ON BL. JULIANA OF BUSTO ARSIZIO, LAY SISTER OF THE ABBEY OF ST. MARY OF THE MOUNT ABOVE VARESE, IN THE FORMER DUCHY OF MILAN,
IN THE YEAR MDI.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Juliana de Busto, virgin in Lombardy. (B.)
BY V. D. B.
§ I. The cult of Bl. Juliana; the historical sources; her birth; her resolve of virginity; the persecutions endured in her father's house; her coming to the Sacred Mount.
When Papebroch at the sixth day of April was illustrating the most holy Life of Bl. Catherine of Pallanza, [The Life of Bl. Juliana, who is now venerated on the 14th of August, was once promised for this day,] foundress of the monastery of St. Mary of the Mount, on coming to that part which concerns the blessed companions of Bl. Catherine, he noted the following at the place where the burial of Bl. Juliana is set forth Acta SS. tom. I Aprilis, pag. 650: "How the same body in the year 1650, on the 23rd of October, was most solemnly translated to another place, where it could also be seen and honoured by outsiders, and how it was thereafter decreed that, since the day of her death is impeded by the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, henceforth the fourth Sunday of October should be sacred to Bl. Juliana, we shall tell at the said 23rd, when this translation will be treated." The faith of these promises, therefore, is to be discharged in this volume at the present day; although the feast of the blessed virgin is now kept on the 14th of August, from the time when Pope Clement XIV approved her cult. At this day moreover in the Supplement to the Roman Martyrology for the Hermits of St. Augustine, from which order this most pious nun was, the following is read: "In the monastery of St. Mary of the Sacred Mount above Varese, of blessed Juliana of Busto Arsizio, virgin of our order, celebrated for unconquered fortitude of spirit, admirable patience and assiduous contemplation of heavenly things."
[2] and of whose deeds several have treated. When by a decree of the 26th day of August of the year 1758 before the sacred Congregation of Rites the cause of the confirmation of the cult of Bl. Juliana and of her mistress Bl. Catherine of Pallanza was introduced (for both causes held the same course up to the end), according to custom a brief commentary was drawn up on the life and cult of both virgins: we confess at the threshold that we are destitute of it; but other documents are at hand to us with which we can fill this gap. For we have first of all the lessons of the II Nocturn, to be recited on her feast by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites: whence it may without trouble be gathered what was set forth in that commentary. Then we hold the Life of the same blessed virgin, which Peter Augustine Crespi, curate canon of the collegiate church of St. John the Baptist of Busto Arsizio, collected from the manuscript codices of Benedicta Biuma or Bimia, first abbess after the foundress, and for some time superior of Bl. Juliana. Nor did he use these writings alone, which are from the hand of a contemporary and eye-witness; but also several others of good note. Among which comes in the first place the History of the origin of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Mount above Varese, which in the year 1594 Paul Moriggia, a splendid pillar of the failing order of Jesuates, a man born for piety and letters, published in print at Milan; in the second place occurs the Sanctuary of the city and diocese of Milan by the same man, in which are described all the holy bodies and sacred relics which are kept in the churches of the said city; in the third place there comes up the Summary of the wonderful things of the city of Milan by the same, printed in the years 1602 and 1609 [Argelati, Biblioth. Scriptt. Mediol. tom. II, col. 966 et seq. Cfr Pet. Aug. Crespi, pag. 33.]; in the fourth place there is cited in the same place the Insubria of Peter Anthony Crespi Castoldi, a priest of Milan, sprung from the town of Busto Arsizio, in which there are reported, collected in one, the things which from the birth of the city of Milan up to the year 1614 were done in the whole of Cisalpine Gaul and in a number of other parts of the world, and which various writers have written or handed down in scattered monuments; and in the fifth, the History of the borough of Busto Arsizio by the same; both of which writings have not yet seen the light Argelati, Op. cit. col. 502; cfr Pet. Aug. Crespi, pag. 34, 35 et passim.. And Peter Augustine Crespi did not so use these three writings and the commentaries of Benedicta Bimia as to compose from them a neat narrative; but in some manner or other bound them together, reciting them word for word. We give the title itself at the bottom of the margin [Vita della B. Giuliana da Busto Arsitio, vergine e monaca nel famoso monastero di S. Maria del Monte posto sopra Varese; cavata da manuscritti della vener. Benedetta Biuma, prima abbadessa doppo la beata Catterina, fondatrice di detto monastero, e da attri auttori degni di fede; scritta da Pietro Agostino Crespi, canonico curato della colleg. di S. Gio. Battista di detto Busto Arsitio. In Milano, per Dionisio Gariboldi, 1667.] [Life of Bl. Juliana of Busto Arsizio, virgin and nun in the famous monastery of St. Mary of the Mount set above Varese; drawn from manuscripts of the venerable Benedetta Biuma, first abbess after blessed Catherine, foundress of the said monastery, and from other authors worthy of credit; written by Pietro Agostino Crespi, curate canon of the collegiate church of St. John the Baptist of the said Busto Arsizio. At Milan, by Dionisio Gariboldi, 1667.]. We have finally in the History of Mount Varese or Life of Bl. Catherine of Pallanza, which Papebroch made Latin from the Italian of Tettamanti Historia del Sacro Monte sopra Varese, Milano, 1644., a brief Life of Bl. Juliana herself. Other things we shall indicate as occasion arises.
[3] [The first to write her Life was Ven. Bimia, her prioress, whose praises are briefly narrated.] But since the commentaries of Benedicta Bimia were the fount from which the other writings flowed as so many rivulets, it will be worth the trouble at this place to show what Philip Argelati Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, tom. II, col. 162. reports of this virgin: "In a suburb," he says, "of the town of Varese, which has the name Upper Bimium, Benedicta was born of Aloysius Bimius as father; who in the very flower of youth, despising the delights of the world, although she was sought in marriage by most noble young men, withdrawing secretly from her parents to the Mount that overhangs Varese, where a church dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God is frequented with a great concourse of peoples flowing together from all sides, joined herself as a companion to the blessed virgins Catherine and Juliana, serving the Lord there, in no way fearing the horror of the rocks and the cave; in which she passed five whole years in a life heavenly rather than mortal. Going out from there in the year 1476, on the 10th day of August she went to the monastery built on that mount, and there, having received the sacred habit, a little later she was appointed superior by common suffrages. In that office it is a marvel with what vigilance she guarded the spouses of Christ entrusted to her, with what cares she increased the revenues of the cloister, and with what new constructions she enlarged the sacred buildings. And since she was very strong in eloquence, she was wont often to deliver precepts of life with heavenly admonitions not only to the nuns, but also to lay people. Leo X, the supreme pontiff, ordered her to hold the government of the monastery as long as she lived, by a diploma given at Rome on the 17th day of March 1513. Renowned at length by merits and splendid deeds, she departed to heaven on the 19th day of January 1519. She wrote La Vita della B. Giuliana monaca nel monistero di Sancta Maria sopra il Monte presso Varese [The Life of Bl. Juliana, nun in the monastery of St. Mary on the Mount near Varese]. Picinelli in his Athenaeum, page 78, testifies that it exists in manuscript in the Ambrosian. I however have not seen it." So far Argelati. How much credence Bimia merits can be gathered from this one head. She herself namely confesses that she was the companion of Bl. Juliana for thirty years, that she long slept in her cell and was aware of many of her secrets which lay hidden from others; and then she protests that she will say nothing which she has not seen with her own eyes, or which she has not heard from her own mouth. And surely she cannot be suspected of falsehood, she who shone so greatly with her virtues that she is called blessed by many. But let these things suffice in this place: the discourse will return of its own accord to her quite often below.
