ON BL. TARASIA,
AT OURÉM IN PORTUGAL.
In the year MCCLXVI.
The place, the time of her death, the marvels wrought, her public cult.
Tarasia, at Ourém in Portugal (Bl.)
J. P.
Ourenium or Ouremium, otherwise
Ouren and Ourem, is a town
of Portugal in the district of Scalabis, by another name Santarem, The place
which God adorned with the virtues and
death of Bl. Tarasia. Tamayus
in his notes on this day says, It is a town
formerly less noble; but today magnificent because of
the collegiate church, splendid, with which the Dukes of Braganza [*],
its lords, adorned it.
Ludovicus ab Angelis (otherwise dos Anjos) in the Garden
of Portugal chap. 76, pp. 200 and 201, indicates that this Blessed one
came into the light in
a village not far distant from the said town of Ourém,
whose name is Zambujal; and she is called by him in the Portuguese tongue,
for in that he composed his Garden,
Santa Tareja de Ourem; Terasia by
Arturus in the Gynæceum, but by Tamayus Teresia,
who announces her thus: At Scalabis in Portugal, of Bl.
Teresia, a most illustrious woman, who, when through the necessity
of poverty she was carried off to the service of a household,
so wove her life that, rich in virtues
and famous for miracles, she flew, to the admiration of all,
to the Lord, for whose love she was languishing [*].
[2] The time of her death, the marvels, and her public
veneration are recorded by Antonius Vasconcellius
in the Description of the Kingdom of Portugal, the time of her death, which is found
after the Anacephaleosis which he published concerning the kings of that same
kingdom, from p. 526, where he composed the following
eulogy of the Blessed one: In the year one thousand two hundred
and sixty-six, at Ourém in the convent
of Scalabis, there died a woman of the lowest condition,
Tarasia, sublime in merits and virtues, whom
though poverty cast down to the service of a master,
yet sanctity raised to a lofty throne. Since her
fame is less widely spread, it is worth while
to subjoin three of the nobler examples. When once
a poor man begging alms knocked at the doors of the bishop [] of the church*
of Ourém, whom she served as handmaid,
seeing him naked, she supplied him with the cloak which her master
no longer used because its bloom was shaken off.
[3] The priest, aware of her bounty, and
her mercy toward the poor moved with indignation, compels her to demand the gift back.
She begs him to hold it ratified, seeing that other garments
were rotting in the chest as food for moths and worms:
but avarice by no means acquiesces in counsels;
her master so harshly rebuked her that she was compelled
to demand help from God, as being more liberal.
Suddenly an angel was at hand, bringing another cloak in no way to be told apart,
which she handed over to her master; but when on the next day he had come
to the church to perform the sacred rites, he sees the poor man
handsomely adorned with the same cloak as
before, and understanding the matter as
it was, he began to reverence his Handmaid,
as she deserved.
[4] wrought in a marvelous manner Again there happened what we said in the anacephaleosis of Bl. Elizabeth,
wife of king Denis, befell her.
She was carrying in her hands a basket stuffed with loaves,
to distribute to the poor, and running into her master,
and being asked by him what she was carrying,
she answered that it was full of roses. He, removing the linen cloth,
found roses, fresher and sweeter in scent
than those which are planted in gardens.
[5] she is helped by the ministry of angels: It is also in everyone's talk that she
was once in the church so carried away to God from
her outward senses that, the keeper of the sacred things and of the keys
perceiving nothing, she passed the night there:
and when the doors were opened at dawn, waking from that sweet
sleep, she began to grieve that she had not been able
to sift the flour and to knead it, as the work required.
Returning in haste to the house she found the dough
not only kneaded, but also the loaves baked in the oven
by the ministry of angels, and in the bread-basket
still breathing out a fresh warmth.
[6] her public cult. On account of these and other prodigies the bishop and the people
appointed that for her, when she was dead, every year on the third day of September,
upon which her death fell, there should be recited not the appointed
prayers for the departed, but the Mass which is chanted on the festival
of All Saints.
And in the church of mercy, into which have been merged
the four ancient parishes of the town, she has a chapel
whose altar is the sepulcher of the most holy woman,
which is visited by many who kiss her head laid up in silver,
on account of the healing of the ears,
which she chiefly helps.
Annotataread Brigantini*, i.e. de Braganza
read volarit or volaverit* the time of her death,
* i.e. of the rector or parish priest