ON BL. LUCY, VIRGIN OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS,
AT SALERNO IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES.
Not after the fifteenth century.
COMMENTARIUS PRÆVIUS.
Lucy, virgin of the third Order of St. Francis, at Salerno in the kingdom of Naples. (B.)
BY C. S.
§ I. The memory of the Blessed in the Martyrologies, in some of which, the Benedictine ones, she is wrongly assigned; her body at Salerno; relics at Caltagirone; her Office at Salerno and in the Orders of St. Francis.
[ ] This blessed Virgin the martyrologists of two notable Religious Orders in the Church of God announce on this 26th day of September as their own — She is announced today in the Martyrologies namely the Franciscans and the Benedictines: the former indeed by right and deservedly; the others led into that error because the Salernitan monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, in which Bl. Lucy is believed to have lived and where she now rests in death, has long been inhabited by nuns of the Order of Blessed Benedict. I begin with the Franciscans. The Martyrology of the three Orders of St. Francis, which is appended at the end of the latest edition of the Roman Martyrology, enlarged and corrected by Pope Benedict XIV, has this at the aforesaid day: At Salerno of the Picentines, of Bl. Lucy, virgin of the third Order, who shone with very many virtues and miracles. There follows in the same place another Martyrology of the Seraphic Order, for the use of the Friars Minor Conventual etc., in which on the same day is read: At Salerno of the Picentines, of Bl. Lucy, Virgin, enrolled in the third Order of St. Francis, illustrious for the fame of her sanctity and of miracles.
[2] With these agrees also a third, likewise printed in the same place, namely that of the Capuchins, of the Orders of St. Francis; as also in some Benedictine ones, in these words: At Salerno of the Picentines, of Bl. Lucy, Virgin, of the third Order of our holy father Francis, who shone with very many virtues and glorious miracles. Very similar things has Arthur du Monstier both in the Franciscan Martyrology and in the Sacred Gynæceum, which therefore I do not here transcribe. I pass over also the longer eulogies with which Fortunatus Hueber in his Menology and Benignus Fremaut in the Legend of the Saints and Blessed of the Order of St. Francis celebrate her on this very day as their own, which will come to be examined below. Among the Benedictines, Hugh Ménard inserted her into his Martyrology also on this day, saying thus: At Salerno, of St. Lucy, Virgin and nun; and then he writes this of her in book 2 of his Observations: St. Lucy was a nun of the Order of our holy father Benedict, from the town of Caltagirone in Sicily. She flourished in the year 1126. She is honored by permission of the Apostolic See. Then he cites Ottavio Gaetani in his Sketch of a Work on the Saints of Italy, where he really did hold this view, as we shall presently say.
[3] Gaetani was also followed by Gabriel Bucelinus in his Benedictine Menology, and in others, in which she is wrongly assigned to the Order of St. Benedict. where he wove for her the following eulogy: At Salerno, of St. Lucy, virgin and nun. She professed the Rule of our holy Father Benedict in the monastery of the town of Caltagirone, and from her very infancy was prevented with rare favors of the Deity; for when at six years old she climbed a fig tree, the tree being struck by lightning and split, she herself, having fallen, remained unharmed, preserved by St. Nicholas and carried to her father's house, since he said that she had been snatched from danger on account of her parents' devotion toward him. There grew with her from her tender years a compassion which the innocence of a little lamb commended. Beholding a nun of the Order passing by, she at once asked for the sacred habit, and at length withdrew herself against her parents' will, having professed at Salerno the Rule of our holy Father, and, having merited heaven by great virtues, flew away to it about the year of Christ 1130. Thus he, not without errors to be refuted below. Much more rightly Arnold Wion in the Tree of Life and Benedict Dorgain in the Benedictine Calendar did not at all reckon this Lucy among the Blessed of their Order. Deservedly too she is absent from the Benedictine Martyrology which stands printed among the particular Martyrologies of religious Orders after the Roman one of Pope Benedict XIV.
[4] Ottavio Gaetani did indeed once believe that she was a Benedictine by profession, since in the Sicilian Martyrology at this day of September he announced thus: At Salerno, of Bl. Lucy, virgin and nun of the Order of St. Benedict, from the town of Caltagirone in Sicily. So, I say, Gaetani had once thought, who afterward in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, volume 2, in the Observations on the Life of Bl. Lucy, changed his opinion and judged that she was of the Order of St. Francis. On the side of the Benedictines stands also Philip Ferrarius, saying in the General Catalogue of Saints: At Salerno, of Bl. Lucy, Virgin, of the Order of St. Benedict. But he cites in the same place the documents of the monastery of the Order — namely that of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno — in which he certainly did not find her Benedictine monastic profession, as will appear from what is to be said. Finally, to make an end of the Martyrologies, on the same day Francesco Carrera, a presbyter of our Society, adorned Bl. Lucy with a eulogy of his own in the Sicilian Pantheon, in which, however, he seems to have carefully avoided mentioning the Order which she professed. Moreover, of those alleged thus far, some honor Lucy with the title of Saint, others only with that of Blessed; and what we shall bring forward concerning her cult will prove that the latter do more rightly.
[5] Her body and separated relics Giuseppe Maria Fonseca of Evora, in Wadding's Annals of the Minors reprinted and enriched, volume 9, at the year 1400, num. 10, recites the following concerning her cult from Wadding's own additions: There (at Salerno in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene of Benedictine nuns) is honored with great honor a body wrapped in silks, which is preserved in a marble monument near the chief altar, on the Epistle side, raised more than seven palms from the ground, which is terminated in the wall itself by an arched vault in the upper part. Beneath the vault is the above-mentioned image (of the Blessed), covered with the Franciscan habit, its head encircled with rays and a diadem, in the right hand a cross and a lily leaning over the left. Opposite hangs a lighted lamp, and around the tomb many offerings, votive tablets, and silver eyes, affixed on account of the benefit of restored sight. The head is enclosed in a silver reliquary, which is exposed to the people for veneration on her festival, and on its base it is read that it is the work of Dorothea Thesona, a nun of that same monastery, chased in the year 1586. A molar tooth is kept in a small casket, bound with a little silver chain, which, dipped in water, has freed many from toothache when the water was drunk.
[6] A certain anonymous writer of the Society of Jesus, in an Italian Life of the same Blessed, are honored at Salerno, besides an arm bone, which he published in print at Messina in the year 1664, after Wadding's death in 1657, agrees for the most part with these things. But he adds that her sacred body had, a few years before he wrote, on the occasion of a new building (of the church, I suppose), been translated into a certain chapel, and there placed in a leaden coffin on the Gospel side. Besides, he makes mention of two teeth with which water is wont to be consecrated, and relates some miracles or benefits obtained by its use, which I shall review from him below. For the rest, I wish this Life to be understood whenever I cite the Italian one. The cited Wadding writes that a notable portion of that sacred body was carried, about the middle of the seventeenth century, to the town of Caltagirone in Sicily, where she is believed to have been born, in these words: The most reverend father Innocent of Caltagirone, minister general of the Capuchin Minors, a grave and learned man, commendable on many titles, moved by veneration for his fellow citizen, by the favor and patronage of Cardinal Giulio Savelli, who had lately transferred the charge of the archbishopric of Salerno to Fabrizio Savelli, his brother's son, obtained a notable part of the body, namely the bone of the arm which extends from the shoulder to the elbow.
[7] He drew it from the tomb, in the presence of honorable witnesses, on the 2nd day of January 1644 — Giulio Pepoli, archdeacon and vicar general of Salerno — and with a public document of the delivery consigned it to him, which was translated to Caltagirone in Sicily. to be carried to his native place, that the cult of the Virgin might be propagated there where she herself was happily brought forth. The same may be read in the Italian Life, where it is besides added that that bone, enclosed in a gilded silver arm, is kept at Caltagirone in the church of St. James the apostle, and is honored by the inhabitants. I doubt, however, whether both here and in Wadding the day on which the aforesaid arm bone is said to have been separated from the rest of the body was the second or the eleventh of January; since in both places it is noted thus: die II Januarii, by which mark either day can be designated. Moreover Calata Hyeronis, or Caltagirone, is an inland city of Sicily in the Val di Noto, of which we shall treat again below; meanwhile let us return to Salerno, that we may report the rest that pertains to the cult of Bl. Lucy there.
[8] At Salerno, in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene,
which we have said now belongs to nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, At Salerno in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene where her body rests, she is honored on this 26th day of September with a yearly ecclesiastical Office under the title of Blessed, by grant of the Apostolic See, and has been honored from time immemorial. So indeed we learn from Ottavio Gaetani in the Lives of the Saints of Sicily, volume 2, in the Animadversions, from which I have excerpted the following: That public honors fell to her from ancient times is sufficiently established from the parchments of the monastery, written by hand, in which are written out the ritual prayers wont to be sung on the birthday of Bl. Lucy. That cult was afterward permitted and confirmed by the authority of the Roman Pontiff. Here are the petitions of the virgins of the Salernitan monastery; we subjoin them as they were transmitted to us. These, because they prove the ancient cult, receive from him word for word. Leave to celebrate the Office of a Nun who from time immemorial has been reputed Blessed, in the church of the monastery of nuns, as they have hitherto been exempt, and provided that she be not on that account deemed canonized.
[9] from time immemorial This is the heading; then follows the petition itself. For Salerno. Most blessed Father, it is set forth to Your Holiness on the part of your devoted petitioners, the abbess and nuns of the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene of Salerno of the Order of St. Benedict, that on the left side of the tribune of the church of the said monastery there has stood the body of a certain nun of that same monastery, called Bl. Lucy, in a sepulcher sufficiently costly and composed of marble stone; and although the abbess and nuns of that monastery, on account of the holiness of the said Bl. Lucy, both in life and in death — of which it appears clearly through authentic writings — had been accustomed to perform and say the divine Office in the month of September with the greatest veneration and devotion, in the choir of the said monastery only, from time immemorial, of the beginning of which there exists no memory of men; yet because, on account of the wars and other adverse events which at length prevailed in those parts, the writings and other Apostolic letters by which leave was granted to that same abbess and nuns to celebrate the divine Office of the said Bl. Lucy were, as they faithfully believe and hold for truth, lost, the aforesaid abbess and nuns, kindled with the fervor of devotion and for the consolation of their souls, desire that it be granted to them by Your Holiness that it may be lawful for them each year, on the accustomed and usual day, to celebrate and to cause to be celebrated the feast and Office of that same Bl. Lucy in the church of that monastery, according to their ancient custom.
