had always had concerning his own salvation, judging himself an unprofitable servant, he might die in peace. He asked his intercession that God would forgive his sins, weeping out of true penitence that he had not served so good a Lord as he ought. But when the signal was given for Matins on the vigil of the Nativity, St. Raymond appeared to him, assuring him by divine means of his salvation, and adding that from this year and hour [ ]. See, however, what will be said on this matter in the Annotations on the Latin Life, chapter 2, letter f.
[21] his church, the spread of his cult, wonders: After St. Raymond had died, the people began, with the permission of the bishops of Urgel, to venerate him as a Saint, and the name of the church was changed; but when in the year 1255 there happened to St. Peter Nolasco what has just been told, it had only the name of the holy Cardinal, as he affirms from Domenech; and it took such increase that of the veneration which is paid to St. Raymond to this day there is no like example in Spain: on the last Sunday of August, that is, on which his feast is always celebrated, more than twelve thousand men and women assembling. The said biographer relates that in the convent of St. Raymond there are two books, in the first of which he asserts that all the alms are recorded, and the names of those who bring them; but in the other the wonders which bound them to this pilgrimage; that after noon all assemble in the place which is before the convent, and a sermon is preached; and that the wonders which God has wrought that year through St. Raymond are read out, the places and the names of the witnesses who are present being declared.
[22] He asserts that the church is most ancient, and believes it to be the same the altar, the relics: which St. Peter Nolasco built, except the greater chapel, which according to the declaration of witnesses is more recent. But after a very few words, the same Colombo makes mention also of the altar, and of a great gilded wooden chest, within which he indicates there is a bronze chest, so made that it cannot be opened unless it be broken, which the most excellent lord Don Fray Juan Cebrián, archbishop of Saragossa, viceroy of Aragon and of the council of state, ordered to be made when he was Master General of the Order, seeing not without feeling of heart that a great part of the relics was lacking through the earnest petitions of Spanish, French, and Italian lords, always made to the Superiors of the Order to obtain some sacred remains for wives in the distress of childbirth, on account of the great miracles which experience teaches that God has wrought through the relics of St. Raymond in those straits. The chest has a lattice in the middle, and on the inner side a crystal, through which on the Saint's feast the sight of this precious treasure is a comfort to all. The high altar is crowned by a most ancient image of the Mother of God, holding her Son in her arms, from whom the Saint obtained so great favors in that place.
[23] In chapter 22 the alleged biographer treats of the jubili (so we render the Spanish Gozos, which he uses) the jubili which are sung to the Saint: which are sung to the Saint in Catalonia. Presently, he says, when on the day we have named the devout faithful offer their alms, they enter the church, and, placed before the holy body, sing with great affection of religion the jubili of the Saint in the Catalan tongue; and those who do not know them cause them to be sung by two Religious. But there is no man, nor woman, nor child in those parts who does not know them. Moreover, as we shall afterwards see, he says, among the miracles of pregnant women, when the noble Elvira Charol, a citizen of Gerona, was suffering from frenzy, the jubili of St. Raymond were sung, by which the raging malady was calmed. They sing the same through the streets and in the churches, in most of which there is an altar or an image of the Saint. But those who on his feast, or in their distresses, cannot go to his holy church because it is far off, betake themselves to the nearest convent of the Order, and sing them in the Saint's chapel with great affection of piety. Concerning their beginning, the tradition is that it is not known when they were composed. After this Colombo produces those jubili; but omitting these I go on with him to other matters.
[24] The house of St. Raymond was for many years a priory of the monastery of Barcelona. To this it was joined, that the need of the said monastery might be relieved; until, the supreme government of the Order extending itself through the other provinces, it was changed into a convent; which, when the Master General Pedro de Salazar was visiting it, he ordered a sumptuous church to be built, his house is changed into a convent, the church, an antiphon. whose beginning he aided with great assistance. The oft-named biographer also relates that in a certain little iron box, which in the year 1626 was found in the convent of Barcelona on the occasion of the fall of a certain ancient wall, there was found among other papers an antiphon, on the testimony of the most illustrious lord
Fray Gabriel Adarzo de Santander, archbishop of Otranto, in a letter written to the Master General of the Order in the year 1673; and he indicates that by it the Saint was honored a little after his death. It is entitled For St. Raymond Nonnatus, and runs thus:
Obtain, St. Raymond, relief for the wretched: God drew thee living from the womb of thy dead mother, That thou mightest bring help to women laboring in childbirth, And that thou mightest free the faithful of Christ from the captivity of the impious And from the perils of the soul.
Colombo also describes at length in the same place an ancient painting.
[25] It is not proved that he was canonized by the pseudo-pope Benedict XIII, The same author mentions an ancient dispute renewed on that occasion, which he records at page 230, namely under what Pontiff St. Raymond was inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints, some attributing the deed to one, others to another. And he writes that the opinion of those has rather prevailed who affirmed that he was inscribed in the canon of the Saints by the pseudo-pope Benedict XIII, who, he says, visited his church and granted many indulgences to it; but he will have it that Wion, cited above by us, contradicts, when he says: He so lived that after death he was worthy to be inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints. But why papers of such moment and antiquity are not found in the archive of Barcelona, Colombo records that he had said when he was treating of the canonization of St. Peter Nolasco and of the first Bull of confirmation of the Order, why which is not found he narrates in the Life of St. Raymond, book 2, chapter XI. But he does not prove that the Bull of his canonization ever existed in the said archive or in the nature of things. But in the same book, chapter 22, he reports that St. Peter Nolasco sent to Rome to Pope Gregory IX the inquiries made in Catalonia by the Ordinaries concerning the life and miracles of St. Raymond, together with letters of the king of Aragon, of St. Louis the king, and of the cities, Prelates, and churches of Catalonia. The other things which he adds do not deserve to be transcribed, since they establish the matter no more than the preceding — namely that Raymond was inscribed in the canon of the Saints by Gregory IX, as the same biographer concludes from the foregoing; but not solidly. And indeed Remón, book 3, folio 117 verso, says: I do not find in particular any manifest reason and light that Gregory IX, or Celestine IV, or Innocent IV … ordered him to be placed and written in the number and catalogue of the other Saints.
[26] nor by any other lawful Pontiff, We know, therefore, of no canonization of this holy Cardinal in the strict sense hitherto; but we know of an equivalent one, as they call it. Let us hear the most eminent Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, now Pope Benedict XIV, in his learned Work On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed, volume 1, book 1, chapter 41, §5, page 356, writing this: St. Raymond Nonnatus, who received the habit of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy for the Redemption of captives from St. Peter Nolasco, and who obtained the cardinalatial dignity from Gregory IX, departed this life in the year MCCXL. Some also report that he was canonized by Benedict XII or XIII, an illegitimate pontiff; then that the canonization was approved in the Council of Constance, and never revoked by the subsequent lawful Pontiffs. So indeed Baillet has it in his Life; and moreover the matter is set forth in the same way in the Catalogue of the Masters General of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy, printed before the particular Bullarium of that Order, §1, numbers IX and X.
[27] But Father John of St. Felix, in the Supplement to Ribadeneira's Flowers of the Saints, testifies with a canonization in the strict sense, that some are of the opinion that a cult was granted in his honor by Gregory IX. But, since the canonization performed by Benedict rests upon the credit of Philip Guimerá, the aforesaid Baillet in the Critical Table deservedly suspects it; although it does not at all seem to be doubted that an equivalent canonization of St. Raymond was made by the Roman Pontiffs, if the constitutions and decrees of those same Roman Pontiffs reported in the cited Bullarium be read. For Pope Urban VIII, on the previous advice of the Congregation of sacred Rites, in the year MDCXXVI granted to the Order the recitation of the Office from the common and the celebration of the Mass. Pope Alexander VII on the XX day of October MDCLV kindly assented to the prayers of Cardinal Virginio Orsini of the title of the church of St. Eustachius, that the feast of St. Raymond might be celebrated in it with the office and Mass from the common, because it was reported that that Saint had been titular of that same deaconry while he enjoyed the honor of the Cardinalate.
[28] His name under the same Pontiff was written in the Roman Martyrology. but with an equivalent one. Under Pope Alexander VII also the Congregation of sacred Rites approved proper lessons and a proper prayer to be recited by the Religious of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy. Pope Clement IX extended the recitation of the Office and the celebration of the Mass under a semidouble rite ad libitum to the universal Church on the XIII day of August MDCLXIX. Finally Pope Innocent XI on the X day of March MDCLXXXI, raising the Rite from semidouble to double, commanded the recitation of the Office and the celebration of the Mass to the universal Church as of precept.
§ IV. The extension of his cult granted by the Apostolic See; its letters given to this end.
The extension of the cult, for which various persons earnestly labored, What the most eminent Cardinal Prospero Lambertini reported in paragraph 3 about the public veneration of St. Raymond and its extension, it has seemed good to set forth here in detail. Colombo in chapter 23, treating of the state in which the cult of that Saint is today, affirms that from the time of Pope Gregory IX to the year 1612, although his feast was celebrated in his own church, there was no action about extending the cult to the whole Order; but that in the intermediate general chapter which was celebrated in that year at Murcia, the venerable master and lord Fray Felipe de Guimerá, afterwards bishop of Jaca, who presided over that chapter as Master General of the Order, said to the whole chapter that it was God's will that the extension of the cult of St. Raymond be promoted, and that he had felt a certain interior inspiration on this matter (with others the common judgment was that he had had a clear revelation). And this indeed was a glorious beginning. The proofs were carried out in the kingdom of Aragon by the action of Master Fray Ambrosio Machín, who died archbishop of Cagliari; but in Castile, as far as concerned the miracles, by the lord bishop of Ross.
[30] is at length obtained, The matter being brought to Rome and approved by the sacred Congregation, Colombo records that this business was deferred under the governments of various lords General of the Order, namely of Guimerá, who began it; he adds the two years of the most reverend Fray Francisco de Ribera, who ended his life as bishop of Michoacán, and the three years of the most reverend Machín, who instituted the inquiries; until at length the matter was obtained from our most holy Lord Urban VIII by the most reverend Father Master Fray Gaspar Prieto, formerly viceroy and supreme commander of the militia, when he was bishop of Alghero in the island of Sardinia, the lord Cardinal Borja, protector of the Order, not sluggishly bringing aid, and the Venerable Father Diego of St. Raymond, a discalced friar of the same Order, who was his confessor, laboring much.
[31] as appears The Bull of Urban VIII, which is found in Colombo, contains the following, certain errors being corrected by me: Pope Urban VIII, for a perpetual memorial of the matter. Bearing on earth, though unworthy, the place of our Lord Jesus Christ, who bestows on his servants in heaven the reward of eternal glory, we are bound, by the debt of the pastoral office laid upon us, to provide that the due veneration of those same servants of Christ be more and more promoted from day to day, and that the Lord be praised in his Saints. Wherefore we gladly assent to the desires of any of the faithful, but especially of those who serve the divine will under the sweet yoke of Religion , which desires regard the particular cult of Saints of this kind, according as we see it to be wholesomely expedient in the Lord.*
[32] from the Apostolic letters Indeed our beloved son John de Quintanilla, procurator general of the Order of the Brethren of Blessed Mary of Mercy, of the Redemption of captives, in the name of the whole Order of this kind, lately caused it to be set forth to us that the whole aforesaid Order, out of the affection of devotion which it bears toward St. Raymond Nonnatus, professed of that same Order while he lived, and Cardinal of the holy Roman Church, and in order to increase the devotion of Christ's faithful toward him, greatly desires that the Office and Mass of him, as below, may be recited and celebrated. Wherefore he caused humble supplication to be made to us that we would deign of our Apostolic kindness to assent to pious desires of this kind.
[33] which are here given. We therefore, wishing to follow the aforesaid Order with special favors and graces, and absolving by the tenor of these presents its individual persons from any sentences of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, and other ecclesiastical sentences, censures, and penalties inflicted by law or by man on any occasion or for any cause, if they are in any way bound by them — but only for the effect of obtaining these presents — and deeming them to be absolved, inclining to the supplications of that same John, in the name aforesaid humbly offered to us on this matter, by the advice of our venerable Brethren the cardinals of the holy Roman Church set over the sacred Rites, do by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, grant and bestow the faculty that henceforth, in perpetual times to come, in the whole Order the feast of the aforesaid St. Raymond may be freely and lawfully celebrated with the Office and Mass from the common of a confessor not a bishop, according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal:*
[34] Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, or, so far as need be, the statutes and customs of the said Order, even though strengthened by oath, Apostolic confirmation, or any other confirmation, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. And we will that to transcripts of these presents, even printed, subscribed by the hand of some public notary and fortified with the seals of some person placed or constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, the same credit be given entirely as if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the IX day of May MDCXXVI, in the third year of our Pontificate. Scipione Cobelluzzi. Nor did the religious affection with which the Pontiffs followed the heroic holiness of St. Raymond stop here. For Alexander VII ordered his name, together with his Cardinalatial dignity, to be added to the Roman Martyrology on the VII of August in the year 1657, approving the decree of the sacred Congregation of the XIX day of June in the year 1655, the Order being governed by the Rev. Fr. Master Fray Alfonso de Sotomayor, and the matter being promoted by the very Rev. Fr. Master Fray Miguel de Alcántara, procurator general of the whole Order and consultor of the sacred Index.
[35] The autograph copy of the Congregation's decree concerning the inscribing of the Saint's name in the Roman Martyrology I have before me, The Saint's name expressed in these words: Of Barcelona. Our most holy Lord in the year MDCLV, on the XIX day of the month of June, approved the decree formerly made by the sacred Congregation, by which the same sacred Congregation had judged that the names of Saints Peter Nolasco, founder of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, and Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, professed of the same Order, confessors, might be added in the Roman Martyrology — namely under that structure of words which by the most eminent Fathers themselves of that Congregation
set over that Congregation was presently to be approved. Wherefore, on the report of the most eminent lord Cardinal Brancaccio, the matter having been several times discussed, at length the most reverend Fathers agreed that the name of St. Peter Nolasco should be recorded under these words on the eighth of the Kalends of January, after St. Anastasia, that is, after the word CELEBRARUNT: At Barcelona in Spain, the birthday of St. Peter Nolasco, confessor, founder of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, renowned for virtues and miracles.
[36] And on the day before the Kalends of September, concerning St. Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, is ordered to be inscribed in the Roman Martyrology: let the following be added in that same Martyrology at the beginning of the reading: At Cardona in Spain, of St. Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal and Confessor of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, renowned for holiness of life and for miracles. On the IV day of August MDCLVII. And report of the foregoing being made to our most holy Lord, his Holiness assented, granting moreover to printers the faculty of adding the aforesaid names of the Saints to the Martyrologies henceforth to be printed, yet under the present form, with not a single word added, taken away, or changed. Given on the VII of the same month and in the same year MDCLVII. J., bishop Cardinal of Sabina, Sacchetti. In the place of the ✠ Seal.
[37] But in the said year 1655, on the XX day of October, at the humble prayers of the most eminent Virginio Orsini, a particular cult Cardinal of the title of St. Eustachius, his Holiness granted that in the church of St. Eustachius at Rome his feast should be celebrated every year with an Office and Mass. Of these things the following diploma is given in Colombo: Pope Alexander VII, for a perpetual memorial of the matter. Being set, by the ineffable abundance of the Divine goodness, though with no support of our own merits, in the See of the Prince of the Apostles, we gladly assent to the pious desires of Christ's faithful, especially of those who shine with the lofty honor of the Cardinalate, by which the Lord of virtues is glorified in his Saints, according as we see it to be wholesomely expedient in the same Lord. Since therefore, as our beloved son Virginio, cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius, called Orsini, lately set forth to us, he himself, out of the affection of devotion which he bears toward St. Raymond Nonnatus, professed while he lived of the Order of the Brethren of St. Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of Captives, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who (as is asserted) obtained the deaconry of the church of that same St. Eustachius for the denomination of his cardinalate, greatly desires that the Office and Mass of him may be recited and celebrated in the said church of St. Eustachius:*
[38] is granted to the Roman church of St. Eustachius: We, wishing to follow the same Cardinal Virginio with special favors and graces, and inclining to his prayers humbly offered on this matter, do by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, grant and bestow the faculty that henceforth, in perpetual times to come, in the aforesaid church of St. Eustachius the feast of that same St. Raymond may be freely and lawfully celebrated with the Office and Mass from the common of a confessor not a Bishop, according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal: notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the XX day of October MDCLV, in the first year of our Pontificate. G. Gualterius.* Let us go on with Colombo.
[39] an indulgence The pious affection of the most eminent Cardinal did not rest with this; but he willed that a precious image of the Saint, which he had ordered to be made, should be placed in the said church with great solemnity on the XIV day of November of the same year. His piety was stirred by sure news, brought from France, of many wonders which at that time were happening in the city of Toulouse to those infected with the plague when they drank water which had touched the remains of St. Raymond. His Holiness raised that day to a greater celebrity, granting plenary indulgences to all who should visit the said church of St. Eustachius from the vespers of the XIII day until sunset on the feast, which was among the more solemn of Rome, on account of the pious devotion toward the Saint and of the ecclesiastical and secular princes who were at Rome and were invited by the most eminent lord. The decree of his Holiness is subjoined thus:
[40] there, plenary. Pope Alexander VII to all Christ's Faithful who shall look upon these present letters, health and Apostolic benediction. Intent with pious charity upon the heavenly treasures of the church for the increase of the faithful's religion and the salvation of souls, to all Christ's faithful of both sexes truly penitent and confessed, and refreshed with holy Communion, who shall devoutly visit the church of St. Eustachius at Rome, on the day on which the image of St. Raymond Nonnatus, professed while he lived of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, and Cardinal deacon of the Holy Roman Church (as is asserted) of that same church, shall be solemnly set up in that church, from first vespers until sunset of that day, and shall there pour forth pious prayers to God for the concord of Christian princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, we mercifully grant in the Lord a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins; these presents to be valid for one occasion only. And we will that if for the obtaining, etc. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major under the ring of the Fisherman, on the XXIX day of October MDCLV, in the first year of our Pontificate.
[41] While our most reverend Father M. Fray José Sanchiz was governing the Order, as Colombo continues, he obtained proper lessons of the history of St. Raymond, A proper prayer and Office to be recited by the whole Order, and approved by the lord Cardinal Brancaccio, the decree of the sacred Congregation indicating that this took place at the instance of the Rev. Fr. Master Fray Matías Cubells, procurator general of the whole Order, on the XIX of September in the year 1665. In the following year 1666, on the X of April, a proper prayer was obtained, revised by the lord Cardinal Azzolino and approved by the sacred Congregation: O God, who in the freeing of thy faithful, etc., as in the Roman Breviary. In the month of April in the year 1669, the last but one of the generalate of the aforesaid José Sanchiz, his humble prayers obtained this: that the Office of St. Raymond should be placed ad libitum in the Roman Breviary, by the concession of Clement IX at the prayers of the sacred College of the most eminent Cardinals, asking it for so illustrious a Colleague, that in the universal Church the Office of the Saint might freely and lawfully be recited with the lessons of his life and with the prayer as above. The decree of the sacred Congregation is subjoined in Colombo in these words:
[42] Of the City and the world. Our most holy Lord Pope Clement IX, kindly inclining to the prayers of his Catholic Majesty is ordered to be placed in the Roman Breviary. and also of the sacred college of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinals, has granted that the office of St. Raymond Nonnatus, of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, and Cardinal of the holy Roman Church, granted last of all to the said Order by Alexander VII of holy memory, be written in the Roman Breviary, to be recited by all of both sexes who are bound to the canonical hours, under a semidouble rite ad libitum. On this XIII day of August MDCLXIX. In this state, then, was the cult of St. Raymond Nonnatus when Colombo published his Life; but what was afterwards added to that cult I shall report from other sources.
Annotations\ Perhaps mulantur*.
\ Perhaps add festum*.
\ quem*
\ constitutionibus*
§ V. The Office raised to a greater solemnity; a proper Mass and Office of the Order; Writers who have treated of the Saint.
[43] A proper Mass and Office, from which Pope Innocent XI on the X day of March in the year 1681 raised the Saint's Office from a semidouble to a double rite, and commanded that it and the Mass be alike celebrated by the universal Church, as was said above at number 28. A proper Mass has been printed, which is marked as approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites, and granted to the whole Order … on the XXIII of September MDCLXXXIV. I have before me a proper Office of St. Raymond Nonnatus … for all of both sexes of that same Order, both shod and discalced, who are bound to the canonical Hours, examined and approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and printed at Venice in the year 1685. Of the three hymns woven into it, that pleases me best which is set at Matins, in these words:
Roused by the wings of love, Which no seas can curb, To the shores of the Barbarians The servant of Mary sails.
He looses the ranks of captives Who groan pressed with chains; And when money fails, He freely gives himself as pledge:
That he may take his neighbors Out of the peril of kindly salvation, Gladly prodigal of himself He becomes the victim of charity.
[44] a hymn is given. From the bondage of the abominable law He frees very many, Preaching the Godhead Of him who hung upon the wood of the cross.
He laughs at horrid torments And rejoices in a lingering death, While the fastening of an iron bolt Closes his impious lips.
His fame increasing, the Pontiff Joins a Man of such shining virtue To the Leaders of the Church Who gleam in purple.
Glory to the one God on high, And Threefold in Persons, Who through Raymond's prayers May free us from our guilt. Amen.
Although it is scarcely worth while to add the following, I add it nevertheless. In the sacred Ephemeris (in Italian Giornale) of Palermo, published at Palermo in the year 1680, on the XXXI day of August the Saint's feast is noted among the Mercedarians at the Cape (in Italian al Capo) with a plenary indulgence, and it is added that the senate is present at the solemn Mass, and that after noon a procession is made by the said Fathers through the whole quarter.
[45] There are enumerated Nor are we to pass over the very many authors who have written of this Saint. The Latin Life is gathered from various writers, whose names are set in the margin. And they are these: Ippolito Marracci in the Purpura Mariana; Alfonso Remón in the History of Blessed Mary of Mercy; Marcos Salmerón in the Historical Memoirs of that same Order; Francisco Zumel in the Lives of the Fathers; Pedro Marino in the Lives; Fr. Pedro Amerio in the Life of St. Peter Nolasco; Bernard de Vargas in the Chronicle of the Order; Alfonso de Rojas On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy; Luis de Aparicio in the Century of Martyrs of this Order; Ciaconius; Ferdinando Ughelli in the Additions to Ciaconius; Arnold Wion in the Lignum Vitae; Francisco Guillén On the Saints of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy; Luca Castellini in the Catalogue of the canonized Saints. From these writers, then, was compiled the Life which is found in Ciaconius — would that it had been from more ancient ones! For thus it would have had more authority and credit. And indeed I know scarcely any of the writers just enumerated to have died before the seventeenth century. Concerning the Spaniards one may consult Nicolás Antonio in the Library of the Spanish Writers.
[46] various writers, The fourth Master General … the Venerable Father Fray Pedro Amerio … in the year MCCLXXII … is marked in the Catalogue of the Generals of the Order published in the year 1696, page 6, and is said to have compiled new Constitutions by the year 1301. From these Colombo, book 2, chapter 3, page 22, brings forward this about our Saint: Wherefore he was called and named Nonnatus, since he truly did not come forth from the womb by that birth of nature, as others do — loosed, I say, from the laws of nature. And therefore he always from boyhood received that surname, so that he was called Raymond Nonnatus. Would that that aforesaid General had transmitted to our knowledge a Life, or at least more about the deeds performed by him,
who was contemporary with St. Raymond. Of Ippolito Marracci of Lucca, of the congregation of Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, a compendium of the Life published in Italian in the year 1655 is among us; the Purpura Mariana I have not seen. Castellini and Ughelli, as also Ciaconius, are well enough known to the learned; to whom add Arnold Wion the Gallo-Belgian, who published the Lignum Vitae in the year 1595.
[47] Of St. Raymond Nonnatus there wrote also, besides the other Spanish authors adduced above, Fray Felipe de Guimerá, who have treated of this Saint. who among other things published a History of the Order of Mercy, and of certain Saints and illustrious persons of that same Order, whose supreme government he administered. He is praised in the Catalogue of the Generals, page 28, and is written to have died in the year 1617. Antonio Domenech, in his General History of the Saints of Catalonia, book 2, from folio 70, published a Life from the constitutions of the Order of Mercy and from the book of Felipe Guimerá which he composed on the Mother of God del Puche. Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology, on the XIV day of November, published in Latin the Acts of our Saint from various writers. Colombo inserted not a few fragments from these Acts into the Life of St. Raymond. Lastly, Miguel de Vlate in the year 1704 published the Life and miracles in verse. It has seemed good to me to publish the Life which is extant in Ciaconius, and to elucidate it with Annotations. Various things indeed are recorded in it, for whose confirmation I could wish that contemporary or nearly contemporary authors might be brought forward, fitted to produce greater credit; but since these have not hitherto come to me, I shall give them on the credit of the authors from whom they are gathered. The miracles will be brought forward after the Life. It remains that I here subjoin the same, divided by me into chapters, titles, and numbers.
LIFE
Gathered from various authors,
And published in Ciaconius among the Lives and Deeds of the Roman Pontiffs and of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, volume 2, column 90 and following.
Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, at Cardona in Catalonia (St.)
From the text published in Ciaconius.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's name; his birth; education; his piety toward the Mother of God; her favors toward him; the devil's snares; his Religious life; his expeditions to redeem captives.
The Saint's name, origin, and education: Raymond Nonnatus (so called Nonnatus, "the unborn," because he came forth from the cut womb of his dead mother a), a Spaniard by nation, of Portell by birth, of the diocese of Urgel b in Catalonia c, had his birth d in the month of December in the year of our salvation MCC, of noble parents. For we know that they were born of the ancient families of Fox and Sarroi e, and were joined in blood to the Counts of Cardona; and today the Dukes of Cardona reckon it their highest honor to be related by kinship to so great a Man. In baptism he was called Raymond, on account of Raymond count of Cardona, who from that time named himself the patron of this boy: he learned the first rudiments of letters in his native place, and having been most swiftly dispatched from these, he ran most happily through the studies first of the humane letters, then of philosophy and of theology f. When he had grown older, in order that he might be kept from the study of letters, to which he was most inclined, and from his inclination to the ecclesiastical life, he was banished to a farm and compelled to feed some sheep from his own flocks; and by divine providence it came about that in the field in which Raymond fed his little flock there was a small church or hermitage dedicated to St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, and in it a very beautiful image of the Virgin Mary the Mother of God, which he, on bended knee, with the deepest affection of heart and the utmost zeal of devotion, again and again venerated.