[4] [Bl. Juliana is born in the year 1427 of country people of Cassina dei Poveri near Busto Arsizio;] Moriggia and Peter Anthony Crespi agree that blessed Juliana first saw the light in the year 1427. That she was born between Busto Maggiore or Arsizio and Gallarate, Bimia and Tettamanti openly report; and indeed in the huts or cottages which were commonly afterwards called the Cassina dei Poveri, adds Peter Anthony Crespi. But Tettamanti, who published his History of the Sacred Mount in the year 1655, notes that there were others who thought that she was born at Cassina Vergherana. Peter Augustine Crespi disputed of the same matter about the same time, and contends that her birthplace was most certainly the former, the hamlet or Cassina dei Poveri, since between Busto Arsizio and Gallarate no other was then inhabited; and that this hamlet, contained within the bounds of Busto, formerly consisted of only three cottages; but that the others, which were to be seen in the middle of the XVII century, were more recent, as was clear from their appearance. These places are situated to the winter-east of Lake Maggiore. For if you go from Milan to the southern gulf of that lake, before you come to Gallarate, you must pass through the parish of Castellantia, commonly Castellanza; from which if you turn aside a mile and a half to the west, you come to Busto Arsizio [Guide de l'étranger dans la ville de Milan et dans le Milanias, tom. II, pag. 66.], now populated by about twelve thousand inhabitants and having many churches and oratories; among which is the building of St. Bernardine in the hamlet of Cassina dei Poveri Milano sacro, 1855, pag. 166 et seqq.. From there you must return toward the east, that through the road of Castellanza you may reach, by a journey of six or seven miles, Gallarate, a town of more than five thousand persons Ibid. pag. 95.. Since from what has been said it will be sufficiently understood that only poor farmers lived in that hamlet at that time, it should not be said that the lineage of Bl. Juliana was slight and ignoble; for the rest Bimia openly reports that Juliana's father was a countryman. In a brief of Pope Sixtus IV, which will be mentioned more explicitly below, she is called Juliana de Puresellis; which surname Peter Augustine Crespi conjectures was of her mother's family; adding that Peter Anthony Crespi, who died at the beginning of the XVII century, and other old men often affirmed that she was of the blood of the Bognoni, a family once opulent among the people of Busto.
[5] [because she will not violate her resolve of virginity, she suffers much from her parents; she thinks of going to the Sacred Mount] In her father's house Bl. Juliana found little help. For her father, I use the words of Tettamanti, "his daughter, long accustomed to take intense delight
in frequenting sacred things, hearing the divine word and recalling the torments of Christ; accustomed also to pass whole Lents on bread and water, and meanwhile to labour no less than others of the household; determined finally to be entangled in no nuptials with a mortal spouse; he harassed in many ways for a full ten years, to the end that she should consent to admit a husband; nay indeed at one time, shut in a chamber, he cruelly beat her in the face, busying himself to extort that one thing, now by threats, now by blows." These are taken almost word for word from the commentaries of Bimia, except that she, surely a better witness, says that the penance of Bl. Juliana lasted ten years, not that her father harassed her for ten years; and then that not only the father was cruel to the daughter, but the mother also; who at one time, namely in that chamber, dealt her eighteen blows: although she was always most ready to obey both parents in all things that could be done with the rights of God safe. After that contest, so has Peter Augustine Crespi, retracing the footsteps of Bimia, "firmly established in virginity and adhering with her whole mind to Christ her spouse, and embracing the exercise of every kind of virtue, she became the exemplar and mirror of all. While she was occupied with household duties, she kept her mind collected in God; and at times with burning sighs she asked of God the grace of finding a secure dwelling for her soul, in which, wholly consecrated to him, she might live securely." The Sacred Mount was the chief object of her wishes and loves. For on it already from at least the tenth century there stood a church consecrated to God, in which before the memory of men the Blessed Virgin Mary was venerated with singular veneration and is venerated even now. That mount however is very rugged, and in the XV century was nearly inaccessible. It lies next to Varese; to which town one goes from Gallarate by a road of about twenty miles, trending toward the north. It has the form of a pyramid, so high that the top of the church, built on the summit, is 662 metres above the waters of Lake Maggiore [Guide de l'étranger dans la ville de Milan et dans le Milanais, tom. II, pag. 223.]. That place was then horrid and so exceedingly suitable for leading a solitary life.
[6] and meanwhile she lives most harshly; "Now Bl. Juliana had heard," so Crespi continues with Bimia, "that Bl. Catherine was leading a most harsh and penitent life there." She, born about the year 1437 at Pallanza in the diocese of Novara, having lost her parents and eleven brothers and sisters, forbidden to enter a monastery at Milan, on the 24th day of April of the year 1452, scarcely fifteen years old, had climbed the Sacred Mount, and there, having built or repaired a little hut with her own hands, from love of Christ the Lord in his suffering had begun a most difficult kind of life. "When therefore Bl. Juliana had understood something of these things, by night she turned over in her mind that that kind of solitary life was truly blessed, being free of the tribulations of the world and a secure harbour of souls desiring to procure their salvation. To obtain this blessedness, she loved to labour in the midst of the fields; and while she did this she often turned her eyes to the Sacred Mount, often saying to herself: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence, as I hope, help will one day come to me. She was also wont not to go far from her father's cottage unless accompanied by her parents; taking careful heed lest the fragrant lily of virginity be contaminated in her: for she knew that its whiteness is sometimes impiously darkened by hostile attacks. As she was free of the womanly desire of seeing new things, so she never loitered in the public roads, nor did she enter others' houses, spying on the words and deeds of others; but she went straight to the sacred buildings, there to offer her pious prayers to God. Meanwhile she felt herself from day to day more and more inflamed with the love of God and strove with the utmost diligence to respond to heavenly gifts and graces. For that cause she prayed to God more often than before and meditated on divine things; she received the sacred Eucharist more frequently; in the seasons of Lent and Advent she fasted, content with bread and water; at times she lay on the ground; she wore a hair-shirt and frequently scourged her body; she sent forth copious tears and tamed the flesh rebelling against the spirit."
