©Denise christiaenssens o.f.s .erm.
third set
setempber-december
Montréal
RR. PP. FRANCISCAINS©

Children Of Saint-François, we protest to submit here to the Constitutions
and apostolic decrees, so much urban VIII that of the other Sovereigns Pontifes

The Franciscan soul

AvertissesmentEn publishing a French translation of" Stimulus Amoris ". a true production of the ascetic medieval, the P. Ubald of Alençon wrote that the spirituality is the way by which the soul, free of the ties of the senses, finds God and immerses himself of it Him, there are even various cracks of spirituality as there are several ways to arrive to God. The Franciscan way distinguishes itself by this characteristic: to start with the total spoliation of oneself and the world, to find God in the moderate and discreet use of the things. The Franciscan way is the biting way of the Cross, this way that can only exist in a sensitive cSur, in a simple and spontaneous, generous and happy mind.

The character of the Franciscan soul sums up in these sortings that gladly I make mine, because I am convinced of the existence of a Franciscan soul, of a Franciscan ideal, of a Franciscan mind. I feel it this Franciscan soul when I turn the pages of the ancient folios of some doctors of the Middle Ages; I feel it when I collect myself deeply in one these beautiful churches of Lombard style, I feel it when a painter of the Middle Ages makes pass before my eyes of the visions of the pacific life of this time or when I visit a few old convents of the same time; I feel it when I converse with some Franciscan brothers of which the simplicity joined to the ingenuousness of the language, made me live to the cSur the holy poetry of FIORETTI.

This Franciscan soul also meets in the arts, in the sciences, in the letters, to put in relief most intimate riches of the human cSur. She/it knows everything that life includes human, of material, however and exalt it while purifying it, while spiritualizing it, it places in the center of our life the mind renovator of the sublime evangelical simplicity, and makes the suffering, poor, despised Christ, our model.

Oh! So much secret possesses this mind! That he/it feels good converse with him! So much gigantic of the thought deserved to reach the highest summits while making itself/themselves small with François saint! So much souls drew in this mind of poverty, of detachment of the terrestrial things, strength to accomplish the biggest sacrifices! A saint packs down Franciscan said - with how much reason - that the franciscanisme is an inaccessible very elevated mountain to the mind of the world, and even that it feels good at the summit of a mountain to cast his/her/its eyes far away to contemplate one thousand various beauties; as well as the soul feels up there to grow in it the mind of religion, the desire to give itself/themselves completely to collaborate to God's works; so of the top of this mountain of the Franciscan mind the soul clears itself of the material cares and becomes purer.

To have a Franciscan soul doesn't dawn is need to carry one homespun, to gird on itself/themselves the kidneys of a rope, to go bare-foot, to collect door in door or to preach God's speech, the Franciscan truth, as dedicating itself/themselves to the Christ, to the a lot of souls and the society, takes the gospel as norm of life and go by the world to spill a big love of the gospel, that means the mind of poverty, of love of the suffering, the desire to live unknown of all, to sacrifice itself/themselves in silence in a word the mind of the Poverello. The real Franciscan lives the life of the gospel with simplicity of cSur and rejoicing of soul. The real short Franciscan to him - before life, smiles to him and ask him the means to carry to the men Jesus' smile - Christ, the Franciscan soul goes to the meeting of the men, and supporter in his/her/its hands an unknown peace of them. The Franciscan truth, in a word reverses the securities that the world puts to the basis of life. To the social struggles, he/it substitutes the peace. To the wild desire to hold the first rank among the men, he/it opposes the modesty à her convenient of the virtue. To the thirst of the gain, he/it opposes disinterestedness in the temporal things, and the love of poverty. To immoderate ardeur of the enjoyment, he/it opposes the serene peace of the soul, drawn in the pleasure to like God. To the torment of the febrile activity of the modern life, he/it opposes the serenity of the Christian life, full of supernatural hope.

The Franciscan soul is the one that excites to the hardest sacrifices, in order to reach the highest summits, such Elisabeth of Hungary, this marvelous flower of purity. The Franciscan soul is the one that vivifies a holy king as Louis of Anjou, a poor vicar like Jean - Marie Vianney, a professor of university as Contardo Ferrini. The Franciscan soul is this mind that transforms so many dark mothers of families, so many young virgins, so many men consumed by the studies and work, so many workers and of rich, so many old men and so many youngsters, this imposing mass of unknown souls passing by Jesus' world denigrator, the overflowing cSur of the purest love of the gospel; the Franciscan soul is the one that sanctifies these unhappy creatures, comfort them, encourage them, sustains them, wipe their tears, while showing them the ideal sung by dying François (in the hymns) whereas it filled himself/itself of a beauty messenger, of a more intense beauty!!!

One night, tell us Célano, after having prayed a long time, holy François dozes little by little and fell asleep deeply. In his/her/its dream, he/it seemed him to be introduced in God's sanctuary. Among touts the admirable things, he/it notices a lady of a big beauty. She/it had the head of gold, the arms and the neck of money, the bust of crystal and the rest of the body was of iron, Large of size his/her/its beauty disappeared under a poor coat. To the wakening, holy François told Brother Pacific this vision, without giving him the explanation of it. And each interpreted it to his/her/its manner. Célano tells us: "I believe that the Seraphic Father understood this vision very well; but by mind;humilité and didn't want anything to say of it. "The poor coat represents the mind of humility of which envelops the Franciscan virtues. The statue is the expression of the unknown Franciscan mind of all, but beautiful of a special and very pleasant beauty to God's eyes.

Célano finishes this episode by a prayer that he pleases me to translate: "Oh our Father Saint François, remember all your sons! Surround with one thousand dangers, we walk on your traces among big difficulties! Procure us strength to defeat! Purify our cSurs, give us joy so that we carried fruits of eternal salute! Get that our souls are filled of the mind of prayer and grace, so that we are faithful to this poverty that kept us so faithfully, that we deserved this charity that you always liked: Jesus - Christ and Jesus Christ crucified!!! "P.A.Gemelli. O.F.M. Rector of the university of Milan. Translates of Italian by the P.Barthélemy, O.F.M,

Epilogue
September 01 Blissful Jean Of Pérouse, priest o.f.m. (+1231) blissful Sasso-Ferrato, lay brother, o.f.m. (+1231)
September 02 Blissful Jean-François Burté, o.f.m. conv, Apollinaire Morel,Capucin,Sévérin Girault, o.f.s. Martyrs (September +2, 1792)
September 04 pink Saint Of Viterbe (135-1252), Tertiary Virgin. Kind Blissful
September 05 Of Mathélica; priest Franciscaine, Martyr (+ 1340)
September 06 Freed Lauro,prêtre (+1260) Blissful Pérégrin, lay brother, (1240) o.f.m.
September 09 Blissful Séraphine Sforza,veuve, Clairsse (1434-1478)
Blissful Apollinaire, 17 martyrs of the o.f.m. and 27 Tertiary, tortured in Japan (1617-1632)
September 11 Blissful Bonaventure Of Barcelona (1684) lay brother of o.f.m.
September 12 Blissful François Of Caldérola, priest, o.f.m. 1507
September 17 The Sacred Stigmata of N.S.P.S.François (_1224)
September 18 Saint Joseph Of Cupertino, priest, o.f.m. conventual (1603-1663).
September 23 Invention of the body of Saint Claire (1850)
September 24 Saint Pacific Of San Sévérino, priest o.f.m.[<A>] (1652-1721)
September 26 Blissful Lucie of Calagirone (+1400), Virgin, ertiary,
September 27 Saint Elzéar, count of Sabran, Tertiary (1285-1325)
September 28 Blissful Bernardin Of Feltre, priest o.f.m. October 01

Set -3 - September 01, +1231

As the Christ's church, the order of the Miners was impregnated in the blood of the martyrs, and among the heroic children of the foundation Patriarch who gave to God this supreme testimony, shine the Jean blesseds of Pérouse and Pierre of Sasso-Ferrato. They were chosen, in the beginning of the order among the fervid, so numerous to this time, to carry the torch of the faith to the Infidels, and Spain occupied then by the Moorish, fell to them in sharing. They gave the beginnings of their apostolic goodwill in the province of Aragon where their poor and holy life was worth them numerous conversions. But soon advanced by their big love of God and souls, and by an ardent desire of the martyrdom, they left the small city aragonnaise of Téruel that they lived in, to go to kingdom of Valencia then governed by sultan Azot=Aibabusit, shy enemy of the Christian.

After having announced during some times the speech of salute in secret, they had the holy audacity soon to preach it in public, and until in the Moslem mosques; very quickly decrees, and ducts in presence the Azot tyrant, they had to choose between the apostasy and the death; their choice was made for a long time, and it is with a big supernatural joy that they offered themselves to the executioner's sword; August 20, 1231 was the day of their birth in the sky.

Before dying, they had asked God for the conversion of the unfaithful sultan, and, as once Étienne had won Paul, they felt them also that they were granted. Some years after, indeed, the city of Valencia fell to the power of Jacques Ier of Aragon, and well sincerely Azot made itself Christian; of wolf, he became lamb, he even wanted that his/her/its palace became a monastery to the use of the brothers: "It is I that made die your brothers of Téruel in the time of my disloyalty, said them, accept my palace in sign to repent and of repair; this acceptance is of as much more appropriate of your part than the earth where it rises has been watered not only of the blood of your brothers, but also of a big number of other martyrs to which my blindness and the one of my forebears gave the mort70; "

This earth, indeed, had already drunk, among so many others, the blood of the famous deacon Vincent so famous in Spain; c57;est the venerated name that had received to the baptism the Moslem sultan become Christian in 1235 That was the pope Clément XI who confirmed the cult of these two blissful martyrs. To pull the Franciscan Flowers, Vol.3 p. 13-16

September 2 and 3, 1792, in the garden of the Carmelites, in Paris, 191 servants of God were slaughtered odiously by a revolutionary populace dregs, and their holy dripping bodies of blood were called the" crimson mass "United in the most brotherly charity, there was some of all social status; some carried in the world most beautiful names of France; of humblest others; they represented the various degrees of the Catholic hierarchy: there was an archbishop, two bishops, the general priests, the vicars, the priests, the professors, the chaplains, the simple seminarians coming of more than 70 dioceses of France; then of the Religious Benedictine, of Saint's Community - Maur, of the canons of Saint's abbey - Victor and of the one of Saint - Juniper, of the Cordelierses, of the Capuchins, of the Minimal, of the Jesuits, of the Lazaristeses, the Sulpicienses, the Eudisteses, the Brothers of the Doctrine Christian, a priest of the Foreign Missions and five laymen,. All prefer the martyrdom to dishonor. XI magpie beatified them, massage some, October 17, 1926, but after a meticulous survey of each of these souls so precious before God.
We don't want to isolate, nor to detach our Franciscan martyrs of this beautiful phalanx; but, with a touched piety we collect their names exalted of the glory of the martyrdom only:
It was: Jean-François Burté of Rambervilliers in Lorraine; Apollinaire Morel, born to Put, small village to the southwest of Fribourg in Switzerland, and Séverin Girault, of Rouen, Tertiary Regular that was chaplain of Saint's Franciscan nuns - Elisabeth, in Paris. Glory to them; they liked the church, and animate of the mind they fought by force for Her until the death. To pull the Franciscan Flowers, Flight. 3 p.16-17

So God uses the small and the humble to confound the superb, it is well here the case to make notice it. Humanly talking, Rose was so weak that the Clarisseses of Viterbe never wanted to receive it in their monastery; but the Holy spirit worked if well in his/her/its soul, that it made a marvel of grace and holiness of it, to such point that his/her/its short life rather looks like a holiday heroic and charming that to a merely human existence. Since his/her/its to stretch childhood, to the age that only knows the toys, she/it had his; ;est a discipline, with which she/it tortured her/its poor small body, because the Christ had appeared to him, bloody, and by love, she wanted to become similar to Him; the whole city saw it naked feet, naked head, rudely clothed, to run to the churches or it passed of long hours damaged in the prayer.To the exception of these devout pilgrimages, she/it lived in recluse, himself bidder incessantly like victim for the peace of the church torn by the terrifying struggles of the Guelfeses and the Gibelinses, partisans of the Pope or the emperor. Only the birds were admitted in his/her/its solitude, but they gave themselves of it to cSur joy, they came mildly to her warbling their prayers and their praises to God; they perched on his/her/its shoulders, came to tickle their food in the hollow of his/her/its hands she/it listened to her/its winged friends, prayed with them, let bring up his/her/its more and more high soul skywards on the wing of their songs, mingled his/her/its innocence to theirs, and this is how Rose grew in age, in ingenuousness, in wisdom and in strength.

It is then also that the emperor semi pagan Frédéric II dazzled the men by his/her/its power, by his/her/its debaucheries and his/her/its profanity; he pretended to reign on the earths and the men, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean; and as the Pope was him a big hindrance in one and the other of his/her/its projects, he used all his/her/its strengths to ruin it. In the opinion of the Christendom, he/it passed to be in trade with the devil, and this reputation pleased to him; it seemed to find some charms especially to make the pain, because it saw an insult there to God. And it was Pink, the frail, that God chooses to break this power that seemed universal; it was this small grain of sand that stopped the monstrous wave that threatened all to invade, it was this fragile stem that had to be the support of Pierre's eternal Seat.

Prepared by the prayer, the solitude and the sacrifice, assisted of the blessings of the poor people, to that she/it sacrificed her/its food customarily, the humble little girl faced the giant; Viterbe had just been removed to the jurisdiction of IV innocent, his/her/its inhabitants declare for the usurper, but Rose rises, it prays, it preaches, it makes some miracles, it convinces, and returns to the Pope the cSur of his/her/its stray compatriots soon. But if the people is won, the soldiers and the emperor's magistrates remain in the city; then as once the prophets of Israel preached the sacrifice to the elected people so that he was delivered of his/its enemies, Rose orders the penitence, it is a weapon that seems stronger than the revolt to him. One exiles it, but this exile is a victorious; in the night of December 4, 1250, whereas she prayed in the church of Soriano, Our - Lord reveals to him that the life of the tyrant of his/her/its Church is to its term; it makes part of it to the inhabitants of Soriano: "Listen to me, faithful of the Christ, and rejoice yourselves, because in few of days you will have happy news." Eight days after, in the night of the 12 to December 13, Frédéric II died, narrow, one believes by his/her/its son Manfroi. The storm had passed, the small flower bent one instant stood up, it had not lost any of his/her/its petals, the storm had only made it cooler and more beautiful. Two years after his/her/its return in his/her/its native city, she/it expired; she/it had not passed on the earth that 17 years and half.