[2] his wonderful piety toward the Mother of God: While Raymond was one day pouring out his heart before this image, after a most sweet conversation with it he deserved to hear this from the Virgin: Do not fear, Raymond, for from this time I receive you as my son; wherefore you can with full mouth call me mother, and be secure, trusting hereafter in my patronage and protection. From that time, although he was the most humble servant of the most august Queen of heaven, and candidly confessed himself her lowest bondman, yet as often as he beheld an image of the Virgin Mother of God he could not restrain himself from calling her most lovingly with a loud voice his mother, asserting in express words that he never had had, nor would have, any other mother, mistress of his heart, and protectress, save her to whom, she mercifully consenting, he had devoted himself wholly as a son, and by whom his soul and his steps were continually directed in the commandments of God. Every day before this most sacred image of the Mother of God he most religiously ran through that string of beads for prayer which we call the Rosary g. As often as Raymond betook himself to the sacred building, so often his guardian angel discharged the shepherd's office in his stead, whom Raymond's father beheld with his own eyes in the appearance of a most beautiful youth, watching over the sheep.
[3] Victory over the devil, and the vow of virginity: The evil demon, ever envious of our good, strove to remove Raymond from this worship of the Virgin; wherefore, bearing the false form and appearance of a shepherd, he once appeared to Raymond and tried to persuade him that that rustic life was unbecoming to a noble youth, and that busy places rather than that solitary spot were suited to his age and his equals. To this false shepherd we know that Raymond answered nothing but that he could take in no other doctrine than that which the image of the most holy Virgin Mary, placed there in the church of St. Nicholas, taught him. Scarcely had he uttered such words when the demon, scorning the most sacred name of Mary, breathing out Stygian smoke with a headlong crash, betook himself to hell. Wherefore, having discovered the enemy's fraud, Raymond without delay betook himself to his accustomed refuge, namely to the image of his Lady, and with sweet affection uttered praises and thanks to the Virgin his deliverer. And when again with a most generous heart he had resigned all his rights to the Virgin Mother of God, she seemed to him with cheerful countenance to accept his service and his bondage. Raymond was dissolved in tears overflowing with heavenly sweetness, and the depths of his heart were filled with wondrous consolations and spiritual delights by the Mother of consolations and spiritual delights. Yet Raymond's piety toward the Virgin was increased; and when he had learned from her h that he would do a thing most pleasing to that same Mother of God if in her honor he consecrated his virginity to God, straightway in the presence of that same Mother of God he made a vow of virginity, and received assurance from his Lady that he would most perfectly fulfill until death what he had vowed to God. St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, in whose little church he was an almost constant dweller, he again and again besought with the utmost affection that he would deign to be his intercessor with that Queen and Lady by whom he was unceasingly heaped with such great graces and favors.
[4] Being bidden in familiar converse with the Blessed Virgin to leave his pastures and glades and set out for Barcelona, his novitiate and to give his name to her Order of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, lately founded by a revelation of that same Virgin, he answered that he would gladly obey, did he not fear his father's displeasure; but his father's leave being obtained, by the Blessed Virgin's admonition, through a prince, namely the Count of Cardona i, who frequented those places for hunting, he went to Barcelona as he had been bidden, and after devoting himself there to various pursuits of piety, he received at the hands of St. Peter Nolasco the founder, in the royal palace at Barcelona, the white habit of that same Blessed Virgin, with the utmost gladness of his soul. Being enrolled in the sacred number of Mary's clients, it is incredible to relate with what grateful mind he followed up the benefit received from the Blessed Virgin. Often he joyfully offered his heart to the most august Queen of heaven, and strove to exercise himself with keener and more fervent zeal in the worship and service of so great a Lady. In the same city of Barcelona he made his novitiate in Religion under the discipline of blessed Serapion the Scot, an alumnus of the same Order, who afterwards shed his blood for the Christian Religion, and who foresaw from afar and openly foretold the hardships which Raymond was to undergo in Africa for the name of Christ many years afterwards k.
[5] The time of his novitiate being elapsed, he bound himself not only by the three vows, namely of poverty, and his Religious profession, priesthood, and its fruits: chastity, and obedience, but also made a fourth proper to the alumni of the sacred order of Blessed Mary of Mercy, namely that for the Redemption of the captive faithful of Christ, when necessity should urge, he would of his own accord render himself a slave of the Saracens, and, if there were need, commit himself into their hands. Being then initiated into holy orders, on certain days he preached to the people of Barcelona not without fruit; for he brought over very many from shamelessness and the habit of sinning to a better manner of life, and corrected them to soberness; and what this true Herald of the Gospel daily set before his hearers from the pulpit, he first of all fulfilled. No one seemed more diligent than Raymond in correcting the vices of others, no one fitter than he; but to go before all by example and holiness, to chastise his body very often with the sharpness of scourges, to take short sleeps upon straw thrown on the ground, to sustain his extreme hunger with bread alone, to pass the nights in divine prayers — these things, since they are common to other men renowned for holiness, I pass over, that I may consult brevity.
[6] Twice he betook himself to Africa at the command of St. Peter Nolasco to redeem Christian captives l. his journey to Rome, his expeditions to redeem captives, At Rome he discharged first the office of procurator general of his Order, which office he was exercising in the year of our salvation MCCXXX, in which Gregory IX, the Roman Pontiff, on the XVI of the Kalends of February confirmed the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy, or of Mercy for the Redemption of captives, founded by St. Peter Nolasco by a revelation of the Blessed Virgin Mary m; at the instance, in the name of the most serene James king of Aragon, surnamed the Conqueror n, of Raymond of Peñafort o, at that time an alumnus of the Order of Preachers, and in the name of the new Order, of Bernard Corbaria [p] and Raymond Nonnatus, priests, and of Arnold Aymericius, a lay knight. By the command of his Superiors Raymond left the Roman court and returned into Spain, and thence sailed a third time into Africa to redeem captives according to the institute of his Order. And when he had found many of them there, and the difficulty of money greatly stood in the way of freeing them all, he of his own accord made himself a captive that he might free those wretched men. In this captivity [q] he was often beaten with stripes, and his lips were closed with an iron bar, lest he should pour forth the word of God; yet he was heard to speak the more freely, not without the amazement of the Barbarians.
[7] and the torments endured therein. Nor did he scatter the word of God without fruit; for ten chief men of the Hebrews and two noble Saracens, being enlightened with the Gospel light and led out of the blind darkness of unbelief to the splendor of truth, did not hesitate to bow their hard necks to the most sweet yoke of the faith. Wherefore the prince of the Saracens in anger condemned Raymond, beaten with stripes and bound with chains, to a very dark prison, which for the space of eight months, with his mouth almost always closed with that iron bar, he bore with even mind, passing his life in those miseries all that time on bread and water alone. Very often, his mind
being called away from his senses, he passed three whole days without food; and — a thing wonderful to tell — sometimes, before the Barbarians themselves, the chains with which Raymond lay bound in the prison, and the iron bar itself, fell away of their own accord, not without a miracle. Wherefore some of the Barbarians, leaving Mahomet, went over to the standards of Christ. Meanwhile the alumni of the sacred order of Blessed Mary of Mercy had sent certain men into Africa with money for Raymond's ransom; and Gregory IX, the Roman Pontiff, who knew very well the virtues of so great a Man, that that light might shine to all upon the candlestick in the Church, in the month of December in the year MCCXXXVII from the birth of Christ declared Raymond cardinal deacon [r] of St. Eustachius.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. He is praised in the Catalogue of the Masters of the Order indicated before, page 3. And among other things the following is said of him: At last, full of days and of virtues, he rested in peace at Barcelona, having wrought miracles; whose body, taken from the tomb after four centuries, rejoices in a wonderful incorruption.
q. In what city of Africa he underwent that torment of the lips which is presently subjoined here, authors do not agree, as I indicated in the Preliminary Commentary, number 7.
r. The difficulties about the Saint's cardinalatial title I set forth in the same place, §2.
CHAPTER II.
His mercy; the apparition of Christ and Mary; a miracle; prophecies; contagions healed; the sacred Viaticum; his death; the dispute about his body settled from heaven; wonders at its translation; his sacred building; an apparition; the spread of his cult; benefits.
[The perfection of his life in the cardinalatial dignity: wondrous apparitions after his clothing of a poor man;] The people of Barcelona received Raymond, cardinal deacon, on his return from Africa with solemn pomp and extraordinary display: yet he, having given thanks, left the house which the count of Cardona had adorned for him, and went straight to the monastery of his Order, in which, as the least of the Religious, he always passed his life after the manner of a Prelate. When on a certain day, in a street of the city of Barcelona, in winter time, he came upon a poor man, drenched with rain, venerable for age and hoary hair, exposed without covering of the head to cold and rain, moved with compassion he at once took off his own cap and with willing mind and utmost readiness placed it upon the old man's hoary head; how pleasing this was to the Virgin Mother of God, anyone can easily know from this: for Raymond, returning home and applying himself earnestly to prayer according to his custom, was rapt into an ecstasy, and saw himself led into a most beautiful garden, and in it beheld a most lovely Queen with a numerous train of Virgins, who, gathering various flowers and weaving from them a most beautiful crown, spoke thus: Worthy of this crown is he who gave his cap to a poor old man. Hearing this, Raymond asked not a crown of flowers but Jesus Christ, as the reward of his actions
, answering that this was what he wished. Having said this, he at once saw Christ the Lord standing before him, adorned with that cap with which he had a little before covered the head of the poor man, bearing a crown of thorns upon his head and a crown of flowers in his hands, and offering both to him. When Raymond had earnestly asked that the crown of thorns, which is woven of the endurance of pains, be granted him, and had obtained it, he at once received his wish in a pain of the head, which lasted from that time until his death a.
[9] Nor was this the only prodigious thing that happened to Raymond the cardinal while he was staying in the city of Barcelona. A certain nobleman, with no sense of deceit, had inflicted several wounds on his innocent wife, a prediction; contagions healed: whom some of the household had unjustly accused of dishonor; then, perceiving the error he had committed, he fled to Raymond. Who, defending the innocent wife by a new miracle, at once sent him back to his own house, saying: As the accusation is void of crime, so are the wounds inflicted void of blood; know that your wife has always kept faith with you, and those who reported her name to you, wicked men, shall be punished very soon. Returning home, he found his wife sound in body, but those who had accused her he shortly saw destroyed by hanging, as accomplices and partners in many crimes. When the province of Hither Spain was afflicted with a pestilence deadly alike to men and to cattle, the Father of mercies, providing according to his manner, in order to relieve their grief supplied to the very sufferers at the time of their punishment an anodyne b medicine: for Raymond restored all the cattle brought to him to their former health by the sign of the cross alone. Wherefore the inhabitants of that province, in memory of so great a benefit, every year on the day on which they celebrate the feast of St. Raymond, bring many cattle to the church in which the body of so great a Man lies c.
[10] the sacred viaticum received from angels; his death, his sacred building: Gregory, the Roman Pontiff, who had co-opted Raymond among the cardinals, had called him to Rome that he might keep him with himself; but while he was preparing for the journey he fell into sickness, in which, being first refreshed with the sacred communion by angelic hands, about the year of our salvation MCCXL, among the alumni of his Order, he flew from the racecourse of this mortality to the heavenly powers, scarcely forty years old. And when the counts of Cardona wished his body to be theirs, in whose house he had died, but the monastery of Barcelona of the order of St. Mary of Mercy, in which he had put on the religious habit, wished it to be theirs, God settled the dispute which had arisen, when he permitted it to be carried by an open miracle, by a blind mule, to the little church of St. Nicholas, in which Raymond while still a boy had drunk the milk of piety; for he and his most sweet Mother, the most kindly Queen of the world, willed that their servant Raymond should be honored with a special worship of religion in that place in which he from boyhood had striven ever to honor her with the tenderest and highest filial affection. For from that time the aforesaid little church of St. Nicholas was turned into a most celebrated church d, consecrated to the name of St. Raymond Nonnatus himself, which to this day, but especially on the last Sunday of the month of August, on which the feast of that same St. Raymond is yearly kept most solemnly, is frequented with a very great and incredible concourse of peoples, on account of the frequent benefits of miracles which are there shown.
[11] the blind mule shows where the body is to be laid: another wondrous apparition: While the mule bereft of sight was carrying the sacred body of Raymond to the little church of St. Nicholas, God wrought admirable things. Before the paternal house of St. Raymond the mule knelt, and in passing venerated that place, notable for the birth of such a Man. A vast throng of the faithful accompanied the funeral rites, after the manner of mourners, with lighted wax torches, to the twelfth milestone. A wondrous thing: in all that journey no one saw so much as one of them extinguished, although fierce winds blew and abundant rain poured from heaven. Finally, all the bell metal of all the cities, towns, and other places through which the mule laden with that sacred body made its way gave forth sound of itself, above the power and order of nature. Gregory IX, hearing of Raymond's death, broke out into these words: The sacred Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy has lost a father and patron, the province of Catalonia a son, the Catholic Church a holy Man, in one hour. Some years after the death of so great a man having passed — namely in the year MCCLV from the birth of Christ — Raymond, appearing to St. Peter Nolasco, foretold the vigil of the feast of the Nativity of Christ of the following year as the last and final day of his life; and the event fell out as Raymond had foretold: for in the year MCCLVI, on that night upon which the festal day of the Nativity of Christ dawned, the most holy patriarch, ennobled in his life by wondrous works wrought above the condition of men, flew to the heavenly powers e.
[12] We know that Raymond was inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints by the Apostolic see f for the excellent holiness of his life and the abundance of his miracles in the year of restored salvation MCDXIV. various matters concerning the Saint's cult and benefits Urban VIII in the year MDCXXVI granted to the Religious of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy, and Alexander VII in the year MDCLV, at the prayers of Virginio Orsini, cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius, to the canons and other ministers of that same church, the faculty of reciting the divine Psalms on the day sacred to Raymond and of offering Hosts to God in his honor; and he ordered the names of Raymond, as also of St. Peter Nolasco, to be written in the Roman Martyrology, and offered a most ample Indulgence of sins to those who on the XIV day of November of that same year MDCLV should visit the church of St. Eustachius at Rome — on which day the effigy of that same St. Raymond, cardinal deacon, was most solemnly set up in that same church with a great concourse and joy of the Roman people g. Innumerable are the benefits which God has granted to mortals by the prayers of St. Raymond, all of which we cannot here enumerate. In the archive of the monastery of Barcelona of the Order of St. Mary of Mercy there are extant authentic records in which many things wrought for mortals above the power and order of nature by the intercession of St. Raymond over the space of several years are narrated. It pleases me here, omitting those h, to write out the letter which on the III of October in the year MDCLV Hyacinth Carral of the Order of blessed Mary of Mercy for the Redemption of captives sent from Marseilles, a city of France, to Rome, to the most reverend Father Master Miguel de Alcántara, vicar general of the same Order in Italy and first procurator in the Roman court; and it is as follows:
[13] "It was above all most pleasing to me that the Brief for the Forty Hours on the feast of St. Raymond Nonnatus was asked and obtained by your Reverence: obtained through him. since in this way I judge that the devotion of the people of Toulouse toward him will be spread more and more from day to day, who in the past years MDCLIII and MDCLIV, when laboring under a most severe plague and fevers, received well-nigh countless benefits from God most good by his help and pious intercession. And indeed I would have your Reverence assured, if you deign to give me credit, that more than twenty thousand persons of both sexes were freed from fevers — not to mention that dropsical persons, and those despaired of by the physicians and already at the point of death, by invoking the name alone of St. Raymond Nonnatus, or by tasting water blessed in his honor, recovered their former strength. Which miracles of healing were so great a wonder to all the people of Toulouse that daily a very great concourse of people frequented his sacred altar, and there was scarcely any sick man at Toulouse i or in the other neighboring towns who did not implore his help and aid with the utmost veneration and confidence, and did not receive remedy and comfort in his sickness. I can give sure and faithful testimony of this truth, being one who at that time was living in that same convent of Toulouse and hearing there the confessions of the faithful, who daily came to our church to render thanks to almighty God and to St. Raymond Nonnatus for the health obtained, and referred their recovery to him. I pass over also the benefits which he daily confers on pregnant women and those laboring in childbirth. I believe indeed that these miracles will be to your Reverence — nay, to the whole Order — no less a wonder than they are to us," etc. k
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Perhaps opem*.
MIRACLES.
Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, at Cardona in Catalonia (St.)
TRANSLATED BY C. J.
Preface of the translator, Fr. Conrad Janninck, formerly hagiographer of Antwerp.
These miracles are given from a Spanish manuscript codex. The following miracles of St. Raymond I, Conrad Janninck, at Rome in the year of salvation MDCLXXXV, turned into Latin from a Spanish codex containing particular processes lawfully and authentically made in various dioceses of Catalonia, and preserved in the monastery of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives at Rome at the foot of the Capitoline hill, and kindly lent to me at my request by the Rev. Fr. Master Fernando de Carvajal y Ribera, vicar and procurator general of the said Order. Moreover all the processes were caused to be instituted by the Rev. Fr. Fray Ambrosio Machín, Master of Sacred Theology and definitor of the same Order in the province of Aragon, having for this a special faculty from the very Rev. Fr. Master General of his Order, Fray Felipe de Guimerá b; whose letters, given in the convent of Murcia in the year MDCXII, on the XVI day of June, he everywhere exhibited to the Ordinaries of the places, together with the interrogatory to be proposed to the witnesses, which inquires chiefly about the antiquity of the cult and matters pertaining thereto, and also about the miracles, as may be gathered clearly enough from the depositions themselves, and especially from the letters of the most illustrious bishop of Barcelona, Luis Sans, as containing the answers to each of the questions and the depositions of almost all the witnesses, if you except the particular miracles. Thus far Janninck. I shall divide the matter into chapters,
titles, and numbers, and shall add my Annotations. This will be the first part of the miracles; the second, taken from other sources, will be a supplement to it. Of the miracles Remón and Colombo, often cited before, also write: the latter in book 3; the former in book 3, folio 118 and following.
ANNOTATIONS.
PART I OF THE MIRACLES.
CHAPTER I.
Raymond's holiness, the place of his death and burial; his cult; a dead man called back to life by him.
A witness lawfully questioned, Before the Rev. Master Francisco Solzona, priest of the town of Cardona a, and official of the town and officialate of the same for the most illustrious and most reverend lord Fray Bernardo de Salvá, bishop of Urgel and royal councillor, at the instance of the reverend Fr. Fray Ambrosio Machín, master of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy for captives, and definitor of the same Order in the province of Aragon, having for the matters written below a special license and faculty from the very Rev. Fr. Fray Felipe de Guimerá, master in Sacred Theology, General of the whole said Order of Blessed Mary, etc. b. On Friday the XVIII day of the month of October, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord MDCXII, in the castle of Cardona, the following witness deposed: the illustrious and very Rev. Lord Francisco Farrán, by the grace of God and of the holy Apostolic See abbot of the collegiate church of St. Vincent of the castle of Cardona, and also Prior of Blessed Mary of the castle of Follito de Riu Llosat, of the age, as he asserts, of LXXVII years, a little more or less, a witness cited and duly compelled, who swore upon his breast, after the manner of a Prelate, by the Lord God and his holy four Gospels, that he would speak and depose the whole truth in and upon those things concerning which he should be questioned.
[3] deposes various things about the Saint's virtues, the place of his death, And being questioned upon the contents of the aforesaid petition presented by the said Fr. Fray Ambrosio Machín c, and read to that same witness word for word, he said d that what he can depose concerning the contents of the petition is this: that he has always heard from his parents, grandparents, and other persons of advanced age of the city of Cardona that St. Raymond Nonnatus in his life was a man of exceeding holiness, chastity, faith, and heavenly manners. But in particular, that he was confessor to the viscounts of Cardona, and that he met his last day in the castle of Cardona, which was the chief dwelling of the viscounts, now dukes, of Cardona. That he likewise had often learned by hearing that St. Raymond died in a chamber of the aforesaid castle, adjoining the great portico, which is now called the chamber of Perot Call; and that the dead man's hand was so firmly closed that it could by no means be opened.
[4] and of his burial, and also of his cult, Then, that the place of burial might be chosen, they placed the body in a chest upon a mule which the viscount kept blind in his house, and, its reins being loosed, it was to go where it pleased. But behold, no one setting hand or anything else to it, it went straight to Portell, the native soil of Raymond, distant from Cardona four of the larger leagues; and when it had come there, it turned aside, no one leading it, straight to the place where Raymond now, being buried, has his chapel and house; and the mule at once burst and died; and they easily opened the Saint's hand and found in it a paper written with his own hand, in which he directed that he should be buried in that place. And from that time there has always been a singular devotion of the people toward him, calling him by no other name than St. Raymond Nonnatus. And every year on the last Sunday of August there flock together to the aforesaid place more than ten thousand men and four thousand beasts, the former leading the latter around the church and bestowing alms upon the monastery — some a half, others a whole measure of grain — so that more than four hundred measures of wheat, and as many in money, or at any rate three hundred ducats, are brought; and this on account of the great miracles which Raymond daily works, being always both held and honored as a Saint.
[5] promoted by alms and by miracles. Besides this, the bishops grant to the Brethren of that monastery the faculty of asking alms every year throughout their bishoprics for his chapel, with the title of Saint added; nor will it be easy to find throughout all Catalonia one who does not think that, because of his daily miracles, he has already been duly inscribed among the Saints. And I the witness remember that in the archive of the lords of Cardona there is found a writing which treats of the life of St. Raymond Nonnatus. And these things, says the same witness, he knows from the relation of his parents, grandparents, and others of great age, and because he saw the same in the archive of the lords dukes of Cardona; and all are public and notorious in this city even to the little children; nor is there any man's memory to the contrary e.
[6] Another witness The venerable Felipe Salamó, priest of the town of Cardona, of the age of LXXV years, a witness cited and duly compelled, etc., deposing on the XXIII day of October in the year MDCXII, said: that about twenty-two years had passed since, when he was living in the rectory of Copons, a certain nobleman called Master Valbuona gave him a little book written by hand and almost consumed by age, and held in the highest esteem by Master Valbuona. And it was written in the Limousin tongue, and said that the Order of Mercy had been founded not long before. (Whence one may know that the aforesaid little book was written either in the very time in which St. Raymond died, or at any rate not long after.) And it contained the whole life of St. Raymond: among other things, that he was called Nonnatus because he was not born except in so far as he was drawn forth to the light through the opened side of his dead mother. Then that, while in boyhood he was tending his father's sheep , when he was once praying in the hermitage of St. Nicholas, which is within the bounds of Portell, he had the Most Blessed Virgin Mary visible to his eyes, bidding him take the habit of the Brethren of the Order of Mercy, founded a little before at Barcelona by King James. And when he answered that he was a poor little fellow and had no one to help him, the same Virgin said that within the space of one hour the viscount of Cardona would pass by there, and that in her name he should implore his help to that end. And so it happened; for as the viscount passed by, the boy set forth to him the commands of the Blessed Virgin, and by his patronage received the habit of the Order in the monastery of Barcelona.
[7] After this he is also said to have been enrolled among the Cardinals, various things also and to have acted as confessor of the viscounts of Cardona; at which time, when he had fallen into a grave sickness, some Brethren of the same Order, clothed in a most white habit and known to none, came to the castle of Cardona; one of whom, to be revered above the rest for dignity and majesty, communicated to the sick man with his own hand the most sacred Eucharist which he carried; and straightway all vanished. But after Raymond had given up his spirit, a grave contention arose between Cardona, Portell, and the monastery of Barcelona, to which of these the dead man's body should belong. Cardona claimed it for herself because he had breathed out his soul there; Portell said it was hers because he had come to the light there; the Order of Mercy demanded the same because he had been its Religious. This contention continuing, a certain simple man suggested this counsel: that they should put out the eyes of some mule, and, the body with its chest being placed upon it, should let it be carried with none leading, to be laid in that place where the mule, God so willing, should set it down. The counsel being approved, the mule with the body laid upon it, alone and blind, departed from Cardona, and passed through part of the bishopric of Urgel, part of Lérida, part of Vich, and in all the parishes through which it passed the bells rang of their own accord; nor did it cease to go before it had reached the chapel of St. Nicholas, where formerly the Blessed Virgin had appeared to Raymond; and there it left the body, where now his house and chapel are seen.
[8] Many other things concerning the life and death of Raymond the same book narrates, [from an ancient little book, and he adds that a dead man was raised by the Saint.] the memory of which I have lost through the lapse of long time. It also contained some particular miracles, of which likewise, to confess the truth, my memory fails, except one: namely that a certain man of the parish which is called Fraxinet, being dead, when his kinsfolk invoked the glorious Father St. Raymond Nonnatus, returned to life. Moreover about eleven or twelve years ago a certain brother of the Order of St. Dominic (whose name indeed I do not know, except that from some indications I conjecture him to be Fr. Dominic), passing by the monastery of Serrateix near the rectory of Viverdum *, where I was then acting as vicar, and everywhere diligently inquiring after writings about the Saints of Catalonia, received from me as a gift that very book, which he most urgently asked for. Finally, all that I have said, besides what I read in that book, I have often heard from aged men, and they are so public and celebrated that in these parts there is no one who does not know them f.
[9] The honorable Juan Blanck, otherwise Xiol, of Ortoneda, of the age of CXVIII years g. In particular St. Raymond wrought a miracle in my son: who, Michael by name, ten years of age, having fallen from a beast h, had so grievously ruptured his groin that we applied all human remedies for his cure in vain, and there was nothing left but that we should flee to the divine help and to the intercession of the holy and glorious Raymond: upon invoking whom we made a vow that if he should obtain from the Lord the grace of health for our son, we would give him as much grain as would equal our son in weight. We promised besides that we would bring him to the Saint's church, as indeed we brought him, and gave two chests and one basket [i] of grain; we also had a Mass celebrated in honor of the holy father Raymond, and offered the grain. And behold, our son was restored to perfect health, no sign of his ailment remaining; and we left there a memorial of the said miracle k. And from that time my aforesaid son has always remained entirely sound, and the rupture vanished as though it had never been l.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ In the Spanish manuscript, dio bueltas al lugar de Portell*.