[10] she was honored with an Ecclesiastical Office The aforesaid abbess and nuns therefore humbly beseech Your Holiness that, favorably assenting to their pious and honorable desire in this matter, and following them with spiritual favors and graces, you may deign to grant and indulge them, of special grace, that each year in the month of September on the accustomed and usual day, or on another day to be chosen by them, they may freely and lawfully celebrate and cause to be celebrated the feast and Office of that same Bl. Lucy in the church of the said monastery and make commemoration of her, the leave of the ordinary of the place and of any other whatsoever being in no wise required in this matter, and so that on account of the premises the aforesaid Bl. Lucy be not deemed canonized — notwithstanding any Apostolic constitutions and ordinances whatsoever and all other things to the contrary, with suitable clauses. Thus far the petition; then the Apostolic grant is subjoined in these words: Let it be done as is asked. There follows also another petition of the same nuns: And with a clause of absolution to that effect, and by a Brief of Your Holiness, in view of the poverty of the petitioners, and provided that on account of the premises she be not deemed canonized; to which again is subjoined: Let it be done. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, on the day before the Kalends of June, in the second year.
[11] by a repeated grant That this subscription is mutilated is manifest from the omission of the Pontiff's name; nor can I state whether this fault is that of the document or of the notary who copied Gaetani's exemplar and subscribed it in these words: And I, the presbyter Leonard, son of the Barese, notary by Apostolic authority, certify that the present copy of the petition was copied by my own hand from its original, which is preserved in the keeping of the reverend monastery of St. Mary Magdalene of Salerno and of its reverend lady abbess, and agrees with it, saving a better reading etc.; and in witness of the premises I have here subscribed and signed my name, being required to do so, on the 20th day of the month of February in the year 1588. To supply that defect Gaetani cites letters of his friends received from Salerno, in which the Pontiff who permitted the cult of Bl. Lucy is said to have been Callistus; and he determines that this could have been no other than Callistus III, since Callistus II, who sat before the middle of the twelfth century, is older than the blessed virgin Lucy. Besides, since Callistus III was raised to the Apostolic See on the 8th day of April of the year 1455, and the Pontifical grant of the cult in the aforesaid petition is marked as given on the day before the Kalends of June in the second year, namely of his Pontificate, he consequently judged that these things are to be referred to the year 1456.
[12] From Gaetani in this matter the aforesaid Wadding greatly dissents, of the Apostolic See. saying thus in the place cited: Her festivity is celebrated and the Office recited on the 26th day of September by grant of Leo X on the day before the Kalends of July, in the 2nd year of his Pontificate, that is, of Christ 1514. The same has Arthur du Monstier in the Franciscan Martyrology and in the Sacred Gynæceum, in both places following Wadding, whom he cites. To the second year of the Pontificate of Leo X these things are also referred by the anonymous writer of the Italian Life, book 1, chapter 9, but he marks the 4th day of July. Benignus Fremaut, who had read both this Life and Wadding, also retains Leo X, but assigns the year of Christ 1515. I have nothing indeed from which to confirm either opinion — namely whether the grant of Bl. Lucy's cult is to be ascribed to Callistus III or to Leo X; nor does anything better occur to me here than to suspect that it proceeded from both at different times; namely thus, that Callistus is the Pontiff whose letters, given for the recitation of the Office, the abbess with her nuns affirms in the petition to have perished, while Leo X renewed the grant. At least in this way a probable account of the aforesaid discrepancy is rendered.
[13] However that may be, from the petition of the nuns of St. Mary Magdalene which we have given it is sufficiently established The old Office to be published: from the more recent one that St. Lucy was honored with some ecclesiastical Office in their monastery long before the times of Leo X. This I believe to be that very one which the said Ottavio Gaetani printed from the parchments of that monastery, and which we shall give from him after the Life. Besides this we have another and more recent one, published in print at Salerno in the year 1646 for the use of those same nuns, which on its front or first page bears this title: Office of Bl. Lucy, Virgin, of the Order of St. Clare. For the nuns of the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene of the city of Salerno. It is composed from that older one, some antiphons being changed and a Hymn at Matins and nine Lessons added, of which the first six are drawn from the Life of the Blessed, the remaining three from a Homily from the common of Virgins, all of which are wanting in Gaetani. But since the change made in the antiphons does not pertain to the Blessed's deeds, and the Lessons agree with the Life to be published, I subjoin here only the Hymn (although it too is of small moment).
[14] Let us all rejoice in the star of light, singing hymns with illustrious voices, there is given a hymn, and of the same and let us in pure song sound forth the praises of Lucy.
If we sing not worthily enough the wonders of your deeds, we beg pardon; we are never of so great worth, O best of Virgins.
For whom is the new light to be venerated by us, noble and bright, brighter still in virtue, than she who was ever fairer throughout the whole world?
While this brief and wretched life gave vigor to the limbs of your body, never did you defile your mind with lust, O modest Virgin.
Endowed with illustrious manners, Lucy, wise before all, and just and prudent, ascend rejoicing, for you have deserved the joys of heaven.
To the Father, to the Son [*], and alike to the Gift of both be splendor, glory, and power, whose eternal Godhead the choir of the Blessed adores. Amen.
[15] [a few things are noted: she is honored likewise with an Office by the Orders of St. Francis.] Of one or other of the aforesaid Offices Wadding speaks in the place cited above, when he says that there exists among the said nuns of Salerno an Office which they recite on her birthday, put together by some Minorite after the likeness of the Office of St. Clare, many words and half-antiphons and responsories being excerpted from it. The Lessons moreover they mixed in from her Legend, as was in use among the Benedictines (such as the said nuns are). Thus far concerning her cult in the city of Salerno. She is honored also with a yearly Office throughout the whole world by all three Orders of St. Francis, as is clear from their proper Offices, which I have as published at the Plantin press at Antwerp in the year 1704. Among these, at this 26th day of September, an Office of her is prescribed of the lesser double rite; but all is taken from the Common of virgins in the first place, except the Lessons of the first Nocturn, which are to be read from the occurring Scripture; and the prayer is Exaudi. Fremaut in the Life of the same Blessed refers this extension of her cult to Innocent XII, the Roman Pontiff, by whom he says it was granted to all the Orders of St. Francis that they might celebrate every year the Office of that Blessed (Fremaut incorrectly calls her Saint) with a double rite.
Annotata\ Nato*
§ II. The Life of the Blessed to be published is mutilated; her age uncertain, broadly assigned; her Sicilian homeland; her profession not Benedictine but Franciscan.
[ ] The manuscript Life of the Blessed, which exists only mutilated, Ottavio Gaetani in the Animadversions on the Life writes this: The Life of Bl. Lucy the virgin, composed by an uncertain author, we give from a manuscript exemplar which is preserved at Salerno in the convent of the virgins of St. Mary Magdalene. There are very many errors in it; but without the help of other exemplars it was not permissible to correct them. What we regret the more is that the history is mutilated, and that many things are wanting at the end of the Life which, the codex being corrupted, could in no way be read, as we have been informed by our friends' letters. Nor did Luke Wadding find any other Acts of her after most diligent inquiry, who in the additions to his Annals of the Minors, more richly reprinted by Giuseppe Maria Fonseca of Evora, says thus on the same subject: There exists only, among the Sisters of that convent (of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno), an ancient Legend, but incomplete, written on parchments in a simple style and an old hand.
[17] has an anonymous author After these an anonymous member of our Society wrote her Italian Life, of which I made mention in the preceding §, and who likewise confesses that besides that mutilated Life none was found by him. Finally Benignus Fremaut also wrote in the general Legend of the Saints of the Order of St. Francis; but he only
cited Wadding's Annals and the aforesaid Italian Life. Nor has any other manuscript Life of that Blessed reached us besides that mutilated one transmitted in the year 1637 by Antonio Beatillo, likewise a presbyter of our Society, which is plainly in agreement with the one published by Gaetani, differing from it in scarcely anything but errors. In our copy of Beatillo this title is prefixed: Here begins the Legend of blessed Lucy the virgin: how she was born, and of a certain miracle, how God showed to her the most holy Nicholas. Hence it appears that that Life was formerly divided into chapters, each with its own titles, contrary to what it now is; for our transcript indeed, although it is divided into chapters, has no title except the one already mentioned, which belongs to chapter 1.
[18] The author is anonymous, who nowhere indicates either his condition or his age; of uncertain age and condition: this we publish. yet it is more likely that he was one of the Order of St. Francis, of which he affirms that Bl. Lucy was a nun, the time in which she flourished being passed over. Perhaps we should have something more certain about all these matters if the Life existed entire. But at whatever time the Blessed lived — of which we shall treat below — from his very manner of writing the biographer does not seem to have been contemporary with her. For besides that he brings forward nothing from which it would be permissible so to suspect, he sets out only a few of her deeds in detail, embracing the rest, after the manner of an orator, in general praises of her virtues. Nevertheless, if that Salernitan parchment codex from which that Life was copied is really as ancient as Wadding, reported at num. 16, declares it to be, its writer cannot have lived very far removed from the times of the Blessed herself; who, since she was of the Order of St. Francis, is certainly not older than the thirteenth century, and perhaps even much later. Moreover we shall give this Life from Beatillo's transcript, collated with that published by Gaetani, from which also we shall correct many manifest errors of the copyist.
[19] The age in which our Bl. Lucy flourished, as has been said above, The Blessed flourished after the twelfth century, the biographer passed over in silence, nor did he relate any circumstances from which it could in any way become known. Her Offices likewise are silent, both the old and the more recent, of which we have already treated. Nor do any documents concerning her exist or are cited; and hence liberty has been left to more recent writers to think variously on the matter. Rocco Pirri, volume 2 of Sacred Sicily, in the church of Syracuse, page 233 of the Palermo edition, makes Bl. Lucy flourish in the year 1140; Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menology believed she died about the year 1130. Their opinion is manifestly refuted by this argument alone, that the Blessed was of the Order of St. Francis, not a Benedictine, as they both supposed. The often-cited Wadding candidly confesses that the time of her death is wholly unknown to him, and at the year of Christ 1400 says thus: Here, under this year, it is well briefly to record the life and acts of Lucy, the Sicilian virgin, since I have everywhere sought in vain, though most diligently, for the certain time of her life and death. Arthur du Monstier, both in the Franciscan Martyrology and in the Sacred Gynæceum, citing Wadding, judged that she flourished about the aforesaid year.