[7] she sets out for the Sacred Mount with her brother; her piety on the journey. "Meanwhile she understood that a great danger to her soul was being created by the iniquity of her father; who, because she had not consented to any marriage proposed by him, held her in hatred. But she was admonished by an inward voice from God to climb the Sacred Mount, where she might serve his divine majesty more tranquilly with a companion dwelling there. On the evening therefore before the feast of St. Callistus, pope and martyr" (this is kept on the 14th of October and the year then running was 1454, on the testimony of Tettamanti), "she earnestly sought from her parents, as is to be believed, leave to go to the Sacred Mount, and she gathered into a little bundle the things dearest to her. The next day at earliest morning she called her brother from sleep, who was to accompany her to the Sacred Mount; and carrying with her that modest little pack, she gave herself to the road with quickened steps. That she might sanctify the journey with spiritual exercises (which she had at one time heard urged from the pulpit), she mingled conversation with her companion on the flight of Our Lady into Egypt and on other sacred histories; and so they reached the slope of the mount. Here, inflamed with greater ardour from those spiritual conversations, she began to speak of Christ the Lord climbing the mount of Calvary with the weight of the cross; and she did this with that feeling of soul without which a pious and virginal heart can scarcely think of these things. When these conversations were finished, they reached the summit of the Sacred Mount. Entering the celebrated church, with a profound inclination of the body she first venerated the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, then the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and devoutly with her brother attended the most holy sacrifice of the Mass. She also expiated her sins by sacramental confession and refreshed her soul with the eucharistic banquet, giving thanks to God for the benefits received and for others to be received thereafter. Then, when she had made an end of praying, she urged her brother to withdraw to the neighbouring hospice, to take food and drink; and she, her brother having departed, went on to the hermitage of Bl. Catherine." Tettamanti gives these things a little differently; differing most of all in this, that he narrates that Bl. Juliana knew nothing earlier of Bl. Catherine; that at home she was admonished by inward instinct only to go to the Sacred Mount, there to understand where, how and in what company she should serve Christ; and that on the Mount she heard of Bl. Catherine, what kind of life and how holy a one she was leading nearby. But I would not dare to depart from Crespi, following most closely the commentaries of Bimia.
§ II. For twenty-two years Bl. Juliana most holily practises the hermit's life with Bl. Catherine of Pallanza; then she becomes a lay sister, embracing the monastic life under the rule of St. Augustine; her virtues; the manner of praying called the garment of the Blessed Virgin Mary; her most pious death.
[Bl. Juliana offers herself as a companion to Bl. Catherine of Pallanza, by whom she is admonished and accepted,] "The hermitage which Bl. Catherine inhabited was a cave or stable rather than a chamber, three cubits high and five wide, and placed opposite the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Riccardi, Storia dei Santuari più celebri, tom. II, pag. 41.. When Bl. Juliana came to it, she knocked on the door; and asked what she wanted, she humbly answered: My lady, I have come to you in this place, because from my father I have received many insults, beatings and blows, because I would not marry, since I have offered my virginity to God, for love of whom I would willingly undergo a hundred deaths. I have much prayed him to free me from the hands of my parent, and at last it pleased him to reveal to me that I should come here, to do penance with you for my errors in solitude. Wherefore I ask of you to receive me as your companion or servant, that, freed from the tyranny of my father, I may keep myself virgin and pure for my spouse Jesus Christ. Bl. Catherine, hearing these pious and humble words, and understanding the fervour of this poor little girl inspired by God, answered her the following words, which Bimia has preserved: My daughter, human counsel has no greater authority than what the Holy Spirit gives to you and to all who desire to serve Christ, the king of glory. You must prepare yourself for the temptations of the flesh, the world and the most malignant demon: not to consent to them, but that you may better be able to escape them; and this will be done if, whatever you have to do or suffer, you turn to the praise of Jesus Christ, who will come into you to overcome those temptations; and you, thus bearing them manfully with good patience, will obtain the triumphal crown of glory and the heavenly palm of victory."
[9] "When the servant of God heard this splendid exhortation, nearly breaking out into exclamations, she said: My sweetest mother, your words are so fervent, and have so inflamed my heart with divine love, that with all my heart I desire for the whole time of my life to serve Christ Jesus in your holy company. I pray you therefore, my mother, by the love of almighty God, not to expel me from your fellowship and company. To which Bl. Catherine replied: Go, my daughter, and pray a little, and dispose your spirit, and then you will return to me. Withdrawing therefore, Bl. Juliana again asked of Bl. Catherine that she would not allow her to return to the world, that is, to her native home, where her father was persecuting her so vehemently; and she narrated to her the tribulations, floggings and persecutions which she had borne from her father. Then Bl. Catherine remembered St. Juliana, martyr of Nicomedia, who is venerated on the 16th day of February, and who because she would not marry was also most inclemently treated by her father (as is read in her Passion); and she said: My daughter, the assaults which you have borne are like the assaults which St. Juliana experienced; wherefore it pleases me to receive you into my company for the love of God, and for the love of God and of St. Juliana to give you her name." Which also was done; whence it is established that the name Juliana was not her own or genuine name, but adventitious. Bl. Juliana was then twenty-seven years old; but Bl. Catherine, whom she was accepting in the place of mother and mistress, only seventeen. On the time Peter Anthony Crespi, from whom I have taken these things, and Tettamanti agree.
[10] [she sends her brother home alone; she herself lives holily on the Sacred Mount and supplies water to pilgrims.] "Gladdened beyond what can be said, Juliana," says that same Tettamanti, "and returning to her brother: Go back home alone," she said: "for I have here found both a home and a mother, under whose guidance I hope to save my soul." Peter Augustine Crespi continues in this manner: "Enclosed in that harsh solitude and free of the importunate command of her father, she began with greater
alacrity still to serve God, setting before her eyes as a mirror the examples of her mistress, from which she did not deviate by so much as a finger's breadth. And being humble of heart, modest of eyes, discreet in speaking, her face suffused with modesty, grave in gait and in all the movements of her body, she never came out in public, except when she was ordered to offer a drink of water to the poor pilgrims coming to venerate the sacred statue of Our Lady." When Bimia narrates this she adds that she stood more than two hundred nights in the parlour, where the water was handed out, without going to bed. "So the ancient and most cunning demon, for his envy of her happy and continuous progress, could tempt her with hidden snares and even scourge her, but could by no means overthrow her." And hence it is understood why in the image of Bl. Juliana which Agnelli made in the middle of the XVII century, and in which the Sacred Mount itself is shown with all its buildings, Bl. Juliana is to be seen pouring a drink from a flask for two pilgrims: which, since she is seen doing it clothed in monastic garments, appears not a little wonderful in an Italian nun; but at that time Bl. Juliana was not yet a nun, nor in the XV century did most Italian nuns keep regular enclosure. It must also be noted that at that time waters had not yet been led through channels from the top of the Sacred Mount into all parts, by which now the whole mount has been changed as it were into a garden Riccardi. Op. cit. tom. II, pag. 41, 42, 47 et 48..
