Angelo of Acri

ON BL. ANGELO OF ACRI, OF THE ORDER OF CAPUCHIN FRIARS MINOR OF ST. FRANCIS, AT ACRI IN HITHER CALABRIA,

IN THE YEAR 1739.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Angelo of Acri, of the Order of Capuchins, in southern Italy. (Bl.)

BY R. D. B.

Sole §. The writers of the Life of Bl. Angelo. An epitome of his deeds. The order of times. His cult and beatification.

An ornament of the most excellent family of the Capuchin Friars Minor, in the XVIIIth century, Bl. Angelo both by many others, was Bl. Angelo of Acri, who, enrolled in the number of the blessed by Leo XII in the year 1825, is venerated yearly on the 30th day of October with special zeal. His virtues and miracles the first writers touched on only summarily. In the year 1745 Michael of Zug in Switzerland, a member of the same Order, reader of theology and formerly secretary general for the German nation, wrote a brief Life, using both a manuscript codex of the Province of Cosenza of the Capuchin Friars, and the book entitled Calabria sancta, and also the reports of eyewitnesses Bullarium Ordinis FF. Capucinorum, volume III, page 95 and following.. This most ancient writing on Bl. Angelo we have thought should be published below. At Rome there came out in the year 1825, and again in the year 1826, a much longer Life; which the procurator general of the Order of Capuchin Friars dedicated to the supreme pontiff Leo XII. A summary of the Life was published by Zachary Boccardi [Compendio della vita del B. Angelo d'Acri. Compare Catalogus scriptorum Ord. Minorum Capuccinorum, from the year 1747 to 1852, page 42.], definitor general of the same Order and from the year 1829 to 1833 bishop of Crotone. Concise eulogies of the servant of God were written both by many other authors Compare Fr. Sigismund of Venice, Biografia Serafica, page 739, Venice 1846. and by the priest Tresvaux in the French Supplement to the Lives of the Saints of Alban Butler and in later editions of Butler's work.

[2] and is praised by Leo XII for his virtues Since no original Acts of Bl. Angelo have been printed, and more recent books seem either too condensed or too long and foreign to our purpose, from these histories, from the process of beatification, and from other most certain documents we shall weave his deeds together. Of which it is well to set forth at the beginning an epitome, and in those words in which Leo XII, in the apostolic letter on the beatification, expressed the image of his life. Of heavenly … glory, says the Roman pontiff, and of divine power we have a most ample witness in the venerable servant of God Angelo of Acri, professed priest and missionary of the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis called Capuchins, who while he lived on earth, having put off the old man, put on the new, and strove to imitate Francis as leader and standard-bearer, through the obstacles of his uncle bravely overcome, through the highest poverty, through every kind of self-denial, through zeal for prayer interrupted at no * time, through assiduous meditation on the cross, and maceration of the flesh. For he was brought into the light in the town of Acri in Hither Calabria on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of November in the year of human redemption one thousand six hundred and sixty-nine. How great the holiness of this man would be appeared already from his earliest age. For while still a boy, removed from the company of others, he gave himself to zeal for divine things and to continual prayer. Having become a youth he thought of giving his name to the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis Capuchins; to that end he poured out earnest prayers to God; and that he might undertake nothing rashly, he sought the counsel of men outstanding in wisdom and prudence, who confirmed him in his holy purpose: by which it came about that, his uncle strongly resisting, and even threatening to expel his mother from the house, he entered the same Order; where he completed his novitiate and course of studies with the highest praise and the admiration of all.

[3] and his illustrious deeds; Then, initiated into the priesthood, to his companions with whom he lived, and especially when he presided over them, he never ceased to furnish the most excellent examples of all virtues. And when he had understood that nothing would profit him without charity, he applied himself the more vehemently to the love of God, which is the greatest and the first commandment. From this inmost union with God his heart so burned with the fire of divine charity, and melted with so great a sweetness, that he was sometimes seen to break out in ecstasies and raptures, and although he was held as a guest and sojourner on earth, yet because of his very great desire for God he was as a citizen and member of the household in heaven. Kindled by this flame, he could surely not contain himself longer from coming forth with * right faith a preacher of good action, and from devoting himself wholly to cultivating the vineyard of God, namely to instructing his people. As soon therefore as he had been distinguished with the priesthood, he took up the office of missionary, and this he carried on without delay until his death with the highest gain of souls; going about through various cities and towns, intent solely on the glory of God and the eternal salvation of men. At length broken by labors and laden with merits, uttering those most sweet words: "Come, good Jesus, come," having left the remains of his mortality among his companions in the monastery of the Capuchins at Acri, on the third day before the Kalends of November one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine he flew to his eternal rewards Bullarii Romani continuatio, volume XVI, page 362..

[4] whose times are defined. Since by the historians the actions of Bl. Angelo are almost never referred to a certain year and much less to a certain day, we put before the work a certain notation of the times, collected from the Acts of beatification and other monuments. His Lenten sermons and missions have been described by years and individual places in the Responsio ad animadversiones super dubio de virtutibus Page 23 and following.: its author reviewed the public records of the Capuchin Friars. What we have changed or added is confirmed by testimonies indicated in the Summarium Summarium super virtutibus, Rome 1806. Compare below, page 663..

The series therefore is not complete, nor in some places wholly certain, because the eyewitnesses themselves have scarcely determined the times of many things.

[5] The beatification of the servant of God The fame of holiness in which Bl. Angelo had flourished alive became after his death more illustrious from day to day and more widely spread. So it passed through the mouths of all and so many prodigies were narrated, that Bonaventure Sculco, bishop of Bisignano, in whose diocese Acri was situated, began the ordinary process on the life, virtues, and miracles of the servant of God already in the year 1748; which he completed in the year 1755. In the year 1764 Antony d'Afflitto, bishop of Cosenza, began to apply himself to composing a similar process, because the holy man had very often lived in his diocese; he put an end to it in the year 1769. Meanwhile, all the writings of Angelo having been examined, the sacred Congregation of Rites on the 16th day of December of the year 1775 declared that it was possible to proceed further, and at its order apostolic processes began to be made, that of Cosenza in the year 1786, that of Bisignano in the year 1793. The former was completed in the year 1795, the other in the year 1796. On the 17th day of June of the year 1821 Pope Pius VII pronounced that the virtues of the servant of God were heroic, and his successor, Leo XII, on the 19th day of November of the year 1825 approved three miracles.

[6] in the year 1825 it is decreed Wherefore, says the Roman pontiff himself, assenting at length with paternal clemency to the prayers and supplications of the whole Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, and also of our beloved son Louis of Frascati, minister general of the same Order, preacher of the sacred apostolic palace and postulator of this cause, to which Ferdinand, illustrious king of the Two Sicilies, while he lived, the whole diocese of Bisignano, and other men outstanding in dignity and piety joined their zeal and requests, … we grant and allow that the same servant of God Angelo of Acri be called henceforth by the name of blessed, and that his body and relics be set forth for the veneration of the faithful (not however in processions in which sacred relics are carried about); that his images also be adorned with rays or splendors, and finally that the office and sacrifice be performed Bullarii Romani continuatio, volume XVI, page 363.…

[7] and celebrated. On the appointed day, the 18th of December, the most eminent cardinals of the Sacred Congregation of Rites betook themselves to the basilica of St. Peter, to hear the apostolic letter on the beatification of the venerable Angelo. When this had been recited, and the hymn Te Deum sung, and the image of the servant of God exposed also, the patriarch of Constantinople, della Porta, offered the divine sacrifice with more august pomp. After noon Leo XII himself, attended by the college of cardinals, the privy chamber, many bishops, the Roman senate, and other dignitaries, came to the church of St. Peter, and piously venerated Angelo, whom he had recently entered in the number of the blessed. The supreme pontiff had indeed granted that the sacrifice and office be performed with prayers approved by him according to the Roman rubrics from the common of a confessor not a pontiff Ibid.; but in the year 1833 there were presented to the sacred Congregation of Rites a proper prayer and lessons of the II nocturn, which were soon approved and received into the breviary of the Capuchin Fathers.

* non added in the edition.

* eum in the edition.

EARLIER LIFE OF BL. ANGELO OF ACRI, BY MICHAEL OF ZUG

collected from a manuscript codex of the Province of Cosenza of the Capuchin Friars, from Calabria sancta, and from eyewitnesses.

Angelo of Acri, of the Order of Capuchins, in southern Italy. (Bl.)

BY MICHAEL OF ZUG.

SINGLE CHAPTER.

The birth of Bl. Angelo, his entry into the Order of Capuchin Friars, his offices, ecstasies, visions, prophecies, miracles, and death.

Bl. Angelo assiduously afflicts his body. Angelo of Acri, who is a hero of our time and a peculiar example of virtue, acquired from the world an obscure and humble birth; but drew from heaven a noble and happy nature, and marked the skillful care of his maternal upbringing with worthy character. The habit of the sacred Order, which, conquered by temptation, he twice put off, he put on a third time; he disposed wonderful ascents of the religious life in his heart, and in order first to conquer himself, attacked by him, and fully to subject the flesh to the law of the spirit, he decreed continual war against it. Toward the mysteries of the Lord's Passion he was borne with the cultivation of tender compassion. Hence in memory of the wine mingled with myrrh which was offered to the thirsting Christ on the hill of Golgotha, he mostly rolled in his mouth a morsel of aloes or ox gall, and daily he atrociously chastised his body with a spiked and starred or knotted scourge; and on Friday this dire devotion was doubled, and besides his body was extended for a longer time on the pavement in the manner of a cross. This sacred tyranny had to be the companion of his whole life, changed only then, when the love of having compassion with Christ devised bitterer kinds of pain. His course of studies completed, surrounded once by an unwonted splendor, he was ordered to give himself to the spirit of prayer. He obeyed the voice, and with nothing but a dry mind, for the space of two years, he waited for the promised solace. Another voice rewarded his constancy, which promised him the spirit of understanding of Sacred Scripture. Wonderfully too did this shine forth in him; for he so penetrated the mysteries of the faith as if he saw them, and so knew them as if he could not believe them.

[2] He preaches with most prosperous outcome. He presides over the Friars. When however he was once explaining them from the pulpit with the painted ornament of eloquence and with vain pride of words, a hidden force touched him, and so bound the tongue of vanity that he could not utter another word. Confusion sharpened his understanding, and noticing that the word of God did not need the curling iron of empty eloquence, he thereafter preached only Jesus Christ and him crucified, and with freer voice he reproved rampant abuses. Fruit from this apostolic rhetoric he at once saw. The enemy too saw it with an envious eye; hence, to hinder him, during a sermon he either stirred up the bellowing of thunder from clouds driven into a whirlwind, or struck Angelo more gravely on the head. Once he lifted him into the air, and threw him down to the ground like lead; from which his foot, gravely hurt, made his evangelical ministry not a little burdensome until his death. From this envy the man of God doubled the zeal of his labor, and wherever it fell to him to make missions, he gave himself wholly to the service of souls. The fruit of his labor was made fertile by the example of virtue which was eminent in Angelo. That from Leo the Great examples are stronger than words, and that one teaches more fully by work than by voice, Angelo knew excellently: hence, as he made his heart the seat of virtue, so he always scattered its rays nearby, and as with God nothing is more sublime than humility, so nothing was deeper than the humility of Angelo. In the eyes of all he was great, to himself only small. While he was ruler and president of all in the province, he showed himself to all as a minister and servant, who wished to minister and not to be ministered to. And while others extolled the charisms of the divine goodness heaped on him, he on the contrary exaggerated, in contempt of himself, the vile condition of his birth, his twofold departure from the novitiate, and other defects committed in the world.

[3] Most tenacious of his vows, He rendered his vows to the Most High with a zeal and perfection which could not be greater. Angelo, walking in the flesh, did not war according to the flesh; but he was led by the Spirit of God, and he shone with such purity of life that what St. Jerome says of the great John the Baptist was fully expressed in our Angelo: He was not an angel by nature, but by life and the extraordinary purity of chastity. For the tinder of sin seemed in him not bound, but rather extinguished, since the lower part of his body, like dry and withered wood, at the time when the sun most intensely burns us, had to be warmed in him by benefit of fire. From which the higher part of the man poised itself on high with freer flight, and took delight in those things which are of God, kindled with so great a surge of divine love that it was mostly necessary to temper it by a draught of cold water, even in the time frozen with chill. While we wonder at charity so intense in Angelo, we infer by consequence that it had all other virtues as companions. Wherefore, while I am instructed from St. Lawrence Justinian (De cast. conn. verb. et anim., chapter 17, page 247 in my copy) that the friends of God, as more perfect, as they are filled with more abundant grace, so are adorned with stronger gifts, I pass on to sample those of them which I find conferred on our Angelo.

[4] he is often rapt in ecstasy, he prophesies, Angelo was in himself as it were continually outside himself, and while he ate, or even when he conversed with others, he was rapt to heaven by a hidden force of love, and in a sweet ecstasy gained a foretaste of the angelic life. But especially when he was offering sacrifice at the sacred altars, he gained this divine swoon; during which his limbs were as if bound by frost, the motion and pulse of his arteries suspended, and Angelo seemed more like one dead than alive; so much so that neither the indiscreet curiosity of some, nor the base incredulity of others, either by sprinkling tobacco or lime in his eyes, or by pricking his raised limbs with a needle and sharp irons, or by scorching them with fire, could disturb the delights of rapture, and only sacred obedience could draw Angelo back as he rejoiced in them. The gift of prophecy was familiar to him. He foretold the victory won by Austrian valor against the Turks in the year 1717, and Belgrade or Alba Graeca subjected to Catholic rule. He disclosed the deaths of illustrious men and of others living in distant places, at the time when they occurred. Of many deceased he revealed the lot of the divine judgment, and in particular the eternal pain of certain churchmen known to him, equally for the horror and for the correction of others. The secrets of hearts too he so penetrated that the sins which either forgetfulness or shame had kept silent in the sacred tribunal he more than once recounted to penitents, as if they had been written in his hand.

[5] he enjoys visions and works miracles. I come now to visions. It was not rare for angels to converse with Angelo and to refresh him with the charm of their visible form. The queen of the angels more than once admitted Angelo to sweet embraces. The Son of man, Christ the Lord, often gave himself to be seen by Angelo, either clad in the form of a suffering man, or crowned with glory and honor. Angelo also knew in some manner the way in which Christ exists in the most august sacrament of love. He saw in his flesh the glory of God, as far as it can be seen by a wayfarer. To speak such things of a man to a man would perhaps not be permitted, nor should I presume to speak them of our Angelo, unless his unwilling and own confession, extorted by the power of holy obedience by the prelates of the Church and the superiors of the Order, had confirmed them. As I proceed to the gift of cures and the grace of miracles, I am compelled to repeat with John: I saw an angel … having great power (Apocalypse 16). Our Angelo entered into the powers of the Lord, and at his prayers the blind saw, the lame walked. The sick, by whatever infirmity they were held, he healed; he wiped away the scales of leprosy with which bodies teemed; many whom the spirit of malice had besieged he freed from a living hell; for many he prolonged the period of life, and to two infants who came forth from their mother's womb without life he gave it. A voice

of Angelo the terrified elements received with dutiful compliance. The air held up his body, rapt on high and hanging without support; he passed through water with dry foot, and he often pacified its troubled seditions; he restrained the fury of voracious fire, and he made sterile earth fruitful with crops. Angelo entered by closed doors, and was seen at one and the same time in different places; and he renewed in some manner the portent of Joshua, and as at the command of the latter the sun suspended its course over against Gabaon, at the nod of Angelo the day prolonged its limit by many hours.

