ON ST. WALTER, CONFESSOR,
AT LODI POMPEIA IN INSUBRIA.
From Ferrari. In the year 1224.
CommentarySt. Walter, confessor, at Lodi Pompeia in Insubria. J. B. S.
We have already given two Saints of the same name, one on the 11th of May, another on the 4th of June; but this one of Lodi we candidly confess that we have nowhere found in any sacred calendars; so that consequently he is of the number of those whom on the sole credit of Ferrari we sometimes dare to bring forward; Elsewhere unknown, especially when he does not neglect to make us more certain concerning the true cult. His Life, or a compendium of the Life, he himself reports in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on this day, on which he testifies that he departed from the living, although his birthday, he says in the annotation, on account of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, is celebrated deferred to the 27th of this month, by a legitimate ecclesiastical cult, I suppose, so that I judge I can safely believe one asserting so expressly, whatever in this part the more rigid Castellanus roundly confesses in his index, that he has omitted him on this day. Concerning the same Ferrari treats again in the General Catalogue: "At Lodi Pompeia, of St. Walter confessor," citing the records of the church of Lodi, which it was not permitted me to see, and the Life, doubtless that which he himself had published in the greater Catalogue, and which I here, destitute of all others, subjoin.
[2] Walter of Lodi, obtained by prayers from God from barren parents, bereaved of them, and his family property distributed to the poor, is reported by Ferrari, ministered at Piacenza to the sick in the hospital. The same, after two years returned to his fatherland, served in the hospital of St. Bartholomew outside the city: and built another hospital with a chapel near Lodi on the road which leads to Milan; which, enlarged by Henry Settala archbishop of Milan, was first called "of Mercy," afterward "of St. Walter." That Henry is called by the surname Settala in Ughelli's Italia Sacra, adorned there with many and illustrious eulogies, so that it is not at all wonderful if he approved and promoted the pious undertakings of this Saint, to whom he was contemporary, and whom indeed he knew even by face. The rest concerning the same subject, in which St. Walter chiefly excelled, Ferrari pursues:
[3] with a eulogy. By his example he drew many of both sexes to the eremitic life. He walked with bare feet; content with little food and mean clothing, he afflicted his flesh with continual fasts; in prayer he very often wept. Having undertaken many pilgrimages, he took care to have several hospices for the poor built, as at Vercelli, Tortona, Crema, Melegnano, which he was often wont to visit, and to set over them confraternity brothers who should care for them. Finally, having performed these pious labors, seized by a grievous disease, in a short time, being in the 40th year of his age, on the 11th of the Kalends of August he fell asleep in the Lord, in the year of salvation 1224, many sick and infirm being marvelously healed at his funeral. When his body had been carried secretly from the hospital of mercy, in which it had lain for many years, to the church of St. Blaise, not without a very great disturbance of the air, when it was brought into the neighboring shrine of St. Paul, the tempest was soon calmed, and at once, carried back to the former place with a solemn procession of the city, some being freed from diseases, especially from gout, it was there so long until, translated to the cathedral church, it was there honorably buried.