[11] [By Bl. Catherine, only seventeen years old, she is instructed in the exercise of virtues. Her humility, prayer, spirit of labour,] Bl. Juliana was then, as we have seen, twenty-seven years old; wherefore, says Tettamanti, who sets forth this passage more elegantly, "Catherine did not judge it expedient to waste time in imparting to her the knowledge of letters; but she thought it enough to prescribe to her the Lord's Prayer to be said with the Angelic Salutation, and to teach her a number of other little devout prayers for daily use, she making such progress in this exercise that she gave her mistress the hope of no common holiness. And indeed Juliana was most desirous of advancing in spirit, and therefore she often fell suppliantly at Catherine's knees, that she should not be wearied of the labour necessary for her instruction, and that she should be willing to teach her as accurately as possible every way of pleasing Christ. One day therefore Catherine declared to her that the sum of Christian discipline and perfection is contained in that rule which the Lord Jesus himself prescribed for us, saying: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart: that the spouse must therefore be followed by this way, if she wished to make any progress. And from that hour Juliana set about this so seriously that whatever she did or said savoured of humility. Asked by the reading of what book she had so fully obtained so salutary a knowledge, she answered, of that book alone, in which charity and humility were read described not so much by words as by examples." But behold what Bimia has left in writing on nearly the same matters: "From her first childhood Juliana had embraced the exercise of prayer; but from the time when she entered on the religious life, she so loved it and was so occupied in it that very frequently she spent whole nights on it; and after prayer she gave herself to manual works. Although she knew many prayers by heart, yet she never omitted the Lord's Prayer with the Angelic Salutation," which at that time had not yet been increased by its last part: Holy Mary, but ended in these words: Blessed is the fruit of your womb, whether certain things said in honour of Christ were added or not.
[12] [her penances and other endowments, while for twenty-two years she leads the hermit's life.] "And at times, when she had made an end of prayer, she would turn a little later to meditation, saying that prayer is the chief aid for attaining perfection. There was besides in her a singular and exceptional temperance of food, drink and sleep. I was with her through more than thirty Lents and Advent Quarantines" (that is, through more than thirty, Lents and Quarantines being counted together), "and I never saw her making an evening collation, not so much as taking one chestnut *; and so within the forty-four years which she lived in this blessed place, I do not suppose that she ever ate flesh-meat, except only twice, namely when she was tried by some disease; moreover on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of every week she always fasted, and on those days abstained altogether from eggs, butter and cheese; and on the vigils of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary, no less than on the vigils of the Nativity of the Lord, the Ascension, Pentecost, St. Michael and many others through the year, she fasted on bread and water. Nor yet was she prevented by these things from always exercising herself in some useful works, saying: He who does not labour, let him not eat. And she watched over her tongue so diligently that we never caught her in jokes, nor even in pretence; and she uttered her words with such purity that scarcely ever did an idle word slip from her mouth." Peter Anthony Crespi embraces these things more briefly and confirms them with his authority: "Given to fasts," he says, "frequent in much prayer, lying on the ground, clothed in a hair-shirt, and three times daily macerating her flesh with scourges, she led a most harsh and most holy life for twenty-two years." But why does Crespi mention twenty-two years, Bimia forty-four? In very truth Crespi too reports that Bl. Juliana lived on the Sacred Mount for forty-four, nay rather forty-six years, since he reports that she was most kindly received by Bl. Catherine as a companion in the year 1454 on the day before the Ides of October, and that she ended her life there while Alexander VI was supreme pontiff and Louis XII, king of the French, was ruling at Milan; by which indications he wished the year 1501 to be indicated; but he means the twenty-two years which Bl. Juliana and Bl. Catherine lived in the hermitage before they made religious profession in the year 1476.
[13] [New companions join, who with BB. Catherine and Juliana embrace the monastic life; Bl. Juliana was only a lay sister.] But before both virgins bound themselves by these perpetual bonds, they received some companions. For on the 11th day of March of the year 1471, as Tettamanti has it, Benedicta Bimia, born of a noble place and family near Varese, in the very flower of her youth, drawn by the odour of good example which those holy companions poured forth far and wide, joined herself to them. The example of Benedicta was a little later followed by Francesca Bimia, of the same family and name; finally a certain Paula de Amurtiis of Busto joined herself to them as a fifth. But since this society had the form of a religious family, it seemed to some that there was sin against the canons by which the introduction of new religious orders is forbidden; others on the contrary, and those most grave men, thinking that that kind of life was lawful, provided that it was kept for the sake of penance, and that it was not an attempt at a new religious order. And this certainly was the right opinion, since there is no trace that these hermitesses made religious vows of any public manner. Nevertheless after a certain vision of Bl. Catherine the five virgins resolved among themselves to convert their hermit's life into a monastic one. There flourished then in the diocese of Milan the order of hermits of St. Ambrose ad Nemus, following from the year 1375 the rule of St. Augustine and the Ambrosian Breviary Saxius, Archiepiscoporum Mediolanensium series, tom. III, pag. 827 et 828.. For their piety toward St. Ambrose, therefore, Catherine and her companions asked of Pope Sixtus IV to assume the habit of this congregation, its rule and rites: which the pontiff granted by a brief of the 10th day of November of the year 1474, and Gasparino de Porris, archpriest of the church of St. Mary of the Mount, on the 10th day of August of the year 1476 put into execution, admitting the five virgins, expiated by general confession, to profession and subjecting them to his care and government: for the new house in no way depended on the brothers of St. Ambrose ad Nemus. But here it must by all means be noted, both from the testimony of Tettamanti and from that of Peter Augustine Crespi, that constantly in the petition of the nuns and in the brief of Sixtus IV the name of Bl. Juliana comes in the last place, although she had come first of all to Bl. Catherine. Papebroch long ago indicated the cause of this in his annotations to the Life of Bl. Catherine, namely because as a lay sister she served the others in a lower rank, free of the offices of the choir. Nor could it be otherwise, since a girl wholly unlettered could surely not recite or sing the breviary daily. Hence, as will be seen at number 22 and elsewhere, she is called by Ven. Bimia, her second prioress, Sister Juliana, the other nuns being called ladies. The first prioress elected was Bl. Catherine; but twenty months and three weeks later, namely on the sixth day of April of the year 1478, she most piously died in the Lord, and Ven. Benedicta Bimia succeeded her by common suffrages; under whose government temporal affairs were wonderfully increased, especially in that Gasparino de Porris and the other canons of St. Mary of the Mount transferred their prebends to the new institute; nor did the number of nuns grow less, who in the year 1500 were counted at forty. All these things Bl. Juliana saw, the first companion of Bl. Catherine and then the love and delight of Ven. Bimia.
[14] [of Ven. Bimia, for twenty-three years prioress of Bl. Juliana, a notable (testimony) of her virtues] She, who after the profession was made lived with her for twenty-five years more, of which she had her under her government for twenty-three, thus goes on concerning her: "After Bl. Juliana had professed the religious life, as she had always been obedient and poor before, so with how great a zeal she thereafter tried to observe her three vows cannot be said. For as to poverty, she was so free of all affection for temporal things that she gloried and reckoned herself blessed because she had nothing in this world. Wherefore she said: I possess nothing in this life, nor do I desire to possess: nor am I my own, since I have given myself to Christ and to the will of another. Modesty and chastity, with the grace of God, she always kept until death; following this rule, that to the harsh penance with which she afflicted her body she added a studious flight from idleness, a diligent modesty of the eyes, which she kept lowered, lest her gaze should wander here and there, and besides, continual prayer, mingled with manual works. And if at any time the fire of concupiscence, nearly wholly extinguished in her, should trouble her a little, it suddenly (as she herself said) vanished, meditation and the recollection of the passion of Jesus Christ being applied. Among her other virtues her obedience was not only admirable but nearly incredible: for since she knew that Christ was obedient to his Father even unto death, the death of the cross, she had entered on a plan of imitating him as her leader in this virtue,
as she had pledged in her profession. O how often I saw with my own eyes Bl. Catherine giving her leave to eat some food, and then, when she had tasted of it, saying: Let it go; I do not wish you to eat any more of it; and she without any movement of spirit or complaint did what was ordered!