[20] Dissenting much from these later writers, Ottavio Gaetani and more probably not later than the fourteenth makes her a whole century older, in the Animadversions on her Life, where he renders the reason for his opinion. It is unascertained by us, he says, in what year of Christ, or under what prince of Sicily, St. Lucy lived or died; it is certain that it was after the times of St. Francis, whose institute she followed. We conjecture that she was not far from his age, and that she departed this life about the year of Christ 1300. For in the petitions which were offered to the Roman Pontiff for her cult by the virgins of Salerno about the year of Christ 1455 it is written that Bl. Lucy was honored among them from time immemorial, which space of time I should judge to have been not less than 150 years. Thus Gaetani; and how doubtful these things are, mark in a few words. The date of the said petition is plainly uncertain, which, as we said above at num. 12, being destitute of the due chronological notes, is referred by others to the second year of the Pontificate of Leo X, that is, to the year of Christ 1514. And if from this year of Christ you subtract 150 years, you will come to the year 1364.
[21] or the fifteenth. Besides, I do not know why by time immemorial, as the petition has it, Gaetani wished not less than 150 years to be signified, nor why a space of time exceeding the limit of a hundred years did not seem to him sufficient — which Pope Urban VIII afterward declared should be held for time immemorial in cases of this kind. You see on what a wavering foundation even this opinion of Gaetani's rests; which neither can I from any other source establish more firmly. Yet I hold it for certain that she is not older than the thirteenth century, because it will be established from what is to be said that she passed her life under the Rule of St. Francis. On the other hand, that I should not believe her later at least than the fifteenth century is urged by the very ignorance of the time in which she lived, together with the antiquity of the Salernitan codex which contains the Life, asserted by Wadding, which the writer of the Italian Life also praised, calling that codex most ancient. For the rest, since I could not consult my own eyes concerning its antiquity, I leave it to the learned men of Salerno, and to others to whom it may be permitted to inspect the said codex, to determine further on the same matter, and I proceed to examine other things.
[22] The Blessed was born at Caltagirone, a town of Sicily, At the very threshold of the Life the biographer, probably a Calabrian, at once stumbled, when he placed the city of Caltagirone, Bl. Lucy's homeland, in Calabria, saying that she was born in the parts of Calabria, in the city which is called Calathagerone, or Calatagirone, or Caltagirone, as Gaetani reads; which is well known to be a town of Sicily, of which name none exists in Calabria. Wherefore Gaetani in his edition substituted of Sicily in place of of Calabria, as he notes in the Animadversions upon it. He notes, however, in the same place that this error was not unusual with some other writers also, that they used Sicily for Calabria, or on the contrary Calabria for Sicily. Hence too the Sicilians complain that certain men eminent in virtue and learning are unjustly taken from them by the Calabrians, and the Calabrians that they are taken by the Sicilians. Consult, if you please, on this subject Antonino Mongitore in the Delineation of Sicily, chapter 2, which you have published in volume 2 of the Thesaurus of the Antiquities of Sicily etc. by Johann Georg Graevius and Pieter Burman, where he contends on behalf of his own Sicilians.
[23] not of Calabria, of noble parents, Now Calatagiro, called by others Calataiero, Calatagironum, Calata-Hieronis and Calata-Hieronum, but by the natives Caltagirone, is an inland town of Sicily, set upon a hill, in the Val di Noto, which is bounded on the south by the African sea; and therefore, contrary to what Claudio Mario Arezzo supposed in the Chronography of Sicily, it is altogether to be distinguished from the ancient city of Calacta, which was situated on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, and which some think is now utterly destroyed, others that it is the present-day town of San Marco. Bl. Lucy's parents, whose names are not given, the biographer writes were both noble and pious, and especially devout toward St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, by whose patronage therefore he relates that the Blessed herself, while she was a little girl, was wondrously snatched from a present danger of life. He also attributes to them more offspring than Lucy, at num. 1 of the Life; but since afterward at num. 9 he writes that they mourned over their only-begotten Daughter who was lost — that is, Bl. Lucy, who had fled with a certain nun to Salerno — he is not sufficiently consistent with himself, unless perhaps the other children must be said to have been stepchildren, or born after the Blessed's flight, or to have died before it.
[24] On the testimony of the same biographer, Bl. Lucy professed the Rule of St. Francis in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno, She was not of the Order of St. Benedict; whither she had fled without her parents' knowledge with the aforesaid nun, in whose parents' house she lived so long as that nun remained alive. Moreover, whatever be the case concerning this flight and her stay at Salerno before entering the monastery, more recent writers do not agree about the Rule which she professed, some, as we said above, asserting that it was Benedictine, others Franciscan. Rocco Pirri, cited at num. 19, reviewing the monasteries of the city of Caltagirone, says in the first place: That of St. Benedict stood in the time of king Roger, where Bl. Lucy made her profession, and thence in the year 1140 she was transferred to found a monastery at Salerno, where, illustrious for holiness of life, she died on the 26th day of September, and is honored by permission of the Apostolic See. But would that Pirri had at least indicated by a word whence he learned these things; for Ottavio Gaetani, whose Sicilian Martyrology alone he cites, did indeed in that little work call her a Benedictine and affirm that she was honored, but made no mention of the rest of Pirri's assertions, and in the Lives of the Saints of Sicily, being better informed, retracted the Blessed's Benedictine profession.
[25] In the latter place Gaetani in the Animadversions commented thus on those words of the biographer, but of St. Francis, as Wadding, She was joined to the Sisters of the Order of the Minors, in the place of St. Mary Magdalene: But many years ago the Salernitan convent of St. Mary Magdalene began to be reckoned in the family of the holy father Benedict; yet in what year, or for what cause, it changed its ancient institutes of life, is unascertained by me. I should not doubt that it observed the Rule and precepts of life handed down by St. Francis at the time when Bl. Lucy passed over to her Spouse. On the same subject Luke Wadding treats at greater length in the additions to the enlarged Annals of the Minors, volume 9 of the latest edition, at the year of Christ 1400, num. 4, whence I transfer the following here. Besides two ancient monasteries of Poor Clares, he says, of which we have spoken elsewhere, there was (in that same city of Salerno) another Franciscan one under the invocation of St. Mary Magdalene, into which (our Blessed), being admitted without difficulty and having pronounced her vows, began to shine before her companions by the example of every kind of virtue.
[26] After these things he briefly recounts her religious life from the Acts to be published; and various opinions concerning the Salernitan monastery of St. Mary Magdalene and because the chief and perhaps sole reason for which she is believed by some to have been a Benedictine seems to be that her sacred body has from time immemorial rested in the Benedictine monastery of virgins of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno, he reports at num. 6 the various opinions of others on this matter in these words: Now her body rests honorably in the church of the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, of Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict. How, or at what time, it was carried thither, men's judgment varies. Some assert that, that earlier monastery of St. Mary Magdalene in which she led the Regular life and laid down the remains of her body having been suppressed on account of want of means and the fewness of the Sisters, the remaining Sisters were transferred with their Rules to this Benedictine house, the body of Bl. Lucy being also transported. They relate also that a miracle then occurred;
namely that into the finger of the abbess's right hand, as soon as she had reverenced the body when it was first brought, a vehement pain was sent which could be soothed by no medicines, until, prayers being poured out to the holy Virgin, she was inwardly warned that something was missing from the body; and that she ordered diligent search to be made whether any part had remained in the sepulcher, and that, when that finger which was causing the abbess pain had been found and restored to the body, the pain departed.
[27] reviewing the opinions, Others think that God's Handmaid, while still living, was transferred with a very few Franciscan women to this monastery, and died there under her former Rule and habit. Men indeed of advanced age and unimpaired credit assert that they saw Sisters of both institutes gathered there together, and that they observed the norm of their own profession as though in distinct communities. Nor is this so wonderful or unusual but that other examples of this kind have gone before. For these he refers the reader in the margin to the years 1308, 1447 and 1448, in the last of which places, at num. 42, he writes that the Sisters of the monastery of Vedano of the Order of St. Augustine at Milan, with the consent of Pope Nicholas V, partly passed over to the Order of St. Clare in such a way that half the monastery with half the movable goods and sacred furnishings fell to these, and the rest to those who preferred to persevere under the Augustinian Rule. As therefore those Milanese women in one and the same house, no otherwise than in two distinct monasteries, observed each their own Rules, Augustinian and Clarisse, so the Salernitan nuns in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, Benedictine and Franciscan, could at some time have used each their own laws, just as the persons whom Wadding cites have testified.
[28] he proves from the Life, The same annalist subjoins another opinion to the aforesaid, saying: Thirdly, others contend that this very community of Sisters which now exists was formerly Franciscan, and that Lucy was first received into it; and that, when Benedictine Sisters of disordered monasteries, loosened by the injuries of wars, had been gathered there, the house at length turned aside to that institute, this party prevailing. So it was done also in other monasteries, as we have related in their own places concerning that of St. Antony at Barcelona and of the town of Mocluhen. And he notes in the margin volume 2, at the years 1233, 1493 and 1496, of which consult the first place. After these things Wadding thus declares his mind concerning this controversy: In so great a variety of opinions I have nothing which I may affirm for certain; for no documents are at hand, or entire Acts of this Virgin, which might carry a torch before us or lead us by the hand to a perfect knowledge of the matter. There exists only among the Sisters of that convent an ancient Legend, but incomplete, written on parchments in a simple style and an old hand; and an Office which they recite on her birthday, put together by some Minorite after the likeness of the Office of St. Clare, many words and half-antiphons and responsories being excerpted from it. The Lessons moreover they mixed in from that Legend, as was in use among the Benedictines.