Pink Saint of Viterbe was tertiary of Saint-François; she had become the girl of the blissful Patriarch of the Poor people on the very orders of the T.S.Vierge, and it is donned of his/her/its poor dress of homespun that she filled her/its apostolic ministry, and that she built her/its compatriots when she crossed their streets. After his/her/its death, his/her/its body rested in the church of Saint Marie of the small hill; at the end of six years, it was recovered intact, the soft holy appeared sleepy. One transported it then, as she/it had predicted it, to the monastery of the Clarisseses that had refused to admit it while alive,: "If he/it doesn't please you to receive me living, she/it had said, you will be very pleased maybe to receive me after my death: " This time again, she/it had the victory.To pull the Franciscan Flowers, Vol.3.p 18-23,

To the Christian viewpoint, can - there to be a better neat life that the one that first impregnates itself of the mind and the Christ's strength, to make to radiate then him around oneself by the apostolate and to consume itself/themselves finally by the holocaust of the martyrdom, such was the life of the Kind blessed.He/it first collects himself/itself in the beginning of his/her/its religious life in the solitude of the Alverne, that is all; at a time the Nazareth and the Franciscan Golgotha; he/it concentrates God there so to speak in his/her/its soul. The agitated water, indeed, don't reflect the sun that in broken rays, but when she/it is quiet, she/it seems to concentrate it dawns some; and this is how God thinks himself in the interior and silent souls. Crystal him - even, that one gives like symbol of the purity and strength, doesn't he/it develop in the obscurity and the silence.?This is how our Blessed prepares his soul; all in this holy solitude teaches him the perfection, all preaches him the renouncement, abnegation, the contempt of the world and oneself, and in him, as in Paul saint, the grace didn't fall on one arid soil; as the apostle, it could say: "My interviews are with the Sky. "His/her/its life was silent, deeply lone; ever of trade with the men without a serious necessity, ever of futile speeches where the soul loses his/her/its contemplation and his/her/its strength; and what it subtracted to the men, it gave it to God: his/her/its prayer was long and fervid, it dedicated there often of the whole nights; also the light that filled his/her/its cSur more and more it had to, not to remain under the bushel, attracted by the mysterious Egypt, it wanted like François saint to carry to this ancient earth the knowledge and the love of the true God.

There, in spite of all his/her/its efforts, he/it cannot teach the language and believer of it to see in it a sign of non vocation, sadly, he/it was already under way to regain Italy; but the Lord appeared to him and tells to him: Here it is that I put my words in your mouth, you will go everywhere where I will send to you, you will announce to these unfaithful nations everything that I will order to you", It was the vocation hollow to the apostolate. Also, from this day, his/her/its ministry was marvelous, one had said God qu him - even drove it and spoke by his/her/its mouth; it had the grant of the languages and the grant of prophecy; it baptized, one says, more than 10,000 infidels, and when one asked them in the continuation what was their religion: "the religion of the Kind Brother", answered - them ingenuously.

But the hell could not remain insensible to such a crop; one day that our blessed came back of pilgrimage in the tomb of Catherine saint of Alexandria, the virgin martyrdom whose sound body rests to the summit of the Sinai mount, of the henchmen of the demon slaughtered it in hate of the religion: it was October 5, 1340 His/her/its precious rests were bought to price of gold by a noble Venetian; he/it returned them in his/her/its native city and confided them to the Franciscans of Venice who collected them with honor in their church. Pope Magpie VI put the martyr to the number of the Blesseds and approved his/her/its cult. To pull from the set The Flowers Franciscan vol.3. p. 23-26

The blessed Freed sanctified itself in the solitude; he became there a living model of the religious virtues; these two very short sentences summarize his/her/its life and his/her/its holiness.

The solitude, the silence, has two words that cool a lot of souls, but, let's make sure: if there is a true solitude, a true silence, him there has had of it of forgery. There is the silence of the idleness, of the torpor, this silence where the soul sleeps and listens to itself to dream; it is not the silence of the water drop that changes itself made of crystal, it is the one of the water pool that becomes corrupt. In the pool, indeed, water not having a communication anymore with the source that the poured there, is not there quicker; one thousand coarse plants, born in silt, make a stagnant swamp of it; she/it remains there without flowing out and without carrying the freshness and the fertility nowhere. He/it is some in the same way in the moral and religious order; has silent souls, but idle and numb. Nearly having with God no communication, they only possess a dead water. There is the silence of the false solitude that is the isolation.

So much people tormented to escape the noises of the world and to descend in their soul imagine that God calls them by it even to isolate itself/themselves of their similar and to flee in an inaccessible desert, as if the outside silence made be born always the one of the soul. Perilous illusion, because if the true solitude brings closer us of God, the isolation brings closer us of us - same. There reign an interior silence, here he/it is merely outside; there one isolates itself of his/her/its passions, here one carries away them with oneself; there one leaves the mind of the world while remaining in the world, here one leaves the world, but one keeps the mind of it. As much God likes the silence of the true solitude, that allows him to be sensible whereas he passes like a light breath, as much he hates the silence selfish and morbid of the isolation.

It is in the solitude and the silence, that feed the soul of God's contemplation, that the one of the blessed Freed embellishes itself, until the perfection, of the celestial virtues, as the limpid water of a beautiful lake radiates of the rays of the sun and take a tinge of the azure of the sky. He/it was only lent to the earth, because his/her/its life was short, and it is while speaking of the blissful eternity that it left this world for the true homeland. IX magpie, approved his/her/its cult. To pull from the set The Flowers Franciscans flight 3. p. 27-28

The blissful Pérégrin was of access a scientist; very advanced in the sacred and profane sciences. He/it was a glory of the famous University of Bologna, and all made foresee that he/it would be distinguished one day or in the Church, or in the century, and, here is that one day, meeting the Seraphic Father this one stops it and tells to him: "For you, my son, you will serve God in our Order, as brother convers, and it is to the virtue of humility that it will especially be necessary to apply you ", and indeed such was the program of his/her/its life. On the speech of François saint, without resistance nor hesitation, he/it accepts this humble vocation and he/it impregnates himself/itself the soul of his/her/its mind.
Pérégrin, it is - to - to say to travel, foreign on the earth, he/it justified his/its name fully; his/her/its thoughts, his/her/its interviews were exclusively with the sky, there was his/her/its treasure and there was his/her/its cSur, He/it made many miracles during his/her/its life, and one century after his/her/its death his/her/its body was recovered intact; It was already honored since six centuries when pope Magpie VII confirmed his cult in 1832. One especially invokes it for the pains of teeth. To pull The Flowers Franciscans flight. 3 p. 28

He/it reached the desire of his/her/its parents that advised it to get married nevertheless and he/it married a virtuous girl with whom he/it only lived during 16 months, in a perfect innocence. His/her/its wife's death returned him his/her/its liberty of action and it benefitted from this to enter to the convent of the Franciscans of Barcelona. There, hopeless virtue was not foreign to him, but it especially loved the mortification and the goodwill. To rage against himself, to reduce his/her/its flesh in servitude, to make his/her/its cops undergo innocent hardest such austerities was the daily occupations of this Religious saint. If his/her/its condition of brother convers didn't allow him to address to the sinners of the public predications, it supplied there by particular exhortations, especially by the prayer, and it had happiness to convert a big number of it.
The Blessed's virtues didn't linger to be known of the outside; one testified to him also a reverence and a respect that offended his/her/its humility, so that he/it gets his/its superior to be sent in a convent of retirement. There, he/it sanctified himself/itself more and more by the prayer and by the continual union with God, that, to reward his/her/its fidelity, granted to him, of the signaled graces and was revealed to him several times in celestial visions.

An order of his/her/its superior came to interrupt these intimate communications. He/it was put in charge of collecting the aumônes and to leave through the city for the quests. He/it fulfilled his/its new functions in child of obedience; but more than ever the saint that he/it was radiated around him and arrived him the reverence of the crowds. His/her/its desire of solitude doubling, him résolut to put to execution a project that he/it had for a long time in the cSur; he/it asked and gets to make the pilgrimages of Rome, foundation and Lorette; probably, he/it wanted to visit the tomb of the holy Apostles, the places sanctified by life and the death of his/her/its Seraphic Father, and the humble house that had sheltered the Saint Family; but he/it wanted to work also to found a convent of retirement where the religious, more rigorous observers of the Rule, could help more efficiently towards the salute of the souls. He/it succeeds in founding one of it in Ponticelli, and a second in Rome, where he/it died, September 11, 1684. Many miracles were gotten by its intercession and deserved him the honors of the beatification that the Sovereign Pontiff Magpie X awarded him. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3 p. 37-40

The goodwill of the salute of the souls that one calls the flower of the charity understandably, was the characteristic sign of the holiness of the blissful François of Caldérola. For them he/it used his/its days to preach, to catechize, to confess, and when exhausted of fatigue, his/her/its body would have needed rest, it prolonged his/its eves long before in the night to give to his/her/its apostolate it double indispensable food of the prayer and the penitence.

He/it seemed to have the miraculous grant to pacify the hates, d57;éteindre the factions and to reconcile the adversaries; nothing seemed to be able to resist this angel of the peace. Big servant of Marie, he/it applied to make know it and to make like it; he/it sculpted himself the virgin's picture that operated a crowd of miracles and that pope Magpie VII upon his/her/its return of exile crowned himself. So much authentic signs of true holiness in this short note of the life of God's servant! It was the pope Grégoire XVI who approved his/her/its cult, Our blessed was born in Caldérola, to the diocese of Camériono and died to the convent of Colfano, September 12, 1507 to Pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3.ps. 40-41

To the summit of the Alverne mount, in the wall of the rock, on a big ark of stone, one reads the solemn enrollment; No is, in foo orb, Mons sanctior. (doesn't have holier mountain all over the world there), and in the chapel, two times every day, the religious sing the antiphon: "It is here, Lord, that You condescended to mark your Servant François of the venerable signs of our Redemption. "It is this noteworthy event that today's feast recalls. One of the big graces for that the holy Patriarch asked God during his/her/its life was to feel as much as he was possible to one men the sufferings of the Christ's Passion; he was going to be granted:Just before September 14, 1224, he/it was there, to the summit of the holy mountain, damaged in The one that sacrificed for us. All of a sudden, he/it lives a Séraphin,ayant six resplendent wings of fire and light, to come down from the height of the heaven. Some six wings two rose its head above, two were spread to fly, the two others veiled the whole body. And François lives, between the wings, a man's face, having the feet and the hands attached to a cross. Crucified it appeared marvelous of beauty; of stupor seized to this François spectacle, all his/her/its body trembled; it didn't have a difficulty recognizing his/her/its Jesus, but it even shared his/her/its cSur between the sadness and joy. On one hand, he/it felt happy because of the soft look that tied on him; of the other, this device of torment and abjectness pierced its soul of pain. He/it looked in himself for what this alliance of the infirmities of the Passion could mean with the immortality of a seraphic Mind. The one that appeared to him on the outside didn't refuse him to give him the explanation internally of it; he/it made him hear that he/it had under the eyes a picture of that that was going to happen to him to himself.

His/her/its martyrdom would be a martyrdom in mind; it would carry on his/its body the living representation of the torment of the Cross, and in his/her/its cSur, it would have the holy tenderness of a Seraph. Hardly mink had it she left, that all his/her/its being seemed to enlarge; quick and new lights spilled in his/her/its mind, of the impetuses, as him had known some never dragged it toward God, and he found in him a peace, a fullness that held more the angel than of the man.
At the same time, began to mark itself/themselves on his/her/its members the prints of the crucifixion; his/her/its right side was marked, as if a spear had opened it, of a red scar, of where often sank thereafter a sacred blood that dampened his/her/its tunic and his/her/its clothes; his/her/its feet and his/her/its hands were pierced in the middle of nails similar to those that it had just seen in the Redeemer's picture; they were formed of a nervous mass, that was mobile and played in the wound. Their black round head appeared to it - under of the hands and above the feet. Their long, hooked tip, as folded back to hammer, left on the other hand, and passed the flesh considerably.

This seraphic suffering pierced, one says the soul of François of a sword of pain and mercy, and a sort of growing anguish came with the ecstasy. Then the vision of apocalypse ends up fading away in the sky, and the interior anguish lulled and the silence and the natural air spilled in the dawn of the morning and descended slowly in the purple abysses and the gulfs half-opened of the Apennins.Las feast of the sacred Stigmata was established in the order in 1337, the pope Paul V establishes it at all the church. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p. 41-445

Cupertino is a small city of the vicinity of Salente, to the diocese of Narado. The most famous of his/her/its children was certainly this Joseph of which we sketch life and that didn't shine however by these qualities that one calls human. Born in a humble condition, he/it was first a shoemaker; but his/her/its piety was so big, his/her/its application to God so constant that it was comfortable to see that the world was not his/her/its middle. Since his/her/its young age he/it was also, already a favorite of the Sky and the Virgin Saint her - even showed it to him while delivering it miraculously of a long and serious illness.

In love of perfect life, he/it first presents himself/itself at the Conventual Minor brothers, where he/it is refused like illiterate and ignorant; allowed to the test, as brother convers, at the Fathers Capuchins, he/it is sent back soon like incapable to help no to the community. He/it is then in a very sad position; rejected in the world, none of his/her/its parents wants to give him asylum, his/her/its mother her - even mistreats it and the treats madman and lazy person. By dint of processes, he/it is received like oblat at the Conventual. The humility is the foundation of all perfection, and the humility especially acquires itself by the humiliations; these didn't miss to the one that God wanted to drive to the top of the holiness and to make shine an incomparable burst. The superior knowing what load how to give to Joseph, he/it seemed so incapable to fill some no, that one ends up confiding to him.. the slipper of the convent.
However, even in this humble use, here is that one perceives that of this young man, ignoring limited, of a simplicity nearly silly, rayon something extraordinary, and one ends up admitting it in the community. But our saint is not satisfied with to be religious, he wants to be a priest. Strange, and to all appearances insane ambition! He/it knows how to read hardly, and later, during his/her/its studies, of the whole holy Writing, he/it won't succeed in explaining that this passage of the gospel q reads to the Mass of the Virgin Saint: "Blissful the innards that carried you and the breast that fed you.

He/it will certainly be stopped to the exams by which one notes if the candidates to the ministration have the sufficient science; however, here is that to the exams of the diaconat, he/it is interrogated precisely by the bishop on the blissful passage, the only one that he/it can explain: he/it is admitted; when it will be about the ministration, the first examined will answer for one way so brilliant that the bishop trusting the other will dispense them of all exam, and Joseph will be the number, and this is how he will be dedicated priest, March 4, 1628.

The martyrdom was climbed, and has the Thabor: God is going to drop a ray of his/her/its science on his/her/its humble servant, a divine illumination, a superhuman light will illuminate it, not only on the ecclesiastical sciences, but on those more that passes the human intelligence and embarrass the biggest minds. He/it deals the topics the most elevated and spiniest of the theology with a depth, an exactness, a lucidity as the most scholarly theologians will remain disconcerted to some and won't be able to get tired to hear it, and these lights of the sky will scorch his/her/its cSur of love that his/her/its life will nearly become an ecstasy continual so. God's thought, the memory of the sky, Marie's name will be sufficient to detach his/her/its soul of the earth and to drag with it his/her/its body in the middle of airs.