\ Spanish, quartera*.
\ Colombo, Vallboña*.
\ unas obejas*
\ rectoria de Viverde*
CHAPTER II.
A man unharmed by wheels; a fever cured; the Saint's cult; he is propitious to women in childbirth.
One about to be crushed by wheels is preserved unharmed; The Rev. Fr. Fray Antonio Ferrer, of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, of the age of XXVII years, a sworn witness, said: In the year MDCXI, on the XVIII day of March, journeying from the city of Cuizena a * in the kingdom of Aragon to the city of Huesca b in the same kingdom, I came on horseback to a certain torrent with a firm bed full of stones; and as my horse stopped in crossing it to drink, a certain cart laden with sand drew nearer, which, wishing to avoid, I checked the rein and laid hold with my hands of a certain little bridge there; but the girth by which the saddle is fastened breaking, I fell from the horse into the middle of the torrent, where the cart, or rather the wheel of the cart, passed over my breast as I lay. Wherefore those who were present, thinking I had been crushed under the weight, raised their voices in lamentation; and I, prevented from speaking in so great a peril, invoked in my heart with great confidence our most holy Lady and St. Raymond Nonnatus; and I escaped the danger so free from injury that not only was no bone or rib hurt, but there was also absent from my flesh all bruise, mark, trace of crushing, and pain; and I raised myself so whole and entire as if nothing of the kind had happened, all who were present being astonished, and judging that this could not have come about naturally. But it could through the intercession of St. Raymond, over whose relic hanging in a bag from my neck the wheel passed, as was afterwards observed from the marks of the nails left in that place c.
[11] The illustrious Master Miguel Juan Taverner y Montornés, a young nobleman domiciled at Barcelona, another is freed from gripes and a fever: aged XXII years, a sworn witness, said: Four months are gone since I was so grievously afflicted with fever and gripes that for three days I could take no sleep, and whatever I ate I presently vomited up, and whatever the physicians applied brought no help. Recognizing therefore my peril, I fled to St. Raymond Nonnatus, whose relic two Fathers of Mercy opportunely brought, and offered me to drink a little water blessed by putting into it a stone from the Saint's sepulcher; which draught, although contrary to such a disease, nevertheless brought me so great a change that, the pain at once fleeing, on that very day I was wholly free and whole; which I ascribed to God's singular favor through the intercession of St. Raymond, and I promised to visit his holy house and church of la Segarra, and to offer a silver stomach d.
[12] On the XVII day of December in the year MDCXII, in a certain hall of the episcopal palace of Barcelona, before the illustrious and most reverend father and lord in Christ, Master Luis Sans, bishop of Barcelona, one reports things pertaining to the Saint's cult: a sworn witness, the illustrious lord Francisco Villalba, lord of the baronies of Momagustre and of Guspi, aged XXXV years, said that wherever he has seen Raymond Nonnatus painted, he has seen him with a nimbus; but especially and particularly in a most ancient panel, painted beyond all men's memory, where he is represented with a nimbus about his head, and beneath at his feet a title in letters fading with age, which says: Blessed Raymond Nonnatus. And round about that same image it is seen depicted how he was drawn forth into the air of life through the opened side of his dead mother; how he miraculously received the sacred Eucharist from three Religious of his Order; how a white and blind mule carried his body from Cardona to the hermitage of St. Nicholas, now called the house of St. Raymond Nonnatus, situated within the bounds of Portell, the people of Cardona following it after the manner of suppliants. And this panel the witness himself saw in the aforesaid house of St. Raymond, which is very near to his barony of Guspi.
[13] to women in labor On the same day the illustrious Master Francisco de Ivorra , lord of the barony of Cervelló and Bellera, lord of the town of St. Vincent and of the place and district of la Ciura , etc., of the age of XL years, a sworn witness, said that the relic also of St. Raymond Nonnatus is everywhere carried to the sick and to women in labor for many days, at whose presence they are continually healed and delivered; and that, by his own care, it was very often brought to his house for the needs of his household, both because he was most tenderly affected toward that Saint and because he understood that health was divinely restored to many through him; as appeared especially in the year MDXCIX, in the month of August or September, in the castle of Manresana, where at that time his little son of three years, called Don Dalmau, was brought by sickness to such a state that the lady of Manresana, the witness's own aunt, said to the little boy's mother: Go away from here, my lady; God will grant you other sons, for it is all over with this one. At once the mother flies to a window looking toward the church of St. Raymond, whither she had already sent for his relics to be brought, and saw them in fact being brought; and at once those standing by observed the sick child open his eyes, and, as the relics entered the castle, move himself; and as they entered the chamber, that he raised himself to adore, although he could not bear the sight of any Religious because of the fear which assailed his mind at the presence of any of them. Nor had he long adored when he at once grew better, and presently was restored to entire health; although Doctor Saura of Cervera had already for some days reckoned him among the dead; and the witness himself believes that his opinion would not have been mistaken, had not the intercession of St. Raymond intervened e.
[14] that he is propitious Lady Mariana Ripoll, wife of the worshipful Bartolomé Ripoll, secretary of the very illustrious and noble Master Prior of the Order and militia of St. John of Jerusalem f in the principality of Catalonia, of the age of XX years, a sworn witness, said: In the month of May last past it was two years since she, the witness, being six months with child, out of great devotion toward St. Raymond Nonnatus performed a novena in his chapel in the monastery of St. Mary of Mercy of this city; and although her house is far distant from the said church, not only was she not wearied in going, but she seemed to herself to walk through a flowering garden with great consolation; likewise the image of the Saint painted in the chapel seemed to smile upon her as often as she turned her eyes upon it; and kneeling, even for two hours, though sick, she was not at all wearied; and from that time her affection and confidence toward the Saint were exceedingly singular.
[15] She added that, the nine days' devotion being ended, she began to feel the pains of childbirth, and was in labor for XXIV days with such peril by various examples that there was talk of summoning a surgeon to open a way for the child by cutting, since certain death was judged to threaten the mother: for besides that she could not give birth, she could not either, being weakened and out of her mind, take any food unless someone put it into her open mouth, which nevertheless, as soon as she had received it, she cast up. In such a state, liker to a dead than to a living woman, she heard a certain servant of hers, named Jaime Garau *, say: Will not our lady remember the holy Father Raymond Nonnatus, and ask of him to be freed from such great distresses? And at once, turning to the Saint, she implored his help with all her heart, that, since he himself had been brought forth through the side of his dead mother, he would intercede with God for her deliverance.
[16] Which said, she felt her eyes weighed down with slumber, though in all that time of her distresses she had seen no sleep with her eyes; and she ordered a chair with a cushion to be placed for her in a certain chapel or oratory of her house, as she wished to rest. by various These things being so arranged, and all the household bidden to withdraw as she was about to take sleep, she suddenly saw two Religious enter to her, clothed in a white habit, one of whom, bearing in his right hand the Eucharistic ciborium, with which St. Raymond is for the most part wont to be painted, with lifted hand seemed to give her, terrified as she was, a sign to rise; and in that same moment she raised herself entirely alone, which before she could not do without the help of two persons; and she loudly called the household, who were keeping watch outside at the door; and as they entered and asked what the matter was, she answered that two Religious had seemed to her to be there in the manner aforesaid, asking whether they too had seen them; for they had already vanished.
[17] And — what is wonderful — in that very moment, without pain or any feeling, she brought forth an infant is proved. coming forth feet foremost (which birth is commonly held deadly), dead and withered, and livid over the whole belly, and swollen without skin, so that it was judged that the child had lain dead in the mother's womb more than fifteen days. Nevertheless the witness herself affirmed that she was so free from pain in the birth that, not knowing it, she asked whether she had given birth, and marveled when she heard it affirmed, all the household being astonished and crying out that St. Raymond Nonnatus had appeared and had miraculously delivered their lady. And when I was delivered and restored to myself, I went to the Saint's chapel to give thanks, ordering a Mass to be celebrated and the miracle to be painted on a panel and hung up. And thus truly stand the things which I have narrated g.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Colombo, Quicena*.
\ Remón, Ybarra*.
\ The same, Cirera*.
\ de la Manresana*
\ Colombo, Garace*.
CHAPTER III.
An infant restored to life, an eye badly affected, a sick man, a mule and a horse near death, women in childbirth, a girl in a most grievous fall, aided through the Saint.
A dead infant On the IV day of December in the year of the Lord MDCXII, in the town of Tárrega a of the diocese of Solsona, before the very Rev. Master Francisco Ferrer, dean of the town and deanery of Tárrega, there appeared as a sworn witness Elizabeth Barbara, wife of Pedro Barber, husbandman of the town of Tárrega, of the age of about XXX years, and said: My lord vicar, nearly six months ago I bore a little son with such pain that I was brought to the extremity. Wherefore I at once sent to the monastery of St. Mary of Mercy of this town, that they might say the praises * b of St. Raymond Nonnatus; and when they must already have arrived and done what was bidden, I brought forth my little son dead; for his mouth without breath, his eyes closed without light, his head hanging without strength, showed that no life was in him; and I myself heard women passing through the street say: Barbara has borne a dead son.
[19] And in the said state the infant remained for five or six quarters of an hour, is called back to life: until my mother Elizabeth Beneta, taking him into her lap, brought him nearer the light and invoked St. Raymond Nonnatus, as she afterwards told me, with much devotion, and promised that, if he would work a miracle in the infant, she would clothe him in the Saint's habit and would bring him to the sacred building where his body rests. And in that same moment, she says, the infant breathed, and began to cry, and was found as sound as if nothing amiss had happened; and now he enjoys perfect health, clothed in the sacred habit of St. Raymond, as is seen, for the fulfilling of the vow which, as I said, my mother made. The same is testified by five other women witnesses, namely the mother mentioned above, Elizabeth Beneta, who was also present as midwife to her daughter, aged LX years; Francisca Gamis; Jerónima Selva; Elizabeth Juana Quadras; Elizabeth Martines c.
[20] In the year MDCXII, on the VIII day of November, before the worshipful Master Lorenzo Granell, an eye badly affected, and a sickness, bailiff d and judge of the town of Torregrossa of the diocese of Lérida, there deposed Esperanza Capella, wife of Antonio Capella of the town of Torregrossa, a sworn witness, and said: Nearly two years ago my little son of three months was laboring under a grave disease of the eyes, blood bursting forth abundantly three or four times, so that no doubt was left us that he would lose his sight. Yet I invoked St. Raymond Nonnatus, promising that I would go barefoot to his sacred house, five great leagues distant, if he would work a miracle in the boy by restoring his power of seeing. And scarcely had I promised when, behold, the boy opens his eyes, hitherto closed and bloody; and thereafter they were always perfectly cured and sound, without any flow of blood; which I piously believe could not have been done by natural power, but was done supernaturally through the intercession of the Saint whom I invoked. Add that in the month of August last past the same son, from a sickness which left him scarcely more than bones, and whose recovery we despaired of, after the invocation of the same St. Raymond, recovered entire health in so short a space of time that on the tenth day thereafter, sacred to St. Raymond, we carried him to his house. Which I, all my household, and others hold for a manifest miracle. The same is deposed by the boy's father Antonio Capella and his brother Rafael Capella e.
[21] Gaspar Escolá, farmer of the town of Torregrossa, a sworn witness, said: a mule failing, Eight or nine years have passed since I brought a certain mule of mine, sick with the gripes, to Arbeca f to a farrier, who, when the remedies availed nothing, advised me to take her away out of sight to a more remote place g. I take her away, therefore, and behold, on the road she suddenly fell to the ground and begins to fling her feet about and to grind her teeth, wholly cold and stiff ; and while she remained thus for about half an hour, as I looked on, without motion or breath, I took off her halter and returned to Arbeca; when on the road blessed Raymond Nonnatus came into my mind, and I promised that I would give six measures of wheat to his sacred house if he would by a miracle call the mule back to life. As soon as I promised, I look back at the mule and see her lifting her head: I run back and strike her as she lies with a little rod, and she presently rises with such liveliness as if she had suffered no harm; and I paid my promise i. The like to these things Tomás and Antonio Capella depose k. Juan de Villagrassa also testifies that a like miracle happened in his mule, before the bailiff and ordinary judge of the town of Las Borjas of the diocese of Lérida.
[22] a woman in childbirth, Before l the very Rev. doctor Montserrat Boixó *, archdeacon of Vallespir, canon of the holy church of Elne m, official of the city of Perpignan for the very reverend chapter of the church of Elne, the episcopal see being vacant.
On the XIII day of August in the year MDCXII there appeared before the aforesaid archdeacon and official, being summoned and sworn to speak the truth, Martín Soler, doctor of laws, assessor of the governor of this County of Roussillon n * and of Cerdagne o, aged, as he said, XLIII years [p], these things in particular: that his wife, being in peril in childbirth, while she invokes St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom she was wont devoutly to honor, and adores his sacred relic brought to her, she at once happily brought forth.
[23] one desperately sick, a horse near death, The same witness had also a son, named Rafael, sick to the despair of the physicians, who, that same Saint being invoked with a vow of visiting his chapel for nine days [q], at once miraculously recovered his health, with the fulfillment of the vow. Add that he had a very serviceable horse, which the farrier had already ordered to be taken from the stable because of a disease curable by no remedy; when the witness himself, invoking St. Raymond Nonnatus, put upon the horse's neck a medal [r] such as the Fathers of Mercy are wont to give, and promised to have one Mass said in his chapel; nor did any delay intervene, but in that very moment the horse rose to his feet, ate, and obtained entire health, no trace of the disease remaining.
[24] a woman in childbirth Lady Emerenciana de Oms y Joli, wife of the noble lord Guillermo Oms, in the XXXV year of her age, said in particular that she religiously venerates St. Raymond Nonnatus, since the divine goodness wrought with her through his intercession the two miracles which follow. The one, that when she, being pregnant and her time completed, was laboring in childbirth two or three days, the child showing no motion or sign of life, she implored the help of St. Raymond, that she might be delivered from so present a peril. And when they had at once gone to seek the Saint's relic, and had laid it on the breast of the woman in labor, at once the child began to move, and was brought forth.
[25] in a twofold peril, The other miracle was that at another time, being with child, she endured greater pains in labor than in the aforesaid case, and was already accounted as dead; when, mindful of the aforesaid miracle, she cast her eyes on an image of St. Raymond hanging on the wall, and addressed it in these very words: Ah! holy Raymond Nonnatus, will you not help me? … And presently they brought the image and placed it upon the breast of the sick woman, who at once brought forth a rather large infant so doubled up that the back came first; yet the child was drawn forth as it was, doubled up, without injury to itself or to the mother; who, being delivered from so great a peril, devoutly venerates the Saint, and as often as she is at Perpignan, when his feast comes round, visits his chapel [s].
[26] a girl in a most grievous fall, are preserved. Catalina Torres, wife of José Torres, carpenter, aged XL years, said in particular that twelve years ago she had a daughter, then seventeen years old [t], named Rosa, who, playing with a boy in a gallery raised about eight and a half ells * from the ground, fell thence
to the ground, and broke the vertebrae of her neck, the skull of her head, and one arm: whereby, being pitiably hurt, she lay like one dead without the use of her tongue for two hours. Meanwhile the mother, seeing her daughter's peril, placed firm faith and hope in St. Raymond Nonnatus that she would be delivered through him; and scarcely had she promised the Saint that she would clothe her daughter in the habit of St. Mary of Mercy, when the daughter began to speak, saying: Mother, I have fallen. Meanwhile the surgeon of this city, Juan Auger, being called, was present, and, having seen the girl, declared her cure impossible. Yet it pleased God to heal within the space of three days absolutely all the wounds received by the daughter from the fall, so that she remained as sound as she was before, without any injury in arm, in neck, or in head. At which the aforesaid surgeon greatly marveled, denying that it could have been done without the intercession of some Saint.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. In Janninck's Latin version the following is interposed and indicated as to be printed in different characters, probably because he himself abridged it from a longer Spanish text: He deposed, besides the common matters about the people's devotion toward the Saint, about the concourse to his chapel, about the tablets and votive offerings hung up there, about the relics carried to the sick, and the miracles everywhere wrought; then follows: These things in particular, etc.
q. That chapel was in the convent of St. Martin of the Order of the Mercedarian Fathers at Perpignan, as Colombo indicates at page 282.
r. In the Spanish text in Remón, folio 119 verso, and Colombo, page 283, is read una medida. But although that substantive properly signifies a measure, it is nevertheless taken by the Spaniards also for a riband or band which has touched relics, on the testimony of Francisco Sobrino in his Spanish-French Dictionary, where he adds that women bind their foreheads with it to heal headache. And this one, of which we here treat, Colombo writes is blessed, and is distributed in the Saint's name from ancient times in the convent in which his relics are.
s. Remón, folio 119 verso, and Colombo, 249. The latter calls the woman and her husband Dons; but the former, Doms.
t. Remón just cited, and Colombo, page 284, de siete años, that is, of seven years.
\ unos gozos*
\ Ms. hierta*
\ Ms. quarteras*
\ Colombo, de Boixo*.
\* In French, Roussillon.
\ braças*
CHAPTER IV.
A Religious fallen from a very high place; others preserved in fevers.
A man brought to the extremity by fevers On the IX day of November MDCXII, before the bailiff and ordinary judge of the town of Las Borjas of the diocese of Lérida, there deposed as a sworn witness Catalina Bertrán, widow of Tomás Bertrán, farmer, and said: Twenty-five or six years ago my son Pedro Antonio, brought by troublesome fevers to the end of his life, was already wrestling with death itself: whence, having given him my blessing, that I might not behold him dying before me, I rushed out of the chamber bathed in tears. When a certain neighbor of mine, Margarita Ginera, a pious woman, now dead, bade me promise my son to St. Raymond Nonnatus, beneficent toward all who invoke him from the heart. I obeyed, and at once, between the twelfth and the first hour of the night, at which time I had left my son for dead, I invoked with great confidence the aforesaid Saint, humbly asking life for my son, with the added promise that, if he were healed, I would send him to his sacred house, distant from the town of Las Borjas five and a half leagues, and would there take care to have one Mass offered.
[28] is healed; as also women in childbirth are aided Such a promise having been made, I persisted in prayer until daybreak, commending my son to the Saint with tears. But when day dawned, behold, my husband (who now, as I hope, enjoys heavenly glory), running up, forbids me to weep, for that my son lives and is well. Which words, taken by me otherwise than he meant them, understanding them of a life gained through death, I entered the chamber with hesitating step. But my son, hearing me enter, cries out: Mother, bring me bread, for I am hungry, and I want to get up, for I am quite well. Meanwhile, coming nearer the bed, I saw him glad in countenance, sound in body, wholly free from fever, and I knew that St. Raymond Nonnatus had wrought a miracle in him: yet I would not have him rush at once from his bed, because of the weakness of his body; which being driven away as his strength returned, I sent him to St. Raymond's to fulfill what I had promised. And thereafter I have always held the aforesaid Saint in the highest veneration, to whom I acknowledge that I owe my son's life and health. In like manner these things are deposed by Pedro Antonio Bertrán himself and by his sister Juana a. Moreover b, besides the cases related, very many other women in peril of childbirth depose upon oath that, having invoked St. Raymond, or his relics being brought to them, they happily brought forth: namely Doña Jerónima, wife of master Pedro Berdú, architect; Doña Angela Casanova, wife of Julián Casanova, carder; Doña Ana, wife of the discreet Narciso Estrada, notary: all of whom deposed on oath at Perpignan on the XII of October MDCXII, as above.
[29] In the year of the Lord MDCXII, on Friday the fifth of October, in a certain hall of the episcopal palace of Vich c, the Rev. Fr. Fray Gabriel Sagarra, a Religious in a fall from a very great height priest of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the Redemption of captives, and president of the monastery and convent of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the city of Vich, of the age (as he said) of XXXVII years, a little more or less, a witness cited and duly compelled, who swore after the manner of priests by the Lord God and his holy four Gospels in the presence of that same most reverend lord bishop to speak the whole truth which he should know in and upon those things concerning which he should be questioned below. And he said: On the twentieth of December in the year MDXCVIII, when I was sacristan of the monastery of St. Mary of Mercy of the city of Vich, I had lent for some days the longer ladders of that monastery to the servants of the episcopal palace, that they might fittingly furnish it for the coming of Master Francisco Robuster [] y Sala, of good memory, bishop of Vich. And when I needed the same for adorning our church, I went to the palace to seek them, and found them raised to the topmost story of the hall which takes its name from St. Bernard, surpassing in height the walls of the city, and equaling twenty poles of Montpellier (each of which is of eight palms), and a fourth part of one, as appears from the measurement of a certain carpenter.
[30] But since the stairs of the palace could not take the aforesaid ladders, is wondrously preserved from death: I wished, directing them so that they should nowhere strike anything, to let them down onto the walkway of the wall; but being overcome by their weight, I fell from the said story down onto the said walkway, crying out unceasingly and without intermission, while I was whirled through the air: St. Raymond Nonnatus, help me; St. Raymond, help me; and so falling I struck with my back upon the stones scattered along the walkway. Yet I felt no harm from it, but at once rose to my feet, a numerous crowd running together, eager to see whether I had been broken to pieces, or preserved through the intercession of St. Raymond, God protecting me. And they took me up and carried me to the monastery, whence I was not permitted to go out until three days had passed; but then I went out through the city as if nothing whatever had befallen me, quite well; and I was kept at home for three days because my back had somewhat suffered from the fall. And I know that these things so happened, and they are true. The same things, and expressly about the height of the place, are deposed on oath by the worshipful Master Cristóbal Vilantia *, doctor of medicine, aged LXVII years (who adds that he saw the height measured, and that it could not have come about without a manifest miracle that one falling thence should remain alive and unharmed); the worshipful Master Francisco Martín, likewise doctor of medicine; Baltasar Pla, carpenter; Jaime Morláns, apothecary.
[31] others On the XVIII day of September, Esperanza Clara, widow left of Miguel Clara, formerly a dresser of cloth of Gerona d, of the age of XXVI years, said: Five or six years have passed e since my husband Miguel Clara was laboring under a continual and most violent fever; which, when on a certain day, the chill having now departed, it grew much stronger, I offered him as he thirsted water blessed by the touch of a relic of St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom we both follow with singular veneration, and sent to us in a little vessel by Fr. Fray Mates the sacristan: which as soon as he drank, he was freed from the fever, at the very moment when it was increasing its strength, and so remains to this day. Wherefore my said husband, to give thanks, made a novena in the Saint's chapel f.
[32] freed from fevers On the XVIII day of September, in the lower parlor of the church of the monastery of the nuns of St. Daniel of the Order of St. Benedict, outside and near the walls of Gerona, the following witness deposed: the illustrious Paula de Malla *, a nun professed there, and said: It is about six years g since, being afflicted with a tertian fever, I was tortured at the coming of the paroxysm with grievous pain of the thighs, was distressed, and vomited. In which distresses I promised St. Raymond Nonnatus, to whom I was greatly devoted, that one Mass should be celebrated and alms bestowed on his house every week for one year; and so great was my confidence in the Saint that I persuaded myself for certain that, on seeing his relic, the disease would either be wholly cured, or at any rate would be lighter and without a paroxysm.
[33] freed, And with the same hope I asked this kindness of a certain woman whose name was Nomat: that, going to the convent of St. Mary of Mercy, she should ask of the Father sacristan the relic of St. Raymond which they keep there, to be brought by himself or another. She went, but the relic was away from the house, having been carried to other sick persons through the city. Yet I did not cease to trust in the Saint; and on that very same day the pains and the fever left me, and that, as I believe, through the intercession of St. Raymond; to whom, that I might also pay my faith, I caused a Mass to be celebrated, and for a whole year gave alms every week to his convent.
[34] and a girl from deafness. Likewise the same woman said: About three years ago I had in my charge a certain girl of five years, my kinswoman, named Maria Juana , who for three weeks was so deaf that, however much she was called, she perceived nothing at all. I invoked St. Raymond for her also, promising that I would have a Mass said at his altar once, and would offer a waxen ear; and on the very next day after the promise a great quantity of pus burst from one of the girl's ears, and thereafter she had ever after sharp hearing. Which I firmly believe came about through the intercession of St. Raymond; and I presently took care that a Mass should be said at his altar, and a waxen ear hung up from his chapel, as I had promised. This last miracle of deafness cured is confirmed by a like deposition of Mariana Vila-Major h, aged XXVI years.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Colombo, Robuster*.
\* That is, of Montpellier.
\ Colombo, Vilanera*.
\ Remón and Colombo, Malla*.
\ Colombo adds Domenega*.
\ Colombo, Villa-Majon*.
CHAPTER V.
The Saint a preserver in a grievous collapse; and beneficent to various women in childbirth; another healed of lethargy.
A man beneath the ruin of a stable Benito Pons, farmer of the parish of Aiguaviva of the diocese of Gerona, aged fifty years, said a: In this very month of September in which we are, it was three years since Miguel Pons, my son, then XXI or XXII years old, on a certain day entered the stable of the house of Master Rafael Juan Belloch, an honored citizen of Gerona, which I have rented and inhabit with my family in the parish of Aiguaviva of the bishopric of Gerona: when, I say, my son having entered the aforesaid stable was tying up there four oxen and two bulls to the main beam, which supports the other beams, great and small, with the whole roof, the aforesaid beam, breaking in an instant of time, fell with the whole structure upon my son Miguel and likewise upon the beasts standing within.
[36] Seeing which, I, who was near by, at once cried out to the most holy Mother of God and to St. Raymond (meaning St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom, venerating him with singular devotion, we honor every Saturday by giving a cake b as alms); and presently, diligence being used in removing the timbers, is preserved with the beasts without harm. we found that all the fallen beams, though stretched across the backs of the oxen, had nevertheless brought no harm either to the oxen themselves or to my son, God in his mercy protecting them, as we piously believe, through the intercession of St. Raymond, whose help I had implored, and my son with me, as I afterwards learned from him; nor did the beasts thereafter suffer any harm c.