[29] her Office and an ancient image of her And yet in it these words are found: "At length, as it pleased God, she was joined to the Sisters of the Order of the Minors, dwelling in the place of St. Mary Magdalene; who, marveling at her beauty and sanctity, etc." And below: "For she promised to keep with all obedience the Rule of blessed Francis, from which promise she in no wise turned aside, etc." And in the Office it is everywhere impressed that she served under the Rule of St. Francis. The third antiphon at the first Vespers has thus: "This Virgin, despising glory, bears away the victory over the world in the Order of the Minors; and while she follows the zeal of Francis, etc." The second antiphon of the second Nocturn: "Holding the pattern of Francis, this Virgin pleasing to God, etc." The first responsory of the same Nocturn: "Following the Rule of Francis with holy poverty, etc." And in the inuri (one should read inaurato, gilded, I suppose) semicircle above the monument is seen her image in the Franciscan habit, drawn by Andrea of Salerno, an old painter. From these things (Wadding goes on) we hold two things ascertained. First, that she gave her name to the Franciscans in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, whether it was this very one which now exists or another and distinct one. Second, that she always lived under the Franciscan Rule.*
[30] Whence those are manifestly refuted who assigned her to the Benedictine Order: and we with him against a few others Ottavio Gaetani of Syracuse in the Sketch of a Work on the lives of the Sicilian Saints (although in his manuscript codices it is established that he laid aside the error and called her Franciscan), Philip Ferrarius in the new Catalogue of Saints, and Rocco Pirri in the Account of the church of Syracuse, who adds further that she made profession in the Benedictine monastery of Caltagirone, and that thence in the year 1400 (rather 1140, as our edition has) she was transferred to found a monastery at Salerno. Concerning Rocco Pirri and Gaetani consult above, num. 24 and 25 of this Commentary. Thus far from Wadding, whose arguments, all taken together, make Bl. Lucy's Franciscan profession beyond doubt to me. For indeed, if she had passed her life in the Order of St. Benedict, what would have come into the biographer's mind that he should make her a Franciscan, whose body too rested at Salerno among the Benedictine virgins?
[31] Yet suppose that this was asserted by him too lightly on whatever ground: we judge. would the said Benedictine nuns have honored as a Franciscan a Blessed of their own Order, whose body, as I said, they possessed from time immemorial, in her ecclesiastical Office which they had been wont to recite from a like time — and so of their own accord have snatched from themselves a great distinction and ornament of their institute? Indeed, if a sufficiently probable hope of assigning her to the Benedictines had shone upon them, I believe they would have erred on this side rather than on the other. Moreover, since the maintainers of the opposite opinion allege no document or argument, it is most probable that the things which we have brought forward against them were unknown to them, and that they perhaps rested on no other foundation than that the Salernitan monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, in which they knew Bl. Lucy's body had rested from time immemorial, was inhabited by Benedictine nuns. But this reasoning loses all its probability when it is compared with the arguments we have adduced.
§ III. Profession in the third Order of St. Francis; she presided over the novices and perhaps over the whole monastery; the time of her death unknown; some miracles or benefits after her death.
[ ] More probably she was not a Poor Clare, Bl. Lucy's Franciscan profession being established, it may further be asked whether she was of the second, or only of the third Order; which is not so certain, nor is it explained by the biographer. Her proper Office, published at Salerno in the year 1646 for the use of the often-mentioned monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, makes her of the Order of St. Clare, whose title is this: Office of Bl. Lucy the virgin, of the Order of St. Clare etc. The same is asserted in Lesson 5, in which is read: She flew away into the desert of religion, and professed the Rule of St. Francis in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno, where nuns of St. Clare flourished in virtues. But on the contrary Wadding preferred to believe that she was only of the third Order of St. Francis, led by a twofold reason. But that she was of the third institute (he says in the place which we cited in the preceding §) and not of the second, of the Poor Clares, I conjecture from this, that that Sister who conducted her from Caltagirone to Salerno was a Tertiary; for so is suggested by the liberty of migrating to other lands and of dwelling in her father's house, which is forbidden to Poor Clares; and by the image painted at the sepulcher, which shows only a white head-veil, whereas the Poor Clares add a black one.
[33] but only of the third Order of St. Francis, As regards the first part of the reasoning, I gladly assent to Wadding that that Salernitan Sister, Bl. Lucy's mistress and guide, although in the Life at num. 4 she is called a nun, was only of the third Order of St. Francis. And indeed I judge that she was only of the number of those who under the third Rule of St. Francis, and in the habit proper to them, led a certain religious life in the world, each in her own private house, commonly called Tertiaries and Sisters of penance. To make me think so, besides the liberty alleged by Wadding of visiting kinsfolk abroad, there is that same Sister's dwelling at Salerno in her father's house, in which, according to the biographer, the said nun seems also to have met her last day. The first liberty the biographer plainly indicates in the Life at num. 4, where he writes that a certain Salernitan nun, while she was hastening into Calabria (rather Sicily) to visit her kinsfolk, stayed some days in the aforesaid city (Caltagirone). Then he subjoins that Bl. Lucy on that occasion was so vehemently kindled to virtue by that nun's pious examples and wholesome counsels, and was joined to her by so close a bond of friendship, that, not bearing to be torn from her, she bound herself to her as her disciple and inseparable companion.
[34] first in the world, Somewhat more obscurely the same biographer indicates that both, when they had come to Salerno, dwelt in the paternal house of that same nun so long as she was alive. For he speaks thus in the Life at num. 6 and 7: Then, a short interval of time intervening, together under the silent stillness of night (having set out secretly from Caltagirone) they came by boat to Salerno. Bl. Lucy stayed in the house of the parents of the aforesaid nun, until she entered upon the way of all flesh. And when she had been taken away, she inquired on every side, anxiously searching out a place in which she might render God her final service. At length, as it pleased God, she was joined to the Sisters of the Order of the Minors dwelling in the place of St. Mary Magdalene. With the biographer agrees the proper Office published in print in the year 1646, whose Lesson 5 has this: The most chaste Turtledove did not forsake her mate so long as she lived; but her guide being dead, she flew away into the desert of religion etc. From all these things I gather, first, that both dwelt together at Salerno in the paternal house of the one. Secondly, that so long as they lived together they were Tertiaries of St. Francis, of the sort I have indicated above, since it is altogether probable that Bl. Lucy was of the same institute as her mistress, to whom she so faithfully clung.
[35] then as a religious But I do not see that it follows from this that the Blessed, when after her mistress's death she embraced the claustral religious life, must be said to have passed to a monastery of the third Order rather than of the second, that is, of St. Clare, as her Office just mentioned has it. More is proved by the Blessed's image painted in the Franciscan habit with a white head-veil only, on Wadding's testimony — if at that time religious Tertiaries were distinguished by that kind of veil from the Poor Clares, who add a black one. The same opinion is favored by the fact that in her ancient Office no mention whatever is anywhere made of St. Clare, but mention is made of the Sisters of the penitents, by which name I judge Tertiaries are designated, who were otherwise called Sisters of penance. The first responsory of the second Nocturn has thus: This is the poor Virgin, of the number of the prudent, a lover of the pearl, who is chastened by the rod: teaching the Sisters of the penitents to come thither. The same, with a few changes, may be read thus in the more recent Office: This is the poor Virgin, of the number of the prudent, a lover
of the pearl, and chastens herself with the rod. ℣. Teaching the Sisters of the penitents; come ye thither.
[36] These things are indeed somewhat obscure; but so far as I gather, in the Salernitan monastery, they indicate that Bl. Lucy presided as mistress over the Sisters of penance, or Tertiaries. The Martyrologies of the Orders of St. Francis agree, which we cited at num. 1 and 2, and in all of which it is constantly asserted that she was of the Third Order of St. Francis. Finally under that same title the same Blessed is honored with a yearly Office by the three Orders of St. Francis, as we showed at num. 15. Assenting to these, I too have judged that Bl. Lucy is to be numbered among the religious nuns of the third Order of St. Francis; but I confess nevertheless that this is not so certain as is her Franciscan profession in one or the other Order. I touched just now briefly upon the Blessed's office of mistress or superior among her own. The author of the Italian Life in chapter 5 writes that she was set over her monastery as abbess or superior, and, more probably, was also earlier given as mistress to the novices. Fremaut, following him, attributes both those offices to her without hesitation; but Wadding was silent about both.
[37] Neither does the biographer assert in the Life, such as we now have it mutilated; where she also ruled the novices, but in both Offices at least the office of mistress of novices is not obscurely ascribed to her. In the older one the fourth antiphon at Vespers is this: Lucy, teaching her daughters, whose heavenly discipline is toward young girls, the delights of the Cross of Christ; she forms the novices by examples and by doctrine. Read the former part of the antiphon thus, that it may be clearer: Lucy, whose heavenly discipline is toward young girls, teaching her daughters the delights of the Cross of Christ, etc. Hither likewise seems to look the second Responsory of the first Nocturn: Despising to live in the world, she trod the world underfoot []; and she, shining in the working of good morals, formed the Sisters, and so, striving to till the garden of Christ, she bore fruit. ℣. While she came to gather the fruits, she multiplied the fruits of a fruitful region. Likewise the second antiphon of the second Nocturn: As a faithful woman she taught the Sisters chastity, and always admonished them to follow after holiness.* To these add also the other responsory which we gave at num. 35.
[38] Assuredly of the antiphons adduced the first signifies not obscurely that Bl. Lucy was set over the instruction of novices; and perhaps she presided over others also. and deservedly in the ancient Salernitan codex someone noted here in the margin, on Gaetani's testimony: She was mistress of the novices, or superior of the convent. For the rest, I judge that the author of the Italian Life, and after him Fremaut too, had nothing other than what I have brought forward for asserting Bl. Lucy's office of mistress of novices and her prelacy over the whole monastery; of which the latter I do not find sufficiently affirmed in the aforesaid sources for me to hold it as ascertained. The remaining deeds of the Blessed I shall illustrate in the Annotations. That the time of her death is utterly unknown is clear from the preceding §, where we showed that even the century in which she flourished cannot be certainly assigned, and that the cause of this ignorance is with sufficient probability laid upon the Salernitan codex, in which alone that Life exists, and which they say is mutilated in its last part, or so corrupted that it cannot be read.