These aerial transportation, these flights in the space will be so usual to our saint that the acts of the canonization suit return more of them, intervening on the only territory of Cupertino; also one can affirm without fear, that during the half of his/her/its life, his/her/its feet didn't touch soil
& copy San Giuseppe da Copertino o.f.m. 2_small.jpg

But so Joseph of Cupertino is par excellence the saint of the ecstasies, he doesn't disregard by the practice of the virtues of which they can be the sign and the reward. Angelic purity, charming simplicity, evangelical poverty, frightening penitences, deep humility, all these virtues shone in his/her/its life of a marvelous burst. His/her/its tribulations and his/her/its temptations were terrifying, as also the moral sufferings that the obedience imposed to him: it was necessary, indeed, that his/her/its superior clearly see what was the mind that drove a life so extraordinary; however his/her/its heroic obedience and the most incontestable miracles proved good that the mind Saint possessed and drove in all holy Joseph of Cupertino, considering his/her/its life, he is naturally helpful to the students in distress, and one invokes it to get success in the exams. The pope Clément XIII canonized it in 1766 and Clement X1V spread its cult in the universal church. To pull: Flowers Franciscan Série3 p.45-48

Invention of the body of Saint Claire

October 3, 1260, the body of the virgin Claire of foundation had been buried in the church of his/her/its native city that one had just built in his/her/its honor, and although one knew the precise place where it rested, it had been nevertheless deeply hidden under the High altar because of the continual wars that covered with blood Italy in the XVIIe century. The Clarisseses of foundation and wanted to review briskly and to honor their Mother's rests more intimately in God from all over the world. The bishop of foundation made himself/itself the interpreter of their devout desires by pope Magpie X, and the permission of the Sovereign Pontiff having been gotten, the works began August 23, 1850. Since the 30 of the same month, the venerated tomb was put overdrawn; then the bishop published a pastoral instruction: he/it convened all his/her/its colleagues of the Obrie for September 23, day where he/it intended to open in their presence the sepulcher of stone that contained since close to six centuries the body of the famous Princess of the poor people.

The morning of the fixed day, after the Mass of the Holy spirit, celebrated by the archbishop of Spolète, the seven bishops ombriens, accompanied by the Chapter of the cathedral, of the superior of the foundation convents, of the civil authorities and miliaries, as well as of the notables of the city, went processionnellement to the church of the monastery. Descended in the excavation, one removed the lid of stone, and the rests consecrated of Claire appeared: the body reduces to the state of skeleton was however entire and perfectly conserved, the head was inclined slightly, the left hand put on the chest, the extended right; of the even intact bayleaves, and keeping their natural color and the flexibility of foliage picked all lately, girt on the virginal head, and, in the right hand, one saw the stems of the flowers again that one had put there like a symbol of the virtues of which his/her/its life was decorated.

By a papal privilege, granted for one so solemn circumstance, the poor Clarisseses can come out of the strict fence that locks them so closely in and can be going to venerate of night their Mother's relics in this tomb that had so long kept them.
After having separated of the holy body a left coast, the more close to the heart, destined to the Sovereign Pontiff, and a few other fragments, one placed the rest of the bones in a temporary shrine that was exposed on the Mr. - Altar. September 29, a triumphal procession crossed the city, heading toward the tomb of François saint; Claire came to do again homage to his/her/its Father, to his/her/its guide in the path of poverty, to the one that had driven it to one so big glory; one would have believed itself elated six centuries backward.

To the return, the devout treasure was confided to the nuns; his/her/its daughters who were going to prepare him a receipt worthy of it; the last transfer took place October 3, 1872, under the presidency of the cardinal Pecci, archbishop of Pérouse, and the futeur Léon XIII. The holy Abbess rests currently in the beautiful shrine that he offered the love and the piety of the Supporters, under the arches that the art the more clear soup decorated and improvement. Claire followed step-by-step thus the draw his/her/its Seraphic Father holy François, even in the obscurities and the glories of the tomb. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3 p. 48-51

Orphan since the low age, Pacific was raised by a maternal uncle, priest of an austerity as she confined to the toughness. God took pleasure however already in his/her/its innocence and in his/her/its virtue; he even showed one day it by a vivid miracle in a thing that can appear minimal by herself; a maid had, by accident, let sink the wine of one barrel, and she had accused the child of this carelessness; the terrifying uncle made it descend to the storeroom and while overwhelming it of reproaches to make to note it the damage and to punish of it to him. But, oh prodigy, the barrel was full and the perfectly dry cellar; then the guilty party, before this prodigy, confesses his/her/its mistake and the child's innocence.

Entered at the Minor Brothers at the age of 17 years, he/it was ordered priest eight years later, and became a missionary all burning of love of God and goodwill for the souls. He/it had immense successes; but has that the Lord visited it, by cruel infimités, and, in full youth, whereas it had already brought back to God a multitude of sinners, and when the crop future ; announced even more abundant, it was obliged to give up the ministry of the predication. During more of 40 years, without ever that a speech of complaint escaped of its lips, it undergoes the cruellest tortures, constantly offering his/her/its soul to chisel to the burin of the Divine Sculptor, and this is how it became each more and more beautiful day for the eternal life.
"Oh Blissful Pacific, if you had been less occult, you would have pitied yourselves maybe to God of the manner of which he/it treated you. What! Lord, you want to really use us to win you of the souls, and to continue in the middle of the men the Suvre of your Redemption; I brought of it to you by thousand of these precious souls, I made radiate among them your beneficent influence, and now Yourself stops my work whereas he/it was going to become even more fertile. "

It had been there the language of the human prudence, and you were well too much full of the Holy spirit to judge some things thus. Yes, probably, according to God's plan, and it is one mark of big confidence of his/her/its part, we are him useful and until a certain necessary point in the big Ruvre of the sanctification of the souls; we must finish according to the daring speech of Paul saint in us and in the other what misses to the Christ's Passion, but for what the Savior asks to arrive to such a goal, it is especially, it is solely that we became docile instruments in his/her/its divine Hands. You understood, oh big saint, that the glorious idleness of the one that suffers made advance the Suvre more that the most active goodwill and the most lively oratory of the one that work, when it is God's will.

You understood that on the Cross, the feet attached of the Good Mr. didn't carry it anymore through the cities and the townships, that his/her/its nailed hands didn't lower themselves anymore to bless, that his/her/its silent language didn't announce God's Kingdom anymore, It was inactif;Il souffrait;et that is whereas it purchased the man; "

Can us, us also, to be convinced of the same vérités!70; After this long test, become blind, by dint of having cried during his/her/its interviews with God, holy Pacific fell asleep of the sleep of just September 24, 1721; the pope Grégoire XVI canonized it May 26, 1839" to Pull from the Flowers Franciscans flight. 3 p. 52-55

Flowers of the earth, smiles of God; holy souls, mystical flowers of the garden of the Sky; you are all beautiful! But if the divine Gardener, who takes care of the some and of the other, seem to have some predilections, this is not for the smallest and most hidden, himself is not - done not he/it compare Himself, no to the royal, vivid, precious flower, but to the humble wild flower?.. The small Sicilian, who became the Blissful Lucie, was similar to one these small flowers that grow and that die in the crack of the rocks of his/her/its country, unknown or disdained of the men, but on which eve the celestial Father.

To six years, climbed on a fig-tree during a storm the tree is broken by the thunderbolt and the child is thrown immobile on the ground of fright; a foreign old man is fortunately there, he raises it, reassure it and takes back it at his/her/its parents; she asks him for his/her/its name: "I am, says the old man, God's Servant, Nicolas, bishop of Myre; your parents have for me a big devotion and honor me with goodwill, and it is why I took you under my protection", and the celestial mink disappeared. But she/it had let in Lucie's soul an ardent desire of God and the virtue; she/it became from then on more modest in his/her/its maintenance, in his/her/its adornments, more reserved in his/her/its words, more mortified in his/her/its funs, in his/her/its more heedful meals on his/her/its least acts and on the lightest movements of his/her/its cSur, more loving for the poor people and more sensitive to their need.

When she/it was 13 years old, a devout tertiary François saint spent some days in his/her/its native city; she was if attracted by the virtue of this true girl of the holy Patriarch, that she asked to come with it in Salerne to share his/her/its life and to form itself/themselves to his/her/its example. To his/her/its mistress's death, pushed by a divine inspiration, she/it asked for her/its admission in the monastery of Saint Marie-Madeleine, of the Franciscans of the Third regular Order; she/it lived there in the humility and roughest penitences, drawing strength to be always faithful to his/her/its kind of heroic and monotonous life in the uninterrupted meditation of Jesus' sufferings. And this is how the small flower passed the shade of the cloister to the ineffable clarities of the Paradise. His/her/its virginal body rests again currently without corruption in the monastery of Salerne, and the pope Léon X allowed his cult. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3,ps. 55-57

It is at the castle of Ansouis, to the jerky song of the cicadas, under the azure sky of enchanter Provence, that was born Elzéar, count of Sabran. He/it was the first born of Hermangaud of Sabran, count of Ariano, to kingdom of Naples, baron of Ansouis and Lord of several other earths of Provence, and of Laudune of Albe of Roquemartine, that the poor people, because of his/her/its charity, only knew under the name of" good countess ".

Since his/her/its birth, his/her/its devout mother took it in his/her/its arms, and raising it skywards: "Lord, she/it says, remove it of this world, after he/it will have received the baptism, he/it must so ever soil his/her/its soul by the serious sin. "One can judge by this prayer of the manner of which she/it raised it; she/it was helped, in this dangerous and delicate task, by the child's uncle, Guillaume of Sabran, abbot of Saint - Victor of Marseille. Such cares were not sterile; besides the fast progress that he/it made in the human letters, the young count made some faster again in the science of the spiritual life; he was full of sweetness, of affability, of modesty and, to the imitation of his/her/its holy mother, of compassion for the poor wretches.

When he/it been 20 years old, Charles II, King of Naples and count of Provence, proposed to the Hermangaud Lord to get married it to a young line of his/her/its famous house by his/her/its birth and more again by his/her/its piety; his/her/its name was Delphine of Glandèves. The marriage made itself, and since the first day Dephine declared to his/her/its spouse that she had made the vSu of virginity, asking him for the permission to be able to keep to God his/her/its promise. Elzéar agreed there, and all two implored the Lord to keep them in the holiness and the innocence. God rewarded the young count of his/her/its generous act while removing him the taste of the things of the world more and more. He/it vied, of concert with his/her/its holy wife, of fidelity to walk in the way of the perfection. Their days were shared between the prayer, the devout readings, the care of the poor people and patients; a part of their nights was used to the prayer. They exercised themselves to the penitence by the fastings, the haire, the cilice, the discipline; all their thoughts and their affections were for the sky.

Their mutual love ridded of the slags of the earth and having his/her/its source in God participated in the purity and the depth of the terrestrial supra dilection. Being to the Court of Naples and detached since some months of his/her/its dear companion, this one writes to him: "I don't know if the entertainment of the Court make you lose the memory of people that is attached you, for me, I languish a lot of being deprived of your presence and of puit to receive your news, and the pain where I am about your health holds me in a deadly concern. Please pull me from this boredom, some lines of your hand will be sufficient to reassure me." And the saint answers: "Me then to understand you only is in pain of me, having the opportunity to see me at all times, don't know yourselves that I make my plain home in Jesus' sur; are assured that you will always find me in this sacred asylum, it is not necessary to look elsewhere for my nouvelles70; is not that step the language of the saints!

But the noble count didn't want to be perfected only like man and as spouse, he was prince and he wanted to be Christian prince in the whole strength of the word. He/it took a particular care to make decorate with flowers in his/her/its states the religion and the good mSurs, to make return the justice to his/her/its people, to defend the poor people against the oppression of the rich. The paupers and especially the lepers were the object of his/her/its particular solicitude; he/it made himself/itself make the exact role of the needy persons of each of his/her/its earths, and loaded his/her/its business people to distribute them annually a quantity of commensurate grain to their needs. He/it received all day two poor people in his/her/its table, washed them the feet, kissed them with respect and didn't let leave these unfortunate persons who were less his/her/its property after having comforted them by his/her/its good words, in truth, his/her/its incomes that the heritage of the poor wretches.

Elzéar made two regulations full of wisdom and piety; one for the servants and the officers of his/her/its house, the other to maintain the Christian virtues among his/her/its vassals. He/it prescribes to people of his/her/its house the audition of the Mass every day, the confession every week, the forgiveness of the injuries,: "When I have myself receipt some affront, he/it said, I look at Jesus crucified, and I tell to myself: Then me to compare what I endure with what Jesus endured for me! " He/it bars the gamblings, words against the charity, against the modesty, against the respect due to God and to the saints.Le regulation, that he/it made for his/its vassals had pure goal to banish the blasphemies, the quarrels, the divisions, the injustices, to make respect the law of God and the precepts of the church, to help in a word towards the sanctification of his/her/its peoples of which he/it looked understandably at itself as the protector and the father. He/it procured all his/her/its power the very spiritual and eternal about his/her/its cases, and the Providence of the celestial Father joined there by addition the abundance of the temporal prosperities.

Saint Elzéar died in Paris full of merit and good Suvreses. He/it was not 40 years old again. The two holy spouses had received the dress of the Third party - Order (o.f.s) and become once child of Saint François, holy Elzéar recited the canonical office every day, and doubled his/her/its Suvreses of charity and his/her/its practices of penitence. His/her/its Franciscan dress consisted in a tunic of sheet gray descendant until the knees, that it carried continually under his/her/its plain clothes. & copy to Pull from the Flowers Franciscans flight. 3 p.57 to 62

It was the season of fall of the year 1226; once besides, under God's blessing hand, the earth had given its fruits, the man of the fields had heaped in his attic the wheat of the last harvest, the juice of the grape filled the storerooms. It was abundance, rest, joy. The day was going to die, and of the low plains of Umbria, a serene night went up slowly toward the heights; the sun had just disappeared in a royal pump, letting after it in the sky his/her/its long traces of purple and gold.
The whole nature was collected, air perfumed of one thousand scents, the luminous and soft evening. A group of larks fluttering on the straw of a poor cabin seemed to make the prayer of in the evening.In this cabin, in this evening of fall, a man was going to die, and if the Saint Writing had had to appreciate it, it would probably have made it of only one word, "It was a just", it would have said, in his/her/its stern soberness. Yes, it was a just: as the earth, that had just delivered his/her/its treasures, his/her/its life had been fertile, his/her/its arms overflowed with the sheaves of his/her/its good Suvreses, his/her/its cSur like an immense storeroom could hardly contain the wine of the divine love of which it was filled, and his/her/its soul was embalmed more of the virtues of his/her/its life, that the breeze of was in the evening perfumes of the fall.

For him it was also the abondance70;, and joy was going to come, and if the material sun, as disappearing under the horizon had let last him his/her/its glorious traces, his/her/its passage to pleased to him again luminous, while dying out on the earth, would let to the firmament of the souls of the more beautiful traces and that, far from being ephemeral, as those that finish a beautiful day, would never fade away. This man who finished his/her/its deadly career in this twilight of the 3ième day of October and whose larks chirped the death, it was François the Poverello,; holy François of foundation. He/it only lived 44 years on the earth, but as his/her/its name fills the world again after seven draining centuries, as his/her/its memory is vivacious and universal, and that of impressions it evokes dan the souls! Poets and artists, ascetics and religious, men of action and meditative souls, sociologists and contemplative Catholic and heterodox, believer and incredulous; all eyes on him, he/it seems familiar to all; all believe to know it, all believe to understand it.