[6] He dies piously, Foreknowing at length the time when his dissolution was imminent, Angelo prepared his way, and, weary with old age, wished with a sigh of never-interrupted devotion to be dismissed in peace by the Lord; and it was the thirtieth day of October of the year 1739, which then fell on a Friday, sacred to the Lord's Passion and for that reason always dedicated by Angelo to a more severe scourge, on which in his native convent, at beyond seventy years of age, under the sweet name of Jesus, he gave up his spirit. And heaven seemed to rejoice already beforehand at his arrival, when at the beginning of his illness it multiplied its gifts in him, filled the whole convent with a most sweet odor, and fed him with the nectar of longer ecstasies. There was never seen at Acri so great a confusion of the people as was that which with mournful tumult attended the funeral rites of Angelo, celebrated in the presence of the whole secular and regular clergy, and of the prince of Bisignano and all his court, and with the mingled weeping of the pious and howling of the possessed.

[7] While these things lasted the face of the corpse was seen variously changed; and he is made illustrious after death by miracles. for now it bore the form of one praying, and now the figure of one smiling, and it filled all with a certain interior joy. That indiscreet devotion might be satisfied, a small piece of the habit was distributed to anyone by the prince himself, in consequence of which the corpse had to be clothed quite often inside the chapel. The prince himself also sought with singular devotion some drops of blood, to be preserved by him; but when, a vein of the arm having been opened, he saw the body hard and dry without flow of blood, he returned not a little disturbed by it. On the following day warmth was seen in the corpse, and there came out of it a sweat of heavenly fragrance, which, as it stirred up a new gathering of the people, so moved the most reverend lord vicar general to inspect the corpse with Father guardian, and because he found it agile, tender, and flexible, he ordered the vein to be cut anew. The blood, which came out from it copiously, increased the astonishment of the people; it fulfilled the wishes of the prince, who devoutly filled a phial; and when at the prayers of those who were of good conscience the flow was repeated, the portent too remained thereafter multiplied. The corpse was afterwards placed in a chest, closed with three keys; of which the prince of the territory keeps one, the bishop of the place another, and our convent there the third; and laid away at the gospel horn of the high altar, various signs illumine it, and the memory of Angelo will not depart, and his name will be sought from generation to generation, and his virtue, which the episcopal censure is in fact discussing, the holy Church of God will proclaim, if it is permitted to forebode it.

ANNOTATUM.

OTHER LIFE OF BL. ANGELO OF ACRI

from the Acts of beatification, the Italian Life, and other documents.

Angelo of Acri, of the Order of Capuchins, in southern Italy. (Bl.)

FROM THE PRINTED EDITION.

Bl. Angelo from boyhood in virtue In the town of Acri, not far from Bisignano in Hither Calabria, there lived in the XVIIth century a pious and honest married couple, Francis Falco and Diana Henrico or Errico, procuring a livelihood for themselves by cultivating an ancestral small farm. Of these there was born on the 19th day of October of the year 1669 a son ^b, to whom, baptized on the following day in the parish church of St. Nicholas, was given the name Luke Antony. While he was still a little infant he was confirmed in the sacrament of chrism by Joseph of St. Mary de Sebastianis, bishop of Bisignano ^c. And the boy, in accordance with that docile and illustrious nature which he had drawn from birth, wonderfully followed both the examples and the instructions handed to him by his parents, his character being formed to all modesty and piety. From his first boyhood therefore he gave no obscure signs of his future holiness. For at that age he was seen neither to play with his equals, nor when hurt to be angry, nor to do anything childish; but shrinking from trifles and removed from the company of others, he gave himself to zeal for divine things and to continual prayer. And what is more wonderful, from his very tender years he accustomed himself to afflict his body; and when scarcely five years old he was discovered at home praying alone before a likeness of the Mother of God, with grains or small stones placed under his bare knees, which had made hollows in his tender limbs. Already at that time he received pledges of divine love: for when once he was praying more ardently before an image of the Blessed Virgin, he was surrounded by rays coming forth from it, and wonderfully inflamed to piety toward the mother of God Informatio II, page 3 and following. Summarium II, page 34 and following..

[2] applying himself, And as a youth, when he had been handed over to his uncle, the priest Dominic ^d Errico, to be sedulously instructed in religion and good studies, he made no less progress in letters than in piety. A stranger to jokes and playful delights, whatever time remained he spent in prayers, meditations, pious conversations, and setting up altars and adorning them with every means Compare the Italian Life, page 3, Rome edition of 1826.. Most observant of all, but especially of his parents and his uncle, he did nothing without consulting them. And with so great assiduity and zeal he went to the churches that even at night he was very often seen praying on his knees before the doors of the sacred edifices. He had no other delights but to learn divine things thoroughly, to minister at the sacred rites, to attend sermons, and to receive the sacraments. To which he approached with so great a surge of charity that he was an admiration and edification to all. To pious exercises of this kind he did not fail to add also maceration of the flesh, and assiduously to beat his body with scourges. No one could ever reproach him with any sin; but holy and irreprehensible, already from his youth he attained a great reputation for probity and wisdom Inform. II, page 4..

[3] the Order of Capuchins So great a virtue and zeal for heavenly things could not easily rest among the snares and enticements of the world. Wherefore, that he might give himself to God more freely and without hindrance, from his early youth he resolved to devote himself to the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis Capuchins; and that he might not undertake it rashly, he wished not only to consult wise and grave men, but also, still free, to accustom himself in some manner to regular discipline. And so he was accustomed to go to the church of the Capuchins day and night, to give himself more and more to zeal for prayer, and to macerate his body with harsher afflictions. His holy desires had been especially kindled by a certain mission which Antony of Olivadi ^e, of the Order of Capuchins, had given at Acri. Diligently taught by him, the pious young man, when he had expiated the offenses of his whole past life by a general confession, began to turn over the Lord's Passion in continual meditation, and to recite daily what they call the Clock of the Passion; moreover every week to refresh his soul, thoroughly purged by sacred confession, with the divine Eucharist; and finally again and again to take steps to be enrolled among the Capuchin Friars. His uncle indeed opposed (his father had already departed from life), adding threats as well: but the young man, deterred from his purpose by nothing, being then in his eighteenth year, obtained from the superiors of the Order that he be received into the sacred family and make his novitiate at Dipignano Summ. II, pages 46, 50..

[4] having twice entered, But the demon, whom he saw keenly applying himself to the virtues, strove with every means to vex him. Feigning his mother's voice he said on a certain day: "Luke Antony, come: I am alone; I lie sick in bed." On another occasion he enticed him with impure temptations, or terrified him with an exaggerated difficulty of regular discipline. Once and again the young man surrendered. For first, two months after his entry, he left the cloister, having obtained leave from the superiors. But having implored the help of God and used the counsels of grave men, he soon returned. At the same time the battle with hell broke out afresh, and with such impetus that the novice, unable to bear it, cast off the sacred garment a second time. Yet when his uncle urged him to take a wife, he constantly resisted; indeed when he was ashamed and repented of his levity and bad fight, and when, having assiduously prayed to Christ and his most holy mother, he had seen through the diabolical frauds, he asked anew to be received among the novices. Confident in soul and relying on divine grace, he betook himself to the monastery of Belvedere ^f, where he was to be tried Ibid., number V here and there..

[5] a third time, the demon also appearing, When on the road he was hastening to the city of Montalto, and had come to the river Crati, and could by no means cross it because of the size of the water, behold there suddenly stood by a monstrous man, deformed and horrid, who carried the young man across the river placed on his shoulders; but he vanished as soon as the other, placed on the farther bank, wished to give him payment ^g. Afterwards God disclosed to his servant that the giant was none other than the demon, by whom, deceived, he had twice fallen away from religion. Stricken with fear, he went to Montalto, whither he had been summoned by the guardian of the convent, Francis of Acri; and there having spent some days, he came to Belvedere. Finally on the 12th day of November of the year 1690 he put on the sacred garment of the Capuchins a third time, received into the order by Antony of Acri, provincial superior of that district Ibid., page 50 and following..

[6] he is enrolled among the novices. Brother Angelo (for this name was given to him) began to make his novitiate under a most wise master, John of Orsomarso. As he left nothing undone for attaining perfection, the Lord wished him to be tried anew. For almost all the time of the novitiate the demon provoked the novice by casting many troubles at him. By these almost broken, the young man, casting his eyes one day on an image ^h of Christ crucified, said: "Lord, I no longer trust myself. I will go away and take a wife." At once a clear voice was heard: "Why do you not do the same as Brother Bernard of Corleone?" In very truth he learned from the Life of this holy Capuchin ⁱ that he, while he cut himself with scourges daily in the morning, reciting the clock of the Lord's Passion, was freed from similar troubles Italian Life, page 8. Summ. super comm introductionis causæ, pages 7 and 10.. Entering on his footsteps Bl. Angelo routed the unclean spirits, and in the cultivation of all virtues excellently completed the year of probation. When this had passed, he uttered his solemn vows with a glad heart in the convent of Belvedere; and while he thus devoted himself to Christ, he felt as it were a certain flame burned into him ^k, by which plainly strengthened, he afterwards bravely bore all things, and he recognized that the spirit of chastity had been infused into him Ibid., page 53..

[7] Applying himself to studies, he is given infused knowledge. When his probation ^l had been completed, he was sent to the town of Saracena, thence to Rossano, Corigliano, Cassano, and elsewhere, to give attention to the studies of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. In which so

he progressed that in learning and especially in the knowledge of the saints he surpassed the rest. Which indeed he attained no less by diligence and zeal than by a heavenly gift. For when he was applying himself to the study of letters at Cassano, and was once praying in the dead of night, asking from God the light of wisdom, suddenly the whole house was seen to be lit with a greater brightness than is usual at midday; and when his housemates, who were returning to bed after the canonical morning hours, wondered and asked from where so great a light arose, they perceived that it was coming out of the cell of the servant of God, where he was praying surrounded by splendors. From then on Angelo appeared endowed with the gift of knowledge, and the understanding of the Sacred Scriptures divinely infused into him ^m. Hence he was placed over the sacristy. And it was wonderful with how great a sedulity he satisfied all his duties; for while he most diligently carried out his studies and the office of sacristan, he did not fail even in the least in prayer and in the other common exercises Informatio II, page 6.. Mindful of the suffering Christ, on Friday he never forgot to put aloes with gall into his mouth, that through the whole day the bitterness of the taste might torture his tongue and palate. Frequently bloodying himself with scourges, placing nettles and other prickly herbs between his flesh and his clothing, often rolling his naked body on brambles and pricking thorn-bushes, he tortured himself in every way, not only in his youth, but thereafter, even in decrepit age and up to his death Compare the Italian Life, page 9..

[8] He is inaugurated in the priesthood. The course of studies completed, Bl. Angelo was initiated into sacred orders at the end of the year 1701, or at the beginning of 1702 ⁿ. For receiving these he had prepared himself in a truly wonderful and unusual manner, namely by fasts and tears; and when he noticed that by the imposition of hands he was made a minister of God, and a dispenser of his mysteries, he then already so proposed to himself to give himself plainly wholly both to the glory of God and to the profit of men. With a purpose of this kind the will of his presidents also, not without God's providence, excellently corresponded; for they conferred on the new priest the office of sacred herald, which he carried on until his death Informatio II, page 6.. But before we speak of his sermons, it will be well to set forth the religious virtues and offices which he carried out in the convents of his Order.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER TWO.

Of the charity of Bl. Angelo toward God and neighbor, and of his other virtues.

Burning with divine love, In the many and grave offices which, as will be indicated later, Bl. Angelo carried out, as he had the most ample occasion and opportunity for exercising virtue, and for disclosing the flame of charity with which he burned within; so it ought not to be wondered at if the whole course of the life of the servant of God abounds in every kind of virtues, if so many proofs besides are at hand of his most illustrious holiness. So manifold indeed and so excellent are the acts of virtues which our Angelo performed in every part of his life, whether speech be of the theological virtues or of the moral, that all expectation is surpassed, and from them there is plainly established a certain truly heroic, truly wonderful habit of all Christian virtues Informatio II, page 9.. To begin from that which is surely the most excellent, the highest men who purposely investigated with the greatest skill the charity of Bl. Angelo have unanimously admitted that the venerable man excelled all, however good, and was as it were a certain torch of the Holy Spirit. For all his words, all his deeds, all his gesturing were moved by a certain sublime impetus of divine love, so that even outwardly there flashed the fire with which he burned inwardly. He in truth broke out without any intermission into acts of divine love, drawing deep sighs and groans from his heart; hence estranged from the senses, as we shall later declare, he was rapt in ecstasies; and so great was the fire with which he glowed that he sometimes felt his breast burst, and he was compelled to cool the surge of charity with much drinking of water Ibid., page 34..

[10] and most foreign to sin, Hence it is easily perceived how much he shrank from sin. Trembling even at its shadow he so always guarded against it that no one was so severe an investigator as could ever detect in him the least fault, indeed the suspicion of a fault. Many who received his general confessions (even at the end of his life) testify with unanimous agreement that they found in him no matter for sacramental absolution, apart from some slight error which he had committed before he undertook the regular institute Ibid., page 6 and following. Summarium II, pages 169 and following, 179.. Nor was it enough for him to keep his conscience immune from all offenses; but also, as will soon be declared, by assiduous sermons, example, counsels, and other opportune means he applied himself above all to this, that others also should obey the divine commands, and should inflict no injury on God, however slight.

[11] he refers all things to the glory of God. This too is a sign of immense charity, that he burned with zeal for promoting the divine glory. For this he undertook so many arduous journeys full of difficulties and dangers, preachings, and labors, through almost the whole kingdom of Naples Informatio II, page 37.; for this he instituted so many pious works, and left no stone unturned that very many might attend not only to the salvation of the soul, but also to the most absolute perfection; for this he tried with so great a fervor to enlarge the beauty of the house of God. Moved by this zeal, he himself often with his own hands arranged and adorned altars, swept pavements with brooms, cleaned lamps, wiped dust away with a cloth, and whatever for the cleanness and brightness of the church

pertained, he sedulously saw to, by no means hesitating Ibid, page 17.; and if he saw anything done irreverently, kindled with zeal he did not fail to reprove the guilty. The presidents of the province too he often admonished not to omit being present at the divine psalmody in choir. He seemed unable to speak except of God or of the law of God. Here and there he was also heard exclaiming: "O how sweet it is to love God," and sometimes crying out in the streets that he who does not love God is truly stupid and mad Compare ibid., page 38 and following..

[12] Christ often appears to him. With how great a love of Christ the Lord he burned, no one can attain in words. Surely a sign of it are the many visions by which Jesus refreshed his servant. When in the year 1701 he was living in the convent of Rossano, he persisted for a whole day shut in his little cell, repeatedly exclaiming: "If, when you are the God of love, you are such, what will you be when you appear as judge?" The Friars had heard these things. Ordered therefore by the director of the convent to declare openly to all what had happened to him that day, he admitted bashfully that Christ, in the appearance of a tender little infant, had shown himself to him and had dealt most familiarly with him: but that at times he had sent forth rays of such majesty as brought on paleness and trembling; and that he could not then keep from saying: "If you are such as the God of love, what are you going to be when you appear as judge?" A similar benefit he received in the year 1722 in the village of Paterno of the diocese of Cosenza. For when, the mission completed, on the day before the Lord's Nativity, in the house of Antony Pontieri, with whom he had lodged, he had arranged a crib, and had laid in it a likeness of the divine infant, behold, as he prayed fervently, the little Jesus appeared, in the form in which he was born in the cave of Bethlehem, and he willed to be pressed for a long time to the breast of his servant; until at length that happy man, returning to himself at midnight, exclaimed: "O how beautiful it is to love God! O love not loved!" and to his host, pressing him with questions, he opened the matter Summarium, page 420.. The boy Jesus he saw often on other occasions, either while preaching or while offering the divine sacrifice, which he himself, compelled by obedience, disclosed to Father Louis of Fiumara, former provincial of the Capuchins Italian Life, page 59 and following..

