CONCERNING BLESSED BENEDICTA, ABBESS OF ASSISI, OF THE ORDER OF SAINT CLARE, AT ASSISI IN UMBRIA.
YEAR 1260
CommentaryBenedicta, Abbess of Assisi, of the Order of Saint Clare in Umbria (Blessed).
Ludovico Jacobilli in volume 1 of his Saints and Blessed of Umbria has the following for March 15: Benedicta, Blessed in fact and in name, born at Assisi; around the year 1214, as Wadding testifies in the Annals of his Order, She succeeds Saint Clare in the monastery of San Damiano she took the monastic habit in the monastery of San Damiano under the discipline of Saint Clare, the first Abbess there: and she so excelled above all in sanctity and prudence that after the death of the holy Foundress, in the year 1253, she was appointed her successor as Abbess, governing the sacred Virgins there with a wonderful example of regular observance and holy poverty for about seven years, and distinguished by several miracles, she departed this mortal life in the same monastery in the year 1260, [she dies in the year 1260, March 16. Her body is transferred to Assisi the following October.] on the 16th day of March. Her body, shortly afterward in the same year, in the month of October, together with the bodies of the other nuns who had died there, was translated into the city of Assisi itself to the monastery of Saint George, dedicated by Pope Alexander IV to Saint Clare herself: and, as Wadding asserts on the authority of Marcus of Lisbon, it was honorably placed in a stone sarcophagus. It remained in the choir of the said monastery until the year 1602, when Marcellus Crescentius, in 1602 it is placed under an altar Bishop of Assisi, transferred it to the chapel which is to the right of the main altar, together with the bodies of Blessed Agnes, who was the sister of Saint Clare herself, and Blessed Amata, niece of the same Saint, where it is held in honor and veneration.
These things from Jacobilli, whom we believe to have received the year and day of death from the documents of the monastery itself: but Arthur from the monastery, who deferred this Blessed woman to the 19th day of October, seems to have been looking to the first translation: on account of which, and the special veneration of her among the nuns serving God there, although she may seem to be enrolled among the Blessed by Rudolph de Tossignano in the History of the Seraphic Order, and by the aforesaid Arthur in the Franciscan Martyrology; to be publicly honored, these alone would not have sufficed for us unless we seemed able to receive a more certain indication of public veneration from the last translation made in this century. For since previously the body was reverently kept in the choir, to which the public veneration of the faithful could not penetrate, it still remained doubtful whether by the judgment of the Church and the Pontiff, either permitting or commanding the first translation, she had been numbered among the Blessed, or had only been permitted to be honored privately: but the later translation removes the doubt: especially since the Apostolic Visitors under Urban VIII, with Blessed Agnes, who were sent to regulate throughout Italy the veneration of Relics, and to restore everything to the state which it had either by express license of the Holy See or by usage proven for more than a hundred years, are not found to have changed anything concerning the bodies of these Blessed women. Arthur placed the memorial of Blessed Agnes on November 16, and that of Blessed Amata on February 20.
and Blessed Amata: her eulogy, On which same day the same Jacobilli also recalls the last translation of the three aforesaid bodies, and says they were placed in a stone receptacle under the altar of the chapel which is to the left of the main door; and in the margin he cites a tablet hung in the chapel of the aforesaid church. Moreover, the eulogy of Blessed Amata, passed over in February, from Wadding at the year 1209, receive here: "Blessed Pacifica was followed by Clare's niece, Sister Amata, daughter of Sir Martin de Corano. Her parents were preparing her for a husband, and were vainly adorning her for this purpose. Her wanton age, as is usual, took pleasure in the luxury and excess of garments, and the insane greeting of suitors pleased her. Clare grieved over the danger of her kinswoman, and earnestly prayed that she might be freed from it and might rather strive to love God than men. She obtained her wish: for when one day Amata came to visit Clare, she was so moved by her words and holy exhortation that she immediately sent a bill of divorce to the world, nor could she any longer be torn from her kinswoman. Her, weakened by excessive rigor of penance, laboring with dropsy and excessive coughing for a whole year, Saint Clare suddenly healed with the sign of the Cross and the imposition of hands. She was very dear to her mistress, and Clare often made use of her services in her illnesses; and in her last moments she showed her Christ standing by her, to whom the Lord deigned to display Himself for her contemplation. Of known virtue and sanctity, she died after Clare. Her body was interred together with that of her own sister, Blessed Balbina."
and sister Balbina. Jacobilli asserts that both survived their maternal aunt by a short time, and places Balbina on March 11, as does Arthur from the Monastery: but we do not find where the latter obtained the information that she too was distinguished by the renown of miracles. If her body had been placed under the altar by a translation similar to that of Sister Amata, she would not have been listed by us among those passed over for that day: but for now it suffices to have said here from Tossignano that four years after the entry of Saint Clare she assumed the habit and reformed the monastery of Arezzo.