[39] It remains that I here review certain miracles or benefits Miracles in the Italian Life concerning the body which the author of the Italian Life, and from him Fremaut, have published. The former of these, in book 2, chapter 9, professes that in collecting them he was concerned not so much with their number as with sure credit, and that he would relate nothing but what he had chiefly learned from a manuscript sent to him from Salerno by persons worthy of credit, and of which a great part was current in that same city by the spreading of report. Yet I could wish that this anonymous writer had brought forward for them more certain testimonies than report of this kind and some persons or other worthy of credit, or at least had named these, if perchance from their condition and authority some weight could have accrued to the narrative. In the first place he recounts a prodigy wrought in the finger of the abbess of the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene at Salerno, when, Bl. Lucy's body having been translated thither, one finger of the right hand had been left in her old sepulcher. See above at num. 26 of this Commentary, where I reported that fact from Wadding; but observe at the same time that that translation itself, as it is narrated both by the one and by the other (namely as though it had been made from one monastery to another), is exceedingly uncertain; yet a prodigy of this kind could truly have happened, even if the said translation had been arranged within the same church or monastery from one sepulcher only to another more honorable one.
[40] and the head of the Blessed, are not sufficiently proved. The other miracle which he subjoins is much more wonderful, and, to find credit with me, requires a surer guarantor than those persons doubtful to me, or popular report. He narrates the matter nearly in this way. Sister Dorothea del Tesone, a nun of the Salernitan monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, had procured a silver reliquary in which Bl. Lucy's head, separated from the rest of the body, might be enclosed. When the chaplain of that monastery wished to do this, he found the reliquary a little too narrow; and, in order that he might even so insert the sacred head into it, he struck it rather inconsiderately with a light blow of a mallet. But then living blood gushed forth from that head, and the chaplain's hands and arms suddenly withered; and while very many stood around astounded to behold these prodigies, presently also all the bronze bells of that monastery sounded of their own accord. But the chaplain, acknowledging and grieving over his fault of irreverence, had himself carried to Bl. Lucy's sepulcher, where after prayers and tears he recovered his former health. These things he relates at somewhat greater length, concerning which any prudent reader will deservedly require with me some more certain testimony.
[41] Invoked with a vow, she suddenly heals one gravely sick. More credible are the things which he then subjoins, and which I render word for word from Italian into Latin. Lady Claudia Pagliara, when she saw that her dearest son Marcantonio Cioffo had now come as it were to the gates of death, while, he being given up by the physicians, funeral preparations were being made, out of a mother's affection and a singular devotion toward Bl. Lucy, with a vow added, commended him to her; and presently he was restored to health and strength, who a little before had nothing left but to fall into his last agony and render his soul to God. Wherefore the good mother, exulting beyond measure, piously rendered due thanks to God, and carried the promised votive offering to the sepulcher of that handmaid Lucy. Hence the said writer proceeds to benefits obtained by the use of water blessed with Bl. Lucy's relics, which he affirms to be a most ancient practice. This water, he says, is first purified with the common blessing and rite of the Church, and then consecrated with two of the Blessed's teeth, which for this purpose are attached to a little silver chain, and with the customary prayer of the same Blessed, and is healthfully applied against any bodily ailments whatsoever. Take the examples from him.
[42] Lady Claudia Comito (says the author in Italian words) being almost blind in both eyes, commended herself urgently to Bl. Lucy and vowed a silver lamp; By the use of water consecrated with her relics then, her eyes having been washed with that prodigious water, she was suddenly and perfectly healed, and exulting over so singular a benefit she most promptly paid her vow. Like this is another benefit which befell Paolo Corvini, chamberlain of the most Eminent Cardinal Savelli, who, being likewise almost blind, having invoked Bl. Lucy, washed his eyes with the same water, and vowing some Masses prayed for her help; and so on the same day he began to see excellently, his eyes plainly sound and free from every ill. Fremaut adds that the said Cardinal Savelli or Sabellus was archbishop of Salerno. Now there were two Cardinal bishops of that see of this name, namely Giulio and Fabrizio, who, since Ughelli in volume 7 of Sacred Italy enlarged, column 444, writes that they held the said archbishopric in succession from the year 1630 until 1658, it must be said that the benefit mentioned occurred within those years, at which time the writer of the Italian Life, published in the year 1664, was already living; which it will be useful to have noted for establishing credit in this matter.
[43] Lady Anna Castellomet (the same writer continues), formerly abbess of the monastery and her invocation, ailments of the eyes are removed. in which the sacred body of Bl. Lucy is kept, being seized with a certain ailment of the eyes, so that she could neither open them nor look upon anyone, and having found that no remedy was to be found for her in human things, with great confidence had recourse to her Protectress and Patroness, and took care that some Masses should be celebrated to that end, and immediately obtained the grace she desired, rejoicing that her ailment was utterly driven away. Lady Diana Sammango, a girl, blind in both eyes for about fourteen months, likewise experienced her help, when her mother, lady Isabella Castellomet, had commended her to Bl. Lucy with a vow. The same benefit was enjoyed by lady Lucrezia Pinto, who, being so afflicted with the same disease of the eyes that she had now utterly lost the faculty of seeing, fled with great devotion and tears to our Blessed, not without a sure and confident hope of obtaining what she had thus far been unable to obtain by the work of physicians and by many medicines applied in vain. To her fervent prayers she added a vow of offering two silver eyes and of fasting every year on bread and water on the Blessed's feast day. Scarcely had she uttered the vow and ceased to pray when she obtained the desired effect, to the wonder of all who saw her thus restored.
[44] In the aforesaid monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, where the sacred body of Bl. Lucy rests, Dropsy, a certain nun of the Roggiero family, niece of Signor Felice and Lady Modestia Roggiero mentioned above, was vehemently afflicted with a most grave dropsy without any hope of recovery, since she had already been given up by the physicians. On this account, after human remedies, nearly all employed without any profit, she was at length compelled to leave the monastery. But her aunts (or her father's sisters; in Italian it is zie, which word has either meaning), after she had already gone out, perceiving that earthly medicine availed nothing against so great an ill, all with great affection turned themselves to heaven, and commending their niece with fervent prayers to Bl. Lucy, caused a lamp to burn at her sepulcher at their own expense; and so they saw her utterly healed through Bl. Lucy's merits, so that she entered the monastery again wholly sound and without any trace of her disease, no otherwise than if she had never suffered from it, nor did she thereafter suffer anything of the same ailment. Nor did they omit to give thanks to the divine Goodness and to their Guardian and Patroness for so notable a grace and singular beneficence. From that departure from the monastery and return, gather that that nun was perhaps then only a novice.
[45] a malignant fever and other diseases When a certain Calabrian workman, Salvatore by name, being placed in the most present danger of life from a malignant fever, found that his disease was in no way relieved by the medicines which he had used, he urgently asked for, and with equal affection and piety obtained, water consecrated with Bl. Lucy's relics.
And scarcely had he tasted it when he felt himself wholly cooled in a most singular and prodigious manner, so that, the fever being at once driven off, he was able to go and visit her sepulcher and there pay his due thanks, because through her he had been as it were called back from death to life. Nor did he forget to make known to the Religious of that monastery this recovered health through the benefit of the holy Virgin and their Sister. Lady Claudia Roggiero also learned by experience how much Bl. Lucy's patronage avails, when she had recourse to her for the health of Signor Ettore Sammango as often as he fell ill, and always obtained the grace she asked.
[46] and a flux of blood are suddenly driven off through her. In the Sicilian city of Caltagirone, Bl. Lucy's homeland, lady Cornelia Calascibetta, baroness of Cotomino, lay gravely ill of a dangerous flux of blood; who, when she had found no remedy suited to her ailment, piously invoked Bl. Lucy, and by her was suddenly and prodigiously restored to her former health. This same grace in the same city Giuseppe Bellone likewise received, who, suffering from a hernia, had invoked her, and who as a token of the benefit received hung up his votive offering near the altar of that holy Virgin. She was renowned also for other wonders of this kind in her own homeland, of which no such clear account has reached us. I have found nothing more concerning Bl. Lucy; I therefore subjoin the Life.
Annotata\ i.e. calcavit*
MUTILATED LIFE
By an anonymous author.
From an old Salernitan manuscript, collated with the one published by Ottavio Gaetani.
Lucy, virgin of the third Order of St. Francis, at Salerno in the kingdom of Naples. (B.)
BHL Number: 4991
By an Anonymous writer.
Born at Caltagirone in Sicily, when she was six years old, The admirable a woman Lucy, a virgin devoted to God, sprung of a noble stock, was born in the parts of Calabria, in the city which is called Calathagerone b; whose father, descended from a noble lineage, a man perfect and honored, begot such young branches as a good fragrance keeps in memory, and he bore fruit on earth like a fruitful rose. And her mother, drawing her origin from a noble family, like a generous vine brought forth glorious shoots []; among whom she brought forth Lucy, like a little plant overflowing with the twigs of the virtues and abounding in the sweet wine of good works. Her mother, as a religious and devout woman, gave [] many alms, and formed her daughters in good morals and an honorable life. And both served the most holy Nicholas so devoutly that at times he made his miracles manifest to them.
[2] For on a certain day, when God's handmaid Lucy was still six years old, she is delivered from a grave peril of life by St. Nicholas. as she was going into the vineyard without her mother's knowledge, she climbed a tree to eat figs; and suddenly there came great thunder, lightnings, and rain; and a thunderbolt fell, splitting the tree c. Yet the girl, as it pleased the Lord, remained unhurt. And while she stood thus, as though set in an ecstasy, drenched on every side by the rain and as it were half dead, not knowing what she should do, there appeared to her a certain old man, like a religious and a friend of God, who said to her: Daughter, come with me. And she, when she saw him, rejoiced greatly and followed him. And when she had come to the door of her house, coming to herself she said to that old man who had been her guide: Sir, who are you? And he answered: I am Nicholas, the servant and friend of God, whom your parents reverently honor; and therefore for love of them I have been a help to you. And having said this he vanished from her eyes d.