[37] [A woman in childbirth, by a draught of water which the Saint's relics had touched,] On the XVII day of September MDCXII the worshipful lady Mariana Campmany y Alzina, widow of the worshipful Juan Rafael Campmany, formerly an honored citizen of Gerona, of the age of XXVI years, said: It is about the eighth year since Doña Ana Paula Ribes y Alzina, my own sister, formerly wife of the noble lord Pedro Pablo Ribes, was at that time in labor at Gerona with the utmost toil and pain, both because she was of weak constitution and maimed by reason of an injured rib and back, and because the child was rather large and — what is the chief thing — sought its way out doubled up in a preposterous manner. Since therefore she could not give birth, both she and I, who was standing near, most devoutly implored the help of St. Raymond Nonnatus, always singularly honored by us, asking the Fathers of Blessed Mary of Mercy to bring the Saint's relic; which was done. And that Father who had brought it blessed water, and, having consecrated it by the touch of that relic, they offered it to the laboring woman to drink three times within a short space.
[38] happily brings forth the child: And at once the child began to move toward its exit, and the mother to be freed from her pains, yet left without strength, no otherwise than if she were dead; and in a short time there came forth into the light an infant (though doubled up, as I heard the midwife say), large, handsome, and sound, and it lived thereafter many months. And the mother straightway after the birth so recovered her strength that, notwithstanding the aforesaid, she placed herself upon the cushions and raised herself thence without anyone's help, which she would not have bestowed upon her, and in a short time was wholly restored. All which I piously believe happened thus through the intercession of St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom she herself devoutly invoked with me in the labor of childbirth; and in thanksgiving a certain young lady, a cousin of Daniela Camaleras, performed a nine days' work of piety barefoot in honor, as it seems to me, of St. Raymond; and Master Ribes, husband of Mariana, had an altar-frontal of fine cloth * made for the altar of that same Saint d. The same is testified by Daniela Camaleras, midwife, aged LVIII years, and Antica Fustera, aged XLVIII e.
[39] another, after an unhappy childbirth, healed of a deadly fever: On the XVIII day of September the worshipful Casilda Vedruna, wife of the worshipful Jerónimo Vedruna, honored citizen of Gerona, of the age of XXIV years, said: About two years ago the lady Victoria Bas, wife of Master Juan Rafael Bas, honored citizen of Gerona, my kinswoman, had an ill delivery, and thereupon, a continual fever supervening, was brought to such a state that the physicians, despairing of her recovery, bade her have recourse to the patronage of the Saints, human remedies yielding to the malady. Hearing which, I at once therefore commended the sick woman to my St. Raymond Nonnatus, promising that, if he should obtain health from God for the lady Victoria, she would clothe herself in the habit of the Order of Mercy, to be worn for a whole year; and it was continually observed that little by little her spirit, strength, and health returned. And although she did not leave the house within a month, yet I believed and believe that the health she recovered is owed to St. Raymond, whom I had invoked. Moreover I made known the promise which I had made to the aforesaid lady Victoria; and she, when she was healed, religiously fulfilled it, having worn that habit not for one year only, but always until now. Things like these the lady Victoria herself also deposed f.
[40] On the XVIII day of September the worshipful Juana Civera y Charol, another with child, widow of the worshipful Jerónimo Civera y Charol, formerly an honored citizen of Gerona, in the LV year of her age, said: On the light of the feast of the Circumcision of our Lord, the first of next January, the fourth year will be completed since Doña Ana Elena Charol, wife of Master Lázaro Moner y Charol, fell into a continual fever, which on the seventh day thereafter brought upon her weakness of the head, emptiness, and frenzy with grievous pain, lasting altogether fifty days. Add that she was already in the fourth month with child. Meanwhile, when it was seen that the malady baffled all the remedies that could be applied, I, stepmother of the sick woman who was very dear to me (for she is the daughter of Master Jerónimo Civera, formerly my husband), commended her greatly to the glorious Raymond Nonnatus, beseeching him to bestow health.
[41] And when on a certain evening she raved more madly, I went to Master Lázaro her husband, saying a vow having been made, that I had great confidence in St. Raymond Nonnatus: let him vow something to him for the sick woman; in this way the sickness would be cured; and at once we vowed: he, Master Lázaro, that the sick lady Ana would every year on his feast day set a dinner before twelve poor persons for the love of God and of St. Raymond; and I, that she would wear the scapular of the Order of Mercy, and would continue both so long as her life should last, if she obtained her former health. I invoked besides the same Saint that he would preserve the four months' child, which several times by certain signs seemed on the point of being brought forth prematurely, at least until it should be born again in baptism. And it pleased God to grant both: health to the sick woman, and saving baptism to the child. And amid these things I recall a notable matter, namely that not seldom the sick woman, when in the greatest heat of her disease, listened to someone who happened to be singing the deeds * of the Saint g, and, if he made any mistake, corrected him.
[42] Finally she was so perfectly healed that not even a sign of frenzy was afterwards observed in her, from a grievous frenzy: her senses and understanding being entire
always, and being so to this day. Wherefore Master Lázaro Moner every year on the feast of St. Raymond receives twelve poor men at dinner in this manner. First, he and his wife lead them, gathered at his house, to the church, where she is present with the aforesaid poor at the sacrifice of the Mass, which they cause to be offered in the Saint's chapel; when the Sacrifice is ended she leads them back home, pours water on their hands, courteously serves food to them as they recline, and, the table being removed, kisses the hand of each and bestows alms. She wears also the scapular of the Order, and it is to be known that the first which she put on was bought by me h. The same things more briefly are deposed by Doña Ana Elena herself and by her own sister Jerónima Cerera *.
[43] On the XVII day of September the noble lady Magdalena Carriera y de Doms, another from lethargy widow of the noble Master Juan Carriera y de Gurp, formerly domiciled in the cities of Gerona and Barcelona, in the LV year of her age, said i that on that day on which our king Philip, in the year, if I am not mistaken, MDXCIX k, took his oath at Barcelona, my brother Master Raymond Doms was so perilously sick with a continual fever, which they call lethargy, that, being already accounted dead, he had to be fortified with the last Sacraments of holy church; but the parish priest of his church was away because of the oath which the royal majesty was taking that day, to which the whole city had flocked. There were, however, with us in the chamber of the sick man two Fathers of the Order of Mercy l and two discalced Carmelites, who, seeing the said Master Raymond Doms hastening to the end of his life, with knees bent about the bed devoted themselves to prayer for him; and at the suggestion of the Fathers of Mercy, the lady Mariana Doms, wife of the sick man, weeping with compunction of soul, and I, and all who were present, all devoutly implored St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[44] is cured by the Saint, who had appeared present, And presently one of the Fathers of Mercy, following me as I went out of the chamber, said: Be of good heart, my lady; your brother will not die of this sickness; and he foretold the same to Doña Mariana, the sick man's wife. Nor indeed had much time passed when the sick man began to sweat so copiously that it was necessary to change his shirt six or seven times; and it is worthy of wonder that at each change of shirt he was found better and stronger, and at last was wholly restored to health. And after three or four days that Father who had bidden me be of good heart, that my brother would not die, said to Doña Mariana: Give thanks to God and to St. Raymond Nonnatus, who, while we were praying for the sick man, appeared present at his bed.
[45] thanksgiving being paid to him. Which the aforesaid lady carrying out, she caused several Masses to be celebrated in thanksgiving in the chapel of St. Raymond, and for a memorial of the benefit received hung up a tablet representing the sick man [and] St. Raymond Nonnatus. The same miracle was testified at Barcelona before the bishop of that place on the XVII day of December MDCXII by the very Rev. Fr. Fray Lorenzo Altava, Master of Sacred Theology of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy, aged LX years, indicated above without his name; and he adds that, when the aforesaid Master Raymond Doms was near death and already deprived of the use of tongue, eyes, and ears, to him, the witness, kneeling at the foot of the bed and holding in his hands the relics of St. Raymond Nonnatus, and earnestly entreating the Saint for the sick man, he appeared visible, surrounded with much splendor, in that form in which he is wont to be represented by painters; and, having first joined his hands, he bestowed his blessing upon the sick man, and at the same time ceased to be seen. And the sick man, coming to himself, first broke out into these words: Pray for us, Bl. Raymond Nonnatus; and in a short time he wholly recovered m.
ANNOTATIONS.
c. Colombo, page 275.
e. Colombo, page 246.
f. Colombo, page 276.
\ de telilla*
\ los gozos*
\ Colombo, Sebiera*.
CHAPTER VI.
An injured boy is cured; the letters of the most illustrious bishop of Barcelona.
The honorable Miguel Guardiola, surgeon, citizen of Gerona, An injured boy of the age of L years, said: It is about eight years since, being called to the house of Miguel Subirà, mace-bearer * a of the worshipful lords of this city of Gerona, I found there the son of the aforesaid Miguel Subirà, six or seven years old, kept in bed because of his broken left leg b; which, on inspecting it, I found to be so, and according to the surgeon's art I fitted the parts together into their place, and to them when fitted I applied lint c and some splints; and so I left the leg rightly bound up, yet not without grievous pain to the boy. After this, two days having passed, I returned to see him, and found, to my great astonishment, the leg in a plainly different state from that in which I had left it: wherefore I asked the parents whether some other surgeon or other person had applied a healing hand; and both denied it. Then I said: How can this be, since the wrappings are now applied in an altogether different way from that in which I applied them?
[47] Then indeed the boy thus begins: No one has touched the leg, is cured by the Saint appearing: except St. Raymond Nonnatus, who this morning, standing here in this chamber, treated it; and now no pain at all remains to me from it. I nevertheless applied afresh what is wont to be applied to such fractures, with the same splints, and bound up the leg again according to surgical rule, and returned a third time to examine it. But the boy, within a much shorter space of time than such injuries are wont to be cured in, walked and ran in health; at which I greatly marveled, since those thus injured are wont to keep their bed for forty days, and even then for some days cannot stand upon the injured foot; whereas the aforesaid boy was deprived of the use of his leg for not more than fifteen days. The same is deposed in like manner by the boy himself who had broken his leg, Rafael Subirà, aged fourteen years, and by his father, aged fifty-four d.
[48] the letters We, Don Luis Sans, by the grace of God and of the apostolic See bishop of Barcelona, and royal councillor, to all and each who shall see and inspect these letters, or to whom they shall in any way be presented, health in the Lord. Whereas Fr. Fray Ambrosio Machín, Master of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy of the redemption of captives, and definitor of the same Order in the province of Aragon, appointed by a special commission of the most reverend General of the said Order to inquire into the wonderful things which can bring anything of moment for proving the notable life and holiness of St. Raymond Nonnatus, and the cult widely spread in this principality of Catalonia, and the very great devotion toward him, and for the other proofs which the aforesaid General and his general chapter enjoined him to make before us — and whereas he has requested that we should attest by these letters also, and confirm by the testimony of our authority, that they may have the greater firmness of strength and weight, those things which have become known and ascertained to us from what the weightiest witnesses have deposed to us in the inquiry received before us at his instance: it has pleased us to assent to requests so just, since thereby the glory of God shines forth more brightly and illustriously in his Saints.
[49] of Luis Sans, We say, therefore, affirm, and make faith that among the other Saints whom the principality of Catalonia venerates by immemorial tradition is St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom the common consent and tradition of all the elders and peoples, commonly called of la Segarra, affirms to have been born in the place of Portell of the diocese of Urgel in a truly wonderful manner: for, his mother being dead, while he still remained shut up and hidden in her womb, he was drawn forth by cutting open his parent's womb and side; wherefore he was called Nonnatus, because he came into this light not by the accustomed birth and laws of nature. Again, that his life from his very cradle was conspicuous and illustrious for virtue and holiness, and approved by heavenly portents, three things especially confirm.
[50] bishop of Barcelona, The first, that when as a youth he was feeding a few sheep of his father's, and was wont, leaving them, often to visit for prayer a certain hermit chapel situated within the bounds of that same place of Portell, dedicated to St. Nicholas the bishop, the most blessed Virgin Mother of God appeared to him, and at the same time commanded him to put on the robe and habit of the Order of Mercy founded by her. To whose words the Youth of holy disposition diligently obeyed, and received the habit of the said Order at Barcelona. The second, that when he had fallen into a grave and mortal sickness at Cardona (for he was confessor of the viscounts of that town), three Religious of the said Order appeared, who, after refreshing him with the heavenly food of the Eucharist, suddenly vanished from the eyes of all.
[51] after the witnesses' Nor is the third worthy of less wonder. For when, after his death, his venerable body, shut in a chest, had been placed upon a certain white mule whose eyes had first been put out, that it might carry it whither the divine will should appoint, after wandering through various places, at length by God's will it came to the aforesaid chapel of St. Nicholas, which is distant from the town of Cardona nearly one day's journey; and having gone round it three times, before the doors of the entrance the mule, kneeling, burst asunder in the midst, and there left the holy body of St. Raymond Nonnatus, where until the present day (the name being changed
, however, from the chapel of St. Nicholas to that of St. Raymond Nonnatus) it is kept and honored with great veneration. And all these things we have often heard from the elders of the place of Portell, and from others, handed down by the common report of grandparents and parents to their sons and grandsons.
[52] For since we presided for many years over the church of Solsona, in the processes of which the place of Portell is a temporal lordship, it was necessary to go there rather often, and I took delight in speaking of these matters familiarly with them. We have also seen the chief of these things painted in a most ancient tablet and in the picture of the altar set up in the church of that same St. Raymond Nonnatus; in the middle of which is seen the Saint himself painted with a nimbus about his head, and beneath his feet this title in letters of a most ancient form: Blessed Raymond Nonnatus; and round about is painted the history of his birth after his mother's death, of the wonderful communion, and of the carrying of his body by the blind white mule; of which most ancient painting and image there exists no memory among men how or when it was made.
[53] And so the invocation of St. Raymond Nonnatus, his cult, and the devotion of the peoples toward him had their origin in ancient centuries, depositions nor has it been made antiquated by length of time, but has increased more and more from day to day: which the chapels built everywhere prove, and the frequent miracles which are wrought at his intercession, the immense piety of the peoples toward him, and the incredible concourse to his church, especially on the last Sunday of the month of August, dedicated every year to his solemnities with a proper Mass and Prayer (which it has always been the custom to celebrate not only privately but also solemnly). For the peoples flock together from almost all Catalonia on every side for religion's sake and by reason of vows; and moreover his chapel is seen adorned with lamps, painted tablets, cloths, and other gifts brought and hung up by Christ's faithful in fulfillment of vows.
[54] Nor does this seem to be passed over: that his sacred relics and images, written. when asked for by the sick, often bestow health despaired of not only upon them but even upon beasts; and that all the bishops and prelates of this principality, and we with them, grant every year written licenses to the Religious of the said Order to collect alms throughout their dioceses from Christ's faithful for the adorning of the church of St. Raymond Nonnatus, and for the completing of the work of the same monastery and house, and also for receiving in hospitality the poor and foreign pilgrims who come thither for piety's sake and by reason of vows, and for refreshing them with food and drink. All which, because we profess and attest that they are both true and ascertained by us, we have ordered these presents to be made, subscribed with our hand and fortified with the impression of our seal, given at Barcelona on the fourth day of the month of January in the year from the Nativity of the Lord MDCXIII e. L., Bishop of Barcelona.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Colombo, macero*.
PART II
From the text published in Spanish in Felipe Colombo, translated by Jean Pien.
TRANSLATED BY J. P.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's singular benefits toward pregnant women and women in childbirth in various places of Catalonia.
This patronage of the Saint is proved Colombo, in book 3 of the Life of St. Raymond, which is wholly about the heavenly favors obtained by that same Saint's patronage, in chapter 1 and following treats of pregnant women who in the peril of childbirth have experienced his singular help. I render Colombo's Spanish text into Latin to this sense: Although from what is lacking it will be established that St. Raymond's protection extends itself to all the necessities which his pious clients suffer, nevertheless experience shows that the memory that his mother lost her life when he came into the light causes his intercession to protect mothers who see themselves set in straits of this kind. But because the miracles are already so frequent, they are not written down. Those which were authentically established at Gerona from the inquiry which doctor Master Francisco de Americh, canon and dignitary of that holy church, and also vicar general of the diocese, instituted concerning them, at the instance of father master brother Ambrosio Machín, definitor of the province of Aragon, and by the commission of the most illustrious lord Master Onofre Reart, bishop, are the following; and in the remaining chapters will be given the rest which pertain to the principality of Catalonia a.
[56] from the declarations, Concerning pregnant women who in the peril of their childbirths had obtained a prodigious happy issue, there declared the doctors Master Jerónimo Pinguen, archdeacon of Ampurias b, Master Juan de Crudillis, canon and dignitary of that holy church, and Master Miguel Andreu, and also Master Francisco Quadros de Villela, likewise canons, that it was the public report that women who in that city commended themselves to St. Raymond were not endangered, and that all had for this end ribands, images, and water blessed and consecrated by the touch of his sacred remains. They knew this because the verification of like miracles had been transacted before them, that testimonials might be carried to the convent of St. Raymond on his feast day. To that court the Saint's help in that distress is so well known that scarcely a woman is to be found who, when she has come to her last month, does not provide herself with a sacred pledge, a staff, a hat, candles, or images of the glorious Saint.
[57] On the fourteenth of September in the year MDCXII Miguel Villa, public scribe of Gerona, declared which that when on a certain day he was present at a sermon on the feast of St. Raymond Nonnatus, the sacred herald had said: What woman, invoking St. Raymond Nonnatus in her childbirth, was ever in peril? When I said this in my house, my wife and I conceived a great devotion toward the Saint, and so much so that, when afterwards she was twice with child, for a month beforehand we went to his chapel on all Sundays and feast days, and with great confidence implored his protection, taking care each time to have his jubili sung before his altar; and from the time we had this kind of devotion, my wife's deliveries were so happy that, considering that a child cannot be born without pain, her deliveries were such that she could not, according to her wish, have had better ones. My wife and I attribute this to the pious affection which we have had and have toward the glorious St. Raymond, having made the resolution never to forsake it, seeing miracles so continued in our house since we invoke the Saint with greater devotion; whereas, before I heard what the preacher said, she had in the preceding deliveries undergone very great labor, in some being brought to the point of death.
[58] There came c to him his wife exceedingly anxious, because she had had a very bad pregnancy; in various and her fears increased the danger the more. Seeing therefore that her pains were more violent than on other occasions, and that after a long time she could not give birth, she cried out, saying that she was dying, and that her fears had been presages of her end. Her husband, beholding her in these straits, betook himself to the Saint's chapel to pray to God for her, asking the Religious to carry his sacred remains to her. Scarcely had she venerated them when it pleased our Lord to soothe her pains and to grant her a very happy delivery.
[59] Jaime del Pas, citizen of Perpignan, declared that in his house there is great devotion toward the glorious Cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus on account of the many miracles of Catalonia which he has wrought in it, succoring him in all the necessities in which he has invoked him, especially in his wife's deliveries, which expose her to great distress, being unable to give birth for a long time; until they bring the Saint's relics to her, and she is at once freed from the peril. In particular, on a certain occasion she was already at the point of death, and so she herself believed, because the Saint's remains had not been brought to her, being in another house of the city where there was a like peril. And the woman with great anguish said: God wills that I die, since he has taken from me the guardian of my life; and her husband promised that, if she should give birth and the child should live, he would clothe him in the habit of the Virgin of Mercy.
[60] And presently God willed that there should enter his house the holy pledge which a Religious was bringing, of whom he had asked it; and so great was the joy of his wife that, laying it upon her breast, she recovered her strength, and bore a son, through whom God willed to show himself wonderful through his Saint, sending upon him a symptom which painted his face with a violet color, of which he was dying, the cause of the malady lying hidden. They called upon the Saint to ask God that their son might not so soon forsake them, whom by his intercession they enjoyed, making some vows to the Saint; which being performed, his recovery was so instantaneous that all attributed it to a miracle of St. Raymond. And they conclude that they are so devoutly affected toward him that they have given the name of St. Raymond to all the sons and daughters they have had.
[61] by public Doña Jerónima Berdú, dwelling at Perpignan, declared that in the year MDCX, being near her delivery, she had the child in a reversed position; whence for a long time she was in those straits and pains, the child putting forth only one arm. Many remedies were applied to the trouble, but none sufficed: whence her life was brought into the utmost peril. Her husband Pedro Berdú went to the convent of the Virgin of Mercy, and prayed for her at the altar of St. Raymond, and asked for the Saint's relics, which father brother Juan Raimundo, vicar of the convent, brought with him: and she, having scarcely venerated the sacred pledge, felt herself full of spirit and strength, and the child came forth, the mother being freed from her peril.
[62] authority Angela Casanova declared that, being pregnant in the time of Lent in that same year MDCXII, she was afflicted with many diseases; whence a dropsy arose in her, reducing her to such a state that on the day of the Virgin Mother of God in the month of March last past, which was the time of her delivery, the physicians despaired of her and forsook her, because they had no more remedies to apply to her, saying that she should dispose of her affairs, because she would very soon die. While she was in this state, they told her to invoke the glorious St. Raymond, and to have his relics brought: that many women in straits of this kind had been healed by his intercession. With great affection of piety she did so; and the sacred
remains being brought, she began to be better of her dropsy, and gave birth. But whether the child was born alive or dead they did not know; but when they commended him to the said Saint, he was alive, and the mother quickly recovered, and went to his chapel to give thanks, bringing a taper and a shroud d in memory of the matter.
[63] were given, Doña Ana de Estrada, dwelling at Perpignan, declared that in the year MDCIX her delivery was so adverse to her that for three days and as many nights she could not bring forth the child, being racked with most acute pains and deadly straits; and the midwife, who always kept close to her side, told her to invoke St. Raymond Nonnatus, and to offer him some vow. She vowed that she would give the Saint's name to the child which should be born, and would take care that some Masses be said at his altar. She asked that his relics be brought to her, which she venerated with great affection of piety, and renewed her vows, saying that they should sing his jubili before the altar of his chapel; and when these had not yet begun to be sung, they went to give notice that the same should be recited in thanksgiving, because she had already given birth and was much relieved. All which came to pass as soon as the Saint's remains had gone out of her house.
Miguel Llario, an inhabitant of Castellón e de Ampurias, declared that his wife in her first delivery in the year MDCVI was reduced to such straits that they thought she would die, because she could not give birth for several days. He took care that the relics of St. Raymond should be brought to her, and the Fathers blessed a little water, and, casting the sacred pledge into it, they offer it to the sick woman, and with great devotion she drank it; and presently in that same instant she gave birth, and rose up sound at once; and the name of Raymond was given to the infant as a sign and memorial of the miracle.
[64] Francisco Buigert, surgeon of Castellón, declared and here that on the feast of St. Luke six or seven years before, he had been summoned to the house of the noble lady Esperanza * Fábrega, together with master Miguel Texidor, also a surgeon, that they might open the body of the said lady, who was expiring, and draw forth the child, because she was dying of a miscarriage without remedy. Both applied some remedies at that afternoon hour, but in vain: for she could not bring forth the child. They remained there that night with many others, to see whether, when she died, they could draw forth the child alive; and at the third hour of the morning some women who were present there, pitying the deadly straits which she suffered, invoked St. Raymond, uttering many vows and promises to him if she should give birth and be healed. At the fourth hour they sent to the convent of St. Bartholomew of the Order of Mercy, that his holy relics might be brought: the Religious brought them, and, blessing a little water, cast them into it and offered it to the sick woman to drink, the relics being laid upon her breast; and in that same point of time she gave birth, was well, and shortly went to the convent of the Virgin of Mercy to give thanks to God and the Saint for the miracle.
[65] The matter was confirmed by the venerable Bartolomé Mateo, priest and beneficiary of the parish church of Castellón, are reported. whom they had summoned to prepare the said Esperanza Fábrega for a good death, and who had remained there for that end with the surgeons and many other persons that night; and he reports what has been declared, adding that she brought forth the infant alive and with so little consciousness that she did not know it until he had come into the light; and so they said, as she herself afterwards declared to that priest, who was her confessor: to which without doubt the state in which she remembered herself to have been had brought her.
Antonio Morera, of the place of Montfalcó in the territory of Cardona, declared that Isabel Armengol, dwelling in that same place, on a certain occasion spent three days in labor, tortured with great pains, because she could not bring the child into the light; and when the declarant heard that she was accounted as dead, out of compassion he went and had the sacred remains of St. Raymond Nonnatus brought; and in the same instant in which she venerated them, she gave birth and recovered.
Andrés Llibragós, chief minister of justice and ordinary judge of the place of Olujas, of the age of eighty years, confirmed from the tradition of his elders all that has been written of the Saint; and coming down to particular miracles, he said that his wife on two occasions had been accounted dead from bad deliveries, and that on both occasions, when the relics of that same Saint were brought to her from the convent of St. Raymond, which is half a league distant thence, she remained free in a moment; and that innumerable are the miracles which God has wrought through the sacred pledge of the blessed St. Raymond in like straits.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Esperanza*
CHAPTER II.
Other graces bestowed by the Saint on women in childbirth in various places of Spain.
At Vich At Vich the noble lady Doña Leonor de Monrodón, wife of the illustrious lord Juan de Monrodón, declared what follows: It will be four years since I had a perilous delivery; and being set in great pains for twenty-four hours, when I saw that I could not bring forth the child, I asked my lady mother this favor: that she should have the father Commander of Mercy a summoned, who should come to me to recite the prayer of St. Raymond Nonnatus, and should bring the Saint's remains, toward whom I, the witness, am very piously affected, and I had great confidence, and was certain that, while the said prayer was being said, I should be delivered in a moment, as I had seen in many others. The Father Commander came, and when half the prayer b had been said, I at once brought forth a little child who, thanks be to God, is alive today; and in memory of it he wore the Saint's habit until a short time ago we laid it aside; and such is our confidence in the Saint that, so long as he went clothed in that habit, he seemed to us to be of very approved and abundant health; but from the time they laid it aside, he is not well, nor enjoys that entire health which he enjoyed before.
[67] in the principality of Catalonia, And she declared that, while the infant was being nursed, on a certain day they brought him to her almost dead from the tainted milk with which his nurse fed him; and that, the Saint's scapular being laid upon him, he cast up much milk through his mouth and was well. She added finally: So great confidence have I in the glorious St. Raymond that I have asked nothing of him which God has not granted me through his intercession. Thus she swore and signed before the lord bishop c.