[13] His Passion, All the mysteries indeed of the life of our Lord, but with special piety his Passion, he recollected. By this meditation he was so penetrated that he seemed to experience the torments of Christ in himself, striking his face with blows and uttering fiery sighs, sobs, and loud cries, often rapt in ecstasy. If he had noticed any likeness of the cross on the road, he deeply adored it; and to leave in the towns where he preached an incitement toward the Passion of Christ, he set up everywhere very many crosses, which, a procession being announced, he himself carried. Memorable is what happened in the year 1717 at Menecina *, where a huge cross, which could not be lifted except with the help of three robust men, Bl. Angelo, although old and broken in strength, placed on his shoulders without anyone's help, and carried for about a thousand paces; and when it was being carried, the day now declining, between two other crosses, three most brilliant crosses were seen in the air, which accompanied the procession. Besides, at the same time Bl. Angelo is said to have prolonged the day, until the sermons and other offices had been performed. When these had been completed, at once, as many witnesses say, deep night came on Inform. II, page 19. Summarium II, pages 471, 486, 436.. He himself also instituted that the monks, and also the Capuchin nuns, should ask one another what Christ suffered at that hour. Besides, he worked out and published a work whose title was: Clock of the Passion of Jesus Christ ^a; in which all the mysteries of Christ were recollected, with acts of faith, hope, charity, and sorrow added. This he used many times in the day; this he had recited every Sunday before the sacrament in church, with most abundant fruit; this work of piety finally he so promoted on all sides that it was introduced into almost all Calabria and into most companies of regulars, but especially into the monasteries of the Capuchins of that district: where the recitation of the same Clock was instituted daily, with a scourging added on Fridays Compare Inform. II, page 18 and following., as the servant of God himself ordered when he was provincial of the province of Cosenza Summ. II, pages 131, 109, 111, 119, 122, 129.. Finally, dying, with his eyes fixed on the cross, he asked that these prayers be said for him, and in meditating on the Passion of Christ he breathed out his soul.

[14] a vision also being had, The Lord, about to reward so great a piety, more than once appeared to his servant, as he was when he was brought forth by Pilate saying: "Behold the man." In the year 1714 in the convent of Acri, as he was reflecting on the Passion of Christ, a certain sharp but hidden dart pierced his bowels. Unable to bear the torment, he was on the point of wailing, when Jesus met him, cut with many wounds and wet with blood, as he had once been scourged. Moved, Angelo not only abstained from lamentation, but offered his pain, as a sign of mutual love, with his whole soul to Christ: from whom at once he heard these words kindly said: "What do you wish?" And Angelo said: "I wish what you wish, Lord." The vision vanished, but the blessed man's torment persisted up to his death, although not always equally vehement Italian Life, page 61..

[15] and the Holy Eucharist, both he himself venerates, It is no longer to be wondered at if he venerated with the highest devotion the most holy Eucharist, which consecrates the memory of the Lord's Passion. While still a young boy he was accustomed to adore it daily in the church of the Capuchins at Acri, sometimes even at night. Then in the novitiate, in the course of studies, he stayed before it as long as domestic discipline allowed Ibid., page 56 and following.. Then and through the rest of the space of his life, before the most august sacrament he often brought forth most ardent prayers for many hours, with so great a surge of love that he seemed a Seraph Compare Summ. II, page 165 and following.. As often as he passed before the tabernacles, he deeply adored the Eucharist, kissing the ground amid ejaculatory prayers Inform. II, pages 20 and 39.. When about to perform the sacred rites, he first prepared himself for them by long and most ardent prayer, a scourging being added, which was prolonged for about an hour; and on Fridays not without much shedding of blood. Thence he began the sacred mysteries with incredible modesty, devotion, and gravity. At the elevation of the host he mostly appeared shining and glowing. Mass being completed, he was accustomed to blush in appearance and to prolong a most fervent thanksgiving for an hour and more Ibid. Compare Summarium II, page 102 and following..

[16] and he takes care that it be venerated by others. The cult of the Most Holy Eucharist he spread everywhere with the highest zeal. He had it exposed every Sunday for the public adoration of the faithful, with a great display of lights and flowers; it also, at the end of each mission, he carried in the manner of those in procession through the streets and squares. Thence he gave to a very crowded people a sermon on the mystery of the Eucharist, with such force that he seemed to pour out flames. Often, when he was speaking, he was rapt in ecstasy, often jubilating he exulted with charity ^b, and once he was rapt from the pulpit, flying to the altar Inform. II, pages 20 and 39. Summ. II, page 167.. Finally in Calabria he wonderfully propagated the prayer of forty hours.

[17] He is most devoted to the Mother of God. That he might better bind himself and his neighbor to Christ, he considered that his most holy mother should be venerated with every means and diligence. On the vigils of her feasts, every Saturday, for nine days before the more solemn feasts, from the first to the fifteenth day of the month of August, and at other times too, he sustained himself on bread and water alone; all which, begun from his early age, he thereafter sedulously observed and perfected. Having heard the name of Mary, having seen an image, he was accustomed to bow his head. He held it as his delight to mingle speech about the most blessed Virgin; and he confirmed to all, especially to novices, that a monk devoted to the Mother of God was likewise the most diligent in every religious duty. How he spared no labor, to inflame both the Friars and all others to venerating the immaculate Conception of Mary Italian Life, page 63 and following. and to turning over her sorrows in mind, I shall make no end, if I undertake to narrate. He himself certainly treated with special worship the Mother of Sorrows, whose likeness he had; and in it he often saw the look and color change, as they report Summarium II, page 119.. Singular too was his service toward the most chaste spouse of Mary, St. Joseph. St. Michael the archangel, his guardian angel, St. Peter, and St. Francis he embraced with almost incredible love Compare Summ. II, page 110..

[18] He is wholly in prayers. If, as St. Thomas says, prayer proceeds from charity, we shall easily believe that the life of Bl. Angelo, burning with so great a love of God, was assiduous prayer. And first at the common prayers day and night he not only was never absent, but he far excelled all in diligence and fervor of soul. For at the morning hours in choir he was present long before the others assembled; and when they were finished, he did not return to bed, as others did, but in the choir went on praying up to none amid sighs and groans, not departing from it except under the urgent command of the president. When through the fracture of his shin he was unequal to walking, yet with the help of crutches he betook himself to all common exercises. But besides these, all the time which remained from preaching he gave to prayer, being accustomed to say that he could taste nothing sweeter. Often at night he was discovered lying on the ground, and praying with his arms arranged in the manner of a cross. In the more remote corners of the garden or in caves, in the walks, in the streets, in the houses of seculars, in which he stayed for the sake of missions, on the road, everywhere he was heard uttering ejaculatory prayers. Ordered once to manifest why he uttered sighs and cries so often, he answered that his breast seemed to him to burst, when he directed the keenness of his mind to God, and that his breath was stopped. Finally in the contemplation of divine things he rested uniquely, and in it he placed all his delights Compare Inform. II, page 41 and following.. Namely, scarcely having completed his course of studies, he had earnestly asked light from God, that he might learn in what office he ought to serve him, whether namely to apply himself chiefly to prayer, or to preaching. As he prayed there showed himself visibly an angel of the Lord, and the house in which the venerable man was pouring out prayers having been illuminated with splendors, he warned him to give himself to prayer and contemplation, that he might receive the gift of wisdom Ibid., page 44. Compare Summ. II, page 186.. From then on, truly never sated with the company of the Lord, plainly sunk in it he was so delighted that he seemed not a wayfarer, but one who has attained.

[19] He gives attention to the salvation of others, It could by no means be that he who was joined in so close a tie with God should not also vehemently love men for his sake. And to begin from those things which regard the soul,

what did the venerable Angelo neglect to do to provide for the spiritual salvation of men? To preachings, instructions, receiving confessions day and night, helping the dying, offering salutary admonitions, he gave himself wholly; with how prosperous an outcome often will be clearly said below Compare Inform. II, page 46 and following. Below, chapter IV.. It will be well to mention in this place that he frequently brought enemies back to concord; which happened in two powerful families of Acri, Pera and Bernando, most sharply quarreling over a certain estate. Princes themselves contending among themselves, such as John and Aloysius Sanseverino, he so reconciled that he was called an angel of peace Summarium II, page 198.. The town of Belmonte, torn by contentions, he plainly settled in the year 1736, and the citizens laid aside their enmities Ibid., page 204.. In the town of Marzi he calmed by a public reconciliation families hostile to each other to the point of mutual slaughter Compare ibid., page 246.. The contending inhabitants of Cetraro too he pacified. The city of Amantea, agitated on all sides by dissensions, he led back to peace and concord Inform. II, page 49.. Finally ecclesiastical prelates and dukes summoned him to calm discords Summ. II, page 250; compare page 249..

[20] forgetful of himself. And so, always applying himself to the salvation of men, he labored so assiduously that he abstained from all recreation. And when the Friars pitied him, and asked him to spare himself Italian Life, page 68., he said: "By no means. What are you saying to me, Friars! O how much one soul cost Christ! For saving one soul all the labors of the whole world would rightly and deservedly be spent." Souls too he helped by fervent prayer, and he frequently entreated God for the people, especially if he had been informed of some public scandal. Once it happened that, when at night the prince of Bisignano, Aloysius Sanseverino ^c, was walking near the monastery of the Capuchins, he heard him begging pardon for the people with the deepest groans; and soon entering the cloister, he perceived him asking from God that he turn his weapons on him, and destroy him rather; and saying many times: "This people has sinned a very great sin: either forgive them this offense, or blot me out of thy book." Besides, on the following day the servant of God announced a public procession of penance, at which the prince of Bisignano was present, crowned with thorns Inform. II, page 50. Summ. II, page 194. Italian Life, page 73..

[21] He deals kindly with the needy The works of corporal mercy are enumerated in such number by the witnesses of that holy life that they can be only indicated summarily in this place. Bl. Angelo, while he presided over the convent, and while he was a subject, with the president's assent, relieved the want of the poor, with vegetables cooked by himself, or with food taken from himself daily, and with remains from the table distributed by his own hand at the door, or with alms and garments collected from the rich. He afterwards perceived that a hungry man once fed by him had been Christ Summarium II, page 199. Italian Life, page 71 and following.. He also received in hospitality and ordered to be received those by whom his Friars had been rejected, saying that one should deal more kindly with those by whom they had been held more harshly Summ. II, page 215.. Finally pilgrims and strangers who were lodged in the cloister of the Capuchins he refreshed with his own food, consoled, and aroused to patience; indeed a sick man, to whom no one wished to offer hospitality, the servant of God received into his own cell. Nor did he only care for his sick Friars with incredible charity and lowly soul; but also toward outside sick persons nothing was so arduous that he did not gladly do it. He sometimes placed them on his shoulders, carried them to infirmaries from place to place, cleaned vessels and linens, tended ulcers, ministered remedies; he consoled relatives, was at hand for the dying, poured out prayers for them, and ran to them as they breathed out their souls without delay, even in the dead of night Inform. II, page 53. Summ. II, page 225.. And how pleasing to God was his so abundant charity toward the sick is plainly testified by the miracles of which we shall have to treat later.

[22] and he passes over his own advantages. I shall add one thing from which it is perceived that the blessed man had turned his whole thought away from private comforts. When the prince of Bisignano, John Sanseverino, brother of Joseph Leopold, had decided to give money that the church of the Capuchins of Acri might be enlarged and adorned, Father Angelo took care that it be spent for the public utility, namely that a public fountain be built at Acri, which was greatly necessary for the people Inform. II, page 52. Summ. II, page 194.. The authority in which he flourished with princes he used for the advantage of all. The prince of Bisignano, Aloysius Sanseverino, taught by him, remitted a certain tax Summ. II, page 234.. Joseph Leopold, likewise lord of Bisignano, vehemently angered against the inhabitants of the quarter Rione di Padia, and thinking of destroying everything there with fire, he by his prudence made mild and tamed Ibid., page 232.. To the same prince when about to exact a new tribute from the people of Acri he bravely resisted Ibid., page 295..

[23] Despising himself, It would be an immense task to review the other virtues of Bl. Angelo. Yet we cannot but proclaim his modesty of soul and humility, which was the companion, moderator, and guardian of all his thoughts and actions. How humble he was in knowledge is sufficiently shown by the lowest opinion of himself which he always cherished, as is clear both from his words and from his deeds ^d. For he always spoke of himself with the highest contempt, reckoning himself the vilest of men and a useless servant; and openly everywhere he announced the slowness and wickedness of his mind. As publicly in sermons as in private conversations he proclaimed that he was born in the humblest place, that he was full of offenses and the greatest sinner of all, that he was twice a deserter of his institute, that he was rude and ignorant, attributing to his sins the scourges of God which had come upon the world; and he struck his face either with his hands or even with his sandals. He said that no honor was owed to him, as being a shepherd's son, an abject worm, the servant of his brothers, and as it were a flayed beast of burden, by which name he was accustomed to call himself.

[24] he casts away all glory; This humility shone forth also in his magnanimous contempt of earthly things and of human glory. For reckoning himself as the offscouring and reproach of men, he so turned away from honors, services, and praises that nothing could be more troublesome to him, nothing more execrable. The supernatural gifts with which he was heaped, and the miracles which he produced, he hid in every way. While peoples applauded, he humbled himself, saying that he was a wicked servant and the most ruined of men, and that glory was owed not to him, but to God only; and he tried to steal away from there. Received honorably by princes, he grieved, saying that a place could scarcely be given him among their grooms, or among the water-carriers for their stable Compare Summ. II, page 364.: and he warned the prince of Bisignano not to pay him honor: for he ought to remember that he was the son of a goatherd and a baker-woman, and a subject. The signs also which were done through him he ordered to be referred only to God, not to himself; and to those cutting off pieces of his tunic he was accustomed to say that they had cut off the hide of a beast of burden. He always walked with hurried step, lest honors be shown him along the road. Peoples flowed together from the towns either to consult him, or to obtain graces through him, or to applaud him. But the servant of God, his face lowered to the ground, cast himself down with inmost sorrow of heart, saying that he was the vilest of all Inform. II, page 83.. One thing was pleasant to him, namely to be despised; and the more he was vituperated, the more he rejoiced Ibid. Compare Summ. II, number XIX here and there..

[25] he seeks the viler duties, Not only did he spurn honors and offices, undertaking them only when compelled, but he also always delighted in performing the more abject ministries. For there is no office so vile that he did not carry it out, even though he was venerable in dignity and old age. While he was still president, indeed provincial, he did not hesitate to pound bricks with the Friars for making a pavement, to repair roofs, and also to sweep the choir, dormitories, and kitchen, and to remove filth with his own hands. The sick he served with the highest humility, patience, and charity, both in spiritual and in temporal things Summ. II, page 369 and following., tending ulcers, making beds, cleaning vessels. Guests also and the poor, although superior, he delighted to serve with his own hands, to wash their feet and to furnish other things which were needed. On a certain day, in the year 1724, in the convent of San Giovanni in Fiore, whither he had been called to a chapter to settle a controversy, when his companions were unwilling to wash the dishes, the president, Fr. John Baptist of Scigliano, in order to teach all humility and obedience, ordered Angelo to clean the kitchen vessels. What did he do? Although he was an old man, and had once filled the office of provincial, yet he at once complied with much joy Summ. II, pages 357, 368. Compare Summ. de introductione causæ, number XVI..