[3] Scarcely brought forth into the light, the little Lucy began early enough to shine with a light in the shadow of the world, She passes her childhood and adolescence piously, given to prayer and within her tender years soon to be resplendent in uprightness. Docile of heart, she first received the lessons of faith from her mother's mouth, the Holy Spirit inwardly instructing and likewise forming her. O how happy the parents who thus sprouted upon the earth like a lily among thorns; to whom the Most High gave so great a grace that they should beget such a Daughter as would be joined to God alone by a special bond. The new planting therefore was watered in heavenly discipline, and grew up like a stalk into fields of ripe seed, and put forth shoots in the example of holy works, like a plane tree beside the waters. And this Girl grew like a gentle lamb, from infancy wholly free and a stranger to the vices of inconstancy and wantonness with which the adolescence of the young [*] is wont to be stained. From the thirteenth year of her age, rising above youthful folly, she showed forth the gravity of old age: day and night not slothful in God's service, she frequented the church with eagerness, and after her mother's example dispensed pious alms to the poor.
[4] She gladly stretched out her hands to the poor, and from the abundance of her house supplied the want of the needy. and to almsgiving; bound by the companionship of a religious woman, Thus, compassion growing with her from infancy, she had a heart that suffered with others, pitying the miseries of the wretched. She bore in her heart the friendship of holy prayer, through which not once but often she breathed forth a good fragrance, and little by little through these and other things she practiced a celibate life. Now it happened, while she thus persevered in good works, that a certain nun of Salerno, while she was hastening into Calabria e to visit her kinsfolk, stayed some days in the aforesaid city f. Hearing of her coming, the girl Lucy began with all desire to go to her and diligently to hear from her the words of God. And so the nun saw that the said Girl was most solicitous in God's service, and more solicitous concerning the passion of Christ, and that she thought earnestly upon the Lord's cross. She marveled therefore, saying in her heart that she had never seen a young girl labor at such holy works; she took delight in her soul and rejoiced, and, kindled with the holy love of charity, began to preach to her [*] and to teach her from God's Gospel concerning that passage which says: He who does not renounce his father and his mother and all that he possesses for my sake cannot be my disciple.
[5] Hearing this, Christ's virgin, the most holy Lucy, at once falling at her feet, she passes under her discipline, said with tears: I beseech you, lady, that you show me what I am to do. And she answering said: If you know not yourself, O fair one among the daughters of Jerusalem, go forth and forget your people and your father's house, and follow me: I will show you what you ought to do. And so, despising her father's house and household and also her kinsfolk, she loved the nun the more with ardent desire, and, inflamed with the fire of the Holy Spirit, she departed from her neither by day nor by night; but keeping with her the sacred prayers and vigils, she firmly planted her foot upon her threshold. Presently Lucy, having cast off that filth [*], repudiated filthy Babylon, that is, the world of confusion. Nor indeed was it fitting that the holy g flower of her flowering virginity should be defiled with any iniquities [or] impurities, over whom there had presided as an example the hall of modesty, alone the most worthy of creatures, the first and chief of all virgins, the Virgin Mother.
[6] and with her she flees to Salerno. But when the report suddenly flew to her parents and kinsfolk, with torn hearts they condemn the Virgin's holy h and wholesome purpose, and gathering with one accord and running to the place, they try to obtain what they could not gain. For first they employ flattering blandishments and persuasions and honeyed promises, by which i the Virgin's spirit, sweetly soothed, might be turned back by sweet allurements into a carnal love of her parents and come to its senses. The entreaties availed nothing. They add threatening words to lead back from what she had begun the mind of the girl's constancy, now turned away, that it might be torn from God's service to the very marrow. But she, giving all these things to the wind as empty, and despising her native blood, chooses rather to be strengthened in the love of God than in that of the flesh, setting herself against her parents' obstacle so long until at last her kinsmen and friends, laying aside the hardness of their brow, acquiesce in their daughter's resolve. Then, a short interval of time intervening, together under the silent stillness of night they came by boat to Salerno. Bl. Lucy stayed in the house of the parents of the aforesaid nun, until she entered upon the way of all flesh.
[7] When she was dead, she professes the Rule of St. Francis And when she had been taken away, she inquired on every side, anxiously searching out a place in which she might render God her final service. At length, as it pleased God, she was joined to the Sisters of the Order of the Minors k, dwelling in the place of St. Mary Magdalene; who, marveling at her beauty and sanctity, set as she was in so tender an age, rejoicing together with one accord in the Lord, emulated her with a charitable emulation of God. Christ's Girl therefore ascended her steps in God's service, one by one, not ceasing by vigils, prayers, and fasts to pant after the kingdom of the celibate [*] life. For she was founded in the building of her Order like a cornerstone, joining two walls together, upon the noble foundation of obedience and humility, which, as the very framework of all the virtues, she strove first and chiefly to lay. For she promised to keep with all obedience the Rule of blessed Francis, from which promise she in no wise turned aside. To small and great, to those of middle rank and to all alike she was obedient; she refused to perform no services l, so much so that for the most part she would pour water on the Sisters' hands, rise for each one passing by, stand by those who sat, and serve those who ate.
[8] in the Salernitan monastery, She commands nothing to any of the Sisters m; she does all things of her own free will, loving rather to do everything in her own person, following after humility, than to command the Sisters anything. O how praiseworthy is a chaste generation with brightness, in which St. Lucy shone forth among the other Sisters like a gleaming star! O how admirable is your name, O Lord, by whose help the blessed Virgin rose above the frailty of the female flesh []. For the several Sisters marveled that she made herself the last and a servant to each and labored for all, not unreasonably subjecting herself n to all, but devoutly o pondering that saying: He who gathers virtues without humility carries as it were dust into the wind. Let the holy Fatherhood of the highest See therefore rejoice that in the end of the ages it has had so great a Daughter, whose glorious life illustrated the Order of all religious by its merits and examples. Let the devout congregation of the Sisters Minor rejoice, for whom holy virginity, joined to it, enlarged in Lucy the state of perfect devotion and of holy contemplation of the mind. Let the whole world rejoice in the patronage of so great a Virgin, who, supported by a special privilege, with nature wondering, overcame [] virginal frailty. For what condition is there in the Church of God, what sex or age, what degree or order, which does not marvel manifoldly at this virginal treasure?
[9] But it happened meanwhile that the Virgin's parents mourned over their only-begotten Daughter [p] who was lost, her parents meanwhile thinking her dead. and with disheveled gray hairs lamented, saying: O light of our eyes! O staff of our old age, sweetest Daughter, how have we lost you, the consoler of our life! Why have you left us, your wretched and desolate parents, in perpetual grief? O
would that at least someone might come who would tell us that you are still alive! When the sorrowful parents had long lamented these and like things with tearful voice, and while through various lands and castles they sought their Daughter by manifold messengers, yet finding no certainty about her, they commended her to God as though dead with worthy obsequies and honorable Offices for the dead [q]. But that wonderful and exalted Lord, who does not forsake those who hope in him, who brings forth his Saints in exultation and his elect with gladness, strengthened the Girl in his service, planted in religion like a lily of whiteness; the fragrance of whose good manner of life raised up and comforted the frail who languished and those who were slothful in the divine service.
[10] For she was so intent upon prayer that day and night she did not cease from prayers and divine converse [*]; Her sanctity being noised abroad, she rouses to virtue strangers coming to her, nor did she relax her spirit from vigils and fasts. For the holy seal of the Crucified had so sealed her heart and mind within that, always adoring it with reverence and holding it in her hands with devotion, she never removed it from her face. A little afterward the opinion of the sanctity in the blessed virgin Lucy was spread abroad through the provinces and various lands and the neighboring regions: at the fragrance of her good repute devout women ran together from every side. Virgins strive, after the Virgin's example, to preserve for Christ what they are, and to keep their chastity inviolate; married women endeavor to attain what they are not, namely to take pains to keep the marriage bed more chastely undefiled. No less is the more robust impulse of young men invited to the unstained contests of chastity, being now convinced, so that it is challenged to devote to destruction the mockeries of the flesh by the brave examples of the weaker sex.
[11] All alike, led on by a fervid heavenly emulation, desire to serve Christ; all longed to be made partakers of that same angelic life which shone forth through Lucy. and stirs her own nuns to virtue; So many seeds of salvation did the virgin Lucy bring in by her examples that through her that prophetic word seemed to be fulfilled: All her glory, the daughters of kings in your honor; after her virgins are brought [*]. This is she who at the beginning of her conversion [r] despised her paternal inheritance, who, reserving nothing of the price for herself, willed that the whole portion of her substance should be carried into the heavenly treasuries by the hands of the poor. Thus therefore, the world being outwardly left behind, she was inwardly enriched in mind; thus she ran free after Christ, stripped of worldly cares and unburdened of the coffers of wicked money. She impressed upon her Sisters with frequent repetition that that community alone would be acceptable to God which should be rich in glad poverty and poor chastity; and that that society is to be strengthened with a perpetual bulwark which by the stability of the loftiest poverty and the most excellent humility [s] shall have been humbly founded.
[12] she herself shines before the rest in poverty, chastity, Therefore she comforts and exhorts them to be conformed in the little nest of poverty to the poor Christ, whom the poor Virgin Mother laid down all naked in a narrow manger of oxen. She strove, being made firm [t] in most perfect poverty, to be united to the poor Crucified, that no transitory thing, no glory that must perish, might shut off the lover from the beloved and hinder her course with the Lord [u], from whom she awaited the prize of reward. All marveled that nature had yielded in flesh so tender; nor had she rendered the Sisters astounded only by her power of abstaining [x], but had also made them fearful by the untiring continuation of vigils, prayers, and chastisements. For the holy Virgin's tender infancy breathed the fragrance of sacred religion; and she, detesting youthful wantonness, not only abhorred unlawful unions and criminal defilements, but also, passing beyond what was permitted — nay, holding in abomination the liberty of conjugal union [y] — embraced the whiteness of chastity and continence; she preserved by free choice the integrity of her most pure virginal flesh undefiled, so that, following freely with unhampered steps in virgin flesh the Lamb of God, Christ, immolated for the world's salvation on the altar of the cross, wherever he should go, she might deserve [*] to be present among the hymn-singing choirs of angels and to be inserted among the holy choirs of virgins by the purity of her life.