[68] After the declaration of the lady Leonor de Monrodón, The declaration master brother Juan de Antillón was the second Commander at Vich, and found that that lady celebrated the feast of St. Raymond every year with great solemnity; who, when he asked the cause, answered him that she had received repeated favors from God in her deliveries by the Saint's patronage after his departure from that city, and that on two occasions they had been so hard that they left her as though dead; that she had seen the glorious father St. Raymond enter her chamber; that, her spirit being thereby raised, she called her household and easily gave birth. But what bound her to vow the celebration of his feast every year was what in the opinion of all was as it were a resurrection, since she was already as dead, and the surgeons were ready to open her body when it should be known that she had expired. But then she seemed to behold (she knows not how, since she was without sense) a Religious of Mercy blessing her, and in a moment, being made mistress of herself, she gave birth, and was well; and so, as long as she should live, she ought to celebrate his feast and to clothe her sons in the Saint's habit, because thus she reared them healthy; and that she had experience of this matter since the year MDCIX — that is, of the miracle which we have related before.
[69] At Tudela d in Navarre, in the year MDIV, Fr. brother Valerio Marcos, At Tudela a very zealous Religious man, caused many pictures of the Saints of our Order to be painted, which today are in the small cloister of our convent of Saragossa. When he went to see them being executed, they inquired of him the history of each; whereby it came about that he related the history of the glorious cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus, and the many miracles which God wrought through his intercession, especially in pregnant women. It happened that the painter's wife was with child, and, before the time had come, the pains of childbirth seized her so violently that she was dying, in the judgment of those who were helping her, because she often lost her senses in her torment during the three days in which she was struggling with that torment. All knew that the child was dead, and therefore they condemned her to the necessary severity of surgery, whereby the child should be drawn forth piecemeal. But she was so lifeless that she knew that by that remedy her death would be hastened.
[70] Then the woman remembered that holy Wonder-worker whose history she had heard from Fr. Valerio, in Navarre, commander of the convent of the Virgin of Mercy, but she did not know his name. She caused her husband to go to St. Nicasius, which is a convent of the Order in that city, and to ask the Father Commander to commend her to that Saint so prodigious, whose name she did not remember, being indeed condemned to a cruel death. The Father Commander brought her the relics of St. Raymond, and scarcely had he laid them upon her neck when the pains ceased, and she began to cast out the child in pieces so corrupted and foul that they could not be borne. She recovered very quickly, and went to the Saint's
chapel, where she ordered a Mass to be celebrated, her whole household being devoted to him with great affection of piety; and the Saint repaid the husband with many painted images of himself, which were so sold off through devotion toward the Saint that the painter was in better circumstances e.
[71] The lord bishop of Ross f, in the Life of St. Raymond At Huete which he wrote in his Century, affirms as an eyewitness that in the city of Huete g the wife of the royal treasurer, fearing for her delivery because of the peril to which she had seen herself exposed at other times, made a novena to St. Raymond in her last months, and, his holy image having been brought to the house, hoped with great confidence. The time of childbirth came, but with such symptoms that she despaired of her life. Seeing herself in so great peril, she invoked the Saint, and by his patronage gave birth, those distresses not coming on which in her other deliveries used to expose her to the utmost perils. Hence out of a grateful mind she fulfilled some promises which she had made to St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[72] in New Castile, and at Madrid In the same city the wife of Juan Álvarez, scribe of the number h, was so reduced by childbirth that she could bear no others, as the experience of fifteen years proved, the child which she conceived being carried off prematurely i. She therefore took St. Raymond for her patron, bestowing many alms in his name, and offering to celebrate his feast with great solemnity. And in the same year in which she began this, she became pregnant, and brought forth a daughter without any terror of ill success; nor did certain symptoms which had come on in her pregnancy afflict her, because of the great devotion which she had toward the protection of St. Raymond. In our convent at Madrid there is exposed for veneration in a sumptuous chapel a miraculous image of the holy Cardinal, the work of that admirable sculptor Gregorio Hernández. Among the other tokens which thanksgiving for favors of God obtained through the Saint's intercession has left there, it is read on a tablet how in the year MDCX Agustina Alameda, dwelling at Madrid, in the seventh month of her pregnancy began not to feel the child: remedies were applied, but it gave no sign of motion; it was reckoned dead, the many and continual remedies which had been applied persuading this. She is adjudged to the cruel remedy of the tornum k, to draw forth the child so far as they could; she was very piously affected toward the Saint, and, relying on his patronage, proved on occasions of this kind, she began a novena in his chapel. On the first day she felt the child; the same happened on the remaining days, and therefore, being now freed from that first terror, she hoped with confidence in her holy Protector. The delivery was most difficult, since for more than fifty-three hours she was tortured with pains and deadly straits: she renewed what she had promised to the Saint; she asked for his sacred remains, and while she venerated them the child came forth free from peril; and she left us a picture *, a token of her grateful mind.
[73] In the year MDCLVIII, after the Saint had delivered the lady Magdalena de Espinosa from a difficult delivery, in the same one month thereafter a trembling of the limbs l seized the boy, from which, according to the signs and judgments of the physicians, he was expiring. The anxious mother had him carried to the altar of St. Raymond, and, kneeling, said to him: If your intercession freed him at his birth, your patronage ought to raise him up. The mother's faith moved the divine mercy, and obtained the intercession of the holy Cardinal, and she returned home with her son sound and well, all publicly saying that he had been called back to life.
[74] of Castile In the same court of Madrid in the year MDCLX God wrought, through the merits of the holy Cardinal, one of his miracles in the lady Agustina Carrillo. In the sixth month of her pregnancy she found that the child did not move; whence she was afflicted, judging it dead. Her fears were confirmed when she saw that most acute pains and deadly straits began to afflict her, which increased with the application of remedies. She therefore persuaded herself for certain that the child was dead; and so, when she saw that she could not cast it forth, in order to provide for her life they treated of drawing forth the child piecemeal. She, fearing so cruel a torment, came to the chapel of St. Raymond, and, having ordered a Mass to be said to him, remained all that day before his altar. There her pains ceased, and she returned home without any feeling. So she remained until the nine months were completed, as free from distress as if she had not been pregnant.
[75] But then all rushed upon her in a troop with such symptoms New, that they ordered her to be fortified with the Sacraments m. In these straits, imploring the help of the glorious St. Raymond, she had his relics brought to her, and as soon as she had venerated them she cast forth the child corrupted and foul, suffering no peril of life, which the physicians and midwives had threatened in so long a corruption; whereas within a few days she felt herself so well that she came to give thanks to God in the Saint's chapel.
[76] Piety toward God and the Saints, for the obtaining of their favors again, favors, requires a devout acknowledgment on the part of him who receives them. Many were the demonstrations made in the Saint's honor for the good issue which the lady Agustina Carrillo had received in the past miracle; and so, after the same misfortune had befallen her in her next pregnancy — though with longer peril, since the child had been dead in her womb five months — her delivery came, but with no hope of life in the mother. Fr. Domingo de España, preacher of that convent, who was her confessor, came to prepare her for the last struggle, since she had been given up by the physicians: he applied the Saint's relics to her, telling her to commend herself to him, since he had been her preserver in perils of this kind; she did so, and obtained the same issue as in her past distress. She came, and with her Juan Bautista Esperón her husband, to give thanks to God in the chapel of St. Raymond.
[77] The bishop of Ross, cited above, reports another event and also at Burgos in Old Castile which happened in the city of Burgos to the lady María de Miranda, wife of Zoilo n de Sanzoles, an illustrious knight of Burgos. Some years after she had been married she had passed in barrenness and sadness: through the intercession of the glorious cardinal Raymond Nonnatus she obtained fruitfulness, and rejoicing in it she passed the quiet days of her marriage; and, grateful, she reckoned among the accounts of her piety the expenses of the day sacred to St. Raymond, inviting the chief women of that illustrious city, and winning many for the Saint as devout clients, his wonders being spread abroad; and she obtained the fruit of her religious piety. For when she was laboring under a grave infirmity, and with many perils coming upon her in her pregnancy, which were such that many and strong remedies for preserving the mother's life were turned upon the child, they condemned her to a most cruel death. It was found that the child was dead: singular diligence was applied again and again; but all in vain, because she could not bring it forth.
[78] God brought the matter to pass so that she might acknowledge and confess how much she owed to her Saint. They condemned her to a speedy death, show the Saint's singular patronage toward women in childbirth. because she had not strength for the remedy of the tornum, and the stench of the corrupted child was already perceived: she commended herself very earnestly to St. Raymond, having ordered his picture to be set up opposite her bed; this they received from our convent. Scarcely had she looked upon it when the Saint seemed in his image to be tenderly compassionate to her good desire; whence with greater longing she invoked him: she felt herself somehow disturbed, and calling her maids she brought forth the dead child, corrupted and foul, and wrapped in such horrible filth that no one could remain in the chamber; and she said afterwards that it was a new miracle that that great stench did not bring death upon her. Nor was it less wonderful in the prodigy that she felt but little pain. Her sudden recovery set the crown upon the matter. The quality of the person, the great distress, and the many circumstances of the miracle, since she was at once as well as if she had labored under no ill, stirred the whole city to a religious affection of piety; and so the many novenas which in those days were made to the Saint in his chapel brought comfort to her thanksgiving. Nor did the Saint's favor toward barren women stop with this event only and the one recorded above; but the two following will prove the same.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Perhaps a picture*, by a figure of speech.
CHAPTER III.
Barren women made fruitful; the remaining favors bestowed on pregnant women and women in childbirth are set forth.
Barren women made fruitful through the Saint at Burgos, In the same city of Burgos, as the venerable lord bishop * reports, María de Valencia,
wife of a certain nobleman named Fernando de Udobro, in the year MDXCIII, after many years of barrenness which had come upon her from a fall when she was a girl, seeing that medicines and human remedies profited her nothing, applied divine ones, taking to herself as patron with God the glorious cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus, and offered that she would give his name to the son or daughter whom God should grant her. She presently became pregnant, and bore a living son, and he was named Raymond de Udobro, when in the year MDCXIII the said lord bishop instituted the juridical inquiry into the miracles.
[80] In the town of Portugalete a a woman of rank and wealthy, and in Navarre: hopeless of having children after she had been married many years, told her sadness to a certain Religious of ours *, her kinswoman, in the convent of St. Turcius b in Biscay, which is half a league distant from Portugalete; she advised her to commend herself to the glorious St. Raymond, the wonder-worker of her Order. She offered that, if he would favor her, she would build him an altar in that convent, and would place in it his image; and God gave her such assurance of mind that she at once had the work begun; which, before it was finished, bore the reward of her piety, when she saw herself pregnant and, before the end of the time, endowed with an heir.
[81] In the church of Our Lady of Glory in the city of Lisbon c, At Lisbon a hospice of our Order, there was in veneration in the year MDCXXX an image of the glorious cardinal St. Raymond, and the faithful received many graces for that worship. Those which women devoted to him obtained in the straits of their childbirths we shall set down; of the rest there will be a place to speak afterwards. The lady Mariana Maroso, wife of Pedro Baez, of the Order of Christ d, in the parish of the Magdalene, entered upon the month of her fears, which was the ninth of her pregnancy, because she had experienced that in the preceding ones she had been in peril of death, her children paying the same debt, whom she lost a few days after their birth. She provided for herself for twenty days by a novena devotion at his altar, and by the Sacrifices and prayers of our Religious. She came to her delivery, and although she began it with confidence in the Saint's patronage, the experience of her preceding distresses did not cease to afflict her. Nevertheless, her fears vanishing, leaning indeed upon the Saint's staff and with his hat hanging from her neck, at the first pain she brought forth a little girl, whom out of a grateful mind she called Catalina de San Ramón, and who was living some years afterwards, when the inquiry into this and other miracles of the Saint was made.
[82] In the parish of the cathedral church the most noble lady Doña Antonia de Meneses, an illustrious benefactress of our sacred Order, The Saint suffered many symptoms not without great peril in her first pregnancy: whence, in order to provide for the safety of her life, it was necessary to apply violent remedies; but by these they exposed the child's life to peril, which affected her with great fears, especially when, as the birth drew near, her straits increased and her pains grew stronger; and all became more bitter when she did not feel the child, all judging it dead. In her sadness she fled to St. Raymond, and, his sacred remains being brought to her, she laid them with great piety upon her neck, commending herself very earnestly to the Saint's intercession; and she obtained his patronage: for by the sacred pledge her pains were soothed, and she happily gave birth. But, that she might experience St. Raymond's favor, the infant came forth bearing all the marks of one dead: his head was misshapen, his eyes covered with spots, without crying and without any signs of life. All were thrown into distress, and they hid the child, taking pains that the mother should not see him. But, as she was now freed from her torments and from the raging peril, one care alone tormented her: what that was which she had brought forth. It was therefore necessary to make the truth known to her and to bring the infant. She did not lose heart, although she saw him with so few signs of life; but rather, taking the relics from her neck, she applied them to the child, and at once he opened his eyes, sucked the breast, and filled the mother's happy delivery with gladness.
[83] wonderful In the parish commonly called de Santos a Boa-vista, Jerónima Molina published the wonders of the glorious St. Raymond in her prosperous delivery. She had heard the Saint's miracles, and wished to fortify herself with his intercession against the distresses to which her life had been exposed in like perils. She caused an image of the Saint to be painted and placed in her chamber, fearing lest she should be seized at a time when she could not have his relics, and the more because they were not always in the hospice: for the frequent miracles carried them from one quarter of the city to another in so populous a city; and so the citizens provided for themselves with his images, which, when his devotion was known, all the painters of Lisbon made in great number; and thus a most trustworthy person assured us that at their doors there were seen in those years images of the Saint, as at Madrid of the Virgin of Solitude e. Three weeks before she expected her delivery she saw herself in labor with it. She ordered lights to be set before the Saint's image, implored his help, promising him certain things, and at the first pains happily gave birth, and within a few days went to the church of Glory to give thanks to God and to fulfill her vows.
[84] bestows In the year MDCXXIX, in the parish of the Magdalene, Inés Méndez, wife of Francisco Díaz de León, seeing the threats of death in a hard delivery, in which for many hours she was afflicted with the most intense torments and with the straits of death, because she could not be freed of the child, a certain friend, pitying her peril, told her to commend herself to the glorious cardinal St. Raymond of the Order of the Virgin of Mercy, who was venerated in the church of the Virgin of Glory, a hospice of that Order, God working many miracles at Lisbon through his sacred remains and images. They brought her a candle with his image; and when she had commended herself to the Saint with all her heart, as soon as they lighted the taper God happily gave her light, and, her pains ceasing, she brought forth into the light a very beautiful child, after she had felt — though without violent torments — that it turned, because the child was coming forth twisted. Hence out of a grateful mind she dealt with a notable master to paint the Saint for her on a panel, which she furnished with a costly ornament of ebony and silver, and placed under a canopy at the head of her bed. The Saint repaid her piety, as we shall see.
The most illustrious lady Doña Elena de Castro, wife of the lord Jerónimo de Ataíde, who were notable benefactors of the Order, and are lords of the houses of our hospice, and patrons of our church of the Virgin Mother of Glory, experienced how liberal the Saint was toward her in a most happy delivery. But, that the miracle might be of greater weight, he permitted her to be encompassed with such circumstances of peril that all despaired of her, and reckoned that there was no remedy for her life, although the noble lady always placed great confidence in the Saint's patronage, which she obtained to the common wonder. In that illustrious family the tokens of a grateful mind were great, and not less the favors which the Saint repaid; of which matter we shall say something in its place.
[85] In the same city of Lisbon, to Isabel Enríquez in the year MDCXXX, benefits upon women in labor, as the time of her delivery drew near the pains were so violent that she was out of her mind and for three days could not speak, paralytic symptoms sometimes seizing her. At last the malady degenerated into a trembling of the limbs *, by which she was continually thrown about with unceasing movements: whence it came about that, unmindful of the child, they were wholly taken up with remedies to provide for the mother. But when they knew that none was left, they gave her extreme unction. While she was in this state, a certain person devoted to St. Raymond told her husband that at Our Lady of Glory, the hospice of the fathers of Mercy, the sacred remains of the glorious cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus were kept, by which great miracles had been seen wrought in straits of this kind in that city: let him go thither, and order some Masses to be celebrated at his altar, and ask for the sacred pledge; that the Religious were very affable, and would come at once. So he did, and two Religious were sent by the Prelate: scarcely had they laid the sacred pledge upon her neck when, coming to herself, she brought forth a living infant girl, the physicians and midwives marveling that remedies so violent as had been applied for the mother's life had not taken away the infant's life. A few days afterwards she rose, and on a certain day the whole household came to our house to pay thanks to God and to the Saint. Jorge López her husband ordered an image of the Saint to be painted on a panel, which he keeps splendidly adorned.
[86] As in the city of Burgos f there was great devotion toward the holy Cardinal, which the venerable bishop of Ross introduced, as also at Burgos, so many were the wonders which God wrought even for those who did not invoke him. The wife of José del Campo, after a peril of a day and a half, endured such torments that she was left as one dead. Being spent of strength, they determined to open her, believing that she had expired, that the child might be baptized: they brought to her an image of St. Raymond, and at once she opened her eyes and gave birth even before she had come to herself. The midwife and the physicians affirmed that she had been called back to life.
The same happened to the wife of a spicer who dwelt in the suburb of St. Stephen, when, a Mass being ordered to be said in our convent, she was delivered and gave birth at the same time. The same effect had, in the houses of the Valley of Somorrostro near Portugalete, an image of the Saint brought to a woman who for four days had been in that perilous struggle: she invoked the Saint, placed her hope in him, and fixed her eyes upon his image, and escaped unharmed from so great a peril.
[87] At Azuaga An image of our holy father Raymond is held in the highest veneration in our convent of the town of Azuaga g, and through it God has wrought great wonders. It happened in the year MDCXL that the lady María Chacón, when she had been in labor for the space of four days, found herself brought so near the end of life that she summoned a herdsman * to draw forth by cutting the child, which was divided into parts, because she judged that thus the mother's life would be preserved; who, set in that struggle, commended herself to St. Raymond, promised various things, and among them that, if the child were born alive, it should be clothed in his holy habit; if a boy, that his name should be given him: and at once she brought forth a little girl, who was still living when the account was written, married to Don N. de Santa Cruz, a knight of the Order of St. James, one of the knights of Soria h. The lady is called Doña Ana de San Ramón.
[88] in Estremadura, and at Écija Doña Ana Ortiz de Vara, in labor in the same city, forsaken by the physicians and fortified with the holy Sacraments, offered herself to St. Raymond, making a vow that she would clothe her child in his holy habit; and she gave birth at once, being restored to health from the labors which she had suffered. And she brought forth into the light a little boy, who long wore our habit, and
from that hour the mother was so religiously affected that, being healed, she made her testament and willed that her body should be buried in our church, leaving to the parish church of that town a splendid funeral. I have in my keeping an authentic inquiry, made on the XII of November in the year MDCXX in the place of Alocayna near the city of Écija i, before Francisco Martín Doria, ordinary magistrate, and before Alfonso Barranquero, scribe of the said place, at the petition of the father preacher brother Pedro de Heredia, a Religious of our Order and conventual of the convent of Écija, who had gone to preach the word of God in the said place. It happened that the aforesaid Religious, when on the said day, which was a Thursday, he was in the house of Bartolomé Alfonso, an inhabitant of the said place, heard that a woman named Catalina Vázquez, wife of Diego Chicón, who were inhabitants of that same place, had been given up, because she had been in labor for twenty-four hours with immense pains, and could not be freed of the child, her strength for this now failing her. Then the Religious told a girl named Luisa, who was the daughter of María Ruiz and Martín Miguel, dwellers in the said place, to go to the house of the woman in labor and to tell her to invoke with all her heart our glorious father St. Raymond Nonnatus and to commend herself to him.
[89] in the province of Andalusia And when the girl had gone and reported the matter before some women who were helping the distress of the woman in labor, she commended herself to the Saint with great faith and truly from her heart. The same the women standing around did, kneeling upon the ground; and at once, feeling the child turn, she gave birth, no one holding it, and no other diligence being applied than what is wont to be applied on occasions of this kind. And María González, who helped the woman in labor, said that the aid of the glorious St. Raymond had scarcely been implored when the woman, who before had been without strength, took the arm of that witness, saying that she wished to give birth, and, rising by the help of a linen cloth which was there at hand, in that short moment of time brought forth an infant, saying that it had been a miracle of St. Raymond, since she had felt no pain in bringing it forth. All gave thanks to God for the miracle, and the Religious, who was privy to the matter, went with a great crowd to the church to testify a grateful mind toward God, giving to the infant who had been born, in memory of the prodigy, the name of Raymond in baptism; and the mother rose up very quickly in health. The same is testified by the said Catalina Vázquez, to whom it happened, and by María Jiménez and other persons present.
[90] Although the following miracle happened forty-nine years after the preceding, of the province I join them, because I received at the same time the inquiry into the former and the testimony of the latter, which stands as follows. On the seventh of February in the year MDCLXIX, at the third hour after noon, there entered the convent of the most blessed Virgin of Mercy of the city of Écija, greatly afflicted, the lord Cristóbal Castrillo y Tamariz, knight of Calatrava k, lord of the places commonly called las Cuevas de Vecerín, Montuxaque, and Veraujan, saying that the lady Antonia de Sanvítores, daughter of the viscount of Cabra, of the holy Christ l, his wife, was dying in childbirth, and that she was being left by him without hope of life, because the child was turned the wrong way, and the mother was lifeless and without strength for two days; and that recourse had been had to God and to all human remedies, and that in the judgment of the physicians and midwives her hour had come.
[91] The reverend father master brother Matías Tamariz was consoling him, have experienced the Saint's singular qualifier of the holy Office and commander of that convent, telling him to hope in the divine mercy through the intercession of St. Raymond, whose wonders had been seen even in more pressing perils. He ordered at once that there should be brought to her a painting exhibiting the half-length of the holy Cardinal, which was in a cell of the commander's house, warning her to commend herself to the Saint, and to hope from God a good issue from her struggle through his patronage. So it was done; and her husband told her to offer herself very earnestly to the holy Cardinal, and to promise him that she would do something festive if he should take her out of that mortal affliction.
[92] She performed this with great piety; and presently she felt the child move instantaneously, help. and there came forth into the light without new pain a very large infant, who is alive even today while these things are being written — although the mother was very young and slender. The prodigy was celebrated with great joy and concourse of the people, since the parents were of the nobility of that illustrious city, which is so well known in Spain. The testimony adds that innumerable are the miracles which God has wrought and works daily through the intercession of the glorious cardinal St. Raymond in that city; but negligence takes little care to record them. It is certain that in the archbishopric of Seville and in the kingdoms of Cordova and Granada there is great devotion toward the glorious Cardinal; and he, making return of thanks, hears those piously affected toward him and follows them with favors, as is public report.
ANNOTATIONS.
\* That is, of Ross, of whom a little before.
\* That is, of the Order of Mercy.
\ alferecía*
\ baquero*
CHAPTER IV.
The declarations of Gerona concerning the Saint's benefits; a boy ruptured from birth preserved; a youth under the ruin of a stable, etc.
What wonders are here given Having hitherto related from Colombo the Saint's wonders toward women afflicted in pregnancy and childbirth, we pass to others of a different kind. We shall omit those which we gave before, translated by Fr. Janninck, and so we go on in Latin from Colombo's Spanish text. As from his wonderful death he was held in such great veneration in the principality of Catalonia, as we have seen, so the wonders were always greater there which our Lord wrought through his intercession. And leaving aside the ancient ones, which are written in the books of his house, and of which a particular note would suffice, we shall nevertheless set down only those which are found in the documents made in the year MDCXII and the next following, because they are deposed upon oath by the men to whom they happened, or who had seen them, and they suffice to show how wonderful God has shown himself in his Saint, since his protection extends to all, and his intercession is sure in all necessities toward those devoted to him.
[94] We shall begin from the city of Gerona, where the inquiries were begun, from others, which set down the declaration of Master Geraldo de San Martí, canon of that holy church, on the XI day of September of the said year, which he wished to be attested by the declaration of his brother Master Rafael de San Martí: I know that in the convent of the Mother of God of Mercy of this city there is a chapel and altar of St. Raymond, and that the chapel is full of various offerings and votive gifts which the faithful have offered for favors received from him; where many Masses of the Saint are celebrated, and I have been and am greatly affected toward him, and have often betaken myself to the said chapel to perform in it novena exercises of devotion, to ask his patronage for my mother's health, taking care that his holy relics should be carried to her (by which she found herself relieved through several years in which she was sick), and piously believing that God preserved her for my comfort for some years amid old age and grievous infirmities through his intercession; and on account of it and of his many wonders which I have seen and heard, I am held by great devotion toward the Saint, and I have him as my patron, and I address to him a particular prayer, that he may be my advocate with God our Lord; and I have invoked him in my necessities with very pious affection, and I have always heard that he was long since inscribed in the canon of the Saints.
[95] On the twelfth of the said month the lord of la Nuza and Mombuy, which are innumerable: lord of the town of Siret and of the castle of Lorcio, dwelling at Gerona, declared that the miracles of St. Raymond in that city and in the neighboring places had been so great that a certain man devoted to the Saint, a man
very curious, when he wished to write down those which were published daily, did not go on, because they were so many and so frequent. And that if his wife Doña Isabel, greatly devoted to the Saint, were still alive, she would report many things which she knew; and that he remembers in particular only that he had heard from her that in her first marriage, having a son of tender age very sick, she asked that the relics of St. Raymond be brought to him, and that through them he grew better, being indeed at once healed.
[96] one reports the benefits bestowed on his forebears. The lord Luis Alemanes de Alemany, dwelling at Gerona, on the same day declared that devotion toward St. Raymond was hereditary in his house, in acknowledgment of the many graces which he owed the Saint; and, passing over the miracles which he had wrought upon his forebears while they lived, that the Saint had repeated his miracles in his house: for when in various sicknesses I asked the Fathers of Mercy to bring me his holy remains, I always believed that by the help of his merits I was made master of my health; and that the same had happened to his wife Doña Ana Alemany; whence it came about that, having experienced his help, when he had anyone sick in his house he took care to have the sacred remains brought before he called the physician; and this on one occasion was not necessary, because by them the sickness was healed; and so in thanksgiving he ordered every year some Masses of the Saint to be celebrated at the altar and chapel which he has in that city.