[26] and he rejoices both in insults As he thought himself the vilest and most guilty of all, so he bore with even mind all insults and reproaches, as due to him. Injuries truly inflicted on him once by a Capuchin cleric of the convent of Acri he bore most patiently, indeed cheerfully, saying that he deserved more reproach than the other was saying; and, what is more wonderful, he always greatly loved his detractor Summ. II, page 367.. Mocked by anyone he not only was not indignant, but rejoiced most vehemently, never excusing himself; and unjustly reproved on a certain day by the president, he gave him thanks on bended knees. His judgment he always submitted to another's, and he at once acquiesced in those reproving him, with folded hands and lowered head Ibid., page 363.. It happened at Amantea that when from the pulpit he was reproving certain new doctrines, one of the hearers mocked him before the people. Nor was that enough: on the next day in the church of St. Elias he summoned the servant of God from the chair of penance, where he was sitting, and loaded him with curses, calling him rude and ignorant. What did Angelo do? He most humbly received the reproaches and insults openly before the whole people, and bending his knee before his detractor, he most humbly kissed his feet, and asked pardon of him, with the greatest admiration and murmuring of all. But God avenged his servant; for his reviler, scarcely gone out of the church, was struck by an accidental shot of a firearm, not without great danger to his life Ibid., pages 361, 472.. The most patient Angelo never complained. Attacked with reproaches, insults, even stones, he softened his tormentors by bearing them, and it not rarely happened that bending his knee he gave thanks Inform. II, page 67..

[27] and in pains of the body. With how glad a soul he bore not only ignominy, but also weaknesses and torments of the body he gave very many proofs. Of which this is especially to be recorded, that he endured with wonderful patience the most bitter pains of a broken leg. Namely in the year 1721, when he was preparing to set out from Tessano, about to bring sacred missions to another place, he saw in spirit

and heard Christ conversing with the Mother of God about a certain fall, by which he was to be afflicted. Not knowing of what kind that fall would be, whether of the soul or of the body, he feared, and with lowly soul undertook the journey, praying God that he might fall only in body. In fact he broke his leg on the road, and he rejoiced in soul. Then carried as far as Rende, the bone of his leg being burst and shattered, he was ordered by the surgeon Bernard Mele to be bound, while the treatment was being done. Bl. Angelo said that this was not necessary, provided that an image of Christ hanging on the cross were given him. And holding this in his hand and looking at it, he sustained the incredible torment of the healing silent and calm, as if rapt in ecstasy. The treatment being prolonged for forty days, glad and festive amid the pains he sang psalms Summ. II, pages 279, 285 and following, 291 and following, 409..

ANNOTATIONS.

* Mendicino

CHAPTER THREE.

Of the chastity, poverty, and obedience of Bl. Angelo. The offices which he fills. The beginnings of the monastery of Capuchin nuns at Acri. His fame for holiness.

Bl. Angelo in chastity, From what has been set forth so far, it can now be easily conjectured how holily Bl. Angelo kept those things which most pertain to the religious life, to the vows uttered there and the offices filled. Of his chastity his confessors testify with one mouth that from the beginning of his novitiate until the end of his life he did not violate his purity even by a slight thought Informatio, page 74.. For although by an angel appearing to him ^a, as they report, he was thoroughly freed from the enticements or provocations of the flesh Compare above, chapter I., yet he brought singular zeal to guarding cleanness of mind and body. So great was his continence in food, such the frequency and harshness of his fasts, that his life was attributed to miracle. In the whole course of his life he added very many others to the fasts of the Order Inform. II, page 70.; and it very often happened that for two or three days he ate nothing, joining the greatest labors with so wonderful an abstinence. With his sparing food he sometimes mixed ashes, cold water, much salt, aloes or myrrh Compare Summarium II, number XV and following..

[29] in mortification, He used little sleep, that he might give time to striking himself; and, while he was younger and as far as his superiors allowed, he very often bloodied himself for more than an hour, either with knotted ropes, or with bundles of thorn-bushes, or even with a scourge studded with points of glass; and afterwards he tended the wounds inflicted with salt and vinegar. And how bitter and grave was his iron hairshirt is testified by scars detected on the loins of the servant of God. Besides, at night he very often went to a cave, where he had prepared a bed of thorns and nettles, in which, as we said before, he rolled naked Compare ibid., page 71 and following.. And in this hard kind of life, although worn down by labors and exhausted by old age, he yet always persevered until his death. We need scarcely add that there was in him a perfect guarding of the senses, and so singular a modesty that even men of bad morals composed themselves on seeing him. His words and deeds smelled of chastity, and instilled it into others Compare ibid., page 318 and following.. And the lascivious he recognized by their stench, as he made plain many times Ibid., page 322 and following..

[30] in poverty That that distinguished son of St. Francis was wholly without all ownership of things; that he abstained not only from superfluous things, but also from those which are almost necessary for life; that he spurned riches, comforts, gifts, and delights; finally that in food, clothing, and furnishings he showed a heroic poverty: this all the witnesses and documents confirm. Going to the missions, he never carried either a wallet or shoes; but he was accustomed to undertake very long journeys with bare feet and altogether unprovided. He wished for only one tunic and that patched and worn with use. When it had once been decreed to employ finer wools, the venerable man (such was his anxiety about poverty) eagerly set himself against such a plan and brought it about that nothing was innovated. Likenesses of Christ crucified and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the sacred Scripture, a breviary, a bench, a straw mattress, various kinds of scourges: this was the whole furnishing of his cell [Compare Summarium II, number XVII, page 328 and following. Informatio II, page 76 and following.]. Dying he left nothing to be distributed.

[31] and in truly distinguished obedience, Among almost innumerable specimens of most prompt, eager, courageous, and in every point complete obedience, this is truly wonderful, that he not only penetrated and performed on the spot the commands of the voice, but also the hidden orders of the mind divinely. Wherefore, while he was far off, he felt the commands of his presidents, and he at once betook himself to their feet, as if he had received them with his ears. Very many are the deeds by which this is confirmed: but this is the most splendid, that when the prince of Bisignano had come to the monastery to address the servant of God, and he was rather far away, the president, to offer the prince an illustrious proof of the obedience of Angelo, summoned him in his absence, and he was at once present, as if he had heard the command. Even when estranged from the senses and rapt on high, he was at once called back from ecstasy by a mental precept of his superiors. This too was experienced by bishops and other ecclesiastical prelates, whom the man most zealous for obeying set over himself as directors, when he stayed in a city where there was no convent of his Order Summ. II, pages 342 and following, 354, 346..

[32] and, often placed over the Friars, In all the places in which the servant of God lived (and he lived in very many, as in the convent of Acri, Belvedere, Cetraro, Rossano, Corigliano, and others), he was most observant of his rule, so that he was proposed to all as an example. Nor could so great a virtue lie long hidden from the Friars, and so they conferred on the venerable man, though unwilling, cloistral offices. Compelled by obedience, he undertook first the office of vicar, then also the headships of monasteries Summ. II, page 54 and following., both at Acri and in many other places, as at Morano and Cetraro Ibid., page 49.. With him as president regular discipline so flourished that he seemed to pour his holiness into the others also. But at what time he presided over each monastery is not easily determined. But certainly, after he was definitor, from the year 1717 to 1720 he presided over the province of Capuchins of Cosenza: at which time he inspected all its monasteries. Finally the office of provisitor general was committed to him, who bore it with reluctance, and in carrying it out he used the highest equity and moderation, and showing himself an example of all virtues, he restored many things which had lapsed, and ordained many which could contribute to the stable order and profit of the province Inform. II, page 7..

[33] he is the pattern of an excellent director. He ruled his subjects always with the highest prudence, exhorting them above all by his example and admonitions to holiness. Witnesses affirm that he was vehemently anxious lest anyone should offend God even slightly; that he applied himself wholly to this, that the law be fulfilled; that he opportunely sought the amendment of all, neither too severe nor too indulgent; that he gradually restored observance; that he renewed discipline everywhere in wonderful ways Ibid., page 58.; and that he took pains especially that holy poverty be cultivated by all. While he was provincial or guardian, he sedulously took care that nothing superfluous be retained by the Friars. He had buildings erected within the limits of simplicity and necessity; and since at Acri there was a spacious garden planted with olives, he ordered so great an abundance of olives, as foreign to poverty, to be cut down Ibid., page 77.. Never anxious about the morrow, he procured supplies not for a long time, but for the day. Which confidence and spirit of poverty so pleased divine Providence that, when provisions failed, they were often either brought unexpectedly, or multiplied by a singular portent. It sometimes happened that an abundance of salted fish or another kind of food was sent to him as a gift. What did the servant of God do? He had them distributed to neighboring and poorer monasteries; lest namely in his monastery more be procured than necessity required Inform. II, page 76.. But at the same time he sedulously provided that nothing be lacking to the Friars, especially the sick.

[34] He is troublesome to no one. No one was more just than he in conferring or taking away offices, in rewarding labors, in restraining offenses Ibid, page 63. Summ. II, page 48.. Although he severely imposed obedience to the laws and devotion to duty, although he punished all faults, yet he corrected with such charity, courtesy, and skill that those who had been reproved were seized with love of him and laid aside their vices. This prudence shone forth also in the chapters of Cetraro, in San Giovanni in Fiore, and elsewhere Summ. II, page 235., at which he was compelled to be present, and which he ruled with the highest wisdom. Hence he was always summoned to chapters to reconcile those at variance; and by his presence and counsel he so composed minds that all things were decreed peacefully and holily

Inform. II, page 58 and following.. Witnesses affirm that no one complained of him in the whole course of his life; that all who addressed the servant of God went away from him plainly refreshed; that the sweetness of his speech was so great that all were drawn by it, and that even when reproving or punishing he not only was troublesome to no one, but was loved by all Ibid., page 59..

[35] He founds the monastery of Capuchin nuns at Acri. Among so many cares and labors, he sedulously provided also for the Capuchin nuns, whose monastery at Acri he himself had had built. For when at Acri, Bisignano, and elsewhere he had led many virgins, born of good parents, to living holily, and knew that while they lived in the world they fell into great rough places, he resolved to gather all into one society of religious life, although trouble was made for him on all sides Summ. II, page 280.. He communicated the matter with Joseph Leopold Sanseverino, prince of Bisignano Italian Life, page 69 and following.. He therefore, at the request of the servant of God, founded at his own expense a monastery of Capuchin nuns ^b, as the Sacred Congregation of the Council gave him power on the 28th day of July of the year 1725 ^c. In this monastery Bl. Angelo for many years filled the office of confessor, with such spiritual progress of the nuns that many of them departed from life in the odor of holiness. Among whom is especially mentioned the daughter of the prince of Bisignano himself, Teresa, who was stirred by the venerable man to embrace so holy and austere a kind of life Inform. II, pages 51 and 9., and, having taken the name Mary Angela of the Crucified, was renowned for the praise of all virtues. Further, that stricter rules might be introduced into the new convent and be in force there, the holy founder suffered many things and spent very much labor, two professed nuns also being summoned from the convent of Capuchin nuns at Tessano. The impediments being at length overcome, the matter succeeded excellently, and accurate observance constantly flourished in the convent. To attain this, Bl. Angelo also wrote with his own hand certain admonitions, which were after his death employed in turn by other confessors of the nuns [Summ. II, page 280; compare pages 193, 203, 282. Compare Resp. ad novas animadv. super dubio de virtut., page 46 and following.].

[36] For two years he stays in the house of the prince of Bisignano. Nor can we pass over in this place that that prince of Bisignano thought so well of the holy man that, two years after the monastery was founded, he wished to have him continually with him in his house, and to use his services very much for the salvation of his soul. The faculty was granted by the Roman pontiff Benedict XIII, by this letter given on the 14th day of July of the year 1727, on the back of which was inscribed: To our beloved son Angelo of Acri…

POPE BENEDICT XIII. Beloved son, greeting and apostolic blessing. The zeal for religion, honesty of life and character, and other praiseworthy merits of probity and virtues, for which you are commended to Us by worthy testimony, induce Us to treat you with special favors. For recently on the part of our beloved son, the nobleman, the present prince of Bisignano, it has been set forth to Us that he, greatly trusting in the Lord in your prudence, piety, and probity, greatly desires to have you, who, as the same prince asserts, are an expressly professed Friar of the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis called Capuchins, and placed in the sacred order of the priesthood, continually with him for his spiritual consolation, and to be able to use your services in those things which pertain to the salvation of his soul and the quiet of his conscience, as he has thus far experienced. He has therefore caused Us to be humbly supplicated that We would deign to provide opportunely for him in the foregoing and, as below, to indulge him of apostolic kindness. We… inclined by supplications of this kind, grant and allow by apostolic authority by the tenor of these presents that for two years only, with the license of your superiors, you may stay with the said prince, and live and dwell in his house, yet so that, whenever during the said two years you can be recalled to the cloister by your aforesaid superiors, you may freely and lawfully, and without incurring any penalty in any way imposed by the constitutions of the said Order; notwithstanding the foregoing and apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and also the statutes and customs of the said Order, and privileges Michael of Zug, Bullarium Capuc., volume III, page 95.…

[37] He is in the highest veneration among all. To one recollecting with how great a fame of holiness Bl. Angelo flourished, that petition of the religious prince will not seem wonderful. It is incredible how many men called him and held him a saint. Very noble men also openly kissed his hands and served him, calling him an apostle, a husbandman, a servant of God, and an angel of the Lord. And since his garments were cut off on all sides as relics, he always went about in patched tunics and cloaks. The peoples of almost the whole kingdom of Naples vied in visiting him, especially in both Calabrias, at Naples, and at Monte Cassino. About ten thousand men once accompanied him as he went out of a town. Peoples followed him weeping, and fell down before him as he passed. Nobles assiduously summoned him. The princes of Bisignano, Paul de Mendoza, marquis de Valle, the duke of Bagnara, the prince of Scilla, the duke of Monteleone, and many others called him and consulted him, and commended themselves to his prayers. The same was done by the archbishops of Rossano and Salerno, the bishops of Bisignano, San Marco, Oppido, Tropea, Cassano, the abbot of Monte Cassino, and innumerable other outstanding men. Vincent Maria of Aragon, archbishop of Cosenza, bending his knee openly asked his blessing. At the order of the cardinal archbishop of Naples, Francis Pignatelli, who made very much of him, he was called back to Naples. Finally so greatly did the fame and veneration of his holiness grow that the king and queen of Naples ordered his likeness to be painted [Informatio II, page 106. Summ. II, number XXIV, page 494 and following; compare page 169.]. And he came into that renown both because of his plainly heroic virtues, and because of the miracles, prophecies, ecstasies, and other supernatural gifts with which the Lord heaped his servant.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Of the illustrious deeds of Bl. Angelo in the missions. Lenten sermons.

Through almost the whole kingdom of Naples The wonderful virtue of Angelo was not restrained within the cloister, but it came out in public, and shone forth far more brightly in filling the office of missionary; which he carried out assiduously from the time when he had scarcely received the priesthood until his death, with no other end set before him but the glory of God and the everlasting salvation of men. Through almost the whole course of the year therefore he went through cities and lands, everywhere preaching the word of God and penance, sparing no labor, indeed neither old age itself nor infirmities. Wherever he was called either by bishops or by the lords of towns, he betook himself there at once, leave being had of his presidents, and he never took any gain or gift from this exercise. He conducted missions in almost all places of both Calabrias, in the city of Naples itself, and in the other provinces of the kingdom of Naples: indeed shortly before he departed from life, he carried out this sacred legation in the city of San Germano. Of these missions many have each been reported above at their year Compare Preliminary Commentary, number 4.; but there are others, and perhaps more, of which the time cannot be determined. For it is ascertained that he went through both Calabrias evangelizing and completed missions in innumerable towns Resp. ad animadv. super dubio de virtutibus, page 18., in the dioceses of Cosenza, Bisignano, San Marco, Nicastro, Oppido, and others: whose bishops, not long after the death of the servant of God, wrote to the supreme pontiff that their Churches had been watered and sanctified by the sweat of the venerable man Compare Italian Life, page 18..