[15] testimony. Where the choir of the nuns then was. So great was the charity in this servant of God that scarcely ever was anything asked of her that she did not at once grant, if she could; and when on account of our poverty we could not relieve the poor, she said: My sisters, let us at least give a spiritual alms, even if we should have to say to the Virgin Mary a hundred thousand Angelic Salutations, that she may succour the needy poor, the sick, the troubled and those tempted. God knows how often she alone honoured the queen of the heavens with this exercise of piety; for when she had given a very brief time to rest, she rose by night and went on to the church to give herself to this devotion, while I, wretched and negligent, stayed in my cell; but when I rose in the morning, I found her with beaming face in this blessed church." For the monastery adjoined the public church; which matter seems to need some explanation here, since, unless this is done somewhere, below, where the translation of the body of Bl. Juliana will be treated, scarcely anything will be understood. In the instrument on the miracles of Bl. Catherine of Pallanza Acta SS. tom. I Aprilis, pag. 652. the following is read: "The body of the said lady Catherine had been laid up on the lobia, where the said ladies stand to see Masses in the said monastery, which lobia is within the church": lobia (lest this word be a hindrance) among the Milanese sounds the same as among the Florentines loggia [Cfr Muratori, Dissertazioni sopra le antichità italiane, diss. XXIII, tom. I, pag. 211.], and among the French loge, from the German laube, that is a covered place Adelung, Grammatisch-kritisches Worterbach, v°. Laube.; the letters b, f, g being by no means averse to being substituted for one another Cfr Acta SS. tom. IX Octobris, pag. 308.. In what part of the church that lobia was built, learn from Antonio Riccardi, who not so long ago briefly described the affairs of the Sacred Mount: "The monastery," he says [Storia dei Santuari più celebri di Maria Santissima, tom. II, pag. 42 et 43, Neapoli, 1846.], "was built near the basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the peak of the Sacred Mount, namely in the hollows of a most ancient rock, by whose outer stones it is girdled on every side except the south, and has thus been granted an insuperable enclosure. It has its interior or monastic church above the main door of the sanctuary, opposite the high altar, to which Blessed Mary gave her name. From there, as if from a high little portico or lobia, the nuns attend the divine offices which are held in the Marian church, and with pious and sweet psalmodies perform a religious worship most pleasing to the heavenly and earthly church." So he; but let us return more nearly to the affairs of Bl. Juliana.
[16] [Bl. Juliana is an example and spur to the novices; how much she was helped by meditation on the Passion and Life of Christ and how constant she was in the purpose she had taken up.] When Benedicta Bimia had succeeded Bl. Catherine of Pallanza in the priorate of the Sacred Mount, she found no small help in Bl. Juliana, both that she herself might hold to the path of virtue, and that the girls might be formed according to her examples, who, drawn by the fame of our blessed virgin, flowed in quite great number to the new monastery. "She exhorted them," says Ven. Bimia, "to obedience, purity and mortification of the senses, setting before them at times the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and all the mysteries of our redemption; and that they might imitate and meditate on these things, she admonished them so splendidly that her hearers could not sufficiently wonder at her discourses. She herself performed the exercise of meditating on the passion of Christ the Lord with such fruit and such attention of spirit, as if she had seen the sorrows of her Lord before the eyes of her body. To those young girls she commended above the other virtues humility; and she urged them to embrace it, since it is the foundation of the spiritual building; and whatever she herself did or said was suffused with the odour of the greatest humility; and so, asked at one time by those sacred virgins how for the whole time of her life she had studied to be able to please God, she answered: In the book of humility and charity. In the space of twenty-five years in which she lived under the rule in the monastery, she never (although at the goal of life she was so weak that she could scarcely stand on her feet) interrupted her first mortifications; and in fighting the infernal enemy she was so adorned with faith and constancy that Christ the Lord enriched this his spouse with many gifts and privileges; whence before her death and likewise afterwards she shone with various stupendous signs of power. What graces and favours God granted her in prayer she herself narrated to Ven. Bimia, her prioress; as she also has left attested."
[17] [She introduces a new manner of praying, called the Garment of the Blessed Mary; afflicted with fever and the disease of diabetes, she piously dies on the 15th day of August of the year 1501.] In no other colours has Tettamanti depicted Bl. Juliana: "There were counted," he says, "in the centenary year five hundred forty religious, among whom Juliana was also then living, the first companion of Bl. Catherine; whose pious invention this was, that every year she should number up to a hundred thousand Angelic Salutations, inviting the other sisters also, by going before them, to do the same; whence seems to have flowed the practice that from the Nativity of the Mother of God until the feast of the Purification, at set intervals of hours, many Salutations of this kind are recited by each, which at length reach the said number and weave, as they say, a certain garment for the most blessed mother. There was noted in Juliana a singular custody of the senses and the mouth, with most profound humility and simple obedience: other gifts of the Holy Spirit, as they could easily be concealed because they were inward, she so most studiously hid, lest they should bring her human praise." "At last," says Peter Augustine Crespi, "it pleased her beloved spouse Jesus Christ to lead her out from the sorrows of this world to the eternal rest of paradise. She was seized therefore by a fever, to which was added a disease called diabetes by physicians. It seemed to her accordingly," says Ven. Bimia, "that the time of her dissolution was at hand; wherefore she asked of the Reverend Father confessor the most holy sacraments of the church with a plenary indulgence. After she had received these with great humility and piety, she remained quiet and peaceful until the night of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; so that for thirty continuous days she was with mind fixed on heaven, meanwhile so sparing of food and drink that we truly believe that in this space of time she did not eat the weight of one solidus and drank only a little electuary and water. On the last day of her life she wished to attend the sacrifice of the Mass; and always covered in her garments, she rested according to her custom on a sack stuffed with dry leaves. Always keeping this constancy and elevation of mind, she was at length called by her spouse and by the Blessed Virgin Mary to eternal joys and consolation. On the night therefore of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary she wished to be placed on the bare ground, and a little later with great melody she sent forth her spirit on the 15th day of August of the year 1501." Tettamanti discourses thus of her death: "There (namely on the bare ground), after some hours of quiet silence, raising her hands and eyes to heaven, and as if sweetly conversing with someone long and lovingly desired, she gave back her soul to heaven, and left her body to the earth; which in the washing appeared restored to youthful comeliness; which change of appearance Bimia also recorded in writing."
Annotation* Marron
§ III. Burial, translations, feast, ancient images, approval of the cult, proper lessons.