[13] O the admirable chastisement of holiness in a tender Girl, by chastisement of the body, who, when she could scarcely have been expected to comply or obey, offered to others a ready and affectionate service; whose weaker age had the deeds of a riper age [z], and who before the years of discretion seized for herself the merits of her elders! O admirable Girl, who, passing the bounds of natural weakness, and approaching the pure and virginal purity belonging to childhood alone, without arrogance and without haughty presumption [aa], exalted her frail age by the excellence of her works. Therefore she deserved to receive the free gifts of reward from Christ, since she had striven by grace toward that in which frailty failed by nature. This is the holy poor Virgin, who, withdrawing herself from the tumultuous vanity of the world and breaking herself away [*] from the empty business of worldly cunning, cared only to behold Jesus Christ with the eyes of the inner man in a pure gaze of the mind. This is the Virgin who, like a prudent merchant, hid the pearl she had found — that is, the kingdom of heaven, or virginal chastity, to be compared neither with gold nor with precious stones — and, leaving all things, strove to purchase it.
[14] by prayer, She prayed with the inmost prayer [bb] of her soul that the eternal God, living and true, would direct her way unspotted and would teach her to do his will alone. She was eager that no one should know what she did. Whence, loving solitude, she prayed, kept vigil, chastised herself with scourges, and, wisely hiding her holy works for the sake of the divine reward, willed that God alone should know what she did, and consulted him concerning her holy purpose. She endured the greatest suffering of mind in considering how she might render God a perfect service; and until she should complete in deed the good work which she had conceived in her heart she could not rest. For being warmed in her inmost parts with the fire of divine love, she strove in vain to conceal outwardly the ardor and love conceived in her holy mind; and persevering in fasting and weeping she besought the Savior's clemency, and, distrusting her own diligence, cast all her thought upon the Lord. A thing to be marveled at! The frail little Girl was often caught leaving her bed; doubtless because she execrated and devoted to destruction the delights of the flesh, and chose rather to lie upon the hardness of the earth, goading her flesh, than to lie relaxed in bed in bodily repose.
[15] The holy Virgin, pleasing God alone the almighty [cc], not flattering men, and by other outstanding virtues, made of herself such a banquet of piety and not of pleasure. First she sets the table of penance; secondly she sets before it the dish of a compunctious heart. Then she sets on the bread [dd] of sorrow, not unmindful of the word of the Psalm which says: It is vain for you to rise before the light: rise, etc. Afterward, in place of the liquor of sweet wine, she no less tempers her drink with weeping according to measure, not forgetting the words of the same prophet who says: He gave [ee] us drink in tears by measure. Then [*], that she may present to God the perfect delights of a wedding banquet, she prepares such musical instruments for such and so great a Guest. In place of her drum she strikes the whole dwelling of her heart; she opens wide the whole symphony of her breast, with organs singing, that her life may remain unspotted in heart and body [ff] before God. To laments she gives her weakness; she struck the lyre in the house of the Lord, making melody with long sighs, by which she signified that she sighed after her fatherland. She fits her continual groans into a pipe, while she often strikes and beats upon her breast; with which she sounds cymbals or bells [gg] pleasing to God. And so, while in this manner, like a prudent minstrel, she brings her foods before the divine [hh] eyes, mercy carries away with her [ii] abundance, not disappointed by such labors.
[16] A thing to be marveled at! The Virgin so wastes her tender body which the biographer that, her limbs languishing, she at last lay down exhausted on a bed of sickness; nor yet on this account did she transgress in the least the rules and observances of her Order; nay, subjecting herself to Christ's stronger yoke, she tormented her tender flesh with greater torments than before. For the bright Virgin lay languishing on her pallet, and pondered in her inmost heart the memory of the Crucified's passion; for he who is the brightness [kk] of eternal light had so fixed the rays of his splendor in the little Girl's heart, and had laid open to the Virgin the boundless treasures and unfailing golden streams flowing from the Crucified's wounds, and the multitude of his sweetness which he hides for those who fear him. For on the sixth feria, on which day the Son of God was fastened to the cross and trodden down by the Jews and delivered the world by his most holy blood, holding the Lord's cross continually in her hands and adoring it most devoutly, she observed the deepest silence, and on that day, out of reverence for that same Lord's passion, she fed on nothing but [ll] bread and water only.
[17] Nor is it to be wondered at if she reverently embraced the sign of the Crucified, recounts in oratorical fashion. who stands ready every day, as with hands outstretched on the cross, devoutly desiring to embrace the soul. It was granted her nonetheless, by the sweetness of divine grace, that in the sanctuary of her heart, as in the mortar of the cross, she should be pounded, giving forth by true contrition [mm] of penance a heavenly fragrance. From which altar of the cross too shone forth the antidote of eternal salvation, through which the human race, brought back from the deceitful persuasion of the ancient serpent, vomited out the poison of eternal death; and that supreme Reconciler, like an almighty champion, delivered man, made to his own image, from the cunning of the crafty enemy by the hand of his power. O admirable Virgin! who fixed the eyes of heart and body upon Christ's five wounds, which have become the medicine of our five senses, through which, as through five windows, death entered into man in a pestilent manner [nn]. Of which wounds indeed, under a changed name, the Bridegroom says in the Song of songs: Arise, my love, my bride, and come, my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hollows of the wall. Behold, the Bridegroom stands knocking at the door, he calls his love, that is, the soul of every faithful one; for Christ says to the Church: Arise, my love, my bride, and come. Do not [*] grow slack [oo] with an idle body; nay, rise up more quickly and come; let her not be idle, but examples of the virtues.
ANNOTATA.
p. See the Commentary, num. 23.
q. These things I hold for the biographer's own inventions; both because it is in no way probable that solemn obsequies for the Dead were celebrated for a lost Daughter whom they knew to have fled, and also because the said parents could have searched out without much difficulty the place where their Daughter was living, through the people of Caltagirone, whom the often-mentioned Salernitan nun, with whom Bl. Lucy had fled, had visited as her own kinsfolk.
r. Gaetani's edition: Conversionis.
s. In the same place: Excelsissimæ.
t. The same edition has: Firmissime.
u. Ibid.: Ad Dominum.
x. Ibid.: Pœnitentia.
y. These words Gaetani reads thus: Non tantum contactus illicitos … abhorrebat, … imo abominata conjugalem copulam, castitatis libertatem & continentiæ candorem est amplexata.
z. The word habebat is not in Gaetani.
aa. The biographer has here wrongly used arrogance and haughty presumption, both of which words denote a vice, for magnanimity and singular trust in God. In Gaetani, for impotentiæ is read impœnitentiæ.
bb. In Gaetani's edition: Intentione.
cc. In the same place the word omnipotenti is wanting.
dd. In the same place is wrongly read parum.
ee. In the same place: Not forgetting the word of the same prophet who says: Potum dabis etc.
ff. In the same place: Corde & corpore.
gg. In the same edition it is: Sicut melos. But the word melos is printed in a different type from the rest — perhaps because it was doubtful in the Salernitan autograph, or in the copy of it which Gaetani used.
hh. This word too I suspect stands doubtfully in the Salernitan manuscript, because both in Gaetani's edition, whence I took it, it is expressed in a different type, and in our copy there is wrongly read for it: Ditantur.
ii. In the same place: Secura, and presently, reportat.
kk. So I have corrected from Gaetani, since in our manuscript there was: Qui candorem.
ll. The words non nisi are superfluous.
mm. So I have corrected; for in our manuscript is read: Datum est ei nihilominus hoc per dulcedinem divinam gratiam, ut in cordis sui sacrario, tamquam in crucis mortario conterentur vera pœnitentiæ gratiæ, cæleste etc.; but in Gaetani thus: Datum est ei nihilominus hoc per dulcedinem divinæ gratiæ, ut in cordis sui sacrario, tamquam in crucis mortario contineretur vera pœnitentiæ contritione, cæleste etc.
nn. So from Gaetani; in our manuscript, for modo there is iri.
oo. Here Gaetani's edition ends, and he then subjoins this: The rest could in no way be read in the corrupted codex. Moreover the few words which follow in our copy also sufficiently show that this codex is here either mutilated or corrupt.
\ Gaetani: generavit*
\ ibid.: ferebat*
\ ibid.: ætas*
\ i.e. illi*
\ ibid.: illis*
\ Gaetani: Cælestis*
\ ibid.: feminæ*
\ ibid.: numerabat*
\ ibid.: officiis*
\ ibid.: adducentur*
\ ibid.: mereretur*
\ ibid.: abripiens*
\ ibid.: Denique*
\ Gaetani: Nolo*
THE OLD OFFICE
From the edition of Ottavio Gaetani.
Lucy, virgin of the third Order of St. Francis, at Salerno in the kingdom of Naples. (B.)
From printed sources
At Vespers.
Antiphons Antiphon a. Now the splendor, the light of lights, the Church has shone b; for the light which shed its rays, Lucy, companion of virgins, the brightness of light appeared, and flew away to the heavens c. Psalm: Dixit Dominus.
Antiphon. Whose perfect sanctity has drawn through the world the little streams of waters which gush forth d: the brightness of this fountain has drawn the little branches of the Sisters to the mother of daughters. Psalm: Laudate pueri.
Antiphon. This Virgin, despising glory, bears away the victory over the world in the Order of the Minors; and while she follows the zeal of Francis, she is in grace after the manner of the fathers of old. Psalm: Lætatus sum.
Antiphon. Lucy, teaching her daughters, whose heavenly discipline is toward young girls, forms the novices in the delights of Christ's Cross by examples and by doctrine e. Psalm: Nisi Dominus.
Antiphon. Virgin Lucy, rejoice, may you ever flourish in praise; bring forth your flower to Christ in your girlhood years, the torches of pleasure f being despised, you who give forth fragrance. Psalm: Lauda, Jerusalem g.
Hymn.
[2] Let us exult and be glad with h the jubilation of the mind, and let us take joy in Lucy with the ray of a new light, and a hymn at Vespers. and at last let us venerate her sweetly with worthy speech.
For Lucy, the way of light, to be venerated with praises i, a Virgin mild and holy, rich in illustrious manners, stands forth as a bright way for us and an example for all.
Whose glorious life enriches the age with light k, and who, despising precious things, breathed upon by the Holy Spirit l, seeks him who was born a rose of an untouched Virgin.