[39] he conducts missions and gives Lenten sermons, Besides these sacred expeditions it is established also that blessed Angelo for thirty-seven years, namely from the year 1702 to the year 1739, in which he departed from life, gave Lenten sermons every year, from which again he never wished to receive any stipend or alms. And how great in this office was his charity and zeal can be conjectured especially from this, that when he had once fallen and broken his leg, he nonetheless was unwilling to omit his sermons, but, carried in a chair, he addressed the people daily amid the most bitter pains.

[40] taught by God the manner of preaching, In what way he spoke on divine things, and with what fruit, must now be briefly told. He began his Lenten sermons in the year 1702 in the parish church of a certain quarter of the city of Corigliano, to which quarter the name of St. George was given. But although he labored under no defect of memory, in the midst of a sermon he so stuck that, his speech being hindered by a higher power, he stood speechless, and had to depart with the matter unfinished. When, astounded and suffused with shame, he was praying God at home to make his will manifest to him, behold he heard a voice: "Do not fear:

I will give you the gift of sacred preaching; from this hour all your labors will be made fortunate." To the speaker Angelo said: "Who are you?" The chamber trembled as if shaken by a vehement earthquake, and the servant of God felt that this answer was given him: "I am who am. Henceforth you will use in preaching a simple and readily available kind of speech, that you may be understood by everyone." He fell down half alive, so terrified that as often as he read those words written by himself or uttered them to others, he trembled in all his limbs. From this day, having cast away books and writings, carrying with him nothing but the sacred Scripture and an image of Christ hanging on the cross, he was accustomed to prepare himself for preaching by prayer. Then having all hope in God, he went up into the pulpit. In speaking simple, but full of anointing and vehement, he so adapted himself to the capacity of his hearers, so used popular comparisons and the proper dialect of each place, that even boys understood him well Italian Life, page 11 and following. Informatio II, page 8..

[41] and helped by an angel. His words passed like arrows into the inmost hearts of men: and this the more because portents, ecstasies, and raptures also very often accompanied his speech, and because he was reported to have been endowed by God with the understanding of the Scriptures. Besides, they narrated that as he preached an angel of the Lord was accustomed to go before his words. He himself admitted to the director of his soul that in a sacred sermon he was accustomed to say, lest he should confuse the many thoughts divinely sent into him: Step by step, step by step. And in very truth the whole assembly at every sermon noticed him turned to the side and, a sign being given with his hand, uttering these words Summ. II, pages 64, 68 and following. Italian Life, page 13..

[42] He moves all incredibly. No one was so hard as not to be bent by his speech, no one so impious as not to be moved. And this happened especially at the end of each sermon, in which he was accustomed to recollect the passion of Jesus Christ, with so great a motion of soul that he himself, estranged from the senses, was mostly rapt in ecstasy, and his hearers were consumed with sorrow and tears, and often, drawing off their shoes, struck their faces. The very lady of Bisignano, Cornelia Capece Galeota, once openly beat herself with scourges Summ. II, page 62.. But at the same time Bl. Angelo tried to give courage to all; to raise all to the hope of salvation, that they might flow together to the tribunal of penance and each most ruined man might betake himself to right ways. He frequently said that men are damned only by their own fault, and that God fails no one. He himself composed a most splendid act of hope; during the delivery of which once a wonderful commotion was stirred in the people. He never omitted to recite it in his last sermon. That sinners might moreover be raised more certainly to hope, he showed the standard of the cross, and, the mission or Lenten devotion being completed, he fixed it in a certain place, attended by a column of men in procession and crowned with thorns Compare Inform. II, page 27. Italian Life, page 15..

[43] He preaches with most prosperous outcome, Plainly innumerable are the sinners whom that holy herald of the Lord's word led over to penance. Public concubinaries often, moved by his sermons, emerged from the mire of their shameful deeds, like that Leonard Vitteritti whom so many witnesses mention in the Process of beatification Compare Summ. II, pages 61, 219.. A Lutheran once laid aside his errors; and in the first mission which Bl. Angelo held, namely in the land of San Giorgio of Further Calabria, he tore from souls the heresy which had grown strong there Summ. II, page 332.. Many too of noble birth returned from corrupt morals to a more amended life; and at Acri a certain harlot, led by penance, so struck herself that she died from it Ibid., page 219.. When the servant of God was speaking on divine things, it commonly happened that blasphemers licked the ground with their tongue with all looking on; dice-players burned dice and playing cards; dissolute men, with a rope tied to their neck and their head crowned with thorns, asked pardon from the assembly for their scandals; others restored goods to those defrauded; vain women publicly detested vanity; all finally betook themselves to care for eternal salvation, or even to a perfect life. Wherever Bl. Angelo stayed, he extinguished inveterate hatreds, restrained luxury, changed what had been done licentiously, and restored unhoped-for peace to many families. By which it came about that to his sermons an immense multitude of people flowed together even from neighboring districts, and thronged him as he walked. These things, already indicated above, will afterwards be confirmed by new examples.

[44] God himself wonderfully helping him. So prosperous an outcome Bl. Angelo referred to God alone, who often clearly helped him. Cardinal Pignatelli, archbishop of Naples, when he had heard many things about Bl. Angelo, asked him in the year 1711 to give Lenten sermons in the church of St. Eligius at Naples. He, at first terrified, but soon confirmed by this voice of the Lord: "Go and do not fear; for I am your protector," began to speak from the pulpit. All so despised his simple and readily available manner of speaking that for the third sermon already no one was present, and the rector of the church dismissed the preacher. Moved in nothing by this injury, Bl. Angelo had set out, when the archbishop, informed, called him back and ordered him to preach anew. The most humble man obeyed, and spoke openly before a very great crowd, even those being present who had before hissed him off. Among these was a certain scribe, who had come to deride him again. But the servant of God, while he was giving the sermon, said to the whole assembly: "I wish you would say an Our Father and Hail Mary for the soul of him who, having gone out of the church, will perish by a horrible accident." In fact, that despiser had scarcely gone out of the church, when he suddenly fell dead. Moved and disturbed by this event and by other wonderful works, the citizens thereafter heard the holy man's sermons with the greatest attendance, and held him in such honor that they thronged him going to the church and returning from it, cutting off small pieces of his tunic also, like relics Compare Italian Life, page 24 and following..

[45] He threatens sinners with divine vengeance. To this can be referred the fact that when about the year 1738 he was preaching in the city of San Germano, he exclaimed: "O city of San Germano! You do not wish to give up the sin of the flesh. This night fire will burn and you will be consumed like Sodom and Gomorrah." On the same night moreover, toward Monte Cassino, about two miles from the city, an immense flame seemed to hang over the city, and it cast all into terror. But the servant of God, in the presence of the abbot of Monte Cassino, del Verme, and many others, spent that whole night in prayer and scourgings Ibid., page 35..

[46] Staying at Acri too, he provides for the salvation of all. But the most holy man so provided for others as by no means to neglect himself. In the month of November he went out to begin the missions, and he prolonged them until the month of June, when he returned to the convent of Acri or to another, according to the decision of his superiors. In the four remaining months he applied himself with his whole heart to attaining Christian perfection Ibid. page 16., being accustomed to say: "He who wishes to drive others to right ways, let him first drive himself." Although not even at this time did he leave off gaining souls for God. For on Sundays he preached in the church of the convent of Acri, and with most prosperous outcome. But especially there shone forth his most illustrious charity in the ministry of the sacrament of penance. For so great was his prudence in healing consciences, so he mingled severity with sweetness, justice with charity, that very many set out from their towns to cleanse their consciences before him, and there was none of his penitents who did not return to right ways and shine before others by example. Wherefore he received the confessions of men at home day and night, often even without having dined Informatio II, page 8 and following.. Christian doctrine too he was accustomed to teach to boys and unlearned men with incredible patience and care. And that boys might come together to the church spontaneously and gladly, he enticed them with little gifts and bland admonitions; and he spared no effort that all might be sedulously formed in the rudiments of the faith Ibid., pages 8 and 24..

CHAPTER FIVE.

Of the ecstasies and raptures of Bl. Angelo. His visions.

Innumerable men Bl. Angelo rapt in ecstasy Of what kind these supernatural gifts are, how they differ among themselves, and how the genuine can be distinguished from the vain, there is no reason to discuss again at length in this place. It is enough to have noted that both the ecstasies and raptures of Bl. Angelo, as has been shown in the Acts of beatification, were truly divine, since by them the fervor of charity, humility, and the other virtues were increased Informatio II, page 88 and following.. With these moreover he was so frequently endowed by God that it would be an endless task to go through them singly. Of innumerable ones therefore we shall excerpt a few. Mostly, while he was offering the divine sacrifice, he was rapt in ecstasy, and this very often after the consecration for a quarter of an hour, as eyewitnesses confirm on oath Summarium II, pages 104 and following, 111, 118, 121, 137, 191.. He then appeared handsome and beautiful Ibid., page 417.. Something similar frequently happened during sermons and at table Ibid., page 423.. And although ecstasies very often occurred only with estrangement of the senses, so that he was not hurt by a flame placed under his hands or feet Ibid., pages 416, 421, 425, 427, 431., and felt nothing, not even fire brought near his eyes or other provocations employed by physicians; yet they frequently took place with elevation of the body Inform. II, page 89.. At Belmonte the priest Philip Aloysio saw him lifted up from the ground, when he was offering the divine sacrifice Summ. II, page 107.. At Menicina in the church of St. Nicholas, giving a sermon, he was carried on high five or six times, with all looking on Ibid., pages 173, 416.; likewise at Belmonte Ibid., page 415., at Rossano, at Calopezzati Ibid., page 74. before the whole people, at Acri, Monteleone, Mileto, Paterno, Cetraro, Belvedere, and almost everywhere Compare ibid., pages 418 and following, 426..

[48] have experienced. It happened in the city of Monteleone, of the diocese of Mileto, that Duke Julius Pignatelli sent two attendants, to inquire diligently into such raptures, and, if they detected them false, to punish Father Angelo with blows. The investigators, hastening, actually found the venerable man preaching and lifted upward in body. That they might therefore test what they discerned with their eyes by handling with their hands also, they placed their hands under his suspended feet; and, the truth being recognized, both they and their lord were recalled to penance Inform. II, page 43. Summ. II, pages 168, 429.. Almost the same happened at Aprigliano. When the servant of God was conducting a mission there, a certain dissolute and incredulous man, Hyacinth Grandinetti, wished to make trial of the preacher's raptures, thinking them deceitful. Having entered the church therefore, he was soon astounded, when Angelo

he saw lifted from the ground; and not believing his own eyes, he passed his hands again and again under his feet. Then moved by penance, he thoroughly purged his soul by sacred confession, and, having taken up the ecclesiastical state, he thereafter lived and died holily. The fact moreover was widely spread and very well known Inform. II, page 89. Summ. II, page 410 and following.. Others too, by placing their hands between the floor and the feet of the man of God, or by another experiment taken, detected him truly suspended on high Summ. II, pages 416, 419, 429., as they themselves afterwards asserted on oath.

[49] indeed flying; In the parish church of Castiglione he once flew from the steps of the altar, to take the monstrance, with which to bless the people Ibid., page 415.. Likewise at Fiumefreddo, when, the most august sacrament being already exposed, he was speaking to the people, and was saying these words: "Do you wish for bread? Receive this living bread of angels," he suddenly flew from his place to the altar ten paces distant, by no means touching the ground, and this with the whole people looking on Ibid., page 434..

[50] but returning to himself at a superior's order. And this filled the minds of all with astonishment, that when he had been called away from the senses, he returned to himself even at an interior order of his presidents. In the year 1734 Summ. II, page 352. he was summoned by the provincial superior, Antony of Strongoli, to the convent of Rossano, to be present at the chapter, that with him present the election of a superior might succeed prosperously. When, having scarcely entered the refectory, he was rapt in ecstasy, the guardian, Fr. Bonaventure of Rossano, who confirmed the fact on oath, commanded in his mind these words: "Father Angelo, obey." He at once said: "Father guardian, what am I ordered to do?" Something similar happened, many looking on, in the year 1724 in the convent of Acri Ibid., page 353.; on another occasion also before the prince of Bisignano and his family Ibid., page 347.; likewise before bishops Ibid., page 355; compare page 422.. I omit other almost innumerable examples.

[51] He often enjoys visions. Not a few visions of Bl. Angelo we have indicated above. But it is far from true that all have been recounted, and of the very many that remain it is well to touch on something in this place. As he once entreated for a dead man, he appeared, warning him not to pray for him, as being damned: and when he doubted, he was seen again in the midst of flames Ibid., page 428.. At the time when he had his domicile in the convent of Cetraro, he saw in a vision Maria Teresa Sanseverino, daughter of the prince of Bisignano, afterwards a nun, then five years old, praying before a likeness of Jesus crucified, and him assenting to the girl and celebrating espousals with her Ibid., page 417.. He himself on a certain day, experiencing dryness of soul, seemed to himself to see the most holy host come out of the tabernacle and enter his heart: which through all his life thereafter palpitated most vehemently. He heard at the same time words which signified the nuptials of the soul with Christ Ibid., page 422.. As he offered Mass Christ the Lord was often seen as an infant, or scourged Ibid., pages 414, 420; compare pages 117 and following.. As to the knowledge divinely infused into him, we have already narrated above how an angel stood by him as he preached, suggesting what was to be said; how the Lord promised him that he would be at hand while he spoke, and gave him a wonderful understanding of sacred Scripture Compare ibid., pages 423 and following, 432 and following..

CHAPTER SIX.

Of the command which Bl. Angelo exercises over demons, living creatures, and other created things.

The servant of God drives out demons, How dear Bl. Angelo was to God is abundantly declared by other things, and also by the power divinely handed to him over demons, living creatures, and the elements. He delivered so many energumens that from this no wonder was any longer felt. When he was giving a mission at Belvedere, by the sign of the cross alone he snatched from the demon Rosalia Caselli, possessed for ten years Ibid., pages 440, 447 and following.. Another woman, native of Cetraro, he delivered, spitting in her face and striking a blow. In the city of Fanum Sancti Marci (Sanmarco) Constantia Orifice, sister of a certain canon of the cathedral church, was said to be occupied by the devil. Led to Cetraro to the servant of God, she received from him a slip of paper on the immaculate Conception and was ordered to confess her sins to the guardian of the convent: at once she came out of the evil Ibid., pages 445 and 457.. At the time when he was holding the second sacred mission at Fuscaldo, in the presence of many he delivered two possessed persons: Benedict Fioretto, by tying the toe of his foot, and a certain Angela, by anointing her forehead with blessed oil, which was called the oil of the Blessed Virgin Ibid., page 448.. When a certain woman possessed by a most wicked spirit was being led to the church of the convent of Acri, the demon admitted on the road that he would prefer to flee at once rather than to stand before Father Angelo. In the church of Fuscaldo, before very many witnesses, an energumen, howling foully and speaking in various tongues, was exempted from her vexation by his blessing, having vomited a nail; which was hung up at the altar Ibid., page 452 and following.. When Father Antony Carposi, of the convent of Minims of Acri, was a young boy, he ran about furious from a bewitchment. The servant of God, having blessed him, warned his mother to burn a certain paper hidden at home. The paper burned gave off a very heavy stench, and the boy was safe. Finally, as witnesses assert, the holy man excellently distinguished those who had truly been seized by the demon from others, and some women who said they were vexed he refused to admit to him Ibid., page 452..