Such a variety of homages, a similar diversity of sympathies, would let believe that holy François of foundation was a very complex individuality; nothing more natural however, nor of more spontaneous, nor of simpler. He/it liked; he/it liked all in God and God in all; has the key of the enigma, there is the explanation of this obvious complexity.

The love was the foundation of his/her/its mystical life, the generating principle of his/her/its holiness and his/her/its action reformer. Poverty is to the second plan; François makes the means of it to reach God more intimately. Before getting lost in the love, and to unite to this Love incréé, he/it detaches himself/itself of the riches, alleviate himself of everything that can attach it to the earth; the absolute poverty opens him the large way: by the detachment of himself that is some as the extension, he/it frees himself/itself and can spring thus of a right and audacious ascension toward the highest summits of the love where will consume itself his/her/its cSur.

He/it wanted to adhere to entire God, to savor the contemplation of it; he/it had the tendency to live in a sort of continual contact with the divine presence. He/it sees it through the whole creation; water for example, this" very useful, and humble and chaste" sSur recalled him the baptism and the purification by the penitence, and such was his/her/its respect for this symbolic marvel that, when it washed the hands, it chose a place, where the drops falling could not be trodden to the feet; all tree recalled him the cross, this wood died on which the death generated life; it didn't walk on the rocks that with precaution because they made it remember the Christ, symbolic stone that one calls the stone of angle; it didn't crush the worm met on the trail out of respect for The one that the prophet had compared to the worm of earth; the lamb handed him in memory the sweetness of Son of the man, the dove his/her/its purity; and not only he received communion to the divinity through the intermediary of the creation, but he invited it to God's praise and lent him his/her/its voice and his/her/its cSur.

He/it looks for God in the solitude, then he/it carries away the solitude with him, the body is the only baffle that separates it of the sky; but this baffle of flesh, at the same time as it separates it of God, allows him to isolate itself/themselves of the world; it was constantly occupied of the Very - High, his/her/its prayer was continual, and it was not only a man praying, but seemed to be the prayer it - even.

He/it tried to imitate the Christ completely, to in to be a living copy; all saints, probably, had a special conformity with the Divine Mr., but he/it seems that holy François expresses it more, especially when he conversed with the men on the mountains and in the plains of Galilee and the Judea, and that he appeared intensely human in his/her/its sympathies with the people, at the same time as he appeared mysteriously divine in his/her/its words and his/her/its actions.

As the Christ, François was the friend of the poor, poor himself, of a bigger poverty than his; the poor people of the world, indeed, were his/her/its inheritance in essence, and the rich became poor in mind, and makes some to walk to his/her/its continuation. As the Christ, François, before the bishop of foundation, stripped himself/itself of all and offered itself in oblation to the celestial Father. As Him, transformed by the love, as well as iron in the furnace, he/it burned goodwill for the glory of the Very - High, and only trying to spill it, he/it became in all the meaning of the term God's man, detached of all, of the riches, of the business of the world, of the family, detached of himself to belong him entire. And his/her/its conversion was not progressive, but complete since the beginning; as the bush of the Horeb, without being consumed again, it was not less enveloped of flames of them. And this fire that the Christ brought on the earth, and of which he was aflame himself, made revire in François the God man of the gospel.

Love of God, love of God's Suvreses, living or without life, love of the good and bad men, compassion for all sufferings, tenderness for all infirmities, contentment in poverty, joy in the contempt, vision usual of God by the faith, in a word charity and humility perfected, has the copy of the Divine Original, and it since his/her/its youth. By the impression of the Stigmata on the Averne, God, countersigned this conformity merely and gave him the last resemblance with His/her/its Son of the days of the Passion.

His/her/its Suvre is only the radiance of his/her/its love. Of the summits where his/her/its soul consumes itself, it considers with pain the heedless peoples and without love, and leave repeating this scream of a cSur wounded: " The love is not liked!" There is the mobile of his/her/its apostle's soul. It is because he/it likes his/its God desperately, it is because he/it notes the indifference of the men towards Jesus and that him in is bruised quite, that he/it becomes untiring apostle, founding of order and big reformer of the society.

"By a decree of the divine Providence pope Magpie X said, François, marked of the resemblance of the Christ crucified, appeared to the world, recalling the wisdom of the Cross, by the speech and by the exemple70; can Ever - to be, since the apostolic times, the world was not shaken more fortunately by his/her/its Suvre" By this speech and by this example, François acts; some men join him, and little by little, he sees himself/itself Father of a multitude greedy following it and to imitate it. This religious Order that he/it forms, that he/it kneads his/its mind of love and poverty, he/it invites it to the conquest of the world by the madness of the Cross. It is by the evangelical renewal, by the return to the pure traditions and to the teachings of the gospel that he and his/her/its brothers accomplished their Suvre of renovation.

This Suvre had been incomplete and had missed his/her/its goal, so François had added an indispensable element there. The woman has her role in the regeneration of the society; his/her/its influence is immense since it is to the cSur of the domestic home. The Providence that inspired and that governed the Saint's action had prepared him a collaborator; Claire of foundation, won by the predication of God's man, by his/her/its advice and his/her/its exhortations become the Mother of the Poor Ladies. Of Saint - Damien, they will be going to sow in the world of the fortresses of the prayer and the penitence where, as stake on the mountain, they raise their hands and their curs toward God to sustain by their supplications those that fight in the plain; they will make counterweight to the sins of all sorts and will pacify the divine justice; they will be the lightning conductors of the earth.

The shape of the Franciscan life had to not set to this double demonstration. By the strength of the circumstances, by the enthusiasm, the ascendancy that François' holiness exercised, a third Order was going to emerge on the steps of the foundation Patriarch; the numerous crowds that followed it, that cheered it, blessed it and exalted it, wanted more;, they wanted to participate more intimately in his/her/its kind of life, to his/her/its mind. François waits, thinks, consult God; finally the love of the souls that waits for it their salute gives him the genius; the thirst of the souls was, between the Christ and him, another feature of resemblance. To all souls of good will, he/it proposes a kind of simple life drawn in the gospel that he/it adapts, so to speak, to all ages, to all conditions, to all situations, to all temperaments; but it is always his/her/its mind, the Franciscan idea that is going to impregnate the life moral of these multitudes that he/it united to his/its family henceforth. The Third party - Order is founded, that proves admirable mind of Saint François, his/her/its precise intelligence of the needs and the aspirations of his/her/its time, needs that it satisfies and aspirations that it caused by the only example of his/her/its life. t, it was, not the death of this big Saint, that his/her/its sSurs the larks celebrated in this evening of fall, because the larks are not the birds of the twilight and the night, but the birds of the dawn and the sunny day; it was one dawn that they celebrated, it was the entry in the eternal light of the Seraphic holy Patriarch François of foundation. The Flowers Franciscans Set 3 page74-83

The big and beautiful book of the nature perpetually opened before the eyes of the men speaks to their souls, when they are worthy to understand it, and here, as the gospel, scholarly and simple can pull the most sublime lessons. Saint Seraph was a soul of the second group, simple and ingenuous soul,: one could have compared it to the lambs that he/it led grazed, because he/it was a shepherd. His/her/its parents very poor people had put it in service, to the age where the reason awakens, at a plowman who had confided him the care of his/her/its herd, and in the solitude of the country, it contemplated God through the things. Of the contemplation, he/it passed to the strictly so-called prayer, he/it had engraved on an oak it of the Cross, and on the knees before her, he/it remained of long hours asking God to like it. One can, without pain, to judge if God was especially sensitive to similar demand of the part of an innocent child, and if she was granted.

But the soft years passed quickly, the test came. The parents of Seraph died, and the young orphan passed under an elder brother's tutelage, mason of his/her/its profession, of a hard and violent character, to the service of which he had a lot to suffer. His/her/its soul purified itself, refined itself, and to 16 years the religious life took it to carry it to the highest holiness: he/it entered among the Capuchins.

He/it had, he/it seems, inherited of the devotion of the Seraphic Father for the Saint - Eucharist; every evening, when his/her/its brothers retired to take their rest, he/it spent three whole hours before the altar in a meditation inflamed on the sacrament of love, then after a short sleep, he/it attended Matins; he/it took then until on the day his/her/its holy contemplations. Very religious to Marie, the mother of the Christians visited it, consolidated it, protected it, and one day that he had gone to make him visit in Lorette and that the waters of the river of Potenza had overflowed, returning all impossible passage, guided by his/her/its all - powerful Protective, he passed the river on foot dry without even that his/her/its clothes were not wet. Big friend of poverty, he/it didn't want to have ever that a narrow, obscure cell, disturb; his/her/its dresses were miserable, his/her/its continual fastings; he/it only ate bread and only drank water.

He/it fills porter's office a long time, office that requires and gentleness and prudence. The gentleness, he/it had it, certainly, more than not one, but the prudence, at least the human prudence, him l57;ignorait completely; he/it fed a crowd of poor people, he/it liked them so much! and he/it didn't hesitate for them to pull all vegetables of the garden to distribute them. The superior him - even, worried of the remarks. - "Oh! don't worry, Guardian Father, he/it answered, about these vegetables, we will have some in abundance, and the community won't stand some", and indeed, tell us the acts of his/her/its canonization what it had pulled during the day repulsed during the night, and the part of the poor didn't have in anything decreased the harvest. This agreeable holy died in Ascoli in the Marche of Ancona, and the convent of this city possesses its tomb again.
To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3. 93-96

Blissful Jacques Of Strépar, Archbishop of Kalitz o.f.m. (1411) One of the most ardent desire of Our - Lord is to see in his/her/its Church the most perfect unit; it suffers beforehand from the schisms of the future, beforehand it condemns the divisions that must occur. But if those that, in the set of the centuries, agonizing the seamless dress of the big Christian family, wounded it right side up the most sensitive of the cSur, those as that work to repair the rips and to redo the unit deserve his/her/its special blessings.

Such was the vocation of the blissful Jacques of Strépar, such was the goal of the efforts of all his/her/its life. Descended of a senatorial family of Poland, the Blessed preferred the Christ's poverty to the sizes of the earth, and he entered in the Order of François saint. A similar detachment indicates simple names arrangements in succession; one doesn't make any equals sacrifices to remain in the mediocre; also, since the beginning, Jacques was not a mediocre, but a perfect. The immense Russia offered a field then without limits to the apostolic workers, because she was hardly populated that by schismatic or pagans. Our Blessed asked and got to work in this part ungrateful and difficult of the Field of family's Father.

Placed to the head of these rough missions, he/it brought back in ten a big number of stray in the heart of the Church; he/it infused a new life to the famous" Company of the travelers for the Christ": it was Franciscan and Dominican missionaries, that, with the encouragements and the blessing of the Sovereign Pontiffs, worked in faraway earths to convert the pagans and to bring back to the unique Home the souls Christian égarées.À the death of the archbishop of Kalitz, the king of Poland Jagellon proposed to the Saint - Seat the blissful Jacques to follow to him; this metropolis contained the vast regions already evangelized by it, and would continue him thus in this eminent station the works to which it had already dedicated the first left of his/her/its missionary's life.

He/it offered the type of accomplished Pasteur then. Knowing that the origin of all mistakes is the ignorance, it declares him the war, It had noticed being missionary that the number of the churches was insufficient, it multiplied them. To reach the mass by the chiefs, he/it took care with a big goodwill of the settings of the Christian army, while working to the sanctification of his/her/its priests; to reach the souls through the intermediary of the body, he/it founded the religious houses, of the hospitals, made all in his/her/its power to relieve the poor people, to pacify the factions and to promote the charity, messenger of happiness. To attract the graces of the Sky on his/her/its Suvre, he/it developed in the cSur of his/her/its supporters the devotion towards Marie, devotion that he/it cherished himself since his/her/its childhood; stimulated the cult of the Very - Saint Eucharist while establishing the perpetual worships, while granting some indulgences to those that would visit Our - Lord to the tabernacle, and so, the faith throwing deeper roots, the mSurs reformed himself and a generation more Christian refleurit in his/her/its vast diocese.

His/her/its archbishop's title had to, seem - t it, to introduce some alleviation to his/her/its kind of life; it will remain nevertheless however the humblest and poorest of the sons of François saint, always traveling to feet, clothed of a poor homespun it sowed the good grain of the divine Speech thus. Of a senatorial family, he/it exercised a beneficial influence in on the enemies of the as well as those of the outside, and the thankful country awarded him the title of Protector of homeland and Guard of kingdom. He/it died in 1411, his/her/its reputation of holiness attracted the crowds in his/her/its tomb and his/her/its body was found without corruption after two centuries. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3 p. 101-105

The afternoon of October 23, 1794 was going to end in the cheap small crépuscule;la of Valenciennes in France was in agitation, a big number of his/her/its inhabitants was massaged along a street to contemplate a very singular spectacle; the one of six nuns, the hands bound behind back, chanting prayers and going at the guillotine to be decapitated there. There was among her four Ursulineses, two Brigittineses and a Clarisse; this last was called Joséphine Leroux; she/it was born to Arched January 23, 1747, had entered at the Clarisseses of Valenciennes May 10, 1769, and since this time wanted to serve God only among the girls of Claire saint; she/it had been forced to leave his/her/its convent by the French revolution, had remained some time in his/her/its family, then, take religious, and capable life nostalgia to join his/her/its seraphic family, had asked for asylum to the Ursulineses of Valenciennes, then sheltered in Mons in Belgium, where she/it had his/her/its Scholastique of two years younger than she.

She/it had come back to Valenciennes in company of the girls of Ursule saint who had given him the hospitality, whereas the city, taken by the Austrians, seemed to assure the possibility to lead the religious life. But the Austrian régime was only ephemeral, and the republican troops having seized the city again, the small group of heroic nuns had been stopped. They had been judged the very morning guilty to have entered on the territory of republic after having emigrated, and to have continued to lead the religious life, and were of this fact condemned to the capital punishment. Their true crime to the eyes of Satan's bloodthirsty henchmen was especially to have been faithful to God, and this crime, they expiated it in this evening of October 23, 1794. On time where the martyrs went at the scaffold, the crowd always insatiable of similar spectacles filled the place of the Market; did some come from the neighboring villages, attracted by the sympathy or the curiosity, of others that cross the city, indifferent, get along to challenge by these words; don't "you come to see to guillotine the nuns therefore? "and if they move away, so especially they press the frightened step, they hear each other well quickly to qualify aristocrats or sons of aristocrats. However the only aspect of this cortege changes arrangements of this multitude and is sufficient to awaken in it of the feelings of which several didn't believe themselves more capable. These virgins, angels of modesty, active to the death, of a firm and nearly fast step, with joy in the eyes, the serenity on all their features, the devout songs on the lips, evoke the memory of the former processions rather than they don't announce a bloody and immediate execution.