Now Lucy, worthy of praise, our chief adornment, a Virgin gentle and kindly, keeps the little flower of the flesh, and, as the signs show, holds the dwelling of heaven m.
With gold you gleam upon lofty roofs, as the bright sun glows red; and, the evils here having been endured, you rejoice in the highest light; shining at last on high, you renew glory here.
To him who begets and to him who is born, to him who proceeds, be glory, honor, salvation, power, praise; let equal proclamations be theirs; may he lead us and bring us through to the joys above.
Amen.
Antiphon at the Magnificat. O offspring of nobles, O Virgin, shining lily, from you a star shone forth which gave us light — chastity shining through the ages; Christ's young handmaid Lucy, a light gleamed n which loved the Cross: in you the rose glows red, in you the fruitful and resting spirit puts forth its shoots, the sweet power of fragrances, whose sanctity fills the Sisters dedicated to Christ: through you may the entrance of the heavens lie open to us.
At Matins.
[3] Invitatory, antiphons etc. at the first Nocturn. Invitatory. To the King who shone upon the world let us all give honor: Lucy offered o to the Cross, loving the Cross, her love. Psalm: Venite.
Antiphon. This most prudent Virgin, a virgin shining, the flower of flowers; Lucy most splendid enters the choir of virgins. Psalm: Eructavit.
Antiphon. Holding the pattern of Francis, this Virgin pleasing to God gave light to the Rule, a Bride dedicated to Christ. Psalm: Deus noster refugium.
Antiphon. Despising the delights of the world, she wills to find Christ; through the sufferings of the body she strives to go to heaven. Psalm: Omnes gentes [p].
Responsory I. Following the Rule of Francis with holy poverty, the virgin Lucy plants herself in holiness as a little plant diligent in Christ's vow and perfect [q] in charity. ℣. O youthful little Virgin, who dedicates herself, so small, to Christ in chastity. Following etc.
Responsory II. Despising to live in the world, she trod the world underfoot [r], and she, shining in the working of good morals, formed the Sisters; and so, striving to till the garden of Christ, she bore fruit. ℣. While she came to gather the fruits, she multiplied the fruits of a fruitful company [s]. And so to till etc.
Responsory III. Lying in the little nest of poverty, a consecrated Virgin, strong in the title of the virtues, conformed to Christ, she lives lightened [t] without a purse of coins. Glory be to the Father and to the Son etc.
In the second Nocturn.
[4] Antiphon. Desiring to live poor, she bound [u] herself to the poor, reducing herself to nothing in ashes, and girded herself with a hair shirt. Psalm: Omnes gentes. Antiphons and responsories at the second Nocturn.
Antiphon. As a faithful woman she taught the Sisters chastity, and always admonished them to follow after holiness. Psalm: Magnus Dominus.
Antiphon. It delights her ever to hear the Gospel of Christ; she desires to enter into the joy of those above [x]. Psalm: Fundamenta.
Responsory I. This is the poor Virgin, of the number of the prudent, a lover of the pearl, who is chastened by the rod [y], teaching the Sisters of the Penitents to come thither. To all is given this pattern, which the Virgin who bore the Son fulfilled; go all of you to him. The Sisters etc.
Responsory II. The friend of the Cross does not cease to lament the Crucified, whom, teaching, she herself laments, bearing him for a sweet burden. She is ever mindful of the Cross [z], nor does grief distress her. ℣. Believing that she lives through the Cross, she sings sweet psalms to it, which handling she touches with her hand. The Cross etc.
Responsory III. Living in the joy of heaven [aa], Lucy with dancing takes her delight with Christ, giving splendor to the palace; the light shines by whose ray the world is illumined. ℣. The course of labor having gone before, enjoying above the happy prize, she is filled with delights. The light shines etc. Glory be to the Father and to the Son etc.
In the third Nocturn.
[5] Antiphon. Loving the Cross unceasingly, she fixed it to her heart, Antiphons and responsories at the third Nocturn. which [bb], a sweet burden, gently wounding her, afflicted her. Psalm: Cantate I.
Antiphon. From the rock she draws oil, and fragrance from the rose; from the shell of the Cross the red [cc] and the whiteness of the lily. Psalm: Dominus regnavit.
Antiphon. The virgin Lucy wastes her body by scourging herself: so she hastens exulting to the heavenly court. Psalm: Cantate II [dd].
Responsory I. The Virgin, despising the delights of the flesh, reaps the grain and shakes out the chaff; she seizes the riches of heaven alone, and offers God the firstfruits of praise. ℣. The Virgin carries her various virtues to the nuptials of the Bridegroom. Of heaven alone etc.
Responsory II. While she strives to pluck the ear of corn from the granary of poverty, while the Virgin is chastened by the scourging of her body, there is made the bread which [ee] she offers to God as the gift of her fruit. ℣. So in place of the bread of ashes, which she waters with abundant weeping, she is fed with honeyed bread, which is to live with Christ. There is made the bread etc.
Responsory III. Happy Virgin, who rejoice in the joy of the heavens, who now with peace are fed with the bread of angels; we beseech you, remember your suppliants. ℣. Now a girl's crown is given you in return for the bitter things of your merits within you. We beseech etc. Glory be to the Father and to the Son etc. [ff]
At Lauds.
[6] Antiphons Antiphon. Let holy Lucy rejoice, joined to the choirs [gg] of virgins: she has him whom she loved; let her flourish rejoicing in heaven, in which shines the light of lights, by which the Lord has reigned. Psalm: Dominus regnavit.
Antiphon. The Lamb [hh] calls her to the nuptials, invites Lucy to the delights of chastity: she seeks no delay, but presently despises riches for God's sake: rejoice ye. Psalm: Jubilate.
Antiphon. She, wholly thirsting for you, O God, unfailing fountain, watched for you from the light, and loving him she frequented him, not neglecting, embracing you on the Cross. Psalm: Deus, Deus meus.
Antiphon. The lover of the Lord's Cross gives glory to the name of the Crucified; handling the Cross, she holds it [ii]
in her right hand, that her works may bless him through whom she passes to the light. Psalm: Benedicite.
Antiphon. Praising the Maker of all, she admonishes the throng of the faithful; him alone [kk], whom, with cymbals striking and drums sounding, she ceases not to sound forth and to praise the Lord. Psalm: Laudate Dominum.
Hymn.
[7] In the palace of the highest King a new radiance arises; and a hymn at Lauds. in the heavenly college a new flower is brought forth.
The choir of virgins rejoices and praises the Son of God; Lucy, companion of virgins, the glory of all, rejoices.
Lucy, light of lights, hedged about with crowns of roses, pray for your servants [ll] who ask your protection.
Handmaid of the Sower of the world, of a noble lineage, may our hearts feel your prayers continually.
O glory of our age! to whom your servants run, lead us, we your little servants pray, to the supper of the provident Lamb.
Do you protect us, Father with the Begotten, together with the Holy Spirit, one God, who live through all the ages. Amen [mm].
[8] Antiphons at the Benedictus and Magnificat. Antiphon at the Benedictus. O light shining upon the Church of so excellent a Virgin! Lucy loves the poor, she despises the degenerate things of the world: a mind enriched within, whose little bed in the cloister, poor and bare, is joined to the Crucified, is bound to the little Christ, conformed to the Cross; after the end of her span the Virgin with the throng of virgins ascends [nn] gleaming to the heavens, shines bright as a light, beautifully crowned with laurel. Benedictus.
Antiphon at the Magnificat. Rejoice, people of the faithful; applaud, assembly of the Orders: Lucy, whiteness of virgins, praise your Maker: to you are given necklaces gleaming with gems, giving splendor: O life of the heavenly ones, who came with a lamp not empty, not as the foolish virgin carrying no oil; but waking she opens, and worthily finds the Bridegroom, seeking him with her whole heart.
Another antiphon at the Magnificat. O Jesus, light of signs, fountain of lights and star radiant with signs, the sweetest flower of flowers flows forth from your chamber; a lovely Virgin from among the roses of these gardens, Lucy, noble and fair, shines as a rose; balsam of ointments, incense, cedar, and the basket [oo] are not so precious as is the power of the fragrances with which the Girl, gracious in signs, fills you.
ANNOTATA.
p. After the versicle from the Common of virgins there follow here in the more recent Office three Lessons from the Life which we have published.
q. In the same place: Sedula, perfecta; and presently below: Sanctitatem.
r. That is: Calcavit.
s. The more recent Office has better: Regionis.
t. In the same there is subjoined this verse: Humilitatem sedulo sequens cum Christo parvulo, parvo est conformata. Sine etc.
u. In the same place more rightly: Se junxit; and a little after: Se cinxit.
x. In the more recent: Desiderans continuo ad cælum introire. Then, after the psalm and the versicle from the Common of virgins, three other Lessons from the same published Life are subjoined.
y. In the same place: Et castigat se ferula. Below also: Venite for venire.
z. In the same it is again read thus: Quem docens, ipsa plangit, dulci ferens pondere crucem jugi, nam meminit etc.
aa. In the same place: Vivens in cæli gaudio.
bb. In the same place: Cum.
cc. In the same place: Nucleum.
dd. There follow in the more recent a versicle and three Lessons from the Common of virgins on the Gospel: The kingdom of heaven is like etc.
ee. In the same place: Cum.
ff. This ninth Responsory the more recent Office does not have; namely because in its place has been substituted the hymn Te Deum laudamus.
gg. In the more recent: in choris; and a little after: Quo Dominus.
hh. In the same place: Agnus Dei; and presently: Castitate for castitatis, and in nuptias for inducias.
ii. In the same place: Ac.
kk. So I have corrected from the more recent; Gaetani's edition has Solem. In the more recent the words sonantibus, atque, and & laudare Dominum are wanting. Then there follows in the same place a chapter from the Common of virgins.
ll. In the same place: Servulis.
mm. Here in the more recent there follows a Versicle from the Common.
nn. In the same place: Scandit; and below, laurea for laureata.
oo. I do not know what fiscella signifies here, unless perhaps fistula is to be read, which is named among the aromatics in the Canticles, chapter 4, verse 14. For the rest, this whole antiphon is not in the more recent Office.