[97] A boy freed from various diseases, In the same city and on the same occasion Damián Mates, painter of Gerona, declared that when in the year MDCII he had a son named Jerónimo, three years old, despaired of in a grave sickness, so that he already held him as dead, he fled to the glorious St. Raymond Nonnatus, toward whom he was very piously affected, to ask comfort of him, beseeching him by the gladness with which he painted his holy images that that son whom he already held as dead might return. His prayer being finished with great confidence, he asked the Religious to carry his sacred remains to him; and when they came, the child could not speak, nor could he see: they touched him with the sacred remains, and were there about one hour, commending him to the Saint; and I observed (he says) that during that time, in which the Fathers were there with the said sacred pledge, my said son Jerónimo recovered his sight, his speech, and a little strength; and from that time he went on growing better; and Ana Mates his mother led him to the Saint's chapel, where in thanksgiving she caused many Masses to be celebrated. Another miracle the Saint afterwards wrought in that same son of mine, who will tell it, since it happened to him, and it will follow after this declaration, the Fathers who were privy to it confirming it by a new declaration of their own.
[98] and from a rupture which he had had from birth: On the same day Jerónimo Mates, aged thirteen years, son of the said man, made his declaration, saying: I remember that I suffered from a rupture, and my parents told me that I was born so: I went on growing worse until the age of eight years, and, afflicted with the great pains which I felt, I betook myself to the church sacred to the glorious St. Raymond in the convent of the Mother of God of Mercy to perform novena exercises of devotion; because my parents had told me that, when I was a little child, that blessed Saint had wrought a great miracle upon me: I loved him earnestly, and believed that I should be healed by him. That novena devotion being performed — and it was three or four times repeated — although I was held by my malady and my pains, day after day I went on going to his chapel, coming out from school; and I remember that on a certain day, as I was going to school, I fell before the house of Master Francisco de Cruylles, and that the rupture opened with such great pains, and my bowels came out so far, that I could not rise, and they carried me to my house, while I invoked along the way the blessed St. Raymond. I lay abed three or four days with many torments; I rose, and went to the chapel of St. Raymond, and remained sound and well; and about five years having passed, I have never felt the malady, nor am I aware that I have been ruptured. All which the Fathers confirmed in their declaration.
[99] To the deposition of Benito Pons, whose son was preserved with the beasts in the most grievous collapse of a stable by the Saint's patronage, a youth about to be crushed under a stable is preserved: I add from Colombo the declaration of that same son, as I warned in the Annotations on part 1, chapter 5, letter a, upon the same deposition of the aforesaid Benito, which was given in that chapter. The same, says Colombo, Miguel Pons, to whom it happened, swore on the same day; adding, as he read what his father had said, some circumstances of the matter of which the latter, because three years have now passed and he is an old man, did not remember, but which he himself remembered very well, namely: As I was going to tie up the oxen, I heard the main beam crack, and therefore, fearing what happened, I did not tie them, but ran, the stable falling down, and after me four oxen and the bulls, which were three: but we could not reach the door, because the ruin had come first; and I felt the beams come to touch my cap, and I felt my feet and legs covered with divers timbers and boards, and the animals also covered with great beams, which I judged to be as dead: as the roof fell I invoked St. Raymond, and I believe we were delivered from so manifest a peril by his intercession.
[100] The other wonders which were related above in the first part a juridical declaration of Gerona concerning the wonders wrought by the Saint: Colombo concludes with these: There follows in the inquiry of Gerona the juridical declaration of the four Jurats of the city, in which they affirm that St. Raymond Nonnatus, from the memory of their forefathers down to those times, is in all necessities the remedy of that territory, and that therefore he is invoked so far and wide by the faithful in their necessities because of the experience which all have of his help. The same the church and chapter of Gerona declared by a universal promulgation to all the faithful, soliciting their religious devotion toward St. Raymond for the benefits which all receive by his intercession, especially pregnant women in the distresses of their childbirths, all the lords, the Dean, the dignitaries a, and the canons signing, and Jaime Pla, canon of the said church, discharging the office of secretary. The same declares the lord Master Onofre Reart, bishop of Gerona, giving thanks to the faithful for their pious inclination toward St. Raymond, approving and declaring of what kind those miracles are.
[101] In the Annotations on chapter one of the first part, letter l, I indicated another wonderful matter, a mule given back its life. which the wife of Juan Blanch, otherwise Xiol, confirming her husband's deposition, reports; for she added that in the past summer a year had elapsed since, when a household servant of hers was carrying loads on a mule whose hide was of a mouse color b, and which had cost forty ducats, the laden mule fell over a rock, and so indeed that it lay there dead; and they sent to Solsona to summon master Romanet, that he might flay it. He delayed at that afternoon hour; and the witness, taking it ill that he did not come, said to St. Raymond with great piety — because she had seen miracles in like events — that, if he would restore the mule to her sound, she promised she would carry to his church a measure of wheat c. And on the next morning she went to see whether he had already flayed the mule, and found it standing up and grazing; and she and all who were in the place and had seen it dead praised God and gave thanks to St. Raymond; and she paid the vow which she had promised the Saint, this crown being set upon the matter, that from that time the mule was better, and was such as it had never been before.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
The declarations of Perpignan concerning various evils removed by the Saint's patronage.
A woman in peril of life, another in a certain malady, are aided: Miguel Bonet, priest, doctor in theology and rector of the parish church of St. Matthew of Perpignan, declared that from his early years he was affected with a great affection toward St. Raymond because of the many miracles which the Saint wrought at that time in that city, of which he did not remember each singly: he remembers only one, because it was very famous, both on account of the quality of the woman to whom it happened and on account of the peril of life in which she was held by a miscarriage, being unable to bring forth the child, which they said was dead. They brought the Saint's relics to her, and scarcely had she venerated them when she brought forth the child, whether alive or dead was not known; but the woman at once recovered.
And so also he remembers that a certain lettered man, named Juan Pellicer, sent to the Saint's chapel a white waxen torch to burn at his altar; and that he had heard it said that he did this on account of a great miracle which he had wrought for him; but what that was he did not remember, since it was many years past. All see that his chapel is full of votive offerings of gold and silver, of waxen figures, of shrouds, all which are signs of the miracles which the Saint has wrought.
[103] a mule wondrously drawn out of a well: José de Torres, father of the girl of whom see above in part 1, number 26, confirmed his wife's declaration, and added another wonder which St. Raymond had wrought for him. A mule of his fell into a well which is in a field near Cabestany: they sought men to draw it out; and only one man and one woman being found, it was attempted by the three together with one youth, his son, but in vain; for twenty men, and very strong ones, would not suffice to draw a mule out of a well; and when he saw himself in distress, he went to summon more men, fearing lest on his return he should find it suffocated; but, no more being found, he made use of the patronage of the glorious father St. Raymond, and presently conceived such confidence that he believed that, with the Saint's help, he would draw it out of the well with those few, safe and sound. When he returned, he saw his son on bended knees invoking the help of the blessed Saint; whereby he gained such hope that, at the invocation of St. Raymond, the man and woman who were helping, their courage renewed, threw down well-plaited ropes; and one, going down, tied the mule, which they drew out safe and unharmed so happily that it was recognized to have been a miracle of St. Raymond; and so he had it painted in his chapel.
[104] José Marcell, surgeon, dwelling at Perpignan, another mule healed: declared that he had bought a mule very
excellent, as was apparent from the great price which he gave for it. A few months afterwards it fell sick, and for three days did not eat nor drink, nor could it rise, so that it was necessary to lift it up that the farrier might treat it, and to have many men to hold it; otherwise it fell. Seeing it destitute of remedy, he ordered it to be dragged into the field to die. Then his wife's sister, beholding not without feeling the distress in which he was, commended it to St. Raymond, and told him to do the same; and, a whip being applied, they made it stand on its feet, and, the Saint being invoked, she bade the maid loose the rope and lead it to the little meadow of the convent of St. Mary of Mercy; where she set it to eat, after she had prayed to the holy Cardinal. But seeing that it would not crop the grass which was near the Saint's chapel, she began to weep, judging it as good as dead. Then a Religious came from the convent, who, pitying her distress and knowing why she wept, and marveling at the woman's faith (since it seemed to her that if the mule ate of the grass which was about his chapel it would at once be healed), took from his cell a riband with a medal of the Saint, and put it about its neck; and presently it pleased God that the mule rose and ate. She ran to call the declarant, who came in gladness, and, having seen the miracle, entered the church, and, thanks being given to the Saint, left alms that Masses might be celebrated at his altar.
[105] Juan de Ortega, scribe of the city of Perpignan, a perilous wound and chief notary of the reverend apostolic chamber in the whole diocese of Elne, declared that in the year MDCIV a great and hard humor attacked the right foot of his daughter, called Cecilia de Ortega, and that, remedies being applied to soften the malady, the surgeon opened it unseasonably: from which came forth a drop of blood and a little pus. Her parents commended her to the blessed St. Raymond, which she also did. For the space of a year they treated her, the swelling not being softened; and when they caused the father much anxiety, he instituted a consultation of physicians and surgeons to consider what remedy could be given that his daughter might be healed. All came to this opinion: that although the time at which it might be softened was unknown, since the humor was cold, yet she would then be exposed to peril, or at least it would come about that they must cut off her foot, because that tenacity of humor of a year and more would consume and corrupt the sinews of the foot; and therefore, in order to examine the matter, the foot must be cut open on the upper part.
[106] And I, seeing the peril, since the part is so full of sinews and difficult, cured, hesitated in doubt about the execution, and therefore asked the space of three days that I might consult God. Mindful of the great miracles which our Lord works through the intercession of St. Raymond for his pious clients, and all my household being very piously affected toward him, and my daughter having commended herself to the Saint with confidence that she would be healed by him, I betook myself to his chapel, and caused some Masses to be celebrated, that by his patronage God might inspire me with what was more fitting. I made a vow to visit his chapel for nine days, and to offer him a silver foot, if my daughter should be healed; and there the Saint seemed to inspire me to permit the matter to medicine, and that my daughter should be healed by it. Presently I caused to be carried into execution what the consultation of physicians and surgeons had prescribed, after I had told my wife and the sick girl that I believed this had been inspired by St. Raymond. They opened the foot on the upper part, made an incision in the form of a cross, and, examining it earnestly, marveled that the sinews were found without the injury which was feared, after the flowing of the humor within the foot for a year and more: which we attributed to the pious affection with which my daughter daily commended herself to St. Raymond. They treated her, and, not without the wonder of the surgeons, within twenty days she was so sound and well that she was able to go on her own foot to give thanks to the Saint in his chapel.
[107] as also a farmer's son accounted dead: Galcerán de Gelí, farmer of Perpignan, declared that in the past year MDCIX his little son named José had died, according to the opinion of the physicians; and when he saw that he no longer moved, he took him from the bed and laid him upon a chest, with nothing placed beneath, that they might bury him; and going out of the chamber to betake himself to the courtyard, he returned to recite a prayer before an image of St. Raymond which stood above the door of the chamber in which his son lay. And then he felt an inward impulse to ask of the glorious Cardinal his life, promising that he would clothe him for seven years in the habit of his Order, and would take care that at his own expense a lamp should burn for one year before his altar; and his wife, who was there present, vowed that she would at once hasten on her knees to the church of St. Martin, which is the convent of his Order, which was near by; and so I went with her to recite some prayers to the blessed St. Raymond. We remained at the door, because, since it was so late, the convent was already shut. While they were there, there came men to tell them that their son was moving. They went thither, and saw him opening his eyes and speaking; and he quickly obtained health; and the man fulfilled his promises.
[108] The Saint, in a grievous mishap, He swore also that four days before, when he was helping to lift up a sack of grapes, that it might be cast into a vat supported on four wooden feet, and one of the four feet being broken, the vat, which contained nine heavy loads of grapes, fell upon him, and he invoked the blessed Saint, and seemed to himself to have been removed to the other side, being certain to be crushed if the vat had fallen upon him; but it caught the leg of the youth who was lifting the sack of grapes, and he cried out, judging it to be broken in pieces. The witness told him to commend himself to St. Raymond: which he did, and drew out his foot unhurt, saying that it seemed to him, while he was uttering the words, St. Raymond, do not forsake me, that the vat was lifted away, and that his leg was left with the socket of the bone in place; and both went to the Saint's church to give him thanks.
[109] and in various Antonio de la Pedra, an inhabitant of Perpignan, swore that in the year MDCXI he had been brought in a sickness to the state of receiving extreme unction, and forsaken by the physicians. His wife, seeing him destitute of earthly remedies, had recourse to the heavenly; and knowing that many in that city who were in that distress had obtained health from the glorious St. Raymond Nonnatus by the help of his prayers, she invoked him, asking that, if it conduced to his salvation, he would restore health to her husband, some vows being made to the Saint. She took care also to have the Saint's relics brought to him, which he venerated with great piety, and promised that he would have some Masses celebrated at his altar, and would hear them himself, and would carry thither his own funeral cloth; and presently the fever left him; nor would he call a physician, because he felt himself quite well; and at once his wife went to have the Saint's jubili sung; and her husband within a few days, to pay his vow.
[110] Onofre Costa, merchant of Perpignan, declared diseases that about eight months before he had offered to St. Raymond Nonnatus his infant son of two years, already near death from a trembling of the limbs, promising that, if he should give him health, he would have the miracle painted in his chapel, and would clothe him for one year in his holy habit. He caused his remains to be brought; which as soon as he had venerated, we perceived him to be better, and within a few days he recovered.
He swore that the same happened in this year MDCXII in the case of his wife, set in the same peril, though not in the same sickness: who, being anointed with the sacred Oil and hopeless of life, recovered her health through the relics of St. Raymond; and she and her son were well when the inquiry was made.
[111] Francisco Vich, gardener, an inhabitant of Perpignan, declared is a preserver. that in this present year he had labored under a sickness which oppressed him with such distress that the physician who was treating him asked that colleagues be summoned; for the sickness was very singular, and by its signs a forerunner of death. His wife, desiring his health, called four physicians, who in the month during which they treated him — besides another month during which he had been sick before — wasted his health and his money, and declared at last that they found no cure for the malady, nor remedies for his health. They, when they saw themselves forsaken on earth, fled to heaven, implored the help of St. Raymond, some vows being made to him, brought his sacred pledge, and with it came health: for from that time he began to be better, and without physicians was quickly sound and well.
CHAPTER VI.
The Saint a preserver in miseries, from the declarations of Gerona.
Many By the commission of the lord bishop of Gerona, in the same year MDCXII an inquiry into miracles was made in the town of Castellón de Ampurias, where the noble Francisco de Boix, doctor of law, declared that about four years before he had come with his family to that town, where the territory so tried him that almost most of them fell sick; but his wife, one son, and two daughters were greatly oppressed. He, out of the great affection of piety with which all are borne toward St. Raymond, seeing himself greatly afflicted, invoked him, and the sick women did the same; and it pleased our Lord that no one incurred peril, but rather that they recovered health, the Saint's remains being brought to them by the Fathers of the convent of St. Bartholomew, who are of the same Order; and presently we all went to give thanks to the Saint in his chapel and to pay some vows.
He added that a year before he had had a boy very sick, to whom the physicians who were treating him declared that there was no remedy for his malady: the disease was a failing of strength. But I, trusting more in the experience which I had gained of the Saint's favor than in their opinion, invoked the Saint with great confidence, and obtained his patronage: for on the same day on which the physicians forsook him, I had the Saint's sacred pledge brought, and the child began to be better, and quickly became well, and is such today.
[113] and various The illustrious Jerónimo de Lluch, an inhabitant of Perpignan, declared that his wife had labored under continual fevers, with paroxysms so burning that great fear seized the physicians. He, always devoted to St. Raymond, asked of a Religious of Mercy the Saint's riband, and when it had been bound to the sick woman's arm the fever ceased from that moment, and very quickly she was able to go to the Saint's chapel to give him thanks.
The worshipful Pedro Pablo Perpiñá, doctor of law and assessor in the county of Ampurias, declared that when Miguel Davia, procurator of Castellón, had a son at the point of death, he commended him to St. Raymond: they brought him the sacred
remains, and at once he recovered; and in token of the miracle they placed a funeral cloth in his chapel with a candle of white wax which equaled the boy's height.
Isabel Joncar, dwelling at Castellón, swore that her daughter was suddenly restored to health by the mere touch of the sacred pledge of St. Raymond in the said place, when she had already come to the last struggle of life.
[114] sicknesses Tomás Domenech, apothecary of Castellón, declared that two months before his daughter, named Vicenta, of the age of two years and a half, after suffering a great crudity of the stomach, whence arose a corruption of worms and a flux of the bowels, and fevers being added to the malady, was forsaken by the physicians. His wife took care to have the remains of St. Raymond brought; and when she had venerated them, the child came to herself; the fevers left her, and she was so cheerful that in that afternoon hour she gave herself to play with other girls, saying that she was now well, and that she had been healed by St. Raymond: wherefore they went to his chapel and caused a Mass to be sung with his jubili, because the girl enjoyed her former health.
Jaime Llorente Cubells, an inhabitant of Castellón, declared that in the year MDCX he had been seized with an inflammation of the head, which, descending from the brain to the shoulder, caused him immense pains, and that he was brought to such straits that they for the most part applied an incision to him. But this not only did not profit, but rather brought him to such a state that the physicians despaired of his life. Seeing himself in this distress, he invoked the glorious St. Raymond, binding himself by a vow that, if God through his intercession should restore his health, he would place in his chapel a waxen head; and scarcely had he made the vow when the pain ceased, and the wound closed very quickly, and he went away to fulfill his vow.
[115] The above is confirmed by María Llorente, his wife, adding to the declaration that, a year after the miracle happened to her husband, she had an infant whom she was nursing very sick, and, three days having passed in which he did not suck the breast, are cured by the invocation of the Saint: he was known to be dying. She offered him to St. Raymond, promising that, if he were healed, she would clothe him for one year in the Saint's habit. The Fathers of Mercy brought the remains of St. Raymond, and in the same moment in which they applied them to the boy, he sucked and recovered.
Jerónimo Marca, an inhabitant of Castellón, said that about eight months before his wife had labored under so great a sickness that, human remedies failing for her recovery, the physicians declared that she was dying; and therefore they gave her the Sacrament of extreme unction; and then together with her he promised to the glorious St. Raymond Nonnatus, asking him to deign to entreat God that he would free her from the sickness under which she labored, that in token of a grateful mind for the favor they would carry to his chapel a funeral garment; and the vow being made, it was at once found that the sick woman was better; and very quickly she recovered; whence they gave thanks to God and to the Saint for the miracle.
[116] In part 1, chapter 3, number 21, Gaspar Escolá, an inhabitant of the place of Las Borjas, deposes to a singular grace in a mule healed through the Saint, a beast made gentle: about which this is added in Colombo: He declared also that a mare had foaled in his house, and during the foaling had begun to attack the foal with bites and with her feet, and would have killed it if it had not been separated from her. And men are called to hold the mare that she might give the teats; seeing which, she went into a fury, and threw down all who held her, the ropes with which she was bound being broken; hence, since there was no one to suckle the foal, it was dying without remedy. The declarant promised St. Raymond two measures of wheat *, and at once, relying on great confidence in God, he approached, and the mare began to lick the foal and to suckle it, no longer forsaking it. Which all held as a miracle. He fulfilled his vow. The event was confirmed by Tomás Capella and Antonio Capella, farmers of the same place, who were witnesses.
In part 1, chapter 4, mention was made of an event in the same place of las Borjas, as it is there called; in Colombo de Borjas, who suggests more to be added to the above event: In that same place, he says, the Saint brought a remedy to the need of Juan de Villagrasa, a mule being healed which was already accounted as dead, as we said above.
[117] Pedro de Fors, farmer, an inhabitant of Borjas, declared upon oath a boy accounted dead comes to life again. that his son, named Pedro, about twenty years before had been seized with a trembling of the limbs from a crudity of the stomach, because he had eaten many fresh almonds: whence in the judgment of all he was dying. And when they found in him all the marks of a dead man, a mirror being carefully applied, and saw that he did not breathe, they covered his face and went away to treat of his burial. Then the lady Valls, a woman of the people, said to the father, whom she saw so afflicted at his son's death, and because a journey of great moment made him anxious, that he should offer that boy to the glorious St. Raymond Nonnatus; that she knew that God, by his patronage, had wrought like miracles (which, if she had seen them, she would declare); and that I should do this with much faith in God and confidence in his Saint. I did so, and promised some things, and at once * (as his declaration indicates), when I had made the said vows, I uncovered the boy, and he opened his eyes and said: Father; and he was as well as if he had never felt anything of the malady. Which we held for a great miracle, because we saw how suddenly he passed from death to life. I fulfilled my vows, and the miracle was written in the book belonging to the Saint's sacred church. The matter was confirmed by Pedro de Mora, an inhabitant of the said place, who swore that about twenty years before, when he was to make a short journey with Pedro Fores, he went to him, and he told him that he could not, because his son was dying; and that on the same day he returned cheerful and said that both might now set out, since his son, commended by him to the glorious father St. Raymond Nonnatus, had promptly returned from death to life; he added that he had heard the miracle at once published in the place. The same was sworn by Juana Pellicer, the boy's aunt a; and she declared that he was living; and so she had heard it said by those who had been present with him; and that for this cause she was greatly affected toward St. Raymond Nonnatus.
ANNOTATION.
\ de dos quarteras de trigo*
\ Spanish, incontinente*
CHAPTER VII.
The declarations of Portell show the Saint's beneficence toward the afflicted.
[Men] Although we have written some declarations of Portell above, yet so many are there in the inquiries that from these alone a book could be written. We shall set down only a few. Antonio Manuellas, farmer of Portell, of the age of sixty years, had heard from his early years the old men tell the wonders of which we have written in the Saint's Life; and how the chief passages of his life were painted on tablets of ancient painting which was at his altar. He confirms also what we have reported from the witnesses concerning the concourse of the people to his holy church; and how his relics are carried to the sick of those places; and that so many are the miracles which are daily published of the Saint by those who come to give him thanks that the said witness cannot remember them, and that they can be read in the books which are written of them and are kept in the archives of his convent. This occurs to the witness: that, when he had an aunt * in the place of Santa Fe a very sick, whom they said was dying, he brought her a little water blessed and touched by the Saint's remains, and as soon as she had drunk it the fevers left her; and he heard it said that the same had happened to many other persons of Portell.
[119] and beasts are healed: a drought removed: many other He remembers in particular the health which, by his patronage, Isabel Solera, a girl born in that place, obtained; because that miracle became very widely known on account of certain circumstances which attended it, and which he does not remember. He adds also that the farmers of that territory receive much good from the Saint through the miracles which he works in their beasts, and that therefore all fortify themselves with the Saint's ribands, medals, and images; that there was a year in which on his feast day more than twenty thousand men flocked together, and that in all la Segarra he is honored and held as a special patron; and that when many years ago there was a drought by which the crops were withering, his holy body was carried to the town of Cervera with crosses and banners of the whole territory, and it had scarcely arrived there when so great a rain fell that many crops were gathered.
At Manresana, Nicolás Miguel, chief minister of justice and ordinary judge of that place, declared that he had an ox which was already reckoned as dead; and that his father knelt and directed his eyes toward the Saint's church, and implored his help, a measure of wheat being offered; and that in that very point of time the ox rose up sound and strong; that he carried the wheat to the Saint's church, and that it was seen to go round several times about his church; that cases of this kind are innumerable, which he saw with his own eyes; that for many years he has been the general patron of that territory on account of his great miracles, and that Manresana bound itself by a vow that the inhabitants of the whole place should go every year in procession to his church on the fifteenth day of May.
[120] And the illustrious Master Carlos Copóns y Aymerich, lord of Manresana and Monroz, wonders declared that he had seen in his house the miracles of St. Raymond multiplied upon his servants and his animals; and that he could not designate one single miracle, but could only explain the prodigies which God works through St. Raymond from the multitude of peoples who flock together at his feast, and the greater part of them by reason of a vow for some benefit obtained from the Saint: that he had been so placed that from his castle of Manresana he beheld the people coming by four roads, which look toward the four parts of the world, and that for some hours nothing else was seen but men and animals coming to the Saint's church; that his father, while he himself was present, in a certain year counted from that same castle, on the road by which one goes out toward Barcelona, and by which the smaller part of the people comes, five hundred white mules; and that from this it may be gathered how many the others were; and he concludes that, if all the miracles which he has heard of St. Raymond were to be written, many books would not contain them.
[121] Pedro Juan Posalgues, an inhabitant of the place of las Olujas in the bishopric of Urgel, in beasts healed. of the age of eighty-two years, declared, from the knowledge of his parents and grandparents and of others
very aged, from whom he had heard when a youth, and who, as it seems to him, reached a hundred and fifty years and more, those things which we have written of the Saint's life; and that from that same time descends the memory of his continual miracles, of which he has experienced many in his own house: that he remembers that, when a certain mule was sick in his house, and the farrier had been summoned, after many treatments, on a certain morning he said that they should lead her out into the field to die: that no remedy was left. He, lying in bed, hearing this, rose, knelt, and, a prayer being directed to the blessed St. Raymond, offered him that, if the mule should recover, he would carry by her to his church half a measure of wheat , and would accompany her barefoot; and at once the mule ate and recovered. He declared also that a mule which he had, while threshing b the crops at Manresana, was seized with so violent a pain of the belly that, reckoning it as dead, they cast it on the dunghill. He, being privy to the matter, went to the church of St. Raymond and prayed to him, setting forth his need, and bringing the Saint's riband, bound it about the mule's neck; and at once it rose up as though it had had no ailment.
[122] A priest is freed from a grave sickness, Pedro Rocha, licentiate, priest and rector of the place commonly called Guspi, sixty-six years old, confirming from the tradition of his forebears those things which have been said of the life and miracles, declared in general that seven girls of his parish, when he was oppressed with a grave sickness, went barefoot to the Saint's church and prayed for him, and that it pleased God, by the help of the merits of St. Raymond, that when they returned they found him well, because the fever had left him; and he declares upon oath that, though the matter is so ancient, nothing is heard more frequently throughout all la Segarra than new miracles of St. Raymond.