Arrived instead of the torment, each of God's girls puts its neck on the sinister board, the bidder to the bloody cleaver; when Joséphine's tour arrives, it kisses the executioner's hand quickly, demand forgiveness to God for those that send it to the death and soon his/her/its blood is going to mingle with the one of his/her/its martyrdom companions. God had just filled their common desire while granting them to all, the most precious death to his/her/its eyes, those of just, those of the defenders of the liberties of the church.
June 13, 1920, the pope Benoît XV beatified the martyrs of Valenciennes solemnly, and the seraphic garden embellished itself of a new flushed flower. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3 p. 105-1

The Blissful Angel of Acri provides of it to us of the examples and give us encouragements of this kind, two times he entered at the Capuchins and two times, moving back from the difficulties of the religious life, he went in the century; he could have lost his/its vocation easily and could have gone adrift himself of it, but being presented itself/themselves a third time and having been accepted, he held good, and résolut to become a saint, cost that costs, but he was not at the end of the tests.

Intended to the predication, he/it began his/its ministry in a church of the vicinity of Naples, and although he/it had prepared with care his/her/its sermon, he/it cannot say a word of it; several times he/it went back up in chair and was forced to take down of it without can have finished his/her/its speech; he/it must finally come back to his/her/its humiliated community, sad, and discouraged to see itself/themselves an useless servant.
But the humiliation generates the humility, and the Lord had permitted the one of his/her/its servant to establish on this strong and necessary foncement the building of his/her/its holiness. Comforted in the prayer, the Good Mr. promised him the grant of the speech, and the grace to touch the souls, so long as his/her/its language remained simple and accessible; to all, and during 35 years, the Blessed browsed Calabria in all senses, preaching everywhere, and everywhere bringing back to the good a treads sinners.

But he/it had not forgotten the advice of the Mr., and if his/her/its familiar language was pleasing to the people's people, the strong minds sometimes mocked and of the missionary and his/her/its speech that they found rustic. There were these scoffers one day in the church of Saint-Eli in Naples, that had liked ridiculing the simplicity of the poor Capuchin thus during one his/her/its sermons; having finished it before coming down from the chair, the Blessed tells merely with sadness to his/her/its listeners: "My brothers, let's say one" Ave Maria" for the one that, out of this church, go be hit of a terrifying accident." And of fact, since the exit, a lawyer, widely-known in the city and the chief of the scoffers, is hit of apoplexy and tomb struck by the mort;cet example and some in the same way kind stopped the laughters and the jokings well quickly, and until the age of 70 years, the humble preacher can continue to make the good to the souls, because it is not we know it, the high oratory that converts or that sanctifies, but God's grace, and his/her/its grace the Very - High the deal only to the humble.
The Blissful Angel knew by revelation the day and the hour of his/her/its death, and he got ready with the biggest devotion to appear before his/her/its Judge; a cruel test helped it to purify itself/themselves more; six months before the end, it became blind, but marvelous thing, it regained the view every time that it had to recite the office or celebrate the Mass. It was October 30, 1739 that he/it opened up eyes forever to the true light; the pope Léon XII beatified it in 1825. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3 p. 111-113

One of the beautiful souls attracted by François saint of foundation to the time where his/her/its religious family began to form itself/themselves, was the one of the Blissful Christophe, cleaned of a parish of the Romagneses in Italy. It was in 1210, the Blessed was already 44 years old, when he heard to speak of this evangelical renewal: A youngster man of Foundation, inspired of God, reproduced, one said life and the Christ's virtues, and as once some disciples grouped themselves around him so that he was their master and their model; this was enough for his/her/its soul in love of the desire of the perfection, he asked for his/its admission in the small troop. He/it lived the heroic times of the beginning, was the holy Jean maybe of it, at least for longevity, because he/it lived until hundred years. He/it had under the eyes the examples of the saints of the beginnings of the order that formed around François saint like a brilliant constellation, and he/it was not among them a star of last size. A to stretch piety, full of compassion for the destitute and the grief-strickens, he/it spent his/its time serving the lepers, because in that time, the brothers didn't have a stationary home again; he/it washed them the feet, dressed their ulcers, made their bed and put all his/her/its cares to provide to their necessities.
Very soft for the other, he/it was full required for himself, reduced his/her/its body by the fasting, carried a rough cilice and afflicted his/her/its flesh by means of a cleaned and of other instruments of iron. He/it had the old man's virtue, but until his/her/its extreme old age, his/her/its cSur remained young; always, it kept a smiling face, and in the middle of austerities, of the tests, the joy of which his/her/its soul was full overflowed outside, and the love of his/her/its cSur made him soft all bitter thing.

He/it took part in the famous chapter of the braids that in 1219 unites 5,000 brothers, was sent in Aquitaine by the Blissful Father, and was control of his/her/its apparition to the chapter of Narbonne, He/it founded several convents in France and died in Cahors in 1272. As Jean saint ages in Éphèse, he liked to speak already of the time old where God's Son was on the earth; one likes to represent itself/themselves the Blissful Christophe telling, in his/her/its extreme old age, what had happened in the Order to the beginning and the numerous episodes that put back in stage the examples of virtue of the Seraphic Father and the first brothers, and that recalled the mind of the heroic and already so faraway age. With our modern ideas, one had liked to see to write it his/her/its memorials, to transmit us a sort of Franciscan gospel, but if him we to nothing didn't transmit, maybe he/it has inspired those that one makes!. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3. p 113 - 115

Florence's Blissful Thomas was first a prodigal child, ardent and daring Nature, he was driven to the pain by a Florentine Lord of which he became the mate of debaucheries. Very quickly, he/it touched the shallows of vice, to such point that the young people of his/her/its age fled it and would have been ashamed to be seen in his/her/its company. His/her/its sad protective himself began to abandon it, and says him in an opportunity: "If you want to see me, come at home, but of night, because of day, I would be embarrassed to be seen conversing with you ".
God used this speech louse to open him the eyes and to touch his/her/its cSur; containing the fragility of the regards, when the only pain is the tie of it, and disgusted of his/her/its miserable life and it began to want of the quieter days.

To big messes, was going to follow a big penitence. As soon as his/her/its repentance had given evidence of his/her/its sincerity, it was admitted at the Franciscans of Fiesole; it was the Blissful Jean of Stoncone, then guardian, that admitted after a few hesitation the strange candidate, and it didn't have to itself in to repent.
All religious virtues filled soon in this big soul that, in the good as in the pain, didn't know anything how to make to half.

He/it eclipsed since the beginning the religious most austere that surrounded it, eves, disciplines, rigorous fastings, fasts without interruption, he/it used all means to erase the traces of his/her/its sins; to clothe itself/themselves he/it used materials more coarse and more worn-out, and he/it didn't even want any sandals for shoes. All his/her/its free time went by the church by the God, that it had offended so much; it searched for the solitude and, with his/her/its superior permission. He/it left delivered to the prayer in a neighboring wood during several consecutive days He/it pushed the obedience until the heroism; holy Jean of Capistran ordered him one day to take in his/her/its hand of tenterhooks, he made it without burning.

Successively, he/it applied with an admirable goodwill to form a multitude of true apostles, to establish or to strengthen the Observance in the noon of Italy, and in Corsica to convert the heretical fratricelles of the territories of Siena and Piombino, and to make bring in the womb of l57;Église the Jacobite of Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Ethiopia. Incredible are the torments that he/it endured on behalf of the Saracens; two times they grabbed him, overwhelmed it of strokes, threw it in irons, made him endure the horrors of the hunger; the bad treatments only had his/her/its courage excited. Purchased by Florentine merchants, he/it had his/its road and his/her/its apostolate continued only; fallen again between the hands of the Infidels, he/it was superior and to flatteries, and to the promises and to the threats; one beat it of verges, one the enforma three months in an old cistern, one refused him to eat and to drink the space of twenty days, he/it didn't confess the true religion of it that with more of liberty and by force.

God rewarded his/her/its fidelity and his/her/its courage by the grant of the miracles; he made some extraordinary during his/her/its life; he made some more numerous again after his/her/its death. The prodigies who attracted the crowds in his/her/its tomb were such, that holy Jean of Capistran, fearing that the canonization of Bernardin saint of Siena, then pendent in Court of Rome was not delayed some, asked the Blissful Thomas to put a term there; he/it obeys as while alive and during four years none miracle didn't occur more from beyond the grave by this obedience; it permitted the canonization of Bernardin saint, but his/her/its own beatification was postponed some of near four centuries. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3.ps 115-118

The Saints Relics of the Saints and Blesseds kept in the churches of the three Orders

The Saints Relics of the Saints and Blesseds kept in the churches of the three Orders. If one keeps with care in the museums, the things that recall history and the celebrity of the past centuries, to how much stronger reason must keep ourselves and surround respect the Relics of the Saints, that are for us of the visible monuments to reconstitute the history of the Church our Mère.La reverence of the believer peoples for the rests of those and those that God and the church glorified is, besides, an irrefragable proof of the deep trace that they let in the souls, and of the beneficial indulgence that they perpetuate. These visible rests are a continual predication, a continual invitation to the fidelity, to courage in the struggle, to the hope in the test.

And then, the bodies of the saints were the Christ's members, his/her/its living ciboriums; the grace the aces touched by the virtue of the sacraments, he/it is served of homes to the Holy spirit. Probably, the man's body has been trained of the mud, but of this mud, God made a chief-d'Suvre that he unites to a soul living his/her/its breath. The body and the soul only make one man, as the man united to God only makes one Christ.Enfin the Christ raises the man to the glory of the sky, and as for his/her/its soul and also as for his/her/its body, what transformation; of the mud to the glory! Oh! that they are therefore precious, the relics of the Saints! It is on these thoughts and these memories that the holy Liturgy wants to attract our attention of it celebrates it of today. Franciscan flowers, Vol.3 p. 120-121

Blissful Helen Enselmini, virgin, Clarisse (1208-1242)

It is a marvelous life that the one of the blissful Helen. Born in Padua, she/it received to twelve years the dress of the Clarisseses of the hands of the seraphic Patriarch himself, that came to found the monastery to The Aralla close to his/her/its native city; she/it was one of the first nuns of it, the edifying since the beginning by the perfection of his/her/its obedience, his/her/its angelic purity, his/her/its ardor for the penitence, his/her/its deep piety and his/her/its love for the Savior's Passion.Jesus warns it that he had chosen it like a host of immolation for the sinners, and that she was going to be returned a worthy holocaust by the means of a long and painful illness. Soon, after her became mute, blind and paralytic; the agony lasted 16 years, a slow death deprived it successively of the use of his/her/its members and brought it progressively to this state, that doesn't have a name anymore in any language.But at the same time, one could say, in the same proportion, his/her/its God's love fortified himself/itself; being nearly more from the earth, it was encouraged of the mysterious visions of the beyond, it glimpsed the magnificences of the celestial Jerusalem, it contemplated the glory of the elected, it spoke with the angels, it visited the purgatory, and saw how much the suffering souls are relieved by the prayers and the good Suvreses of the supporters of the earth and tressaillent of joy approaching their delivery.

She/it died to 34 years, November 4, 1242; the pope Innocent XII, in 1695, confirmed this saint's cult whose life was so extraordinary. In one his/her/its raptures, the blissful Helen seeing, as once holy Jean, the sky opened to his/her/its looks, and the saints in their glory, was surprised to see the religious having lived in community a lot more elevated than the hermits whose life had been however of a frightening austerity, and the angel, maybe the one of Patmos, informed it: "It is, he/it says, because the first have been submitted to the obedience and as such, they made more similar to The one that was obedient until has the death of the Cross, it is from there, especially, that comes to them pleased to them big glory "70; And not of pain to believe it!
To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3 p. 125-127

IIl is a certain fact, in the spiritual life, it is that l57;épreuve wins d57;âmes more to God that the pleasure, and the life of the blissful Jean of the Peace in is a new example. First committed in the career of the weapons, he/it lives to perish due to a treason most his/her/its mates, in a war between the inhabitants of Pisa and those of Florence, and him - even escaped only miraculously to the general hecatomb; then, the eyes of his/her/its soul opened up and him résolut of more to fight only in view of Kingdom of the Heaven.

As he/it was married, he/it cannot kiss to religious life, but he/it asked for the dress of the Third party - Order of Saint-François, and got to work heroically to his/her/its perfection in the middle of the world, not taking care anymore from the moment of Suvres of piety and charity. He/it reduced his/its body in servitude by cruel and continual steepings, and his/her/its appealing example of the souls, he/it founded a society of penitents, so-called" Company of the Flagellants ", that existed again in Pisa to the last century. He/it died November 30, 1433; his/her/its compatriots raised him a magnificent mausoleum to the cemetery of Pisa, and later his/her/its body was transported in the church of the conventual Minor Brothers of the same city. Pope Magpie IX approved his cult. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3. p. 127-131

Happy the souls that, emptiness of themselves and docile to Saint's keys - Mind, don't offer any resistance to his/her/its divine work; it is especially there, solely same, the man's part in the Suvre of his/her/its sanctification. Saint Didace was especially one of these blissful souls. He/it occupied a lot of jobs, was in very various situations, and he/it was in all opportunity an ideal, a copy perfects, because the Saint - Mind drove it in all, and that in all, it let himself/itself drive submissively. All child, in his/her/its province of Andalusia, he/it already led life érémitique under the conduct of an old priest, that sanctified itself himself in this lone life.

Entered at the Minor Brothers in the convent of Cordoba, he/it was like a living Rule, a model of prayers, a home of love of God and the neighbor. As porter of the convent, he/it built, he/it comforted, he/it liked to share the aumônes that one made in to his/her/its brothers of the with his/her/its beloved brothers of the outside, the poor people, and sometimes his/her/its love for these last dragged it can - to be beyond the boundary-marks of the human prudence; one made him some remarks, it was in mound to the critique, but God himself, took his/her/its defense; one day that it was going to make an abundant distribution of bread to his/her/its favorites, some brothers made him some reproaches; "but see therefore, tells to them it, it is only flowers; and indeed, God proved by a miracle how much the charity of Didace was pleasant to him, these were flowers, and of the beautiful flowers, because they came from the Paradise.

Although simple brother convers, he/it was sent like superior of the Missions to the Them Canaries, that had just been discovered; he/it was a model of prudence, a home of supernatural light, although he/it didn't have acquired science: he/it had never studied. His/her/its goodwill for the conversion of the idolaters showed well that holy François relived some him, and as the Seraphic Father he dreamed of the martyrdom, but him he was only by the desire. Recalled in Rome by Jean saint of Capistran, he/it attended the feasts of the canonization of the Bernardins holy of Siena, where 4,000 religious were united. The illness declares in this crowd, many are reached; Didace becomes their male nurse, he is heroic of charity, and God helping it, he heals a big number miraculously of it.

Of the miracles, he/it made some by hundreds, because God to whom he/it didn't refuse anything, didn't seem on his/her/its turn anything to refuse to him. Close to Seville, a poor woman had a son ages of 7 years; for a childish, fearing mistake the punishment, he had gone to hide in the oven where one cooked bread and had lulled itself of it; without suspecting of nothing, his/her/its mother lights fire, and to the screams pushed by the child, she hurried to the outside, madwoman of pain and asking for the help; Didace arrives, makes a short prayer, and call the child in the name of Jesus and Marie; through the blazing coals, the one here fate of the oven without the least trace of burn.