[The body, first deposited in the common cemetery of the nuns, about the middle of the XVI century is translated into the interior choir of the nuns; from where at the expense of Nicholas Cid, a Spaniard,] "The body itself then," so Tettamanti continues, "although sweetly fragrant" (which fragrance those who buried it attested, as with Bimia Peter Augustine Crespi is the authority), "was given common burial within the monastery; but in the year 1547, on the 12th day of February" (rather in the year 1549, on the 21st day of February, according to Crespi), "found still whole and palpable, it was translated to the interior choir of the nuns," different from that of which it was said at number 15, "and is piously honoured by them." So Tettamanti in the year 1644. But a little after, the veneration was increased which had been paid to Bl. Juliana there for nearly a hundred years. "Juliana's body lay," says Peter Augustine Crespi, who published his book in the year 1657, "lay for a hundred years in the choir where the nuns recite the divine office, deposited in a most honourable tomb, raised a little above the ground and adorned with most brilliant crystals, when it pleased Our Lord to instil a very pious plan in the most illustrious man Nicholas Zid, counsellor of the king of the Spains and procurator general of military affairs. For he, amid the hindrances of wars and of other court business, forgetful neither of God nor of the Saints, applied his mind to those purposes which no one could easily say were divine or human. For as if his piety had unfolded itself in heroic matters and sublime deeds, he set before his eyes the Sacred Mount above Varese, where he knew there was hidden a treasure of infinite price, namely the body of Bl. Juliana, virgin and nun, which had lain there already for nearly one hundred and fifty years incorrupt and pliant; and he resolved to spare no expense that the places might be so ordered that that sacred body should remain laid up within the interior enclosure of the church or choir of the nuns, and at the same time could be seen by outsiders who came there for the sake of piety. And he was so constant in that plan that, even though he was placed far from the Milanese territory (staying namely in the royal city of Madrid), yet he never gave it up; not even in the straits of death. For he provided by testament that the expenses necessary for carrying out the translation he had planned should be paid from his estate."
[19] on the 23rd day of October of the year 1650 most solemnly "The venerable mothers therefore, having obtained due licence, did not delay to prepare with much magnificence this solemnity, which they committed to their spiritual father and the provost of the Sacred Mount, a man most experienced in most grave matters. The 23rd day of October of the year 1650 (which was a Sunday) was appointed for celebrating this action; that the neighbouring peoples might the more conveniently be made sharers of it. A report of it was spread beforehand in every direction, and within the eight days that preceded this celebration, every day the bells were joyfully rung, and also on the night next before the festivity: nor were artificial fires lacking and noisy explosions of nitrated powder, which the neighbouring mountains gave back a hundred times. Scarcely was the dawn rising when the renewed sound of the bells gave the morning signal; which sweet concert, often repeated thereafter and interrupted
was. The apparatus of the altar was thus: from the top of the venerable church down to the upper steps of the altar there hung a most rich pavilion of white silk cloth, and it enclosed it on both sides. Fringes of gold and silver and other ornaments, moved by a gentle wind, seemed to play all around; whence the precious silver candlesticks and the rest of the most rich apparatus appeared the more. The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was clothed in white silver cloth, that it too might seem to share in the joy of this solemnity. At the suitable time there vested themselves in white copes in the sacristy the venerable lords the prefect, the vicar of the Sacred Mount, John Baptist Negri, parish priest of the adjacent hamlet of Velate, and the parish priest of St. Ambrose (which hamlet also is nearby), and with ministers carrying thuribles and boats, and with numerous clergy they went forth as far as the door of the monastery; where they were received by four venerable discreet nuns and led to the interior choir.
[20] is translated into the exterior choir of the nuns There lay the body of Bl. Juliana, clothed in a watered silk cloth, crowned with a most beautiful garland, bearing in her hand a lily of very great price, laid in a most ornate coffin; which rested on a very high bier, covered with precious Flemish tapestries and overlaid with white silver cloth, marked with most rich fringes and various ornaments, hanging down to the floor. All around stood the venerable mothers, covered with a fine black veil descending to the breast, having lighted torches in their hands. There was borne into the minds of all I know not what piety, full of majesty, by the sacred remains, sprinkled with flowers; to which the prefect and vicar gave the honours of incense, and which the two parish priests lifted up under a precious baldachin, held up by four nuns; there were present also ministers with smoking thuribles and little girls dressed in the form of angels, holding heavy torches in their hands; and this sacred procession, disposed in order, gave itself to the road. Then a beginning was made of the most solemn concert of the organs; the bells were rung with full swinging; cannon were fired off with sulphurous powder, and the hymn Veni, Creator began to be sung. By what way the sacred column went, it was clothed about with tapestries of great price and exceptional painted panels and other opulent adornments; and the refectory, through which also the passage was made, had three triumphal arches and other artful decorations. They then came to the place where there rose a wonderful altar: for over this towered a colossal statue of Christ the Lord bound to the column. On this altar the sacred body was placed, and after some prayers and brief psalms, honoured with burnt incense; when these things were done the two parish priests lifted it up again; and the venerable nuns went forward once more according to the former order, singing the hymn Te Deum laudamus. So they came into the dormitory, where the most holy treasure was also set down on a most ornate altar. And while from the neighbouring cells of the nuns most sweet odours were flowing, the former ceremonies were renewed; and then amid the singing of the psalm Benedictus Dominus the sacred body was carried through other adorned places as far as the third altar, on which likewise the blessed chest was placed and the remaining rites carried out. And from here at last the heavenly burden was carried to the place in which it is still kept (see what was said at number 15), in a very strong chest, made firm with ironwork; but provided with transparent crystals and wonderfully adorned with plates of pure silver and other decorations, and so disposed, as I have said, that it remains within the enclosure and at the same time can easily be honoured from outside. When an end had been put to these things, the clergy were led back by the discreet nuns to the door of the monastery, and they went to celebrate the Sunday solemnities of the Mass. This office the prefect performed amid splendid musical concerts; and from the pulpit a Capuchin father in an elegant sermon to the people praised the virginity, poverty and obedience of Bl. Juliana; and publicly announced that after the bloodless sacrifice was finished, all would be given the faculty of seeing and venerating the sacred body: as was also done with the joy and gladness of all. It was also decreed that every year the festivity of Bl. Juliana should be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of October, since because of the concurrent celebration of Mary's assumption into heaven it could not be kept on the very day on which that blessed virgin went away to the joys of eternal rest in paradise."