[53] he exterminates destructive insects, About the year 1730, at the end of the month of May, so great an abundance of caterpillars arose at Lutia (Luzzi) that they destroyed the crops and the inhabitants tried in vain to exterminate them. Then, summoned by the prince of the region, Bl. Angelo, praying, sprinkled the fields with blessed water, and enjoined the insects to plunge themselves into the rivers. A wonderful thing! They obeyed the word: in troops they threw themselves into the streams Moccone, Acquaviva, and others, so that not even one remained. An eyewitness of that prodigy adds that it is incredible how great was then the commotion and devotion of the people Ibid., pages 437, 444 and following.. In the year, as a certain witness says, 1734, Thomas Firao, lord of the land of Lutia, brother of Cardinal Firao, sick with a broken leg, summoned Bl. Angelo. When he was therefore betaking himself there, on the mountain de Noce he saw fields laid waste by destructive insects, which no human art could destroy or put to flight. But soon, as he prayed and three crosses were arranged and erected by him, all perished, and the harvest was excellent beyond hope. For the everlasting memory of the prodigy those crosses, which were called the crosses of Father Angelo, were left in the fields, and certainly they still existed long after the holy man's death. On the same journey he refused to take a small supper sent to him, which was scarcely enough for himself and two or three, and he distributed it to twelve attendants and more. All of whom were filled; indeed wine remained over in a flask, although many had drunk here and there. At length, when the servant of God arrived at the prince of Lutia, he restored his broken leg to him Ibid., pages 437, 444, 455, 458.. Of fields freed from insects eyewitnesses report more, but not all note the times in the same way.

[54] he commands fire At Belmonte, holding a sacred sermon in the year 1736, to set forth better the pains of the damned, he held his hand for a long time placed over the burning flame of three wax candles: at which so great a horror invaded those standing by that they wrested the torches away; but the hands of Angelo were found wholly unhurt Informatio II, page 24 and following. Compare Summ. II, page 108.. When on the 5th day of October of the year 1726 at Acri the house of Horace and Dominic La Pera had begun to burn, and the fire was threatening the whole quarter, which could be checked by no human aid, Bl. Angelo suddenly extinguished it by a sprinkling of blessed water. Another and more terrible fire blazed at Acri in the house of a certain Spezzano, in the month of August of the year 1729. When no one could overcome the force of the flames, the citizens ran despairingly to Bl. Angelo. He, blessed water being cast on it, at once extinguished the fire Summ. II, page 436; compare pages 439, 441, 443, 449, 450, 454.. This fact was ascribed to an undoubted miracle both by the bishop of Bisignano, who was staying at Acri, and by others. Besides, from the neighboring mountains of Acri, called Serra di Buda, Logno, San Cataldo, there rose at night flames which terrified the inhabitants, and which were attributed to the sorceries of demons or to the eruption of a fire-vomiting mountain. And they vanished from the time when the servant of God fixed crosses in those places. These crosses moreover long after the event were still in veneration among all Ibid., page 439 and following..

[55] and the waves. He exercised command also over water. When he was making his way from the village of San Lorenzo of the diocese of Rossano to Castrovillari, where he was to be present at the provincial chapter, he crossed the swollen river Esaro with dry footstep and dry tunic. Seeing this his companion was encouraged, and he too crossed the water unharmed Ibid., page 440; compare page 456.. When the sacred mission at Amantea had been completed, he was called by the duke of Bagnara, to preach here also. On the journey itself, he went out of the ship at the shore of Tropea, the sailors refusing, and he at once ran to the house of Bishop William, who was breathing out his soul. When he had been recovered, he wished to go straight on, and although meanwhile a savage storm had arisen, and the sailors did not wish to sail, he himself embarked. Many then looking on, where the ship was plowing the water, the sea was tranquil and the wind favorable; but all around the tempest raged. In the year 1736, in Lent, near Belmonte in the diocese of Tropea, the sea was so agitated by raging winds that the waters thrown on the fields inflicted very grave damage. Asked by Gregory, archpriest of Belmonte, the servant of God blessed the sea. Which, all being astounded, at once grew quiet. Sometimes also he indicated to fishermen where their nets were to be cast: and then the catch of fish was most abundant Ibid., page 446..

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Admirable healings obtained at the entreaty of the man of God. The multiplication of bread and wine. Bl. Angelo present in distant places at the same time.

He heals very many, others mortally The signs by which the Lord showed the holiness of his servant were so many and so illustrious that all the witnesses cry out that innumerable miracles were wrought by the intercession of Bl. Angelo while still living. He gave sight to the blind, restored the lame, delivered energumens, returned health to very many sick. Many he healed by sending letters, or food, or gifts, or by the laying on of his hand. But let us now pass to the narration of singular miracles. First of all the servant of God was wonderfully endowed with the gift of cures Inform. II, page 93.. Pascal Cozza, son of a patrician of the city of Amantea, placed in the extreme peril of life and given up by the physicians, he suddenly healed; and in the judgment of the physician this healing was miraculous, because it was instantaneous and because the disease was by nature incurable. Now he had written

Bl. Angelo certain words in honor of the immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and had them placed on the dying infant Summarium II, pages 492 and 472.. In the land of Acri he delivered the little daughter of Camilla Vaccaro from a deadly disease, and foretold to her death after a year; and it so happened exactly Ibid., page 474.. Gerard Greco, gravely sick, he at once healed, so that he immediately went out to his duties Ibid., page 462.. One of the witnesses, Nicholas Gallo, a physician of Bisignano, about the year 1726 had long been laboring under most atrocious pains of the bowels, having tried in vain all the aids of art. The servant of God, summoned, prayed, and signing the sick man with the cross thoroughly healed him Ibid., page 480.. When on another occasion the same witness, then staying at Naples, laboring mortally in the intestines, had come to the last peril of life, the servant of God being invoked though far absent, and a certain letter of his being placed on his belly, he was suddenly healed, not without evident miracle; for no crisis had intervened, and the gripings ceased in a moment of time.

[57] the sick, The son of the same man, Augustine Gallo, afterwards a priest, was tortured for many years by the disease which is called spina ventosa, and could be healed by no remedies. Then his mother, Margaret Vidal, carried him to Father Angelo, in the convent of Bisignano. The servant of God, wiping the wound with his saliva, and enjoining on the boy to recite the Clock of the Passion daily, at once restored him to perfect health, although the bones had been consumed by caries. Nor did the sick boy labor any more under that disease Ibid., pages 466 and following, 481.. About the year 1732, Peter Antony Sanseverino, count of Chiaromonte, eldest son of Aloysius prince of Bisignano, when he was an infant of about two years, seized by the falling sickness, could by no means be delivered. The venerable man, summoned, anointed the boy with oil of the lamp which burned before the likeness of the Mother of Sorrows in the church of the Capuchins at Acri, and at once and perfectly healed him Ibid., pages 466 and 481.. Antony Gardi, physician of the land of Lutia, narrates that his mother, laboring under the same disease, was so healed by the servant of God, a certain devotional thing being sent, that she thereafter suffered that disease no more.

[58] others disabled in their limbs. The right hand of the notary of Bisignano, Castagnaro, drawn and twisted by gout, he at once healed by the sign of the cross: "This, he said, is enough for you to seek your livelihood," and he did not restore the left hand Ibid., page 468.. Andrew of Belvedere, a professed Capuchin lay brother, affirms on oath that, afflicted for nine days now with pain of the side and retention of urine, he was recovered from the illness in this way: the venerable man, absent, appeared to him, and ordering him to be of even mind, rubbed his legs so vehemently that the sick man felt incredible pain. Some Friars, drawn by the sufferer's cry, inquired the cause of the cry; having heard it, wondering, they answered that the servant of God was absent, and then staying in the house of the prince of Bisignano. About the hour of compline Bl. Angelo, coming, ordered the sick man to be carried to the choir, where he thoroughly and immediately recovered. The same witness by the touch of the servant of God was at once freed from gout; and afterwards when the same pain returned, he was healed again, his feet at once subsiding Ibid., page 476 and following.. Mark Maringolo, a carpenter of Acri, rashly cut off his left heel. Rising from bed after four months, he could not place his foot on the ground. He consulted many physicians, who judged the disease incurable. But the servant of God anointed him with oil of the lamp hung before the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and ordered him to return to labor. Thereupon the carpenter, as he himself narrates, walked freely and returned to his works. Aloysius Sanseverino was about to undertake a journey: but a toenail of one of his feet, accidentally broken, hindered his departure. Bl. Angelo, summoned, anointed the nail with his saliva, and it at once adhered, and the pain ceased. Aloysius himself gave testimony Ibid., page 483..

[59] He restores the use of the eyes to many. At Rossano he gave sight to a boy born blind in one eye, saying that this was enough for living. In like manner he opened an eye of a blind woman; and to her asking for the healing of the other eye, he said that one sufficed her. Antony Rosa, a cleric, when he was in the seminary of Bisignano, contracted from smallpox a grave and stubborn disease of the eyes: all the remedies of art were employed in vain. To the evil a fistula was added, and the disease was prolonged for about twenty years. But his eyes wiped with a linen cloth of the servant of God were at once healed: as the sick man himself confirmed by oath Ibid., page 477.. To Camilla Varcari of Cogiolani, growing dark in sight, he on the spot restored her vision by impressing the sign of the cross Ibid., page 482.. Dominic Mingacci, archpriest of Terra Reggina of the diocese of Bisignano, was laboring under a desperate and incurable bleariness in his left eye, and upon remedies being employed the evil broke out afresh and wholly took away his sight. But the servant of God, signing the eye with his thumb, ordered it to be healed, and that the sick man should labor no more under disease of the eyes, at the same time warning him piously to recollect the Passion of Christ and to recite daily its Clock. The pains at once ceased, says Dominic, the eye opened, and I wholly recovered my sight, the physicians being astounded. Finally in the city of Amantea, a woman blind in her eyes, by the contact of the fringe of the cloak of the servant of God, recovered her sight Ibid., pages 463 and 492..

[60] He heals hurt nerves and broken limbs, But now from the healings of the eyes let us proceed to other parts of the body similarly restored, and to the lame, the crippled, and those disabled in their limbs. Fidelis of Castiglione, reader of sacred theology, of the Order of Capuchins, narrates that he labored for three years under a spasm in the head, but that, the holy man impressing the sign of the cross on his forehead, he was at once and perfectly freed Ibid., page 493.. Agatha Julia, wife of Octavius Candia, of Acri, he on the spot healed of a monstrous swelling of the throat by the sign of the cross, and promised her male offspring, and obtained it Ibid., page 463 and following.. An inveterate tumor in the mouth of Magdalene Calabria, a nun, then living at Fuscaldo, at the contact of the saliva of the servant of God at once and wholly vanished Ibid., page 473.. At Rossano, in the house of the very noble man Rapani, Thomas Ferraro, lame in both feet, he suddenly healed by taking him by the hand. He, casting away his crutches, at once rose and walked Ibid., page 490.. The son of Catherine Russo, afterwards a Capuchin with the name of Angelo of Acri the younger, crippled and lame, he restored on the spot Ibid., page 462.. John Baptist Granata, physician of Bisignano, in more than his fiftieth year, falling from a horse broke his leg, so that it could no longer be healed. But small pieces of linen which had been in the use of the servant of God being applied to the fracture, the pain at once went away, and the leg was wholly restored Ibid., page 488 and following..

[61] account sometimes being taken rather of the salvation of the soul, Eugenia Caravella, of the town of Lutia, from the third to the twelfth year had been so disabled in her limbs that from the loins to the feet she lacked almost all motion. In such a state she was brought to Acri, to the servant of God. He prayed over her, and signed her with the cross. Then he inquired whether she would prefer to be wholly healed with the ruin of her soul, or moderately with greater security of eternal salvation. Meanwhile, at his command, she rose, stood on her feet while the prayers were being used, and asked that she might recover only so much as was enough for the necessities of life, eternal life being had. As she had chosen, so the servant of God did with her, and she recovered so much motion as was enough for carrying out domestic duties. That this took place before many witnesses she herself affirmed in the process of beatification Ibid., page 462.. A certain man disabled in his limbs and who could by no means move himself, when he had asked healing from Angelo as he passed by, was ordered by him to be carried on the following day to the convent of Cetraro, where, having received his blessing, and anointed with oil of the lamp of the Most Holy Sacrament, he rose, recovered motion, and returned home without the help of anyone. That healing was done before many, who attributed it to an extraordinary miracle Ibid., page 478..

[62] or as much as was necessary for the uses of life, Nor do the benefits stop here. The wife of a certain Nicholas, at Rocca Bernarda, lay weakened in bed. A messenger being sent to Acri, her husband asked for the cincture of the servant of God, by which he hoped his wife would come out of her illness. The cincture brought to the sick woman and applied to her wholly and suddenly restored her. Wherefore the husband, brother, and kinsman of the healed woman came to the convent to give thanks Ibid., page 478 and following.. The distorted and weak forefinger and thumb of each hand of another woman he healed in a moment of time. But to the woman, by no means content, as not having received an entire grace, and asking that the other fingers be restored to health, he answered that these fingers sufficed for working Ibid., page 467.. To Anna Basile, of Fuscaldo, whose fingers of the right hand were numb so that she could not work and was almost perishing of hunger, he restored the thumb and forefinger for spinning. And when the sick woman pressed him to restore the other three to health, he also dipped them with oil of the lamp of the Blessed Virgin Mary and healed them Ibid., page 473.. Beatrice Trolla, wife of Dominic Gallo, in the land of Fuscaldo, had a languishing and almost dead arm. Bl. Angelo anointed it with oil of the lamp of the Mother of God, and so returned strength and health to it Inform. II, page 95..

[63] or by taking the pain in part on himself. The pains of childbirth being imminent, Hippolyta Spinelli, countess of Chiaromonte, wife of Prince Aloysius Sanseverino, in terror asked the holy Father to provide for her. He answered that he could take half of the pains on himself; and he truly so felt them that he wailed. Thereupon he warned the countess in advance that she would begin her torments; which at once happened. On the following day he at once healed by his touch the distorted face and limbs of the infant born, and reduced them wholly to their natural position. The narration of the various healings wrought by the servant of God being now completed, let us take a step to set forth other prodigies of his.

[64] Various things are multiplied by him by miracle. Besides those which we have already narrated, as when Bl. Angelo is said to have prolonged the day, and carried an enormous cross on his shoulders, crosses also appearing in the sky Compare Summarium II, pages 470, 436, 115., it will not be out of place to mention these things. In the land of Marzi, the servant of God, who was then conducting a mission there, entrusted to a certain farmer going to his vineyard that he should bring back figs for him. It was then the month of March, and not the time of these fruits. But in fact the farmer found a branch laden with fresh figs, and he brought them to the holy man. He gave the fruits to a certain Antony, with whom he had lodged Ibid., page 475.. To Bl. Angelo, who about the 15th day of October of the year 1739 was asking an alms of wine for the convent of the Capuchins, Antony Gradilo complied, at first indeed unwillingly, because he did not then abound in wine, but soon with a willing soul. But, God rewarding him, he afterwards found more wine in his casks than there had been before.