[123] and a woman despaired of: of a beast and a sick man. José Canaleta, farmer, of the place of Guspi, declared that the miracles which God has wrought through St. Raymond in la Segarra are a boundless sea, and therefore that no end would ever be found if anyone wished to number them one by one; and so he will say in this place only those things which happened in his own house, under the oath taken by him. For the space of one month he had his wife very sick: she was brought to such a state that they set a limit to the hours of her life; they therefore bring her the sacred Oil, and when they were anointing her with it he with great effort invoked the glorious St. Raymond Nonnatus, promising that, if he should restore her health, he would go barefoot to his chapel, and would have a Mass celebrated at his altar and his jubili sung; and presently it was found that she was better, and, as she recovered very quickly, they both went to fulfill their vow.
At another time, when the declarant was coming from Montmagastre about twenty years before, his beast fell sick on the road; and coming to the boundary of Guspi it fell in the middle of the way as though dead, as it seemed, and, being held for such, they cast it down from a rock. It came into his mind, as he returned home, to invoke the glorious father St. Raymond, and he promised him a measure of wheat * if by his intercession it should recover life: the vow being uttered, I turned my head and saw that the animal had risen and was following after us quite well and sound. I gave thanks to God and fulfilled my vow.
On another occasion I had a son so ill that they watched by him for several nights, expecting his death from hour to hour; whom, after I had offered him to the glorious father St. Raymond and had promised certain things, it pleased God, by the patronage of his merits, to restore to health; and many other goods were conferred upon his house through the intercession which they had in the Saint.
[124] A priest wondrously preserved from death: The venerable Francisco Porta, priest, an inhabitant of Cervera, declared that from boyhood he was affected with great devotion toward the glorious St. Raymond, from whom he obtained singular favors; and he said this in particular: that, when in the past January he had come late to the Saint's church, he remained in prayer and commended himself to the blessed Saint. When he had gone out, because it was late, he came to the castle of Malacara to sleep there, and cried at the gate; and when they did not recognize him as they opened, five servants rushed upon him armed with muskets: he implored the help of the blessed Saint; and although two of them released the wheel of their muskets, yet the piece did not take fire. Both he and they, learning of the deed, attributed it to a miracle of the Saint: for since the muskets were good and in use, it could not happen except by a miracle c that both should fail of their shot. And so, when day had dawned, he went to celebrate Mass at his altar in thanksgiving.
[125] Mateo Roca, farmer, of the place of Montfalcó, declared a blind cow cured: that, when he had a blind cow and saw that she was of no service to him, he commended her to St. Raymond, and offered him a measure of wheat *, and went on his knees from the corner of the Saint's church to the church, and there prayed earnestly: returning home, he found his cow seeing better, and today he has her in his house strong and sound. He declared also that, when the same misfortune had happened in the house of Pedro de Armengol his neighbor, and he had told him in how short a time, by the patronage of St. Raymond, she had recovered her sight, he used the same diligence, and with such happy success that his cow obtained her sight.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ Spanish, tía*
\ una quartera de trigo*
\ Spanish, dar algunas bueltas*
\ In the Spanish una mana, perhaps una mañana*, as I have translated.
\ Spanish, media quartera de trigo*
\ una quartera de trigo*
\ una quartera de trigo*
CHAPTER VIII.
The declarations of Barcelona and Vich concerning others preserved by the invocation of the holy Wonder-worker.
Innumerable At Barcelona the lord Master Luis Sans a, bishop there, examined the witnesses himself. The reverend Pablo Pla, doctor of law, archdeacon and canon of that holy church, of the age of seventy years, declared that for the space of thirty years and more he had been vicar general and commissary of the Crusade b in that bishopric, and that it was known to him through those offices that innumerable are the miracles which God had wrought in that city and diocese through the sacred pledge of St. Raymond, which was in the royal convent of Mercy of that city, especially in women in childbirth; and that he knew also that many wonders had happened to blind men, who received their sight when their eyes were anointed with the oil of the lamp of his chapel; and that he remembers that, when he was studying at Lérida, a doctor who was called master Biosca, and who had lost his sight, hearing the many miracles which our Lord works by the patronage of the said glorious Saint, being moved to devotion came to Barcelona to visit the church of St. Raymond Nonnatus, and, arriving where the said witness was studying, told him the cause of his journey to the aforesaid church, and that the pain of his eyes had ceased, and that he had been healed, after being anointed with the oil of the lamp which is lighted before the glorious Saint; and that from that time the declarant is very piously affected toward St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[127] The wonders of St. Raymond Master Francisco de Ivorra, Baron of Cervelló and Bellera, lord of the place of St. Vincent, of Cirera, and of other places, declared that he knows that all things are true which are said of the life of St. Raymond, because he was brought up in his own lands, which lie about Portell, and heard them from his forebears, who had read these things in a very ancient book which no longer appears; and that he had likewise seen them painted in the picture of the Saint's church, which was made beyond the memory of men; and that, according to the ancient tablets and writings which he has seen, from the Saint's death his miracles began, and that therefore the devotion of the peoples changed the name of St. Nicholas given to the church into the name of St. Raymond; and that so many are the prodigies which are numbered from that time that what he has heard cannot possibly be reported; and that he will only relate what happened in his own house: where, when there were sick persons, the Saint's remains were at once brought, and experience taught many wonders.
[128] toward men and beasts are declared. At Vich the witnesses declared before the lord Master Antonio Gallart, their bishop. The first who declared was Juan Rexada, doctor of theology and canon of the holy church of Vich, that, when he was rector of a certain place near la Segarra, he went to his sacred church on his feast day, and, beholding so great a multitude of people, stood astonished, because he had never seen such a number together in his life: for the opinion was that more than eighteen thousand men had run thither, and that the animals were of no less number. But he wondered chiefly at this, that he saw many animals weak, spent, and seemingly unable to move themselves, run so nimbly that it seemed a prodigy; and in this state all were bringing wheat, one more, another less; and returning to his rectory he asked his parishioners from what time they had had that pious devotion. They answered that they had it by inheritance from their forefathers, and that no memory of men remained of when it had begun; and that they had heard countless miracles of the Saint, but that he would relate only one, of which he was a witness.
[129] A mule near death recovers: A certain man of his parish was greatly afflicted because his mule was dying, and, having no remedy, he ordered it to be carried into the field lest it should die in his house, since it had for some days now fallen upon the ground and did not eat. Thus afflicted he came to the declarant, who, while he was consoling him, a certain man told him to put upon the mule's neck a riband of St. Raymond, and to invoke the Saint, and to see how his mule would be healed: since he had seen greater wonders. He invoked the Saint, and promised that, if he should restore its health, he would carry by it a measure of wheat * to his church, and went with this declarant to the field, where they found the mule stretched out: he put the riband about its neck, and all invoked St. Raymond Nonnatus; and it was wonderful to see that at once the animal rose up quite well; and this witness confirmed all that he had heard of the Saint's miracles.
[130] A Religious of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy fallen from a very high place Father Fray Miguel Sagarra, of the Order of the most blessed Virgin of Mercy, declared that
on the twentieth day of October in the year MCDXCVIII, when he was sacristan of his convent, he betook himself to the palace of the lord bishop to fetch back a ladder which he had lent for adorning it at the coming of the lord Master Francisco Robuster y Sala of good memory, formerly bishop of Vich. They had raised the ladder up to a very lofty story which is above the hall named Sabernat, and which is much higher than the roof of the wall of that city, containing a height of twenty ells with a fourth part of a cane of Montpellier, which is eight palms in length; and, that he might not bring it down by the stairs of the palace, the witness resolved to let it down through a window of that story upon the gallery of the wall.
But lest the ladder should fall with an impetuous descent and injure the roof, the witness wished to guide it to the gallery from the window; but its weight overcoming him, it drew him out through the window, invoking the help of the glorious St. Raymond; and it seemed to him that he was whirled about several times in the air, and that he ever said: St. Raymond, help me; and he fell on his back upon stones, tiles, and bricks, but unharmed; and he says indeed that he distinctly heard the voices of the people who saw him and commended him to God, and judged him to be cut in pieces; yet he rose up strong and sound, telling all who came up in wonder that it was a miracle of St. Raymond. Nevertheless his fellow conventuals made him remain in bed and not rise for three days; but when he saw himself free from pain or any ill, he rose and went out through the city, all giving thanks to God because he showed himself so prodigious in the glorious father St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[131] The matter was confirmed by doctor Cristóbal Vilanera, and not hurt: physician of Vich, saying that he had been in the place in which Father Sagarra fell, and that it, being measured in his presence from the window of the story to the place into which he fell, has a height of twenty ells and one fourth part of the measure of Montpellier, which contains twice the measure of the Castilian ell, since it comprises a height of eight palms; and he declares that it could not have happened without a miracle that he should live: for he must have been burst asunder, or his bones broken; and because he was unharmed, as all clearly saw, and I was a witness, I believe it was a miracle of the glorious father St. Raymond Nonnatus, whom the Religious invoked in his peril. The same was declared by doctor Francisco Martínez, physician of Vich, who was present. Baltasar Pla and Jaime Morlaus, who saw the matter, confirmed it. Father master brother Antillón reports in the Epitome of the Saint's life that the noble lady Doña Jerónima de Vilademany told him, when he was Commander at Vich, that from the balcony of her house c she had seen him falling, and had sent her servants, judging him to be burst in pieces, who found him unharmed, though astonished; and that three days later he came to that lady's house strong and sound.
[132] Francisco Casaus, cleric, of the age of seventeen years, a rupture from birth, declared that he had had a rupture from birth, and that the malady had grown worse and worse, and that he had several times been brought to the extremity; that his parents had taken care that physicians and surgeons should bring a remedy; that at the age of seven they left him without remedy, saying that the rupture was incurable. His parents offered him to the glorious St. Raymond, and led him to his chapel: they had a Mass said, at which he was present very piously, invoking the help of the glorious Saint; and at the end of the Mass the bandages with which he wore the rupture bound fell off, and, as he was not wearing breeches, they fell to the ground; others seeing this, since he himself did not feel it. His parents and those who were present at once examined him, and found him as unharmed and sound as if he had never labored under such a malady; and Fr. Antillón reports that he had converse with him afterwards, when he was in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and that he related to him the aforesaid miracle and said that he had had no pain until that day. The matter was confirmed in her declaration by Aldonza * Casaus his mother, as it has been related, and by other persons.
[133] Isabel Sabella declared that, when eight years before she was laboring grievously under a pestilent fever d, and a woman's pestilent fever, there grew upon her a pain of the side with lethargy: whence she was brought to a state of despair, and was fortified with extreme unction, two Fathers of Mercy preparing her to die well. But she, although she conformed herself to the divine will, had great confidence that she would be healed by the glorious father St. Raymond: for she was exceedingly piously affected toward him, and had earnestly commended herself to him, and had his sacred remains at her pillow. On the very night on which they anointed her, it seemed to her that the glorious St. Raymond entered her chamber in that garb and with those tokens with which they paint him, and gave her his blessing, and that she at once fell asleep, and so remained until the morning; when Ana Fontanelles, her niece, came and said that she was returning from the house of Mercy, where she had caused a Mass to be said in honor of the glorious Saint and his jubili to be sung for her recovery, and had vowed that she would carry the winding-sheet of the corpse to the Saint's chapel, and a picture of the miracle, if her aunt should recover. The sick woman answered her: Then you may bring it now; for St. Raymond appeared to me and healed me. The miracle was published; to which greater applause was added because the licentiate Matabaques, pastor in that place of Vich, at that morning hour, knowing that the sick woman's niece had made a vow to St. Raymond of carrying a funeral cloth to his chapel if her aunt recovered her health, had said: The blessed Saint may well seek other winding-sheets for himself, for of this one there is nothing to be hoped: for I left her dead in the night. But learning that she was quite well, marveling at the matter he betook himself to her house, confessing that St. Raymond was prodigious.
[134] whose son also recovered, The same woman declared that her son Baltasar Sabell about eight months before had come in a grave sickness to the point of death; and she, with the confidence which she has in the prodigious father St. Raymond, bound herself by a vow that, if he would restore her son's health, she would go barefoot to his chapel for twenty-five days; and as soon as she had made the vow he began to be better, and shortly recovered, and she fulfilled her vow.
[135] are healed, and a dropsy Ana Fontanelles, the sick woman's niece, confirmed the first miracle, relating what had passed with the pastor Matabaques, and that laughing she had said to him what is written above; and that, when she saw her aunt quite well, she took the cloth e under her arm, and to the honor of the blessed St. Raymond went to seek the pastor, and said: Sir, see here the winding-sheet of my aunt, which I am carrying to his chapel, because the Saint has healed her. He, marveling at the matter, went to the sick woman's house, not ceasing to believe the miracle. And she declared that the glorious St. Raymond had conferred upon the declarant the favor of another miracle: for when she was dropsical and monstrously swollen for a whole year, her husband told her to place her confidence in the blessed St. Raymond; that he had caused six Masses to be said at his altar for her health, and had conceived great confidence that by his patronage she would be healed. She did this with great piety, and presently thereafter she began to lose her swelling, and without any other remedy recovered.
[136] María Font, wife of José Font, carpenter, as also a girl's trembling of the limbs. declared that about two months before her daughter, named Mariana, of the age of two years and a half, had been seized with a trembling of the limbs, from which she remained as though dead without speech and without motion of the lips f. The afflicted parents commended her to St. Raymond, and desired that she might survive alive until the morning, when the Saint's remains could be brought, being raised up with great confidence that their daughter would be healed by them. As soon as it dawned, her husband betook himself to the convent of Mercy, and, since the sacred remains were away from the house, asked the father Commander at once to say a Mass in the Saint's honor for her health, and to send the sacred pledge to him. Returning home he found his daughter in the same state. A little afterwards came father brother Brotons, a Mercedarian, bringing the relics of St. Raymond; and scarcely had he touched the sick child when she came to herself, just as if oil had been added to a lamp which is going out. The girl opened her eyes, took the relics in her hands, venerated them, and in that very instant recovered; and on the next day, when she had risen, they led her to the Saint's chapel to give thanks to God. The above was confirmed by María Bona her neighbor, who was present. The same was declared by José Font, the girl's father.
[137] In the same city of Vich there declared before the lord bishop Segismundo Toll, an inhabitant of Vich, A boy paralytic and shaken with continual motion, a witness presented by Fr. master Fray Juan Horno y Antillón, Commander of the convent of the Virgin of Mercy, and said: Most reverend Lord, what I know concerning the question proposed by your most reverend lordship is this: that my son, whose name is Justo Toll, and who at that time had reached the age of six or seven years, more or less, was a companion to another son of mine in going to hear the Christian doctrine, which a priest called master Pérez taught in the marketplace; likewise that, after both had gone out strong and sound, while they were hearing the Christian doctrine, a palsy seized Justo, from which his hands were so shaken with continual motion that it could not be stopped. Which thing moved him who was teaching the Christian doctrine to strike his head with a cane, judging that he was playing. But seeing him continue and weep, he ordered him to be brought to my house. So he went on suffering from the affection of his hands, to our great grief, being unable to use them for taking food and drink because of the continual motion. The affection was so sudden that at home too we judged him to be playing; and therefore his mother and I several times pulled his ears; but seeing the motion continue, and weeping that we had chastised him though innocent, we took care to consider what this might come to; and on the next day we saw the same event in his feet and legs, so that he could no longer stand upon his feet; and therefore we called a physician to treat him.
[138] He prescribed for him bleedings, purgings, and many other medicines, which had this effect, that he did not move his hands and feet, being now become like a trunk. A year and more having passed, the physician said to me: the remedies of the physicians being applied in vain, Toll, spend no more money; your son is deprived of his limbs, and all the remedies in the world will profit him nothing. Since you are a carpenter, you can make him a wheeled chair, and in this way your son will be able to go through the city; but do not hope that he will walk on foot. I did this with great grief,
because I saw that sentence had been passed upon my dear son that, as long as he lived, he should be deprived of his limbs. His mother promised many things to St. Raymond if he would restore his health to him, and also performed a novena devotion. But on the fifteenth day of April in the year MDXCIX, when I was busy working in my workshop, in the convent of Mercy they gave the signal for the Mass of the eleventh hour, which is said in the glorious Saint's chapel. I bade Gervasio Toll and Jerónima Toll, my children, lead him who was deprived of his limbs to that Mass, and I told him to ask the blessed Saint to grant him health, with a sudden confidence that he would be healed. But shortly afterwards I saw them come back, saying that they had been told that the Mass was ended.
[139] at the invocation of the Saint I, with the faith I had, bade them return and pray to the glorious Saint before his altar: which they did; but what was done there, they will report; for I only know that I must tell your most reverend lordship that I saw my son Justo coming, walking on his feet, as I came out of my workshop at the cries which the people uttered when they beheld the thing, crying out a miracle of St. Raymond. I, marveling and glad, ran to my son, saying: What is this, my son? He answered: A miracle which St. Raymond has wrought in healing me. The whole neighborhood ran up, many weeping for joy. We paid our vows, and set up in his chapel a painting of the miracle. And from that time until this day my son walks on his feet strong and sound, and uses his hands and feet like other sound persons; and this almost all who live today at Vich have seen.
[140] he is made whole The same Justo Toll on oath declares that miracle, together with his brother and sister, who were with him; adding that, when he was carried to the church, they first directed their prayers to the Virgin of Mercy, who is at the high altar, and presently carried him to the chapel of St. Raymond, and his sister sang the jubili to St. Raymond, because there was no one but them in the church, and presently laid the sick boy upon her skirt g, and told him to recite the prayers; who, when he seemed to have strength, tried to rise, leaning on a bench; and feeling himself sound, he ran once to the high altar, and several times through the church, and so went to his house, telling all that he had been healed by St. Raymond; and that from that time he has had no ailment.
[141] and unharmed. The said miracle is confirmed by Jerónima Toll his sister, and by Leonor Real his neighbor, who adds another wonder which God wrought in him by the patronage of the glorious father St. Raymond: and it was this. Being oppressed with palsy, he came to so bad a state that doctor Vilanera despaired of him, telling his parents to spare the hen which they wished to kill to give him strength, because he would die that night. But his sister, hearing this, vowed to the Saint that she would have a Mass said in his honor if he lived; and Leonor Real promised that she would go three times to his chapel, and each time recite three parts of the Rosary; and at the same time his mother vowed many things to the Saint; and presently he came to himself and escaped the death to which he was then condemned, although he remained with his feet turned inward, his hands and neck twisted, and his tongue so hindered that it was not known what he said, until St. Raymond wrought in him the miracle which has been related.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ una quartera de trigo*
\ Perhaps Alonfa, that is, Alfonsa*.
CHAPTER IX.
Two Religious wondrously preserved on a journey; a fever healed; a storm at sea calmed; wonders in an image of the Saint; sicknesses removed.
When two Mercedarian Religious make a journey to the Saint's body, In the year MDCV master brother Juan Antillón, Commander of Elne, resolved to go to visit the body of our Saint. He took with him Brother Jerónimo Muñoz: for some days on the journey rain fell upon them, especially before they came to Barcelona, through which they had to pass on account of certain necessary business. Thence they set out for Igualada, that on the next day they might come in good time to the convent of St. Raymond. But at their going out a nobleman met them, saying that he was going to a certain small place of his, situated near the church of St. Raymond, and that, if they wished, he would bring it about that they should be that night in the convent, going indeed by shorter paths. They followed him, the rain still falling, as far as Pobla, which the Religious were unwilling to cross because of the abundance of water; but the delay and the urging of their friend drove them to go on. They came to a river which had swollen with the abundant waters; and he told them that he knew the ford: let them follow without fear. But the Commander, who had begun to be afraid from his speech, looked about on every side to see whether he could see anyone who might show the way; but no one appeared; and the nobleman said: Let the Fathers not fear, since I go before; and he crossed the river, the Religious following one after another. The Commander drew forth the relics of St. Raymond from his bosom and commended himself to him; his companion did the same, because at once a great gushing and fury of water came upon them. Scarcely had they gone four or six paces when they heard from the other side loud voices which said: Stop, stop. The Religious stopped, and saw a man on a hill who said: Do not cross, for you must be drowned. But the nobleman, who without any hindrance had gone far ahead, urged them to follow, since there was no danger, as they had seen when he crossed.
[143] and are led by a most perilous road, They were unwilling, and therefore returned to the bank, and heard the man saying to them from above that, if they had crossed there, they would have been swept away by the violent course of the waters and drowned; and that opposite the place where he was they would find a safe ford. The Religious did not know by what inward force they were moved to leave him who accompanied them and who bore the outward appearance and credit of a nobleman, and to follow an unknown countryman; yet the Religious obeyed, and crossed no otherwise than if there were no current of waters in the river, the man's voices always guiding them; who at their crossing appeared no more, though they called him to give him thanks: which they paid to God as the author of all our good, and to St. Raymond as their patron. Their guide continued his journey; but they went with fear enough, and then the more when they saw that they were being led by him along a most deep precipice, in which they had to dismount from their mules and lead them by the reins, since they feared at every step lest they should be broken to pieces, marveling as they saw how nimbly their guide, without dismounting from his beast, had come below. They waited until night to withdraw themselves from that peril, always holding the sacred remains in their hand, and invoking with mouth and heart their Preserver. At a certain very dark and rainy hour of the night, the nobleman told them that he was going to his own place, and that the convent would be found by the Religious as they continued their journey.
[144] Then they felt themselves assailed by a most violent temptation of impatience, being helped in wondrous ways they come to their journey's end. which they overcame with the help of divine aid; and, as one followed after the other, they let themselves be led by the instinct of their mules, since they did not know where they were, although both knew that country well. They went where the beasts led, now singing the jubili of St. Raymond, now reciting rosaries. In this manner they went on for an hour and more, destitute of all comfort, because they knew not the land through which they went, and feared lest they should fall into some precipice. But then they heard a voice saying in the Catalan tongue: Who goes there? They answered: Two Brothers, going to St. Raymond, ignorant of the way. To whom he said: Truly the fathers do not go well guided.
And they said: Do you then lead us, and we will pay you liberally. He took it upon himself; and at once, though it was dark, they saw before them a man who showed the way, and in less time than a quarter of an hour brought them to the gate of the convent, and called out. They dismounted from their mules, and saw him no more; nor did the Religious who had come out find him, though they called him; and their wonder grew the more when, having told what had befallen them, they found that there was no such nobleman in all those parts: whence all agreed that neither he who had exposed them to such perils, nor those who had freed them from the same, were inhabitants of that territory. And without continuing the conversation further, they entered with the community to give thanks to God and to the Saint.
[145] Before that Religious made an end of his three years' office of Commander, A Religious healed of a fever beyond expectation: tertian fevers seized him, with such symptoms attending them that he was greatly oppressed. He vowed that, if God should restore his health, he would visit his holy relics on the day sacred to him. The last days of August were coming on, when he felt that he could not fulfill his vow, since the fevers did not leave him. There was present at that time Fr. Raymond Salviat, a conventual of St. Raymond's, who had asked alms of him, and who gave him courage to sit in a chair against whose back his own back might lean, and be carried little by little, saying that he would recover his health. Taking courage, he set out on the way, the tertian fever accompanying him. On the vigil of the feast he arrived there, nor did the fever leave him: he asked the Saint to obtain strength from God, that on the next day he might be able to celebrate Mass at his altar; he passed the night in a great fever, and after rising in the morning determined to say Mass, trusting that by the Saint's help strength would be supplied him: he went out to the altar, the fever accompanying him, and scarcely had he seen his holy relics (for on that day the lattice of the reliquary is opened) when he suddenly felt himself healed, and therefore could celebrate at the altar for a long space and with devotion, and returned to the sacristy strong and sound.
[146] That Religious was very piously inclined toward the glorious Cardinal, he and his companion unharmed in the flooding of the river Ebro and in the convents over which he presided he took care that a chapel should be made for his holy image; and so the Saint showed himself beneficent to him by the favors which he conferred upon him, and by the perils from which he snatched him. Besides what has already been said, in the Life of St. Raymond written by him he adds that in the year MDCXI, when he was Commander of Estella a, he set out on the first day of June for the city of Pamplona b to see the feast and Octave which that holy church dedicates to the most holy Sacrament: he had to pass through Tarazona c to put an end to some business of his convent. And he went out with Jerónimo Vital, silversmith, who was indeed born in that city but dwelt at Estella. They resolved to reach Tudela that night, though it was late; which night became so dark that it was necessary to go along in conversation, lest one should lose the other.
[147] unharmed. The Father Commander, after his pious manner, drew out the relics of St. Raymond, saying to his companion: Let us commend ourselves to the Saint, who will lead us unharmed. In those days the river Ebro d had greatly swollen, so that its flood after the crossing of the bridge reached that ancient wall which stands at the olive grove on the side where the cross is, then so covered with waters that one could not pass that way without drowning. They knew no other way, nor did they know that the waters of the river had so risen, nor did they attend to the water, because from the time they had entered the road of the garden it had flowed into it, judging that this had come about from rain, or was water left from the watering of the vineyards, which often happens without rain. Setting out therefore for the bridge through the midst of the water, they believed that they would go on in the same manner in which they had already crossed, when they heard a voice which said: Not this way, not this way, but through the olive grove. They stopped, and found that their mules had gone no little way into the water; and hearing the great roar of the river they went back, until they returned by the ancient wall; and the mules, continuing the journey — although the darkness was so great, and it was difficult to make one's way there in the daytime without great caution because of the many olive trees — came to the bridge without a single branch striking them. But whose that voice was, and whence it was uttered, they could not ascertain even with diligence used. They therefore gave thanks to God and to the glorious Cardinal, because they had freed them from so evident and manifest a peril e.