If he/it had in sharing the divine power during his/her/its life, he/it had it again more after his/her/its death, and in the prayers of his/her/its office, the church doesn't fear to put on our raise, very words, that, in the Gospel, attest the Christ's power; "To the tomb of the blissful Didace, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the paralytics are healed, the demons are expelled of the bodies of the possessed, and those that are at the doorstep of the death come back to life. "It is November 12, 1463, that holy Didace finished its life so extraordinary and so full of God; Pope Sixte-Quint canonized it, and his/her/its feast celebrates itself in the universal Church. Born of a very poor family, he/it gave himself/itself to the family who especially cultivates poverty in the church; he/it never had anything to him on the earth, not even his/her/its me, not even his/her/its will, he/it was the man not belonging anymore himself, l57;immolé of God, the Saint's docile instrument - Mind, but that of riches he/it accumulated dan his/her/its empty soul of herself for the time and for the eternity. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3 p. 131-135

But the family, that although reluctantly, had accepted Claire's sacrifice, hearing good that his/her/its example would not be infectious for Agnès. A small troop of a dozen of men looks well quickly to Saint - Damien to bring back the fugitive of it. As the arguments of sweetness don't have any effect, one happens to from it to the violence; one wants entraîner by strength, she/it resists; then, one seizes it by hair, one hits it with foot, one bruises it, without consideration for his/her/its age, at the same time as one pushes it and that one raises it with violence. Impotent against such a brutality, written Agnès to his/her/its sSur: "Come to my help, beloved sSur, don't suffer that they delight me to Christ, my Lord. "She/it is already far on the path of the return, when Claire falling on the knees implores the Lord with tears to give the victory to his/her/its sSur, and has that the miracle once operated in favor of the virgin holy Lucie reproduces; the robust arms of the captors bend under their weak burden, they are forced to deposit it, and all their united efforts are impotent to raise it; workers of the country run in vain to their help, they meet without strength against a child's body. Obligated to confess their impotence and not wanting nevertheless to recognize the miracle, they start overwhelming the heroic girl of their insulting jokings, and one of the his/her/its uncles, Monaldo, forget itself to the point to raise on her his/her/its sword to hit of it to him, but his/her/its arm is seized of a sudden and so violent pain that the sword s; escapes of his/her/its hands; Claire runs, implore his/her/its denatured parents of noobstiner more, and they seem to come back to themselves; a sense of shame disarms them, they blush of their excesses against one so weak child and withdraw full from confusion. Monaldo, defeated by the suffering, consists of its mistake, and comes some time after asking for his/her/its recovery to the prayers of his/her/its young niece; the father himself finally recognizes God's will, and accepts it.

After such a beginning, one can augur that Agnès won't weaken, and indeed, it was worthy of his/her/its eldest, worthy to be the junior girl and the second small flower of the Seraphic Father. She/it offers herself/itself like victim to the Savior nailed to the cross, his/her/its life is a sacrifice of every day, of every instant, it carries a rough cilice continually, deliver himself to the most austere penitences, his/her/its obedience is perfected, his/her/its humility to all test, his/her/its inexhaustible charity. His/her/its interviews with God go until the rapture; Claire, his/her/its sSur, sees it above elevated earth, the brilliant forehead, of a triple crowns, she sees l' Child-Jesus in his/her/its arms to lavish him some caresses, and show to him how much he likes it.

In spite of his/her/its youth, she/it will be going to found the monastery of Monticelli close to Florence who will vie of holiness with Saint-Damien, she/it will also be the founder of the one of Mantua and several other cities, then she/it will come back to Saint-Damien where she/it will attend the death of the one that was more again his/her/its sSur by the piety and the holiness that by the blood ties; she/it will hear it to tell him these consoling words: "Agnès, my very beloved sSur, it is God's will that I leave, but put ends to your tears, soon you will come to join me by the Lord. "

She/it lives it, tasting a happiness so overabundant, that to the very moment where life escaped to him it appeared resplendent of beauty. And she/it heard that to the very moment where his/her/its blissful soul left its body his/her/its last words, his/her/its adieu to the earth: "My God, I thank you for me to have created. "Three months after, in a poor cell of the same monastery, the soft and heroic Agnès returned herself the last sigh. She/it had resplendent as the star of the morning in the obscure night of the world, she/it had constructed the nests where the white doves of the BELOVED would compensate it of the coldness of the world, she/it had broken her/its body by the fasting and the flogging. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans flight. 3 p. 135-139

"The Virgins are the fringes of gold that decorate the dress of the church, and that spill on the side of his/her/its garment, like a perfume of blessings ", says Pierre of Blois; at all times same in the middle of the Courts, even in the state of the marriage, him, s57;est met of these elevated souls. The blissful Salomée was one of these beautiful souls; she gave up the very world while living to the Court, and consumed his/her/its renouncement in the religious life. Girl of Lescon V, prince of Poland, and although fiancée since the age of three years in Coloman, son of André, king of Hungary, she didn't make less of them the vSu of virginity. As soon as she/it knew the Christ she/it liked it, she/it gave herself/itself to him, she/it hired him his/her/its cSur by wife's pact. Henceforth, she/it belongs to him, and cannot recover anymore without disloyalty, but, also, she/it will be incapable to deliver itself/themselves all whole to no other love, because the Man's beauty - God seduced it too much, too inebriate of sweetness, and this love, that is his/her/its first love, made advanced in his/her/its cSur of indestructible roots, and the Christ on his/her/its turn, will keep it, the protègera, will instruct it, will sustain it and will direct his/her/its steps, she will find an aide where she should have met rather an obstacle.

To 13 years, one unites it to the one that the sky destines him for spouse and it is worthy of it; by it it is going to enter dan a family of saints, Coloman is brother of Elisabeth saint of Hungary, cousin of the Blissful Agnès of Bohème, and uncle of the Blissful Cunegonde, Yolande and Marguerite. He will also make perpetual chastity vSu, and the young spouses, to the example of Cécile and Valerian, will take to together to the prayer, to the mortification, to the saints eves and to all practices of the penitence. Equals examples are not plain to the Court of the princes, as well quickly the worldly adornments made place to the modesty, and the entertainment were replaced by the prayer and the Suvreses of mercy.

After 12 years of this angelic life, Coloman was killed while fighting against the Tartars for the faith and for homeland; Salomée used its immense riches to rescue all miseries herself, as his/her/its beautiful sSur Elisabeth saint took care of the patients of his/her/its own hands. Tertiary for a long time, she/it longed for one life even more perfect and, in 1240, after having yielded his/her/its States to Boleslas, his/her/its brother, she/it was going to bury itself in the convent of the Clarisseses of Zavichost. She/it lived 28 years there in the silence, the humility and abnegation; in spite of his/her/its abbess's dignity, she/it had made herself/itself the maid of his/her/its sSurs, she/it could not see to stand them and would have liked to take on herself all their pains.

God revealed him the day of his/her/its death; she unites her/its companions then, recommended them the brotherly charity, the accurateness and joy in the obedience, and the flight of news of the world. Then the Virgin Marie appears to him, structural the Divine Child and making him taste by anticipation something of the joys of the sky, already half-opened; finally his/her/its soul left its body and, under the shape of a luminous star, flew off toward the Paradise. According to his/her/its desires, she/it was buried in the church of the Minor Brothers of Cracow, by the rests of king Coloman, so that united in the death as they had been in life, they can revive together for the eternal glory. To pull Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p. 139-143

While other princesses learned to share with the kings the rights of the supreme power, the girl of the Hungary king, exit of a race of saints and whose example had to so much produce some, showed that there were again above for the women a royalty of the souls all pumps of the earth, and it is while exercising it without wanting it and unknowingly that it conquered her/its place in history.His/her/its life, so short that she/it was, present a meeting can - to be unique of the various phases, of the features at a time the most agreeable and most austere than can contain the life of a Christian, a princess and a saint. However in the twenty years that flow out since the day or one brings it in a cradle of money to his/her/its fiancé, until the one where she/it exhales on the debris of hospital, that she/it chose for her/its deathbed, there are two very distinct parts, otherwise in his/her/its character, of the less in his/her/its outside life. The first is all chivalrous, all poetics, made to delight the imagination as much that to inspire the piety. Of the bottom of Hungary, of this earth half unknown, half oriental, border of the Christendom, that presented itself under a mysterious and imposing aspect to the imaginations of the means - age, she/it arrives within the Thuringian Court, the most brilliant and most poetic of all the Germany. of the Counterpart his/her/its childhood, his/her/its precocious virtue is underestimated, his/her/its despised piety; one wants to send back it ignominiously to his/her/its father; but his/her/its fiancé keeps him an unshakable fidelity, the console of the persecutions of the mean, and as soon as he is main of his/her/its states, hurry to marry it. The holy love of a sSur mingles in its cSur with ardente tenderness of pouse for the one of which it shared enfance before sharing life and that vies of piety and devotion with it; an abandonment full of charm, a naive,

and delicious confidence president to their union. During the whole time of their married life, they offer most touching exemple of a Christian marriage, and one can affirm that among all saints, no didn't offer to the same degree that Elisabeth him standard of the Christian wife. But in the middle of the happiness of this life, of the joys of the motherhood, the homages and the burst of a chivalrous court, his/her/its soul springs already toward the eternal source of the love, by the mortification, the humility and most fervid devotion; and the germs of this superior life deposited in it develop themselves and bloom in a charity without limits, in an untiring solicitude for all miseries of the poor people.

And has that the irresistible call of the crusade, the supreme duty to deliver Jesus' tomb drags far from it his/her/its young spouse, after seven years of the most tender union; it doesn't dare to reveal him this secret project again, but it discovers it in one intimate familiarity extrusion. She/it doesn't know how to resign itself/themselves to this hard destiny, she/it follows it, she/it comes with it well beyond the borders of his/her/its country, she/it cannot pull herself/itself of his/her/its arms. To the despair that tears his/her/its soul at the time of these adieus so touching and when she/it learns the death premature of his/her/its beloved spouse, one recognizes everything that this young cSur contained energy and tenderness, of precious and invincible energy, worthy to be dedicated to the conquest of the sky, deep and insatiable tenderness of which only God could be the remedy and the price.

But this once consumed separation, all change in his/her/its life, and God takes the place of all in his/her/its soul. The misfortune likes overwhelming it; it is hunted brutally of his/her/its sovereign residence, it wanders in the street with his/her/its small children, in prey to the hunger and to the cold weather, it that had fed and relieved so many poor people; nowhere it finds a shelter, it that had given asylum to so many unfortunate persons and when these injuries were repaired, it is not reconciled anymore with the worldly life.

Remained widow to twenty years, she/it disdains the alliance of the most powerful princes; the world hurts him, the ties of the deadly love once broken, it feels wounded of a divine love; his/her/its cSur, as the sacred censer, close himself to everything that comes from the earth, and remain opened only of the side of the sky. She/it contracts with the Christ a second and undissolvable union; she/it searches for it and she/it serves it in the person of the poor wretches; after having distributed them all his/her/its treasures, all his/her/its belongings, when he doesn't have anything anymore, she/it gives herself/itself her - even to them, she/it makes herself/itself poor to understand better and better to relieve the misery of the poor people, she/it dedicates her/its life to help them most off-putting.It is in vain that his/her/its father, the king of Hungary, sends an ambassador to bring back it by him; this Lord finds it to his/her/its lathe, settled to prefer kingdom of the sky to all royal splendors of his/her/its homeland. In return for his/her/its austerities, of his/her/its voluntary poverty, of the yoke of the obedience under which she breaks every day all his/her/its being, his/her/its divine spouse grants him joy and the power supernatural: in the middle of the calumnies, of the deprivations, of the cruellest mortifications, she/it doesn't know a shade of sadness; a look, a prayer of it is sufficient to heal the pains of his/her/its brothers. To the flower of his/her/its age, she/it is mature for the eternity, and she/it dies while singing a hymn of triumph that one hears to repeat to the angels in the cieux.Ainsi, in the twenty-four years of his/her/its life, we see it by turns orphan, foreign and persecuted, modest and touching fiancée, woman without rival for the tenderness and the confidence, fertile and devoted mother, powerful sovereign well more by his/her/its kindness that by his/her/its rank then widowed cruelly oppressed, penitent without sins, austere, true nun sSur of charity, fervid and favorite wife of the God who glorifies it by miracles before calling it to him and in all vicissitudes of life, always faithful to his/her/its fundamental character, to this perfect simplicity that is the softest fruit of the faith and most smelling perfume of the love, and that transformed his/her/its entire life in this celestial childhood to which Jesus - Christ promised Kingdom of the Sky. To pull from the Flowers Franciscans Set 3 p. 146 -152

The worry of provision was decreased curiously by the institution of nine yearly fasts that the small community had to observe.

Saint Leonardo had liked to remain until his/her/its death in this solitude, in a cSur to perpetual cSur with God; but by love for God, he also wanted that he was known and beloved of the men, and all to reconcile, he would carry away the solitude with him and he would be going to preach to the men. He/it would imitate the God thus Mr. besides near, he also interrupted from time to time his/her/its instructions to regain the solitude of the mountains.

IIl was not mistaken on his/her/its apostle's vocation because in all the Italy, he was not only a big missionary, but merely" the missionary ", as Paul saint had been" the Apostle ", it was one, the trumpet of the Holy spirit, said. The big truths were to the basis of his/her/its sermons, and he/it knew how to make enter them in the souls through the bodies that shivered. He/it made himself/itself help by the powerful voice of the bells that they also lectured to their manner while sounding the knell of the sinners; one day same, says - one, in San Germano, they sounded thus, twelve hours during, the lugubrious knell without anyone had put them in movement. One can imagine émotion of the crowds, hearing these supernatural tootings, that seemed to be the very God voice, pushing the one of his/her/its servant when he/it showed the flux of life, flowing out toward the eternity,: "Young man, he/it said, where is your childhood; she/it passed, it is the fallen dust. Our life is not only a dying life, it is already in part a life dead ". and the bells lugubriously importunate rang these successive deaths: each seemed to attend living his/her/its own funeral, and the fruits of salute followed: one confessed his/her/its sins, one left his/her/its bad habits, one restored the very ill-gotten, one forgave, one made up, one came back to God, and the apostle always thirsty of solitude returned itself of it for some time in his/her/its mountains.

One of the favorite topics of the missionary saint was also the mysteries of the painful way. The big mercy of the passion had spilled to the means ages not only under the Franciscan influence in the courses, but also in the arts; painters and imagiers vied of goodwill and talent to reproduce it under thousands of shapes. In this century in love of enjoyments where Leonardo preached, he wanted to show to the Christian crowd this painful furrow that the God's blood drew again makes man and that must follow all faithful; it put the cross on their shoulders, it preached the portement of it, and the rise of the Clavaire became for each as a personal necessity.