He himself afterwards made it plain that this was a true prodigy. At the time when Bl. Angelo was guardian of the convent of Acri, on a certain day when bread was lacking, he himself with his own hands distributed certain small pieces among eighteen Friars, so multiplying them that not only were all filled, but much also remained over to be given to the needy Compare ibid., pages 462, 99, 153.. His companion once hungry on a journey, Andrew of Belvedere (who himself narrated the matter), he ordered to have hope in divine providence. At once there appeared a young man, who, offering the travelers an abundance of food, suddenly vanished Ibid., page 152.. In the land of Menecina it happened that, the blessed man's tunic having been cut up by pious men eager to have relics, it was seen by the same persons wholly entire; this indeed an eyewitness asserts Ibid., page 470..

[65] He doubles the presence of his body. More than once it happened that Angelo, standing in one place, was at the same time found in another. When he was giving attention to missions at Amantea and was living in the house of Horace Carratelli Albergato, he was asked by the wife of Baron Fava, of the same city, to go to God for her husband mortally sick, who was to receive the sacred viaticum the next morning. He promised that he would pray. But on the following day, at the second hour before sunrise, in the sick man's house, whose doors had not yet been opened, the holy man suddenly stood there, and long exhorted Baron Fava duly to feed on the body of Christ and to place his hope in God. At the same hour moreover, at the same moment, as was ascertained and is confirmed by many, Bl. Angelo was certainly in the house of Carratelli, and was heard praying, groaning, and scourging himself. On another occasion he was present at the same time at two monasteries about twelve miles distant, namely at Acri, where he then had his domicile, and at Terranova, where he visited a sick Friar. Likewise when on a certain day he was at Acri in the palace of the prince of Bisignano, at the same hour he was seen in the choir of the convent of Capuchins of the same place Ibid., pages 464, 468 and following.. To these is added that, conducting a mission at Menecina, when he had planted a cross in a certain place far distant from the church, and had remained praying there, while the whole column of those in procession was going back to the church, he was suddenly found by all in this church Ibid., page 463..

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Of the prophecies of Bl. Angelo and of his searching of hearts. His knowledge of hidden and remote things.

He prophesies, besides things already said, either what certain men will do, Him whom heroic virtues so greatly adorned, as we have shown thus far, the Lord deigned to heap with an abundance of heavenly gifts, that so he might also make his holiness manifest to all. Among which this must first be recorded, that, enlightened by divine light, he foreknew future things, and all things happened as he prophesied Compare Informatio super dubio de virtutibus, page 86.. To those which we have narrated before many must be added. To Claudius Ferrari, afterwards parish priest of the church of St. Nicholas at Acri and archpriest, but then not yet a priest and engaged in secular business, he foretold that he would one day give his name to the ecclesiastical warfare, would be placed over Acri, and would be present with him as he died Summarium II, pages 376, 379, 382.. Vincent Fasanello, physician of Bisignano, sick and deserted by the physicians, he said would be restored to health and would live five years more Ibid., pages 377 and 393.. To Agatha Julia of Acri, wife of Octavius Candia, when pregnant, he announced that she would give birth to a female infant, who would embrace the religious life; and then to a male, who would become a priest. Both in fact took place. Ildephonsus del Verme, a certain Benedictine monk of the Cassinese congregation, banished by his brethren ^a, he consoled by saying: "Be of good courage. Your hardships will cease: indeed you will be created abbot of Monte Cassino Ibid., page 379.." The event confirmed the prophecy. Peter Afflisio, a Capuchin novice, he warned in advance about the putting off of the religious garment. To the prince of Bisignano himself, Joseph Leopold Sanseverino, he announced that he would return to right ways: which took place five years after Ibid., page 382 and following.. Of John Sanseverino too he foretold the holy conversion to God. He afterwards, made a priest, withdrew to a monastery Ibid., pages 383 and 234..

[67] or also who will be born, die, conquer in war, or suffer. When he was holding a sacred mission at Aprigliano, and was asked by Francis Antony Crocco delle Piane and his brothers to obtain male offspring for a woman, he said: "You will obtain it, but it will profit nothing." An infant indeed was born, who died in the sixteenth year of his age; and the family was extinguished Ibid., page 381.. Camilla Vaccaro and her daughter Isabella were laboring under illness: the servant of God announced health for the mother, but death for the daughter, although she was less dangerously sick. But Camilla pressing him, he obtained from God that the life of Isabella be prolonged for a year. When this had elapsed, she died Ibid., pages 387, 395 and following.. In the year 1736, while he was preaching at Belmonte during Lent, very many boys laboring under smallpox were brought to him. And he announced who would die, and who would recover health Ibid., page 385 and following.. To Paul Mendozza, marquis della Valle, he prophesied that he would have no sons, because he did not show himself equitable enough toward his subjects, nor had followed his other counsels Ibid., pages 385 and following, 292.. When the count of Altomonte, Nicholas Sanseverino, as his nephew Aloysius Sanseverino narrates, set out in the year 1706, to serve under Philip V king of the Spains, Bl. Angelo foretold to his sorrowful mother, Maria Fardelli, that the kingdom of Naples would return into the power of the Spaniards. Which indeed afterwards actually happened Ibid., page 397.. Conducting a sacred mission at Mangone, he set up some crosses in memory of the Lord's Passion, and said that the people would be afflicted with a great calamity, when the larger cross fell. It fell in the year 1764, and at the same time there was such a scarcity of provisions that many thousands of men in that region were killed by hunger Ibid., page 403. ^b.

[68] He looks into minds, Minds too he looked into thoroughly. Gerard Greco, physician of Acri, narrated that to him as he confessed there was disclosed by the holy man a sin long since committed, which he had forgotten, and which the confessor could not know except divinely Ibid., pages 377 and following, 388.. Similar things happened not rarely, as those testify who were thus admonished of their faults Ibid., page 386.. In the year 1724 he opened to Hippolyta Spinelli, wife of Aloysius prince of Bisignano, all her sins, setting all forth in order and following them out minutely; which yet he could not ascertain by any human art. She, astounded with admiration, although she had before been reluctant to confess her faults to the holy man, gladly washed away the filth of her soul before him Ibid., pages 392 and 384.. Sister Mary Angela of the Crucified, of the family of the Sanseverino princes, a nun in the monastery of St. Clare at Acri, desired to set forth to Bl. Angelo the offenses of her whole past life; and before she indicated her desire to him, she received from him this little letter (as she herself confirmed on oath): "That instinct which you have experienced is truly a divine instinct. Come on Friday, that I may hear your confession" Ibid., page 392 and following.. At Castrovillari, Octavia thought ill of her husband Dominic Capello: which yet she had told no one. Visiting Bl. Angelo on a certain day, she was warned by him not to think so of her husband Ibid., page 391.. To a message once sent to him he answered before he heard the messenger and opened the letter Ibid., page 381.. While he was preaching at Morano and reciting a passage of sacred Scripture or of the Fathers Ibid., a certain secular priest silently noted to himself I know not what error; but at once he heard from the blessed man these words: "You are attending to grammar, not to the sentences." Giles Bruno, in the year 1736, went to Bl. Angelo: but he had already divined with what mind he was coming Summ. II, page 386..

[69] and he knew absent things divinely. On the 16th day of August of the year 1717, the servant of God, giving himself to prayer in his cell at Acri, suddenly came out exclaiming: "Ring the bells. Let us sing the hymn Te Deum. Let us give thanks to the Lord, that, at the entreaty of the Mother of God, the Christians have won a victory over the Turks at Taurunum *." Those who heard noted the day and hour; and afterwards it was ascertained that he had in truth seen the battle in spirit Ibid., pages 376 and 380.. Of the imminent death of Father John Baptist of Rotonda ^c, under whom he had once studied, and who was then living at Corigliano, Bl. Angelo, divinely informed, betook himself to him from Acri and was present with him as he died ^d. He had long since promised Joseph Leopold, prince of Bisignano, that he would be at hand when he breathed out his soul. On a certain day therefore, no message having been received, he made his way from the village of San Lorenzo, in which he was then preaching, to Serra della Giumenta, where the prince was dying, and he helped him Ibid., page 380.. Gerard Greco, physician of Acri, asserts on oath that when one night he had lost motion and speech, the servant of God knew this divinely and came to the house before dawn (although no one had summoned him), carrying a stole, surplice, and blessed water, with which he sprinkled the sick man and the house. Then he ordered Gerard to rise: for he was wholly healed Ibid., pages 378 and 389..

ANNOTATIONS.

* Belgrade

CHAPTER NINE.

Prophecies of Bl. Angelo about his approaching death. He dies piously. Prodigies at the funeral.

In the year 1739 seized by a slight fever, Long before blessed Angelo died, he gladly indicated the time of his death, divinely disclosed to him, to friends also, to those of the household and outsiders. To omit others, he had opened to Louis of Belmonte, his confessor, that the seventieth year of his age

he would complete; whether he would live afterwards, he doubted. As this time was impending, Louis took pains that the monastery of Acri should not be defrauded of the relics of the servant of God, who for two years had been living in the convent of Belvedere. At his demand, the prince of Bisignano asked of the Capuchin Fathers, assembled in provincial chapter at Cetraro, that the convent of Acri be assigned as domicile to the venerable servant of God. Father Angelo therefore betook himself to Acri in the middle of the month of May of the year 1739 Summ. super introductione causæ, page 219.. On the 24th ^a day of October Summ. II, page 527., his body, wasted by many and grave labors, and worn down by almost incredible austerities of penance, was seized by a slight fever, which those of the household, friends, and physicians altogether made light of. But the venerable man, knowing what the force of the illness was, and divinely aware of his approaching and imminent end, announced to the physicians that remedies would be useless Ibid., page 539., and he resolved to provide for his affairs.

[71] he prepares himself for death, Although therefore the illness seemed by no means mortal, yet, ready for death, he asked with no moderate entreaty to be fortified with the sacraments of the Church. The superior, not because he believed it necessary, but to comply with him, satisfied his desire. First the servant of God thoroughly purged his soul by confession, and since matter for absolution was lacking, the president, who received his last confession, exhorted him to run through his whole life: which he did with admirable compunction of heart Inform. II, page 96.. On the 25th day of October, he said to his lay companion, Andrew of Belvedere Summ. II, pages 517 and 523.: "Brother, on Friday at the 13th hour I shall depart from life: but do not indicate this to anyone before my death." On the same Sunday, after vespers had been sung, at which he was present, he humbly asked extreme unction from the superior, saying that if it were delayed he would be anointed with the sacred oil when he already lacked the use of his senses. But by the judgment of the physicians he by no means obtained his wish; for they recognized no danger to life in him. Obedient to the word, the sick man nevertheless did not omit to perform beforehand the acts of preparation.

[72] having given his last sermon But on Monday, the illness growing stronger and his senses being lulled ^b, the president hastily administered extreme unction to him. On the following day, the 27th of October Ibid., page 527., he wished to go down to the church, to celebrate Mass; but his sight and strength failing, he asked for and received the most holy Eucharist in the church. Having received it and heard Mass, he gave a most fervent sermon before the Friars and the people, speaking of the mystery of the Incarnation so as to move all to weeping Ibid., pages 560, 517 and following.; at the same time he announced that it would be his last sermon. Afterwards, the Friars accompanying him, he returned to his own chamber: but first in the upper choir he wished to offer his brethren his last admonitions of salvation. He therefore delivered a discourse most full of charity, stirring them to the love of God and neighbor, to the observance of regular discipline, and to the attainment of religious perfection. Then entering his cell, he laid himself down on his poor and uncomfortable straw mattress Inform. II, page 96 and following..

[73] and having given proofs of all virtues. From then on he gave attention to most fervent acts of the theological virtues, often repeating: "Come, good Jesus," and turning to the most blessed Virgin, whom he invoked with great confidence. Tempted by the demon he said: "Be silent, Satan: not in bread alone doth man live" Italian Life, page 135. Summ. II, page 528.. He mingled ejaculatory prayers without intermission, with such impetus of soul that all wept, and said that truly precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the just. He carried out the orders of the physicians with prompt obedience. He ate something unwillingly, with one end only, that he might have more strength for loving God and for exercising other acts of the virtues, or, as he himself said, for refreshing the soul. He had asked the religious Friars not to make his illness known; for he desired to be alone, that he might deal with his God. Yet as many ran together, both illustrious and approved men, and plebeians and rustics Italian Life, page 133., he offered to each admonitions of salvation, as if he were healthy. That he perceived the secrets of souls he more than once made plain Ibid., page 134.. The president, who was already secretly writing a funeral oration, he called away from what he had begun, saying that glory was owed to God alone Summ. II, page 529.. In the whole course of the illness he gave proofs of heroic patience. For it was observed that he never uttered any sigh, never a complaint, never day or night showed even the least trouble to the Friars. Cheerful and plainly conformed to the will of God, he desired to be joined to Christ. To the archpriest of Acri, Claudius Ferrari, who was exhorting the servant of God to say with St. Martin: "Lord, if I am still necessary to thy people, I do not refuse the labor," the venerable man admitted that he was a useless servant Summ. II, page 368.: "God alone, he said, is necessary."

[74] He dies on the day and at the hour he had foretold. On the 29th day of October he conversed for a whole hour with Aloysius Sanseverino, prince of Bisignano, and his courtiers Compare Inform. II, page 100.. The sick man spoke only of the divine mysteries. He wished to refresh himself daily with holy communion in the manner of laymen, and he never turned his eyes from the image of the crucified, which he held in his hand. On the following day he obtained that he be carried into the church, to be present at Mass. At length looking in ecstasy at the likeness of Christ, having recited an hour before the Clock of the Passion Summ. II, page 536., at the thirteenth hour, on Friday, the thirtieth day of October of the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, laboring with the fever which had held him seven days, repeating in an interrupted and less distinct voice the most sweet name of Jesus, and: "Come, good Jesus," in the kiss of the Lord he breathed out his most happy soul, aged seventy years and thirteen days, having forty-nine years of religious life. The cause of death moreover seemed to prudent men not sickness, but the burning of divine charity Summ. II, pages 553, 400..

[75] With an incredible attendance of men, As soon as the man of God departed from life, the whole people groaned, and the word was at once spread that a saint had fallen. As he lay still in his cell he was visited without delay by the prince of Bisignano, Aloysius Sanseverino, and by Peter Zavarrone of the Order of Minims: who, when he took the dead man's right hand to kiss it, felt his own hand squeezed by it, and at the same time freed from a paralysis under which he had long labored Inform. II, page 103 and following. Summ. II, pages 561 and following, 519.. The body having been carried on the same day into the church of the convent, the funeral rites were celebrated, all the religious families being present with the secular clergy; but, that satisfaction might be given to the devotion of the multitude of men flowing together, the burial had to be deferred to the 1st day of November. For there ran together not only from Acri, but also from Bisignano, Luzzi, and other neighboring towns many thousands of men, among whom princes and very choice men; and so great was the throng that guards had to be placed at the doors of the church and at the body of Bl. Angelo. Many nonetheless entered over the walls of the monastery and through the windows. For all the three days during which the corpse of the servant of God remained exposed in a chapel of the church, all strove in rivalry to cut off particles from his beard, hair, and clothing, as precious relics. By which it came about that the tunic had to be renewed three times, and the prince of Bisignano himself cut small pieces of cloth and distributed them Summ. II, pages 555, 513, 519, 529, 531, 546..