[148] The Saint's remains cast into the sea calm a storm: Father Presentatus Fr. Luis Galindo de San Ramón, in the book entitled The Triumph of the Purity of Mary, printed at Lima in the year MDCLXIII and dedicated to the countess of San Esteban , vicereine of Peru, recalls to her memory two singular favors which she had received from the holy Cardinal, saying: He is a most singular protector of your Excellency, as he showed himself by the wonderful relic of his staff, a small fragment of which, cast into the Northern sea, at once calmed the furious storm by which your life was so greatly imperiled. Nor did the holy Cardinal show himself less propitious in the laborious and cruel birth of your first-born son, the lord Don Joaquín de Benavides, succoring both lives in such circumstances that it was a public miracle of St. Raymond, which binds your Excellency to cherish with such care your devotion toward the Saint Nonnatus.*
[149] The venerable bishop of Ross, in his Husbandry of the Soul, treatise 1, chapter 7, §6, affirms that he experienced great wonders in an image of the Saint. the same in various Of one he says that it had scarcely been placed on the altar when it healed a woman who for many years had been deprived of the use of her limbs. Of another image, which is at Burgos, it is said that a certain woman commended to St. Raymond her son who was near death, and saw him enter the chamber, and, having touched the infant with his hand, left him whole. He adds that a very pious client of St. Raymond fell into great peril of his honor, though he was free from fault, through the oppression of a judge, which lasted long. He commended himself to the Saint, and to his patronage attributed it that in all that time he did not lose his patience and conformity. And it happened that an image of the Saint which he had had for some months sweated for two nights so violently that it wetted the veil with which it was covered, and some little cloths dipped in the sweat relieved pains of the head. The cause was presently known from the affliction of his client.
[150] In the city of Madrid f, as there is so great devotion toward the Saint, other evils so many are the wonders which our Saint has wrought by his patronage. I shall report only one, which happened in the year MDCXXXIV; and besides that it is extant on a tablet in his chapel, there are also men surviving who remember the event. María Ana de la Cruz was sick without human remedy, and given up by the physicians, because they had nothing wherewith to treat her, she being destitute of strength and of means. There was a plan to treat her as if she were possessed by a demon; but since she was not such, she suffered much through the exorcisms of those who believed, and wished it to be believed, that she could not but be possessed. At last, wearied, they left her. And as earthly abandonment is the last disposition for obtaining heavenly favors, she obtained them through the intercession of St. Raymond. She came to his chapel with such faith that, kneeling upon the ground, she said to God and to his Saint that she would not rise from that ground unless his mercy should succor her. A rare thing! at once she felt herself quiet within, nor did the furious symptoms which tortured her return any more. She left a cloth in his chapel as a token of the miracle, and many witnesses who knew her for some years did not observe her old maladies to have returned.
[151] In the city of Daroca g in the year MDCXV the son of Antonio Quiles came in a grave sickness to the end of his life. of his patronage He had a rupture on both sides: whence, besides burning fevers, cruel pains tortured him, so that he passed his time in continual crying out, nor had he even opportunity to dispose himself as he desired. Seeing therefore that his life was despaired of, and desiring to save his soul, he made use of the patronage of the glorious St. Raymond, asking that, those pains being soothed, he might as a Christian dispose himself to make a good confession. The Saint heard him, prayed to God, and the pain gave place to him so that he slept a little; and in sleep he seemed to behold the Saint and to be healed by him of both his infirmities. When he awoke he felt no pain, and no sign of the rupture: he called his household, who on occasion of his sleep were repairing the loss of rest after many bad nights passed on his account. Seeing therefore that they did not come, he resumed his sleep until morning; when, entering, they found him without fever, professing that he had received a twofold favor from St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[152] In the same city of Daroca, on the Saint's feast day, in a certain quarrel the breast of Domingo Gonzalo was pierced with a sword: they at once fortified him with the Sacraments: he invoked the glorious Saint with great faith: he appeared to him that night, touched the wound with his hand, and he felt himself without any pain. The surgeon came twenty-four hours later to treat him; and when he found him in wonder whole, he related the event to him and rose, and came to the chapel of the holy Cardinal to give thanks to God.
[153] favors In the city of Pamplona, when doctor Texeros, archdeacon of the chamber of the cathedral church, was laboring desperately under a very pestilent fever, they told him to commend himself to the Saint, whose vigil of the feast it then was: he obeyed with great affection of piety, ordering them to recite for him his antiphon and prayer: he fell asleep, and in it saw the Saint with his hat and with the bar in his mouth, as he was represented on the altar of our convent; who made him assured of his health: he charged him to be grateful to God for the life which he was receiving from him through his intercession. He awoke, and saw the Saint going out of the chamber: he called his household: he related the event: he said that he was well, as indeed he was well, rising without delay to pay his thanks to the Saint in his chapel. The matter became very widely known, because the archdeacon was a very learned man, and endowed with great integrity.
[154] he shows, In the city of Tudela a Religious of ours discharging the ministry of the choir h, of the age of eighteen years, came in a grave sickness to such a state that, having already received the Sacraments, he gave the tokens of a dead man. They sang the Responsory, and covered his face. The physician came, and, having examined him, said: He has not expired, although he is near death. Then the Prelate ordered prayers to be made to St. Raymond, and a solemn Mass to be sung: meanwhile he laid upon his neck the relics of St. Raymond: he addressed him, and although with great
weakness he answered him, he told him to commend himself to St. Raymond; that his sacred remains were there present: he did this inwardly, and at once was better, and recovered so quickly that when the physician returned in the evening he found him without fever. And he was of the chief men of the city. And so, the inquiries being made, it was declared a miracle, and, a festival being celebrated to pay thanksgiving to the Saint, it was preached. These things suffice to make an end of this chapter: for to enumerate all which is established of the holy Cardinal by authentic proofs would require much paper, besides that they are like the rest which we have already related.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ In Spanish, de Santistevan, perhaps de Sanestevan*.
CHAPTER X.
Wonders wrought by the Saint among the people of Lisbon.
A merchant is freed There was honored in the church of the Virgin Mother of God commonly called de la Gloria of the city of Lisbon, where there was a hospice of the Order, an image of the glorious Cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus, as was said above, and the faithful received many graces for that worship. Above we recorded those things which pertain to pregnant women; we shall now report those which serve to narrate other necessities. In the parish of St. Nicholas in the year MDCXXX Gaspar Pérez, merchant, labored under fevers so acute that amid the remedies they consumed his strength: the sickness was rooted in him for more than six months: the physicians therefore left him: he had heard some wonders told of St. Raymond: he therefore asked the Fathers of the hospice to bring him his relics, which he piously venerated, and he began to recover health, which he very quickly obtained: he performed pious demonstrations of a grateful mind, and among them caused the Saint's image to be painted on a cloth.
[156] He recovered; but forgetting his past peril, and not heeding the counsel of Christ, again from fevers, John chapter 5, verse 14, Behold, thou art made whole; now sin no more, lest something worse befall thee, he gave the reins to his temper, his youth and riches seconding his manner of living: whence the old sickness, strengthened with new force, returned to him, and he was brought so low that he was given up. Left in this peril, he was sleeping; but his mother laid upon the bed the cloth on which the Saint's image was painted. Waking, he asked his mother who had come in there. She answered that she alone had been there. To whom he said: I have dreamed, then; for I seemed to see a Religious of Mercy, who with his hands was driving the malady from me; and this, as it seems to me, I felt, and now I find that I am well. His mother replied: It will be a miracle of the holy Cardinal, whose image I laid upon your bed. He gave thanks, passed the night peacefully, and in the morning they found him without fever.
[157] In the same city, in the parish of St. Magdalene, Inés Méndez, a girl from a trembling of the limbs, whom we mentioned above, out of a grateful mind, because by the Saint's intercession she had escaped a perilous childbirth, caused his image to be painted on a panel and adorned with ebony and silver, keeping it at her pillow: she caused many Masses to be celebrated and alms to be distributed to his Religious. Our Lord repaid her: for in the month of October a symptom of epilepsy (in the Spanish text it is called gota coral a or alferecía b) seized her daughter of five years, and repeated itself so often that the physicians agreed that she would certainly die. The parents implored the patronage of St. Raymond, and, kneeling, asked health for their daughter, some vows being made; and at once she grew quiet and began to be better, so that a few days afterwards she was able to go to his altar to pay her thanks.
[158] a soldier from a pestilent fever, There put in at Lisbon in the year MDCXXVIII part of the royal fleet, over which Don Antonio de Oquendo presided, because many soldiers had been seized with a deadly disease. Among the infected was Don Martín Carlos, a commander by land and sea, born at Tafalla c in Navarre. The sickness grew, which the physicians declared to be a pestilent fever and a pain of the side. Many of his companions then dying in the same street , he came to the extremity, was fortified with the Sacraments, and asked for the remains of St. Raymond: he purposed to live better, and suddenly recovered his health; and he remained so bound to the Saint that he made a vow to forsake the world and to take the habit of the Virgin of Mercy. There came an order that he should go aboard, at a time so severe that the other ships were withdrawing to winter quarters in the same port. But, relying on the patronage of St. Raymond, he ordered his image to be painted and set on the stern: he committed himself to the sea, all judging obedience perilous; but he gave courage to his men, saying that he had not been delivered from death by St. Raymond that he might take his life from him in the waters. The Saint's protection was manifest when he came to Cadiz unharmed *, writing thence to Lisbon that everywhere safety is found with St. Raymond.
[159] others from grave sickness. In the parish of the Virgin Mother of God of Mercy, Antonia de Jesús, superior of the college of Our Lady of the Conception, who on account of the proofs of her virtues was held in veneration, was deprived of the use of her whole side by a pestilent air: a great fever came on, and many sicknesses exercised their force upon her; and since she was not capable of violent remedies, she prepared herself for death, knowing indeed that no remedy remained in medicine. She received the Sacraments, and her confessor, who was father Cantero, and who lived and died at Lisbon with the reputation of holiness, laid upon her neck the relics of the holy Cardinal: she earnestly commended herself to his intercession, which she obtained, the fever ceasing, and the pressure of the other maladies ceasing also: hence she could rise and move forward in a chair because of her side very ill affected. She applied the sacred pledge to the part which was as it were dead, and very quickly was healed, walking without anyone's help and publishing the wonders of God in his Saint.
In the parish of the Conception the wife of doctor Luis Cuaresma, a famous physician of Lisbon, saw herself brought to the threshold of death: her husband used the remedy of the relics of St. Raymond, seeing that there was none in medicine for his wife's state, and experienced a happy issue, since the sickness ceased. He showed a grateful mind by publishing the miracle through the city of Lisbon.
[160] An illustrious man recovers his health despaired of: We have already recorded above the miracle which God wrought, by the patronage of the glorious St. Raymond, for the most illustrious lady Elena de Castro; and as there was great devotion in that family toward the Saint and his Order, so many were the favors which that most noble family professed that it owed to his patronage. In the same palace there fell sick the lord Don Juan de Ataíde, count of Castañeira, who at Madrid had been greatly devoted to the Virgin of Remedies *, and, carrying this pious devotion into Portugal with the Religious, communicated it to his sons along with his blood, and gave his house and church for a hospice. With his age and with the heat of fevers grew the anxiety for his life: an erysipelas increased it, and a vein several times opened brought him not a remedy but a greater loss of life: he recognized the peril, and, as a noble Portuguese, was fortified with the holy defenses of the Church: he asked that the Saint's image be brought to him from the hospice; and it had scarcely entered when the pains ceased, the humor was dissolved, and he recovered.
[161] The Saint was propitious to the devotion with which Don Juan Lobo, a most illustrious knight, venerated him. likewise the daughter of another most illustrious knight, once He had a daughter grievously sick: the malady advanced so quickly that in a few days she became an image of death. She who, by the beauty of her form and her tender age, might have been an image of immortality, moved all to compassion. How tender was the affection of her parents, what a token of love! That family had greatly bound the Saint to itself by the alms which they bestowed upon the Religious of his Order. His intercession therefore obtained comfort for that noble house. They brought the relics: she gave herself to St. Raymond, and obtained health so quickly that there was no one who doubted that it was a prodigy of the holy Cardinal. But God willed to prove the virtue of those nobles, that they might be rooted by experience in pious affection toward the Saint. For when, a few months afterwards, malice envied that this girl's beauty had returned to a better state, certain poisoned eyes, unhappy basilisks of human nature, suddenly wore away all her cheerfulness. The sickness was unknown, and the remedies prepared by medicine left her blind, and brought her to such a state that extreme unction was given her.
[162] The Religious brought a painting of St. Raymond of the size of an ell and a half and more, and again, the Saint's picture wondrously descending: which stood in the oratory of the hospice: they hung it opposite the bed; and when in the afternoon there came both noblemen and ladies, on the report of her peril, a boy was sitting beneath the picture; and by the nail's coming loose and falling he was as it were warned to depart. But the picture, although it was of considerable weight d, came down along the wall so gently and imperceptibly that it seemed to be held up by human hands. The women who were present, marveling at the prodigy, uttered cries: all the ladies ran up, and, beholding the miracle, on bended knees asked of the Saint health for the sick girl: which their prayers obtained; for as soon as it touched the ground she began to be better, and quickly returned to her former state. This prodigious event, because it was clothed with such wonderful circumstances, held the people of Lisbon in admiration for many days.
[163] In the parish of St. Joseph a certain lady ordered an image of the holy Cardinal to be painted, another wonder in the same picture: being moved by the wonderful things which she heard of him; to whom she commended herself every day; and she affirmed that she had found many times a varied
conformation of the countenance in it, now angry, now peaceful, at other times pale. Which thing made her anxious, and she began to consider whether the inward state of her conscience were the cause of changes of this kind; and she learned by experience that it was: and she recognized a mute rebuke, censuring her faults, and the gladness with which she was affected when she had amended them, that image doing the office of an awakener of the soul.
[164] a loathing of food removed. In the parish called de el Oreto, in the street of Flowers, Gonzalo Bas Coutinho, knight of the order of Christ, of the age of eighty years, labored under a grave sickness. His age rendered the malady more perilous. But the greatest peril of his life arose from such a loathing that he cried out when he saw food prepared for him, the violence with which his gums were parted torturing his mouth when any nourishment was put in. He felt such repugnance in his malady that he begged his people with tears springing up not, since he was dying, to bring death upon him by this torment. But when he was urged by the obedience due to his confessors, he answered that he could no more, because his failing nature lacked strength. He therefore became so weak that, the fever being abated, he was not fit for remedies; and so they treated of disposing his affairs as of a man whose death could not tarry. The relics of St. Raymond were brought, and water was put in a little vessel: he piously drank this, and felt himself inwardly refreshed by it: he asked for more of the sacred pledge: it was offered him if he would eat; and he said that they should bring food; he ate: so that they gave thanks to God, in no way doubting his miraculous healing. He slept with the sacred pledge hung about his neck, and awoke without fever. He acknowledged, so long as he lived, the favor of the holy Cardinal, and used it for the ordering of his goods. For many days they had unjustly hindered him from receiving a great sum from his wheat: he prayed the holy Cardinal, and at once obtained the free use of it.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ tabardillo*
\ In Spanish, rúa*.
\ In Spanish, sin açar*.
\ Spanish, de los Remedios*.
CHAPTER XI.
Despair removed; a boy raised to life; three other boys untouched by flames; a public plague stayed; a boy unharmed under a cart; a theft hindered and divinely punished.
A woman is freed from despair: I shall report a a case which happened in Catalonia to Victoria Bas, who, after a long sickness, in the cure of which she had consumed her means and her health, was agitated by certain sad imaginings, sometimes persuading herself that she was damned, at other times that despair would be the relief of her evils; that she would not be cured otherwise than by death: she shrank from all who out of a token of love and of duty brought her help, wishing them death as her enemies. Medicine came, though late, to recall her from her error, when it was said that no remedy was found for her malady; which thing brought her greater despair. A Religious of the Order came, and, having told her the wonders of St. Raymond, gave her an image of that same Saint, and enjoined her to place her confidence in the Saint's patronage, and to commend herself to him most earnestly. She did this with her whole heart, and the good issue became known, since, the enemy being put to flight b, she very quickly recovered her health.
[166] In chapter 30 of the first book of his Century the lord bishop of Ross, cited above, writes: an infant called back to life: María de Motones, a widow dwelling at Burgos, asked me on a certain occasion whether I had heard that in those days someone dead had been raised by St. Raymond, whom she, half asleep, had seen raised by him. And although I answered that I knew nothing of these things, she said that she had seen these things in her own family: for María de Valencia her daughter, whom the Saint, as I said above, had succored in her barrenness, lost a son who died of the smallpox [c], named after his father Hernando de Udobro: they covered him in the cradle and set him behind the bed, that on the next morning they might prepare him for burial. In that house a painting of the Saint, of which we shall afterwards make mention, had been held in great veneration: his mother, mindful of it, began to weep, saying to the Saint, like Martha in John XI, what Martha said to Christ: she gave the dead boy into the hands of her pious father St. Raymond: amid suppliant prayers and tears she passed the middle of the night, when she saw the holy Cardinal enter through the chamber in the same form in which she had him painted on the cloth, and, going round the bed, come to the cradle, and handle with his hand the whole body of the uncovered boy; nor did he only restore him to life, but also left him cleansed of the smallpox. The mother called the household, and all gave thanks to God and to the holy Cardinal.
[167] three boys in a heated oven The following event the bishop cited reports at folio 233, adding to it the weight which so wonderful a prodigy deserves. He affirms that it was related to him, as an eyewitness, by the very reverend father master brother Domingo Pérez, provincial of Aragon and formerly vicar general of the Order, and by father master Cavero, emeritus Commander at Saragossa: who, when on the day sacred to the Saint they were going to venerate his relics, among the many who ran thither was a certain countrywoman with three boys, of whom the eldest was six years old, clothed in the habit of the Order, leading them to be offered to the Saint with an alms of wheat which she had promised for the following miracle. That woman had threatened the three boys that she would chastise them with rods for some fault which they had committed: terrified by which they hid themselves in the oven which was in the house. In it they fell asleep, occupying its side. Their mother, believing that they had gone to bed, made the dough d, put fire into the oven, closed it when kindled, and betook herself to shaping the loaves; then with the shaft of the oven-rake [e] she struck a blow upon one of them, and he, being awakened by the stroke, cried out; and, his mother recognizing him, left her so affected that it can rather be imagined than expressed in words with what mind she was when she beheld them amid smoke and ashes.
[168] unharmed by the flames: Out of her senses, therefore, she had nothing better to do than to invoke with cries her preserver St. Raymond; and to the calling of her sons and the other tokens of tenderness, since she did not hope to see them, her grief summoned her. They answered her, asking that they might not be beaten with rods: she agreed; and they came out like the three children of Babylon, unharmed by the flames in their garments and their hair. The mother said: How, my sons, were you not burned in so great a fire? Two answered that they did not know, because they had been busy sleeping; and the other said: Because St. Raymond came and placed himself before us, and covered us with his cloak, and put away the flames and smoke with his hand until she opened the oven; and this one complained that he had been struck with the pole with which she was cleaning out the oven. The prodigy was published; and she led them clothed in the garment of the Order to pay thanks to God and to the Saint on his feast day, which dawned a few months later in the year MDCII. That miracle in the year MDCII the aforesaid Provincial of Aragon and the Father Commander of Saragossa declared in the general chapter of Valladolid, because it was so singular [f].
[169] We have already seen above how prodigious God showed himself in these past years in the universal contagion of a cruel plague a plague raging at Cadiz, which the great city of Toulouse in France endured, through the merits of the glorious cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus. Nor shall we see him less propitious some years afterwards in the rich city of Cadiz, the emporium of the nations, and the most illustrious port of our Andalusia. Although in the month of August of the year MDCXLVIII a contagious pestilence began to be felt, nevertheless it showed itself so temperately that it did not require much care: until at the end of that year, or the beginning of the next, the plague entered the city, and raged so that within the space of five or six months more than twelve thousand men were destroyed, human diligence bringing no remedy. Public prayers were ordered, and our Religious of that convent, which has the title of the Immaculate Conception, asked of the chapter of the holy church that others should be instituted to our great Cardinal St. Raymond Nonnatus.
[170] Great difficulties arose among the canons, since they feared the Saint being invoked lest the concourse should kindle the contagion the more; and one of them by a weighty argument persuaded them to trust in the mercy of God and the Saint's patronage; and, since the devil was striving to hinder that pious service from being done, he declared that he was assured that the city would be healed by his merits. Prayers therefore were appointed for Wednesday the XXVI of May of that year MDCXLIX, and the canons with the religious Orders and the city in form g, as they call it, entered the church after noon, and, a commemoration of the glorious Saint having been made, he went out to look upon h the afflicted city, the people conceiving a firm confidence of their deliverance, that St. Raymond like a sun would drive away the contagious mists; and the account, which I have seen written by the order of the Rev. Fr. F. de la Presentación, general chronicler of our most religious family of the discalced fathers, records that the peoples who had flocked together observed that before the Saint the air became clearer and purer, a certain little cloud, as it were, which darkened it being driven away; and that when he had been brought into the marketplace it was altogether bright and clear. He went round through the streets to the great joy of the city, and with the bell metal resounding, and entered the cathedral church, confirming the public confidence by an evident miracle.
[171] Solemn Vespers were begun, and at their first words by public prayers canon Badillo felt himself wounded with a deadly and venomous swelling and a burning fever. And it is to be observed that those afflicted with symptoms of this kind died without remedy within a few hours. Seeing himself seized with these straits, he went out from the choir, and, leaning on a column, asked of the Saint the desired health, and that he might be allowed to hear his Vespers. He obtained his desire before he went out of the church; and it was a wonderful thing, and observed by all, that on the preceding day, on which the public prayers had been decreed, only ten of the sick died, and the most holy Sacrament was carried to five or six, whereas the malady had reached such a pitch that in all the preceding time a hundred died daily. But it appeared more clearly how much the Saint's intercession avails with God, when on the following day, on which the cathedral church and the city were present at the solemn Mass which was sung in his honor, no sick person died, nor did the most holy Sacrament go forth from its sacristy to visit them, the healing of the malady increasing until the public health was declared.
[172] At the time when the contagion raged more fiercely, many of our Religious consecrated their lives to God in the service of charity; and the venerable Fr. Fray Domingo de los Santos, emeritus president of that province, to the Saint, served in the hospital, and, being infected with the malady, came to his convent to be healed; and as soon as he had recovered, with new fervor he betook himself to the same hospital, and returned, touched with the mortal wound of the plague, to his convent, in which for eight days he was without his senses; during which time the Religious and his pious spiritual sons seem by the great force of their prayers to have preserved his life. At length, the community singing a Mass of St. Raymond for his health and life, he came to himself with notable vigor, and within a few days obtained one and another health by a miracle.
[173] is stayed: the epilogue of the writer, who to what has been said The account records that three other persons, alms being offered that a Mass of the Saint should be sung by the community, recovered by a miracle; and two others severally by his relics; and many others by invocation. All these things seem to have happened when the contagious pestilence was raging violently, and when there was reason for instituting public prayers. In concluding this book I declare that the glorious father St. Raymond is a universal protector of all who piously invoke him; although according to experience and common report God shows himself more wonderful, by his patronage, in the hard distresses of pregnant women, when they are engaged in the perilous struggle of bringing forth a child. I write from the desire that devotion may increase toward so universal a Preserver and so sure a Mediator, to the glory of God, the praise of his Saint, and our profit; submitting whatever I have here written to the censure of holy Church, and repeating the protestation which I set down at the beginning of the book: to which, as I was making an end of it, the following authentic notice came.
[174] adds a boy not crushed by a cart, When in the past year MDCLXXV the feast of our holy Cardinal was being celebrated in our Roman convent and in the church of St. Eustachius, of whose title he was Cardinal, our discalced fathers of the hospice of St. John of the Spaniards distributed many images of the Saint, one of which a woman gave to her son, a boy of five years old, telling him to pray to that Saint and to commend himself to him, as one very renowned for miracles. He obeyed, and laid the holy image upon his breast, and obtained his favor on the following day. For when he was playing with other boys in the street, a cart laden with sand passed by; and while the other boys fled, this one slipped, and the cart so caught him that the wheel passed over his breast. All the people cried out: at the cries his mother came out, and, running with tears to see her son dead, found him unharmed and cheerful amid the thronging people who had flocked together; and they beheld the marks of the nails on his garment. To her who asked who had freed him, he answered: The Saint whom you gave me, and whom I was wearing upon my breast: for when the cart passed over me, I asked him to free me; and, his breast being inspected, they found there the image of St. Raymond, and the boy altogether unhurt; for which they gave thanks to God and to St. Raymond.
[175] and also the theft of a tree In the provincial chapter of Aragon of our Order, on the XXV day of the month of April last past of this year MDCLXXVI, father presentatus Fray Matías Coselete, commander of the convent of St. Raymond, testified that at the end of the month of March now past, when many trees had been brought for the building of the Saint's church, which is being constructed, there was brought among them one very great and straight; which, when the youths of the neighboring place saw, it appeared to them fit to be set up as a Maypole i in their place for the day of the Lord's Resurrection, on which they used to plant it. Five, therefore, of the stronger, joining their strength, went to the church of St. Raymond, and, loading themselves with the burden, carried the tree away from him. But going out of the boundaries they found the tree to be of such weight that they could neither move themselves nor hold it, and therefore left it; for when they had several times tried to lift it, it appeared as if of lead by reason of its exceeding weight: whence they abandoned it.
[176] In the morning the building was less advanced, and the theft was noticed, wondrously recovered, the thieves being punished. because the tree was the best of all; and a man came who said that it was on that road, and told the wonderful thing which had happened. The said father Commander sent two men to bring it back; and they brought it back no otherwise than if it had been of straw. The prodigy was celebrated with joy: but God, who does not suffer the vice of the ungrateful against Saints so well deserving, punished the thieves: for a short musket, which the chief of them was discharging amid the festive rejoicings, burst and took away part of his hand, and other misfortunes befell his companions in those days. Whence the Saint's veneration increased. May God grant that in his servants it may take increase, sometimes through the joys of his favors, at other times through the fear of chastisements! We conclude this work with the same protestation with which we began it k.
ANNOTATIONS.
To these Remón, cited above, narrates from folio 121 a fire wondrously extinguished. His Spanish text runs thus in Latin: On the VI of August in the year MDCVIII so great a fire was found in some houses of the city of Vich that it seemed it could not be extinguished; and when Master Rafael Grall had caused the relics of St. Raymond to be brought from his house and had them present, the fire was very easily extinguished: which thing was held by all as a miracle of this glorious Saint.
\ In the Spanish, Beneta*.