[21] the pious and grateful sentiments of John James Trivulzio toward Bl. Juliana; From these things it is manifest enough that the cult of Bl. Juliana began immediately after her death; of which matter there are other proofs also at hand. First of all the most celebrated military commander John James Trivulzio wished to attest his veneration toward Bl. Juliana: which Tettamanti narrates in this way: "That great John James Trivulzio," he says, "not long after Juliana's death, testifying that very many things had happened to him as she had foretold, wished to have a magnificent monument built for her: and he would have done so, had not the pious virgins, judging such an adornment of tombs little suited to their poverty, asked him to convert the expenses destined for it to adorning the forecourt of the church according to his magnificence: which also is seen done." Bl. Juliana however made those predictions not in apparitions after death, as is hinted by Tettamanti's manner of narrating; but face to face, while she lived, as Peter Anthony Crespi witnesses, somewhat older than Tettamanti and somewhat departing from him in relating other circumstances too. "With prophetic spirit," he says, "she foretold many things to the great James Trivulzio; and first of all the victory which he gloriously won. When her body had been buried in the interior chapel of the monastery, James Trivulzio, to whom all things had happened in order as the servant of Christ had foretold, did something to build a tomb worthy of so great a woman; but the other virgins of the monastery with the highest prayers entreated him to build a portico from which there should be access through the principal part to the church; and they pressed this on Trivulzio for this cause, that they preferred the body of the holy woman to be in their chapel, in which even now it is venerated with pious devotion, than elsewhere." It is very difficult for me, not having the History of the life and deeds of John James Trivulzio, surnamed the Great, which Rosmini published in the year 1815 in two volumes, to divine what victory is understood there. For from the year 1465 to the year 1518, in which he ended his days, that soldier was so always in camp that with just right he ordered to be inscribed on his tomb: HIC QVIESCIT QVI NVMQVAM QVIEVIT Here rests he who never rested. I should suppose however that the matter concerns the things which he successfully did in the year 1499, when within the space of one month he subjected the whole duchy of Milan to the dominion of Louis XII, king of the French, by arms and promises [Cfr La biographie universelle de Michaud, tom. XLVI, pag. 563 et de Sismondi, Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen-âge, tom. IX, pag. 235 et seqq. Bruxelles, 1826.]: for these things came next before the death of Bl. Juliana and took place not far from Mount Varese.
[22] prodigies through her intercession before "There are said also," says Tettamanti, "certain wonders to have been done at her invocation or apparition:" to which belong two benefits mentioned by the venerable Bimia. "A noble man," she says, "had two daughters seized by a disease which physicians said was mortal. Since he attended Sister Juliana with great veneration, he piously prayed to her and said to her that it was her office to intercede with God for their cure; then he took a little of the cloth of her tunic and applied it to the neck of each of his daughters: and they suddenly recovered most excellently. Master Bernardino de Habiate, who had buried Sister Juliana, had fallen together with his wife into a grave infirmity, and both were in the worst of health. But, as they afterwards reported to us, blessed Sister Juliana herself appeared to them and gave them spirit, namely that they would shortly be free of their infirmity; and so it came about by the grace of God and of the sweet Virgin Mary and of this most devout virgin blessed Sister Juliana, to whose prayers and merits," adds Bimia, "I always commend myself with the best heart." What follows is reported by Peter Anthony Crespi and Tettamanti, and according to them by Peter Augustine Crespi. The Emperor Charles V had sent into Lombardy a most powerful army, which in the month of November took possession of Milan; by which indication the year 1521 is signified, since on the 19th day of November Colonna and Pescara, commanders of the imperial forces, occupied that city Cfr de Sismondi, tom. XI, pag. 138.. Some soldiers, seeking plunder in every direction, on hearing certain persons suggesting to them that things of the highest price lay hidden in the tombs of the Sacred Mount, betook themselves there; and one, more audacious than the rest, entered the monastery by force, opened the tomb of Bl. Juliana, and standing on the body put one foot on her chest, the other on her face: of which matter a trace, says Peter Augustine Crespi, is still seen, impressed on the mouth. But behold the miracle that forthwith happened: the corpse moved its hand, the church suddenly trembled and the mount was so shaken that it seemed about to gape shortly for those perverse men and to swallow them alive. Struck therefore with fear, they hurried away from there with most rapid steps, a thousand times cursing those who had given them the worst of counsel. And these things are read to have happened before the solemn translation of the body was made.
[23] and after the solemn translation, done A number of things that happened afterwards Peter Augustine Crespi narrates at the end of his little book, with this title set before: "Graces which (as it is pious to believe) God has wrought by the merits of Bl. Juliana after the translation of her body." Lord Anthony Masinago, doctor of physic and ordinary physician of the monastery of the Sacred Mount above Varese, gives testimony in these words, which, like nearly all the rest, had to be turned from the Italian language into Latin: "When Sister Christina, a lay nun of the monastery of the Sacred Mount above Varese, had been brought by a grave infirmity to the extreme of life, and deprived of strength was already so struggling with death that she was held by me and others who saw her to be about to pass shortly to the other life, she commended herself to Bl. Juliana, as she herself told me; and at once she began again to breathe, to recover strength and vigour; by which within a very brief space of time she returned to her former state and health, although she is now an old woman, eighty years old. And since these things are true, I have drawn up this present writing and confirmed it with my own hand on this 26th day of October of the year 1650. I, physician Anthony Masinago, doctor in the said monastery, affirm as above." To which Crespi adds that the same man confirmed and acknowledged the testimony given on the same matter by Christopher Zavadello, ordinary confessor of the monastery.
[24] and described in a single book. But there was not only one benefit divinely received through the intercession of Bl. Juliana; indeed the inhabitants of the convent provided themselves with a book, in which to insert the graces and other things that seemed fit to be attributed as received to the blessed virgin. The often-mentioned Crespi found in it the following, by the priest John Baptist Prandone, receiver (so he calls himself) of the church of St. Mary
on the Mount. The first is of the 29th day of November of the year 1651: "Peter Francis Piatto," he says, "an inhabitant of the borough of Varese, going to Milan, when he had come to the hamlet of Carone, was seized by the heat of a fever. But as soon as he called on the aid of Bl. Juliana, he suddenly returned to his former health, as he himself said and openly professed that it was so true, in the presence of the Reverend Lord prefect of the church of the Sacred Mount and of me the undersigned; and after me he himself subscribed with his own hand with an oath. I, the priest John Baptist Prandone, receiver of the said church, have faithfully written the above." The latter sounds thus: "John Baptist Maderna, fifty years old, dwelling at the Cassina of St. Clare outside the Porta Tosa near Milan, when he had laboured for many years under the vice of a fistula, visited the body of Bl. Juliana, and suddenly seized by a movement of unforeseen joy, went away from there healthy and safe, as he accurately declared what had happened in the presence of the Very Reverend Lord prefect of the church of the Sacred Mount, of me the undersigned and of others, and testified with an oath, as appears below and is explained on a tablet hanging near the blessed body. I, John Baptist Prandone, receiver of the said church, have faithfully written the above. I, John Baptist Maderna, affirm with an oath."