[76] many prodigies also being produced, Now the prodigies which God wrought at the funeral, and most of which have been confirmed on oath by many eyewitnesses, we shall lightly touch on. The face of the deceased Angelo seemed at first grave, then serene, smiling, and ruddy; and his whole body flexible, soft, and of a living color. From it too on the second day after his death sweat so flowed that it could not be wiped away with many linen cloths Ibid., pages 524, 552, etc.. When on the 30th day of October Prince Aloysius had a vein cut in the body, no blood was emitted; but three days after, at the order of Dominic Bernandi, vicar general of the bishop, and Fr. Seraphino of Acri, guardian of the convent, that the corpse shed blood, from the reopened vein so copious an amount flowed out that many small cloths were soaked and a phial filled Ibid., pages 520, 524, 533, 551.. Add that the corpse offered its arm of its own accord, and that both this letting of blood and the softness and flexibility of the body seemed to a skilled physician attributable to miracle; and the more so because it happened more than once that, a scar having already formed, the body emitted some further drops of blood, at the asking of devout men Ibid., pages 548, 552.. From the corpse there breathed a most sweet odor, which for all the three days was spread through the monastery and church, the clothing of the body also being fragrant. These prodigies were so clear that a public instrument was drawn up about the blood emitted, about the sweat and the odor Inform. II, page 104..

[77] the funeral rites are celebrated, Finally on the 1st day of November the remains of the servant of God were laid away in a chest, and buried in the church of the Capuchins at Acri, at the gospel horn of the high altar; and on the opposite wall was placed a tile with this inscription Summ. II, pages 521, 516.: Here lies the body of the servant of God Father Angelo of Acri, Capuchin missionary, etc. Of the three keys by which the chest was locked, the prince of Bisignano held one, the bishop of the same district another, and the convent of the Capuchins at Acri the third. Thereafter, at the order of the bishop of Bisignano, the sacred body, in order to be recognized, was dug up, but soon put back in the same place Inform. II, page 104..

[78] and his tomb is assiduously visited. The fame of holiness which so greatly flourished in his life spread more and more after the death of the servant of God Ibid., page 108 and following., not only through the kingdom of Naples, but also through all Italy, through France, and Spain. Princes, bishops, and the highest men extolled him with praises; his relics were sought from all sides; images were hung in houses and cloisters. Innumerable men begged help from Bl. Angelo, and frequented his tomb with the highest devotion. Not only of the people of Acri, as was written in the year 1806 Inform. II, page 110., but also of outsiders there is an immense, assiduous, and incredible gathering from every class of persons to the tomb. Many flow together from neighboring parts, many flow together from far and remote regions. Natives and strangers, nobles and plebeians, priests and laymen, princes, grandees, bishops come together there Summ. II, page 581.. And this attendance, which began from the day of his death, not only persevered constant, but has increased more from day to day, and thrives up to this age, never lessened, never interrupted. Some moreover come to venerate the precious remains,

very many others to give thanks for benefits received, bringing gifts or votive tablets Ibid., page 582 and following. Inform. II, page 110.. Many also kiss the floor of the blessed man's little cell and gather the dust of the tomb Summ. II, page 589..

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER TEN.

Miracles wrought after the death of Bl. Angelo.

By the help of Bl. Angelo, now dead If the miracles by which it pleased God to make his servant illustrious while he lived were splendid and celebrated, not less were those by which he deigned to confirm after his death, even by a certain divine testimony, the holiness of the man, attested already by the highest agreement of men Inform. II, page 11.. And that we may proceed in some order in setting forth these prodigies, we refer them to four heads: namely to fires extinguished, to tempests calmed, to healings effected, and finally to the dead recalled to life, adding some signs which cannot be assigned to these classes.

[80] fire is many times extinguished, About the year 1742, in the house of Bernardino Bernando, a citizen of Acri, a fire broke out, which could be extinguished by no help. Then, at the request of Bernardino's wife, Rosa Tuffarelli, a certain priest, Ignatius Cofone, threw a small piece of the clothing of Bl. Angelo into the flames. Their force was at once overcome, the precious small cloth also remaining unhurt, as very many eyewitnesses confirm Summ. II, pages 590 and following, 605, 622.. In the year 1744 a certain wood of James Luzzi, in the territory of Acri, near the river Moccone, had begun to burn. A terrible disaster was impending, which no one believed could be averted, when the priest Fusari threw a piece of the clothing of Bl. Angelo into the fire, and in this way suddenly overwhelmed it, very many looking on Ibid., pages 601, 613.. An image of the blessed man being cast into the flames, there was extinguished a fire which in the year 1777 broke out at Acri, in the quarter called Cacazarra, in the house of Antony Gioannella Ibid.. Other similar things I omit Compare Italian Life, page 149.

[81] the sea and whirlwinds are calmed; When Fidelis Bernando of Acri, doctor of law, was sailing to Naples, a terrible storm suddenly arising on the sea, he was on the point of perishing by shipwreck. As the passengers prayed and wept, a certain Jerome Ferrari threw a piece of a handkerchief of the servant of God into the sea, and it at once grew calm Summ. II, page 590.. To Father Hilarion of Ferolito, a Capuchin, whom on a certain journey the force of a tempest had compelled to leave the ship, the holy man of Acri appeared on the shore, and he calmed the swollen sea Ibid., page 600.. On the 28th day of February of the year 1753, Francis Mele, royal notary of Acri, and his brother Dominic, when they were making their way through the mountain, from a whirlwind and snow by which they were just about to perish, Bl. Angelo being invoked, were freed by a manifest miracle Ibid., page 589 and following..

[82] the sick, already abandoned, Much more numerous are the miracles of healing. Maria Anna Bernando, of the third Order of St. Dominic, sister of the vicar general of Bisignano, Dominic Bernando, laboring under a stubborn and very grave arthritic disease, lay immobile in bed, wholly deserted by the physicians. She saw in sleep the servant of God rousing her to betake herself to his tomb. Carried therefore to the tomb, and praying, she felt her knees stirred, and she suddenly recovered perfect health, the whole people remaining astonished, who cried out a miracle; and she returned home on her own feet, helped by no one, nor did she detect in herself any further trace of the disease [Summ. II, pages 592, 603 and following, 626 and following. Compare Responsio ad novissimas animadv. super dubio de miraculis, page 27 and following.]. The boy Fidelis Bernando had so wasted from want of milk that even at three years he could not stand on his feet, and was in danger of life. Carried to the tomb of the servant of God, he wholly and suddenly recovered, so that he ran about through the church, and was strong in vigor.

[83] relics being applied Vincent Auletta, physician of Bisignano, narrates on oath the prodigious healing of Peter Locci from an inflammatory disease and putrid fever with lethargy and other very bad symptoms. All remedies having been used in vain, the physician himself abandoned him, holding it for certain that he would die as soon as possible. Indeed a little later he found him perfectly healthy and strong: for his wife, Rosa Astuni, had summoned to the help of the dying man the priest Thomas Ajello; who, placing on Peter's forehead a piece of the tunic of Bl. Angelo, exhorted him to place his hope in the servant of God: at once the pains and all signs of the disease vanished; so that, having taken a most placid sleep, he rose in the morning perfectly healthy and unharmed, his strength wholly restored, plainly in the same way as he had used it before; and he soon returned to farm work, no crisis intervening, and no further trace of the evil remaining. This miracle, which the sick man's wife and the physician narrated, took place in the year 1782 [Summ. II, page 597 and following. Compare Resp. ad noviss. animadv. super dubio de miraculis, page 46 and following.].

[84] from his garments, Bruno Picci of Cosenza, seven-year-old son of Emmanuel Picci and Catherine Bova, was laboring under an inveterate disease of two years, incurable, in the leg, which in the judgment of the skilled was to be amputated. But a particle of the clothing of Bl. Angelo being tied to the leg, the infirmity was soon driven away; and that this could by no means be done by the force of nature two physicians pronounced Summ. II, pages 601, 614 and following.. In the land of Longobucco, Casimira Compagno, daughter of Paul Antony, laboring under an incurable dysuria, on the application of an image of Bl. Angelo, was at once healed Ibid., pages 602 and 622.. Fr. Fidelis of Castiglione, seized in the year 1774 by a mortal fever, had been given up by the physicians. The intercession of his holy brother being implored and fifty Masses being promised in his honor, he perfectly recovered as if he had suffered no infirmity Ibid., pages 603 and 635..

[85] or his image being applied, Ursula Tajani, wife of Nicholas Stocchi, of the city of Cosenza, who had already miscarried three times, in the year 1755 was on the point of miscarrying again and was vehemently in pain, when behold, an image of Bl. Angelo being placed on her womb, she was wholly restored and a little later most prosperously gave birth Ibid., page 619.. In the land of Rose, Hieronyma, wife of Dominic de Giacomo, being in the present peril of miscarriage, was delivered as soon as she vowed to go to the tomb of Bl. Angelo, and drank water in which a small cord of the holy man's scourge had lain immersed Ibid., page 630.. In the year 1761, when the lady Finita de Leone could not bring forth a dead fetus placed transversely, the same cloth was applied to her: she at once gave birth without pain, without any help of a midwife, and she remained in an excellent state of health Ibid., page 633.. Seraphinus of Mangone, a professed lay brother of the Order of Capuchins, laboring under a mortal fever and given up by the physicians, took refuge in Bl. Angelo, and suddenly and thoroughly recovered Ibid., page 634..

[86] or by prayer alone directed to him, In the year 1757 Bruno Morelli, archdeacon of the collegiate church of Saints Peter and Paul of the city of Rogliano, was laboring under a most atrocious disease of the stone. When he had suppliantly prayed Bl. Angelo that he might be healed, he came out of the disease quickly and easily Ibid., page 632.. To Angelo Rizzo, little son of Hyacinth Rizzo and Lucretia Dragone, having fallen on burning coals, the right hand was burned and contracted. Remedies having been used in vain, and gangrene now threatening, amputation was decided on. But meanwhile, a likeness of Bl. Angelo being applied, and he being invoked, the hand was perfectly healed Ibid., page 602 and following..

[87] either by the sick man himself or by parents, Nor do the miracles cease here. Isabella Giardino, blind in both eyes from ophthalmia, on the application of a small piece of the tunic of the servant of God, at once recovered her sight Ibid., page 631.. Josepha Sanseverino, a prematurely born little infant of the prince of Bisignano Aloysius and Cornelia Capece Galeota, could by no means live. While she was breathing out her soul, her father, as he himself testifies, prayed Bl. Angelo in suppliant words and applied his likeness to the girl. She suddenly recovered and thereafter lived healthy. This happened at Naples in the year 1748 Ibid., page 630 and following.. Michael Capece Galeota, then archbishop of Cosenza, and afterwards of Capua, in the year 1764 had been given up by the physicians. Water having been taken in which a small piece of the clothing of the servant of God had been steeped, he was at once healed Ibid., page 632.. A boy four or five years old, little son of Octavius Candia and Agatha Julia, abandoned by the physicians, was already drawing his last breath. The servant of God being invoked by his parents, and his likeness being applied, the boy at once spoke, and taking hold of the image of the blessed man, said that he had been snatched away by him, and from then on he attained full health Ibid., page 631..

[88] at once, In the year 1759, Teresa de Martino, daughter of Joseph baron of Montegiordano, was for two days so tortured by toothache that her kinsfolk feared lest she be driven mad. When the physicians could not help, she sought the protection of Bl. Angelo: the pains were at once removed Italian Life, page 144.. To Nicholas Castelli, of the city of Paola, most gravely sick and already fortified with the sacraments of the dying, there was a present danger to life. From which he came out, as soon as he invoked with confident soul the servant of God, whose likeness had been fixed to his bed Ibid., page 146 and following..

[89] sometimes also Bl. Angelo appearing, In the month of September of the year 1754, Stephen Zito of Cirò, seized by a vehement fever, was near death. But he recovered as soon as James, his father, went to Bl. Angelo with prayers and promised that he would give the convent of Acri a heifer as a gift Ibid., page 143.. Antony Salpa of Cetraro, affected with pain of the sides in the month of January of the year 1781, was in great peril. On the fifth day of the illness, as he kept awake at night and implored the holy Capuchin of Acri, he suddenly appeared, holding in his hand an image of Christ hanging on the cross. Having seen this, the sick man, praying more ardently, vowed that he would contribute money to the expenses of the beatification. On the following night, the servant of God stood again by Antony, and warned him, now wholly healed, about paying his promises. This wonderful healing was testified by the physician Dominic Cervelli ^a Ibid., page 146..

[90] beyond human hope they recover, A nun in the monastery of St. Clare at Acri, worn out by weakness of stomach and leanness, Sister Magdalene of St. Anne (whose former name was Anna la Gaccia), on invoking the servant of God at once recovered, her strength being regained Summ. II, page 620.. The little son of a woman called

Santa de Cammariero, in the land of Rose, was in peril of life, his rectum having come forth. Given up by the physicians he left no hope of salvation. But he wholly recovered when his mother, imploring the servant of God, had promised both a Mass and a candle equal to the boy's stature Ibid., page 629 and following.. A certain Anna Teresa, niece of Bruno Morelli, archdeacon of Rogliano, had no sleep, no motion, from pains of the bones and distension of the nerves. But on the 24th day of January of the year 1759, scarcely had a particle of the clothing of the servant of God been placed on the sick woman, when she received perfect health Ibid., page 633. In the month of March of the year 1757, in the city of Potenza, Gerard Stabile, as it were frenzied with pain of the bones, was vomiting foam from his mouth, with swelling face and distorted lips; soon struck by apoplexy, he was breathing out his soul. A small cloth of the tunic of Bl. Angelo being applied, the sick man was quickly and thoroughly healed, which could in no way be done by the powers of nature; and from then on he was always well Ibid., page 632 and following.. In the month of September of the year 1790, Lawrence Squillace, a native of Terranova, but then staying at Acri, was disabled by apoplexy in half of his limbs. Scarcely had an image of the servant of God been applied, when he came to health Italian Life, page 147..

[91] or even they revive, In the year 1770 a boy of about seven years, who was called Francis Sirimarco and was staying in the town of Sant'Agata, fell from the top of a staircase ^b. He rose for a little, but soon failing, he fell to the ground half alive, vomiting bile and foamy blood from his mouth. His mother Nicolina de Cristofaro carried him to the neighboring church called of Purgatory, otherwise of the Blessed Mary of Graces, and laid him on the bench of the altar. A physician who had been summoned, diligently inspecting the boy, trials also being made, thought him dead. Then Brother Angelo of Vaccarizzo, a lay brother of the third Order of Capuchins, by chance passing by there, compelled by the very great multitude of men who stood at the doors of the chapel, was forced to enter, that, by applying something which Bl. Angelo had used or his picture, he might commend the boy to the holy man of Acri. This done, Francis opened his eyes, rose helped by no one, walked, and returned home as if he had never been affected by any illness. The physicians who stood by and the whole multitude cried out that this was a manifest miracle [Summ. II, pages 606 and following, 617 and following. Compare Resp. ad noviss. animadv. super dubio de miraculis, page 3 and following.].

[92] at least that they may be baptized: Dominica La Pera, wife of Angelo Scaglione, an inhabitant of Acri, gave birth to a dead son. The midwife, placing on the infant a handkerchief of the servant of God, ardently prayed that he might revive, at least until he was baptized. He then began to move, was cleansed at the sacred font, and was always well thereafter Summ., II, page 620 and following..

[93] and he wrought other wonders after death. We add two prodigies which cannot be referred to the earlier heads. When caterpillars were laying waste the fields of Luzzi, Bl. Angelo was invoked: and his relics being also applied, the insects were exterminated Ibid., page 632.. Finally in the convent of the Capuchins at Acri, the corridor in which the chamber of the servant of God stood emitted after his death a most sweet and portentous odor Ibid., page 591.. By these and other prodigies, which if we should narrate them all we should go on into the infinite, it came about that the name of Bl. Angelo was in the highest glory among all, and was adorned with most deserved praise in the sacred annals of the Capuchins Compare Martyrologium Franciscanum, at the 30th day of October, Venice 1879..

ANNOTATIONS.