Come out of the Franciscan cloisters, the path of the cross was popularized by Leonardo saint; to his/her/its voice the Christian crowd understood that it had to make escort of the suffering Christ, and that all had to be here below, of the Veronicas or the Cyrénéenses. The Saint lived 75 years. He/it summarized himself his/her/its long and fruitful existence", My vocation, he/it said, was the mission and the solitude; the mission,afin to be occupied always for God, the solitude, in order to be occupied always of God, the whole remains is only vanity ".One of his/her/its last gestures as missionary was to erect the stations from the path of the Cross to the Colosseum of Rome, that had drunk the blood of so many martyrs. He/it had wanted, by this act, to preach the Savior's redeeming sufferings eternally and to remind to our memory those of our heroic brothers that followed it besides near. Is not that step the price of the salute at the same time as the means and the encouragement to arrive there, is not that step all the Christian life. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3 p. 152-157

Before shining to the sky of the heaven, Saint Jacques of the Marche shone to the firmament of the church during the biggest part of the XVe century. He/it was a worthy emulator of this magnificent pleiad of saints that to this time shook Italy and the entire Europe, that seemed to want to return to the pagan life.

He/it goes together with the Bernardins of Siena, the Jack of Capistran, the Vincent Ferrier, the Bernardins of Feltres and others that were to the Middle Ages what the apostles had been to the first years of Christianity. By taste he/it had liked to sanctify itself/themselves in the solitude, and he/it had already solicited his/her/its entry in the Charterhouse, when God, who had chosen it to carry his/her/its Name in the nations, directed it toward the convent of the Carceris to start learning it the Franciscan life; it is there that he/it made his/its novitiate.

Since the beginning, he/it submitted fully to the sacrifices that impose to the nature the vSux of poverty, chastity and obedience; he/it followed the Christ in the painful stages of the Passion, to consume the crucifixion of his/her/its flesh and his/her/its will; he/it taught to être that an instrument between the hands of his/her/its superior to become the faithful minister of the divine advice; more and more, his/her/its eyes closed themselves on the terrestrial things, to look only for the souls; detached of all human appeal, he/it didn't walk anymore in life that with the only conscience of the goal that he/it had to reach, where he/it had to drive his/its brothers

Pruning itself/themselves, purifying itself/themselves, constantly rising, he/it became well quickly completely the man surnaturalisé, the angelic messenger that, fast and happy, is ready-to-wear in all places the orders of the Lord. Three hours of sleep were sufficient to him, the rest of the night was dedicated to the prayer, to the survey of the holy doctrine and to the roughest floggings; his/her/its food consisted in taking a little bread and some wild herbs from time to time. The athlete was ready for the good fights, he was going to fight during more of 50 years.

He/it was instituted preacher by Bernardin saint of Siena himself, immediately after his/her/its ministerial ordination. The predication then, more more that today, was a dangerous load; the religion lent its authority to the solution of all questions; the multitudes that the Faith brought to the foot of the chairs were deprived of all publicity written d57;idées, and their power of emotion had not been weakened by multiplicity and the diversity of the conceptions that the book and the moderne.Curieuses newspaper, greedy of new passions, lavish the cities waited the public speech the superior inspirations; they exalted themselves gladly; they gave themselves enthusiastically to the one that spoke them of God, homeland, justice and liberty. Never again large, more magnificent conquest offered itself to the oratory. The preacher addressed the entire man, to the citizen as to the Christian, and endeavored to direct the public life with as much authority as the private life. Also, he/it dragged the crowds, causing the currents of very opinion outside of the regions of the faith, at the same time as he/it was a Christian reign instrument, he/it was also a guide for the direction of the peoples.

Saint Jacques of the Marche knew how to make soon his/her/its predication ardent, soon pathetic or familiar. He/it had all accents that carry the conviction and the emotion in the souls. He/it donned the Christ of the clothes of the time, to the manner of some painters, and presented it like a soft visitor who sits down to the home of all, that inquires of joys and sufferings; the Jesus of the marriages of Died, the host of Lazare and Zachée. The people understood a doctrine summarized in striking pictures easily; he liked the examples lived, the picturesque dialogues; he was passionately fond for this drama of the man's destinies that our saint showed him taking place on the known stage, in the middle of the adventures of the real life, The light of the faith didn't dazzle, she let show the color in the shape of the objects that her éclairait.C'était the event of the day, the local habits, the very facts of the vulgar life that served settings to his/her/its speeches. The holy preacher came like a friend who converses familiarly, and that didn't fear to speak of him, of his/her/its health, of his/her/its business in the cordiality of the abandonment; the sympathy that it inspired attracted the souls; one first liked it, and by it, one liked the truth. If he/it was stayed impersonal, foreign to the audience, he/it had lost one of the strengths of his/her/its apostolate, He/it had his/its uncouthness, his/her/its variety, his/her/its contingency; but he/it spoke of a language easily understood of all and didn't believe to lower the majesty of the divine teaching while giving him the picturesque and varied tour, ever cold, nor abstract, that charms, moves or terrify.

But Italy was not the only theater where this Franciscan apostle exercised his goodwill; soon the princes and the kings made the quickest processes to have it in their country, Jacques of the Marche, delegate, with the amplest powers against the Manichaeans, the Patarinses, the Hussiteses, and the Jewish by Sailor V, Eugene IV, Nicolas V, Calixte III, Magpie II, Paul IV and Sixte IV, evangelized Russia, Norway, Denmark, the Bohème, Hungary, Poland, Prussia, Austria, Bosnia, Transylvania, Dalmatia, and Albania. He/it baptized at least two hundred thousand infidels, brought back an incalculable number of heretical and schismatic in the heart of the church, and extinguished for ever the fatal sect of the fratricelles, that had just reappeared for the third fois.A many resumptions, henchmen of the demon jeopardized his life, either by poison, either by the dagger; God always protected it, and a lot of times miraculously. He/it died of his/its beautiful death November 28, 1476. loaded of years and mérites.Son bodies, today again, conserved in Naples in the church of the Minor Brothers is intact and supple and clear an unknown perfume in the earth. The pope Benoît XIII canonized it solemnly December 10, 1726

Blissful Antoine Bonfadini, priest o.f.m. (1400-1482)

May 13, 1901, the pope Léon XIII approved his infallible authority the immemorial cult returned to the Blissful Antoine Bonfadini.
Born in Ferrare, in the last years of the XIV century, he/it had grown within a Christian family, growing as the divine Model in age, in science and in virtue, because the first 40 years of his/her/its life can sum up in two words, studies and prayers. It was only at the age of 39 years that he/it entered in the Franciscan family. Until the ministration, although he/it had changed middle, his/her/its mode to live remained the same. He/it became only more zealous for work and more fervid in the prayer, adding however to his/her/its studies and to his/her/its prayers a larger, a very large place to the penitence.

But the contemplation is not sufficient to the soul magnetize, it is necessary that it communicates the object of his/her/its contemplation. This supernatural world of which she/it glimpsed the glaring realities, of which she/it was able to until a certain point snack the delights, it is necessary that she/it teaches the path of it to those that ignore it, or that believe themselves too much distant; the prayer ends in charity: the contemplative is an apostle. This need of action and proselytism that is made itself feel at all times to the souls illuminated of God, made itself feel to the soul of our Blissful Antoine. As soon as he/it was a priest, he/it was missionary, first at the infidels then in his/her/its own country; besides, at the time where he/it lived the apostolate appeared like an imperious necessity; the church had never been in bigger danger; the enemy was everywhere, to the in as to the outside. Debilitated by the vices of his/her/its own children, by the ignorance, the luxury, the immorality and the struggles intestines, she/it was besides as surrounded by the enemy of the outside, the heresy and the Islam.

Assisted by his/her/its famous brothers, the saints of the xve century, the big Franciscan saints of this period especially, he/it was one of the good workers that stopped the progress of the pain to the outside and that precipitated the recovery of the gangrene of the inside. He/it died on the breach December 1st, 1482; during 40 years, he/it had gotten ready to the struggle; and during 40 years other years, by the sword of the speech and the practice of the example, he/it had fought like the Christ's good soldier. FranciscainesVol.3.p.167-168 flowers

In the VIIe and to the VIII e century, the Islam, aggressive, had to the forefront of the sword, walked of stage in stage, until the court of Spain and even of France Mahomet's faith. The Christ's tomb, falling to the power of the Infidels, had provoked on behalf of the Christendom the reprisals of the crusades, and of the several centuries, the mistake and the truth, the Mahométisme and the Christian faith had prolonged their worried contact, through alternatives of triumphs and reverses, organized one opposite the other as those entrenched camps.

Saint François of foundation, stingy this world, that surrounds the Mediterranean and seer to face itself/themselves and to wear out one against the other the block of the Christendom and the block of Islam, dreamed of another kind of crusade, the crusade of the "Poverellis" as him, which without weapons, without continuation, without pump, would leave to attack the Islam, by a pacific predication, all smiling, and all merciful for the Moslem their brothers.

He/it began it with 5 or 6 poor people, but his/her/its dream was kept in its Order, and all along the centuries, it had some imitators. The Blissful Nicolas was one of these pacific crusaders, driven by God's love, and having for weapon that the neighbor's love. Born in Sébénic in Dalmatia, of a noble family, he/it believed to ennoble itself again while enrolling itself/themselves since his/her/its most tender youth in the seraphic family. His/her/its life all celestial said nothing about like a perfume and a light for the convents of Berberi, neighbors of his/her/its native country, and of Rivo-Terto close to foundation. He/it preached the gospel then to the schismatics and to the heretical patarins of Bosnia during 16 years, passed then in Palestine in the hope to convert the Moslem and to give his/her/its life to God by the martyrdom.

It is this last happiness that fell to him. November 11, 1391, he/it was seized in Jerusalem, beaten of verges until his/her/its flesh was reduced in shreds, then loaded of chains and thrown in jail where it stayed three days without drinking to eat nor. The 24 of the same month, he/it was pierced of a sword and his/her/its body was nailed then in pieces; to fortify itself/themselves in his/her/its hard martyrdom it must think a lot of times probably about The one that had sacrificed on the cross for us in the same city. The pope Léon XIII confirmed the immemorial cult returned to the Blissful Nicolas. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. 169 - 17

Marie Immaculate, it is the ark of formed alliance of an incorruptible and covered wood of the purest gold; it is the ark of Salute that remains alone on the waters of the universal deluge; it is the white Fleece cooled by the dew of the sky while the whole earth stays in the drought that is the flame that the big waters could not extinguish that is the lily that decorates with flowers in the middle of the thorns that is the Garden closed to the infernal snake that is the Fountain under seal whose clarity was never disturbed. It is the House of the Lord on which his/her/its eyes are constantly open, and in which nothing soiled must enter never; it is the mystical city of which one tells so many marvels.

December 8, 1854, in presence of 54 cardinals, 42 archbishops and 92 bishops, under the looks of an immense people that filled the vast temple of the universe, and had joined his/her/its voice to implore the mind of Truth, the Christ's Priest; Magpie IX had just pronounced the oracle waited since centuries; the divine sacrifice had offered by it on the confession of Pierre saint, the Pontiff's hand had decorated a splendid diadem it of the Queen Immaculée; carried on his/her/its aerial throne and the forehead girds on the triple crowns, it had arrived close to the porch of the basilica. There, prostrate to his/her/its feet, the representatives of the Seraphic order stopped his triumphal walk: they presented him a branch of lily made of silver, and a stem of rosebush loaded of his/her/its flowers in the same way metal. Lily and the rose, flowers of Marie, purity and love symbolized in this offering that the whiteness of money, to recall the soft burst of the star on which thinks himself the light of the sun, heightened by Marie is "beautiful as the moon" told us the divine hymn.

The touched Pontiff condescended to accept the grant of the Franciscan family, of that one could say in this day as the standard of Jeanne of bow, "that having been to the struggle, it was just that she was also to the triumph"; indeed, if the immaculate - Conception was always a truth in the church, it doesn't have less of them been necessary of long doctrinal struggles to clear it of the shade and to make shine it like a dogma of faith, and the Franciscans were especially through the centuries his/her/its glorious champions. This is how ended the pumps so imposing of this big morning of December 8, 1854.
Flowers Franciscans Flight. 3. p.171-174

November 25, 1420, died a young woman of 34 years whose life had been well extraordinaire,et so extaordiaire, that to his/her/its last moments, his/her/its confessor asked him to ask Notre-Seigneur, so that he showed the graces of which him happy l57;avait, she answered that she would ask God, with process of in ever nothing to reveal, bus says it", I am only a poor woman and a worm of earth, and to live well, the men have enough the examples of Notre-Seigneur, the Virgin Saint, the apostles and the other saints. "

We know that the human soul is of a big price and that the Savior gave his infinitely precious blood to save it and to sanctify it; we also know that the jealous demon made all to lose it, and that for her, the strengths of the sky and those of the hell are, so to speak, continually in war; but these dangerous and terrifying fights, of the exit of which the eternity depends his/her/its customarily invisible, and even often unknown or denied.

The soul that finished his/her/its terrestrial race in this 25th day of November, had been like a field of experience, like a mirror where the supernatural life had been like visible as well as the spent continuous efforts for or against it by the sky and the hell. This young woman whose life was reaped in its flower, was born in Waldsée in Swabia; his/her/its existence had only had a goal: to stretch to perfection. To 13 years, she/it had left her/its family to live saintly under the conduct of a devout tertiary with that she/it will stay three years, then she/it entered in a house of the Third regular Order that his/her/its confessor, the Father Kigelin, had just founded in Reuthe.

The bad mind, jealous of his/her/its holiness attacked to her of one thousand manners to discourage it and to disgust it of God's service. If she/it is occupied to weave, he/it breaks the sons of his/her/its texture, and prevents it to deliver itself/themselves to other occupations; he/it beats it of strokes; he/it makes it pass for maniac or thief while stealing himself of the objects to the other nuns and while hiding them in his/her/its cell, under his/her/its bed; he/it appeared to him under visible and monstrous shapes, the tent constantly and of all way, even overwhelm it of a horrible and repulsive leprosy; his/her/its fasting being more or less continual, she/it had lived 3 years without taking no food; he/it appears to him under his/her/its superior features and enjoins him in the name of the obedience to interrupt it.

__ And at the same time, the Sky encourages it of ecstasies, Notre-Seigneur, the Virgin Saint and the Saints appear to him and comfort it, the angels bring him the eucharistie, take care of it in his/her/its illnesses. As for her, she/it finds strength and patience in the meditation of the man's sufferings - God, and she/it prefers her/its pains, she/it says, even to the joys of the Paradise. Since his/her/its first years, one had added a qualifier in the name of this blissful, and this added nickname, that crossed the centuries, can let suspect us the treasures that his/her/its cSur concealed, because one calls it again today Elisabeth" the Good" to Pull from the Flowers Franciscan vol.3. p. 174-176

Blissful Delphine Of Glandèves. Contesse of Sabran (1284-1358) virgin, tertiary.

If the Blissful Delphine didn't have to the same degree that Elisabeth to sustain the assaults of the demon, she had the less as she shares the goodness of the cSur of it and to his/her/its name one could add the nickname also, of "Good" Good, her he was to God's manner whose love filled its cSur as soon as this cSur was capable to like. Born of a rich and powerful family, she/it remained completely orphan since the age of seven years, and was raised by an aunt, abbess of Saint - Catherine Of - Sorbs, to the diocese of Laugh.