[25] Long before the bones of Bl. Juliana were translated, the people of Busto, her countrymen, had wished to show her singular honour. "Our fathers," says Peter Augustine Crespi, writing about the middle of the XVII century, "erected to her a statue of the natural size of the body in a niche under the tribune of the beautiful church of St. Mary, which is in the middle of the borough." Bl. Juliana is shown in the guise of a nun; and on the pedestal these words are read in gilded carved letters: BLESSED JULIANA OF BUSTO. After the piety of the neighbouring peoples was more and more stirred by the solemn translation of the remains of the blessed virgin, the curators of the poor of Busto and the protectors of the goods of the Cassina in which Bl. Juliana was brought into the light thought it good, that they might the more show her a grateful spirit for this her birth, to take care that a new statue of her be made. This on the 29th day of June of the year 1655 was placed in the cave of the Sacred Mount in which a carved effigy of Bl. Catherine is also seen, and with it was joined a stone tablet, showing in golden carved letters: TO THE BLESSED VIRGINS CATHERINE OF PALLANZA AND JULIANA OF BUSTO ARSIZIO. I mentioned above at number 10 the paper image of Bl. Juliana, made by the engraver Agnelli, which about the middle of the XVII century Papebroch carried away with him from Italy, and which at that time was distributed, or rather sold, to pilgrims coming to the Sacred Mount. And this same one was still in use at the beginning of this century Millin, Voyage dans le Milanais, tom. I, pag. 304.. At the bottom of the margin these words are printed: B. Giuliana nel V. monastero di Sta Maria Monte sopra Varese nata l'anno di N. Sal. MCCCCXXVII; se ne passo alla patria celeste l'anno 1501 alli 15 Agosto [Bl. Juliana in the venerable monastery of St. Mary of the Mount above Varese, born in the year of Our Salvation MCCCCXXVII; she passed to the heavenly fatherland in the year 1501 on the 15th of August]. I should not suppose that anything similar was then done in honour of Bl. Catherine of Pallanza; and as far as I can see, the fame of Bl. Juliana was much more celebrated and her name pleased pilgrims more than that of her mistress Catherine: of which matter (unless I am mistaken) the cause is both that she when living had the care of pilgrims, and that she sprang from the neighbourhood.
[26] [the fortune of the church, the monastery and the relics in these last sixty years.] At the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the XIX the Sacred Mount, no otherwise than the rest of Lombardy, experienced a most wretched fortune. For when the French occupied these parts, who does not recall with mourning memory that very many monasteries and other pious places there were either destroyed or despoiled? This lot fell to the Sacred Mount in the year 1797, in which the nuns were dispersed, part of the silver furnishings of the church sold off Riccardi, Storia dei Santuari più celebri, tom. II, pag. 45. and the monastery assigned to other uses. Yet with holy and most laudable pertinacity the nuns retained some sort of place for themselves there; whence in the Guide for travellers through the Milanese district [Guide de l'étranger dans la ville de Milan et dans le Milanais, part. II, pag. 72.], which came out at Milan in the year 1805, it is read that the monastery then lay open to visitors, and so that in part of it there was a public hospice or inn; but at the same time that in another part a number of nuns were residing. Charles Amoretti has similar things, who in the year 1814 likewise had printed at Milan the fourth edition of his Journey to the three lakes Viaggio da Milano ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano e di Como, pag. 33.; where he narrates that at that time two hospices had been set up in the buildings of the former monastery; that in the remaining part the suppressed nuns dwelt; by whom it was not hindered that the relics of BB. Catherine and Juliana should be seen: whence it may be gathered that those nuns had retained for themselves the choir and the nearest wing of the monastery. But after the authority of the Austrian emperor was restored in these parts in the year 1814 and the following, the old monastery was also restored there: but in what year this was done, I have not found. The most celebrated traveller Millin, who in the year 1817 published his Journey in the Milanese, reports many things of the Sacred Mount, but is deeply silent about the monastery Voyage dans le Milanais, tom. I, pag. 302 et seqq.: but, unless I am mistaken, that author traversed Lombardy while the French were still ruling there. However that may be, some years before the year 1830, about which Epimachus and Paschal Artaria published a new Description of Milan and its neighbourhood, the nuns had fully recovered their former seat and rights, as is reported in that book Description de Milan et de ses environs, pag. 214.: but there, as also in other writings, an error is made, when the nuns are said to have been brought there formerly by St. Charles Borromeo from Torno on Lake Como. That they now give their labour to educating boarding girls in the Christian rite and to instructing the outside girls of the Sacred Mount (which is now a parish), I gather from the Milanese Polyptychs of the years 1840 and 1855 Milano Sacro, 1840, pag. 200; 1835, pag. 196.: whence there is hope that they will not again be suppressed by the Piedmontese government, which now rules in those parts while these things are being printed. From the books whose titles I have reported in this number it is sufficiently clear not only how venerable this place is, but that it has things truly worthy of admiration. But it is not mine to speak of them.
[27] Approval of the cult and proper lessons. It remains that we report the lessons of the II Nocturn, approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites for the order of St. Augustine. At the beginning of this commentary we noted that by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of the 26th day of August of the year 1758 the cause of the confirmation of the cult of Bl. Juliana and of her mistress Bl. Catherine was introduced; here it must be added that it had a happy issue in the first year of the pontificate of Pope Clement XIV, who on the 12th day of September of the year 1769 ratified that cult by a public decree. By this the way was opened for the order of hermits of St. Augustine to obtain from the Sacred Congregation of Rites licence to celebrate her festivity in semidouble rite: which was given to it by a decree approved by Clement XIV on the 11th day of August of the year 1770 [Novaës, Elementi della storia de'sommi Pontefici, edit. III, tom. XV, pag. 170 et 171.], and at the same time it was granted that the following should be recited in choir: LESSON IV. Juliana, brought into the light near Busto Arsizio, among the very beginnings of infancy gave no obscure indications of her future holiness: for she frequently went to church and most eagerly heard the word of God; she likewise showed an excellent specimen of unconquered fortitude, constantly bearing the injuries and blows of her most fierce parent, lest by marrying she should violate her resolve of virginity. For this cause, her brother accompanying her, she secretly fled, and that she might visit Blessed Catherine of Pallanza, most celebrated for the fame of her holiness, she climbed Mount Varese: there received as a companion by the servant of God and instructed by salutary admonitions, she took up the road of exceptional perfection. Hence her sobriety in food, drink and sleep was singular: chastising her body with scourges and hair-shirt, she was never idle. Most loving of truth, she held feigned words in the greatest hatred: and toward the poor especially, whose necessities she provided for according to her strength, she burned with peculiar charity. LESSON V. Then, having made solemn profession in the monastery recently founded by blessed Catherine under the rule of the holy father Augustine, she kept the vows she had made to God with singular zeal and care, especially obedience, the example of Christ being set before her, she cultivated so ardently that this virtue was admirable in her. She was so given to prayers that, a moderate rest being granted to her body, she devoted herself to prayer in the church even by night. In adversities she was most patient and never showed any sign of anger, except when things were being treated that were opposed to the honour and glory of God. And although Juliana excelled in such notable holiness, yet showing herself affable to all with a cheerful and angelic face, in all her speech she most diligently concealed the exceptional uprightness of her morals by the virtue of humility. LESSON VI. Attacked at last by a mortal disease, she wished to be fortified with all the sacraments of the church, and on the last day of her life also assisting at the sacrifice of the Mass, on the night of the Assumption of the blessed virgin Mary, laid on the ground (as she had wished), in the year of salvation one thousand five hundred and first she departed to heaven. From her death a number of miracles won public cult for her: which, being afterwards discovered and duly approved, Clement the fourteenth granted that Juliana be inscribed in the catalogue of the blessed. PRAYER: O God, who in your beloved Son have given the human race an exceptional example of obedience: grant us, we beseech you, by the intercession of blessed Juliana your virgin, that what we have known to be commanded by you we may be able to fulfil by heavenly inspiration. Through. The rest from the common of virgins. The Mass Dilexisti.