Gladly the holy child had made the sacrifice of his/her/its immense fortune to belong to only God, but the Sky had decided some otherwise; it is why, assured of the aid of the Queen of the angels, it agreed to marry Elzéar of Sabran, as wanted it so strong, Charles II, king of Sicily. However, on the first day of his/her/its marriage, she/it declared to his/her/its spouse that she/it had made the perpetual virginity Su and, gained by his/her/its irresistible influence, the young count imitated it, and became until his/her/its death the witness and the faithful guard of the purity of his/her/its holy companion. All two entered in the Third Order of Saint-François; and from then on, it was between them that a holy emulation to arrive to the highest summits of the holiness. Their devout examples greatly built their setting and became infectious; the religion refleurit in their domains, the peace went in every home, and the charity had its soft influence felt.

But has that a terrifying stroke hits the holy countess; God wanting it to make go up higher and by an a lot rougher way, his/her/its husband dies more or less suddenly in Paris September 27, 1325: it was like a thunder clap in a blue sky; the Blissful losing what she/it had dearer at the world was in prey to an immense pain, and the fear that his/her/its dear spouse was not in purgatory increased his/her/its pain again; also under the weight of this thought she multiplied his/her/its prayers and his/her/its aumônes, but nothing returned him the joie,quand his/her/its spouse himself came to reassure it, while appearing to him, beaming of the in-top" glory You are wrong, Delphine, he says to him, to be as inconsolable of my absence Hey what! you pity yourselves therefore of my happiness, God made me mercy, he broke my ties and I am in the society of the Blesseds. And you, also freed of all terrestrial tie, you have only to serve God more perfectly the rest of your life. "

Flaming by these words, she/it sold all his/her/its goods to rescue the paupers, made Su of poverty, became again the accustomed more regular of the of churches, visited the patients and carried his/her/its help everywhere where one had need of it. She/it went farther, and offered to the city of Naples a very rare and very touching spectacle: having left his/her/its clothes of big lady, her, the rich countess, the queen's friend, clothed of a homespun dress, the besace on the shoulder, begged door in door for her and for the other the bread of the charity.

She/it came back in the continuation in Provence, his/her/its native country, and retired in Apt, in a humble house very near of the Franciscan church where religiously, she/it followed the offices night and day. It is there that she/it died November 26, 1360. His/her/its body was buried in the so-called church, where already rested the rests deadly of his/her/its holy spouse; in 1791, they were transported in the former cathedral of art; it is there that they rest side by side while waiting for the day of their glorious resurrection. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p.176 - 177

But he/it was especially the man of prayer: "I estimate, he/it said, that nothing misses to the man's salute that applies to the prayer with devotion and solicitude. In her we see the excellence of God and our baseness; by her the divine help comes in help to our infirmity so that she/it doesn't fall under the weight of the temptations and pains."

As he attended every night to the office in the church of Notre-Dame, of which several times the doors opened up and closed themselves miraculously to allow him to enter or to leave; and to his/her/its wife's death, having distributed all his/her/its goods to the poor people, he/it gets Franciscans of Siena a small room close to their infirmary, where while continuing his/her/its humble work, he/it spent all his/her/its free moments and of day and night in prayer in the chapel dedicated to Saint François.The Seraphic Father, of which he/it was the child by the Third Order, he/it liked it of the most tender and the most filial love, especially since, in his/her/its own church, he/it had known what marvelous imitator of the Christ supernaturally, this big saint had been. Model of the perfect citizen, an example will be sufficient to show it: The magistrates siennois, full of reverence for his/her/its holiness, and judging that by his/her/its numerous aumônes, he/it had filled his/its civic duties sufficiently, had solved to dispense it to pay for the tax, only asking for his/her/its prayers; the Blessed's answer shows how far the gentleness of his/her/its conscience went: "My poor prayers are assured you, he/it says, but I watch like one thing contrary to the fairness to take advantage of advantages of a good administration and in not to share the loads."God's big servant died December 4, 1289. A fact will show that God sometimes discovered him the things of the future, because being on his/her/its deathbed and seer under a light of in-top the pains that were going to melt on some Italian cities, he exclaimed; "Misfortune in Pistoire! misfortune to Florence! misfortune in Siena! "Then the serenity comes back on its face, and it expired in a smile. To pull from the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p.179-182

One can say that, of by his/her/its very birth, the Blissful Barthole was already predestined, because one can call it in a certain way the child of the miraculé. His/her/its mother, the countess of Mucchio, gotten married since twenty years, was always sterile, and since twenty years she implored God to grant him a child; finally a son was born to him, it was our future Blessed. It was on him that concentrated all expectations of his/her/its famous family; he/it was the unique offshoot of it and his/her/its father counted well that he would transmit the name of it and than her règnerait again a long time on the small San-Géminiano city that she had same maybe founded.

But the calculations human of the noble Lord were disappointed, and his/her/its plans collapsed when his/her/its unique son, arrived to youth, came to tell to him that his/her/its will was to leave the world to give itself/themselves to God. The father used all means then to dissuade his/her/its child to follow his/her/its project, so beautiful maybe in himself, but so contrary to the expectations that he entertained; he found it unshakable; the wanted count to use the violence, but the teenager runs away and went to Pisa where he got to the service of the Benedictines of San addicted Vitos to the cares of the patients.

Charmed of his/her/its beautiful qualities, the religious invited it soon with processes to enter in their family, and Barthole having consulted God, received the following answer of it: "No, it is not under the monastic dress that you will conquer the eternal life, but by the sufferings and the wounds of which your body will be afflicted during twenty years." Some time after this austere warning, the bishop of Volterra, invited it to come back to his/her/its diocese of origin, and it ordered it priest: he/it was 30 years old, and was already since some times child of François saint by the Third Order. He/it was ten years pro-vicar in Picciolo and during twelve years he/it governed the parish of Pichena. Full of goodwill for the souls, he/it didn't disregard either the bodily needs of his/her/its flock, and for them, being stripped itself/themselves of all, he/it lived in the most extreme poverty.

Addicted to the roughest penitences and to the contemplation of the celestial things, he/it waited for the heroic hour where would achieve itself the terrifying prophecy that weighed on him. This hour arrives; it was 52 years old when a horrible leprosy came to cover his/her/its body. During twenty years she/it was him a martyrdom of every day. Remembering the Savior's prophecy and himself stingy with the eyes of the faith like one soul privileged of the Mr., not only he/it supported, but he/it accepted big cSur his/her/its terrifying pain and returned some thanks to the sky. He/it had resigned of his/its load curiale, and had left in a hospice of distant leper of one one thousand of his/her/its native city; Vivalde, his/her/its disciple, and Stella, his/her/its devoted maid, were attached him so that they had not wanted to leave it; they lived ave him in the léproserie.

And this is how lived according to the divine promise, the one that one called since the" Job of Tuscany"; he/it was, indeed, similar to the holy man of the Bible and by the sufferings and by the patience. But he/it has another title of glory, it is qu57;il formed this faithful disciple, Vivalde, and thanks to his/her/its admirable formation, to his/her/its holy examples especially, the young disciple of is known once today on the earth and in the sky under the name of Vivalde "saint." As for Stella, he/it testified him his/her/its recognition in a very touching manner; as she/it cried by her/its cadaver whereas he/it had just died, he/it spread the arm, took him the hand in his and kept it thus during the space of five hours. It is December 12 of the year 1300. The pope Grégoire XIII, Alexander VI and later the Sovereign Pontiff Magpie X confirmed his cult by turns. Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p. 190-194

The man who lets itself guide by his/her/its senses leads the animal life; the one that only obeys the simple reason cannot pass the natural order; the Christian must be inspired in its daily life by his/her/its faith, and if he lives his/its faith, it is a just, it is a saint. It is what the Blissful Nicolas Factor, one of God's biggest servants that Spain produces in the XVI century, constantly made. Since his/her/its childhood he/it gives some of admirable proofs. Being a schoolchild, he/it had given his/its lunch to a poor starved beggar, it is however age where the mercy makes defect well often, and as one of his/her/its friends told him with an ironic air:

"What he/it remains you now for you? __Va, did he/it answer him, do believe good that this lunch given to this poor woman will benefit me vastly more that if I had taken it myself. Action and words that are not certainly inspired by the nature; and all his/her/its life, he/it was faithful to these supernatural principles. His/her/its father, Vincent, enjoying a honest ease, had wanted to see his/her/its son taking to the trade; but this one again, he hardly had 17ans, obedient to the call of his/her/its faith, asked him the permission to make itself/themselves religious, and in spite of the struggles that he had to sustain and even the violences that he had to undergo, his/her/its faith triumphed.
Neat priest at the Minor Brothers of Valencia, he/it had liked to go abroad to the infidels; as he/it didn't receive the permission of it, he/it worked to convert the Moorish that lived even numerous his/her/its own homeland; two times, discussing with them, he/it committed to throw itself/themselves in an ardent furnace if they promised him to receive the baptism, in the case where he/it would leave from it holy and safe; beautiful example again of heroic faith inspired by the Holy spirit; but Mahomet's sectateurs didn't dare to accept.

In reward of a so strong and so deep faith, God made him visible the invisible things; as well those that are hidden in the secret of the hearts that those that steal the clouds of the future. It is a gentleman that he/it stops to stop it from hanging itself/themselves, whereas this one didn't communicate to anyone his/her/its fatal resolution; it is a woman that he/it exhorts to the patience and to that he/it asks to give up his/her/its criminal intention by despair, she/it meditated to drown; it is the victory of Lépante that saves the Christendom of the Moslem yoke and that he/it announces before the news could not arrive in Spain; it is the election of Sixte-Quint to the Sovereign Pontificate that it announces with certainty three beforehand years.

But his/her/its faith, he/it cultivates it, he/it develops it while pulling his/her/its soul of the earth and while fixing it in a supernatural atmosphere", In top the cSurs" such was his/her/its usual motto. He/it wants to arrive to one supernatural end, but he/it takes means proportioned to this end; if he/it brought back so many souls to the Lord, if he/it was encouraged of grants so extraordinary, it is in his/her/its life of prayer, in his/her/its incredible austerities that it is necessary to look for the reasons of it; before going up in chair, he/it took a discipline for his/her/its own sins, one second for the sins of his/her/its listeners, and a third so that his/her/its speech carried the fruit in the souls.
He/it saw God in his/her/its superior, his/her/its obedience was blind, expeditious and whole; it saw the Christ in the neighbor, in the one that especially suffers, and his/her/its charity for the neighbor didn't have any boundary-marks; it frequently visited the hospitals, took care of the patients, comforted them and procured them all help in his/her/its power. The lepers especially had his/her/its preferences because of their sadder situation and also out of regard for The one that had been compared them by the prophet; he/it kissed their feet, their hands, their wounds with an in love tenderness.

The predilections that he/it had for the Savior embodied in the poor wretches were worth him of frequent visits of The one that reigns in the heaven; the cares that he/it gave to his/its suffering members on the earth attracted him the company of his/her/its glorious members of the sky; he/it was visited by Joseph saint, holy Jean the evangelist, holy Dominique, holy François, and by the Queen of the Saints herself, and this is how God answered his generosity by his clean.
In 1583, the Blissful Nicolas Factor finished its deadly career in the convent of Saint-Marie-Of-Jesus, there same where he was born to the religious life. The King of Spain Philippe II wanted to see his/her/its body three years after his/her/its death: He/it was absolutely without corruption. It was pope Magpie VI who wrote down it to the number of the Blesseds. Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p. 194-198

In that time, François of foundation, come back from Rome where he/it had gone to get the Pope Honorius III the solemn approval of his/her/its Rule, stopped at the Brothers of Greccio, and calling a man well named Jean, he/it tells to him: "I would like to celebrate the Christmas eve with you, and has how. To look in the middle of your woods for a place with an underground cave; there, make prepare a manger with a little straw, a bSuf, one soul, finally everything that it is necessary to represent the sweet scene of Bethlehem.. "

This man, the containing, ran to make what François had said in succession, and the eve in the evening, he had prepared everything. This soft thought, François had not only communicated it to the Brothers of Greccios and the neighboring convents, but again to the inhabitants of the whole region, which, attracted more maybe by the novelty of the stage that by the holiness, arrived in the forest of Greccio in if big number, that one had ever seen so much some.

In the middle of the night, and in the forest illuminated of one thousand fires, sounded the songs of feast, and the very wolves took part in the general joy. François, with deacon's ornaments, sings the gospel, and makes with sweetness to the crowd the narration of the birth of the child of Bethlehem. And as the ceremony was going to end, one lives to appear between François' arms a child of a marvelous beauty, who seemed to sleep and that the saint covered caresses, as if he had wanted the réveiller70;.

The Christ's Franciscan gospel, the delicious freshness, the balmy air, the whisper of the cascatelles of the woods of Grecdcio, the naive faith and the devotion of these simple souls they don't have crossed the centuries to come until us and to distribute around our Christmases to offer them atmosphère;Tirer of the Flowers Franciscan Vol.3s. p. 198-200

The family of the Colonnas to which belongs the Blissful Marguerite counts among the most famous of the mode; all along history, she was illustrated by turns by powerful temporal princes, by remarkable princes of the church, by Sovereigns Pontifes and by saints, and our Blissful is one of the most beautiful flowers of holiness that embellishes this centennial stem.

Girl of count Odon, Lord of Palestine, she/it lost her/its parents below page and grows under the tutelage of his/her/its two brothers, of which one, the cardinal Jacques Colonna, played a role as important as beneficent in his/her/its life. As soon as she/it had come out of the childhood, his/her/its family's members thought about to get married it, with the first magistrate of Rome; all was adjusted between the two families, he/it only missed Marguerite's consent; however, this one discovering his/her/its disdain for the sizes of this world and for the most advantageous alliances, declared irrevocably resolute to belong only to God.

It was then on behalf of his/her/its near of the angers, of the threats and until bad treatments; his/her/its brother the cardinal was the only one to encourage it on the earth, because the help of the sky fled not made defect in his/her/its rough fights; the Virgin Saint herself read appeared to three times in these laborious conjunctures and comforted it in an unspeakable manner. The holy girl ends up triumphing, and doubled his/her/its prayers and his/her/its mortifications from then on, then consistent of two of his/her/its maids, she parted completely with the world and retired on the height that dominates his/her/its native city. In this solitude, the Christ's supporters took to one life all of prayers and austerities. But it was only there a stage; the small community burned, under the inspiration of their young and holy superior to enter at the Clarisseses, and they didn't stop imploring the Lord in this goal.

God, he/it seems, like to multiply the obstacles on the steps of his/her/its saints; he/it makes it by love to feel their generosity and to embellish their souls, and on this Marguerite point and his/her/its companions were treated in privileged, because the difficulties that opposed the realization of their dream were big. The Sky however, showed them by miraculous signs that they were not abandoned; holy François first appeared to the Blissful, he valued the hand a gory cross and of herself this cross came to encrust in the maid's chest. God dLee, then N Lord came to deposit on his/her/its head a crown of lily and put to his/her/its finger a ring, symbolic present; in another opportunity it recognized among the poor people to that it distributed food the same Lord, accompanied of his/her/its holy Precursor, that was the feast of Jean saint - Baptist.

Finally, the obstacles fell; Marguerite heals a serious illness that stopped it from kissing the kind of life in conformity with his/her/its desires; by the intervention of his/her/its brother Jacques, the Sovereign Pontiff allowed him to erect his/her/its community canonically