Part 7 (2/2)
After kneeling to give thanks to God for this gracious prodigy, they spread a cloth on the grass, and gathered the precious fruit There were exactly asfaces and joyful hearts Francesca's children fed on the supply which her prayer had obtained for theave a ly required of others One of the Oblates having refused one day to comply with an order she had received, Francesca fixed her eyes upon her with an expression of so much severity, that the person in question suddenly fainted away, and remained afterwards speechless and in a state of insensibility The doctors were sent for, and declared that her life was in ier This was a severe trial to the Saint; she could not reproach herself for a severity which had been a matter of duty, not of passion, but at the same time she trembled for the soul of one who had apparently lost the use of reason at the verya fervent prayer to God, and invoking the Blessed Virgin, she went straight to the bed-side of the sister, and taking her by the hand with great solemnity, addressed to her these words: ”If it be true that our congregation is approved of God, and has His Holy Mother for its foundress, in the name of Holy Obedience, I command you to speak toher eyes, she distinctly said, ”Mother, ould you have me to do?” From that moment she rallied, and was soon restored to health
Another ti, and every ht not be allowed to depart in the absence of Don Giovanni, the director of the house For six days and six nights the sick woered between life and death On the arrival of her spiritual father she revived, went to confession, and received the last Sacraain sank into insensibility, Francesca bent over her and said, ”Sister Catherine, depart in peace, and pray for us;” and in that instant the aged woration was extreme The slender means of the first Oblates had been exhausted by the purchase of the house and the erection of a small chapel Francesca had indeed made over to it her two vineyards of Porta Portese and of St Paul without the Walls; but the trifling revenue they furnished holly inadequate to the support of fifteen persons; and ions were so endued with the spirit of their foundress, that they never could bring the as they had a slice of bread to bestow They often went a whole day without eating, rather than deny the the poor Francesca, happy in the virtues of her children, but tenderly anxious for their welfare, was indefatigable in her efforts to procure them the necessaries of life
She used on these occasions to beg of her relations, or even of strangers; and Alhty God allowed her sometimes to provide for them in a miraculous manner
One day that the sister whose turn it was to attend to the victualling depart but two or three sments of bread, she went to consult the Saint, who i to her invariable custonese de Sellis, her coadjutoress, for pernese refused, and said, that if it was necessary for any one to beg, she, with another of the sisters, would undertake it Then Francesca, after a ht, replied, ”I think that God will provide for us without any one going out of the house;” and calling the Oblates to the refectory, she asked a blessing on the bread, and distributed it into eat her share saw it multiply apace; and not only were their wants thus supplied at the h remained when they had done to furnish theift of prophecy she also exercised more frequently than ever at this period Once, when she was praying in her cell, the nuns heard her exclai of Heaven, support and comfort that poor unhappy mother;” and some hours afterwards, they heard that at that verynobleman, Jacobo Maddaleni, had been thrown frorief of his , and his wife Palozza overwhel children, and was al her husband The physician had declared his case hopeless; and when she sent for Francesca her heart was breaking The Saint caive up the love and the vanities of the world, and God will take pity upon you Lorenzo will yet recover; he will be present at my burial” The prediction was fulfilled, and Lorenzo, restored to health, assisted, as she had said, at the funeral of the Saint; and Palozza, whose heart had been entirely converted at that moment, and who had vowed in case of his death to retire into a convent, whenever her children could spare her, led henceforward, in every respect, the life of a Christian wife and mother
The Superioress of the Sisters of the third order of St Francis consulted her one day on the adirl, who had requested to be ad of the candidate, but unhesitatingly answered, that the vocation was not a real one, and she recommended that she should be refused ”She will enter anotherin it a short time, will return to the world, and soon after she will die” It happened exactly as the Saint had foretold: Francesca da Fabrica went into the convent of Casa di Cento Finestre, on the shores of the Tiber, gave up the habit before the end of the year, and a sharp fever carried her off soon after her return Gregorio and Gentilesca Selli had a little girl of four years old, as paralysed, and up to her waist her fraed to have recourse to the spells or charue, but had always refused to seek a blessing through suchthe little child to Francesca, full of faith in her prayers, which they were coht of theht your child's recovery in unlaays In three days, my friends, she will be restored to health;” and the prediction was fulfilled to the letter
It would be useless to multiply such recitals as these As she advances in years, especially since her retirement at Tor di Specchi, more and ifts hich God had endowed the gentle Saint of Roy does not call forth the grateful enthusiasm of the warm-hearted and devout Trasteverini If a child is trodden under foot by a runaway horse, Francesca is sent for, and at the sight of the Saint he revives
If a young boatman, in the prime of youth, is thrown into the Tiber, and curried away by the stream under the arches of the Ponte Rotto, from whence his afflicted mother receives him into her arms without a symptom of life, she calls out to her friends, ”Run, ran to the servant of God: go to Francesca dei Ponziano, and bid her pray for the boy” And when they return, thestill over her apparently lifeless child; but they shout from a distance, ”The servant of God says he will not die;” and in a few instants, Paul Guidolini opens his eyes, and smiles on his mother, who some years later becomes one of the Oblates of Tor di Specchi If Francesca sits down for a moment to rest on the steps of a church, as she did one Good Friday, after the service at St
Peter's, a paralytic woman kneels at her feet, and obtains that she should lay her hand on her withered limbs, which are instantly restored
There is no illness on record which her prayers, or the touch of her hand, does not dispel and subdue She restores sight to the blind, the du; pestilence and madness and fits and wounds and possession itself disappear before the pohich Alhty God has endued her; and she walks this earth of ours dispensing blessings, as the faithful handood
At the sarew her prayers,of the Holy Spirit in her soul, more removed from the natural conditions of existence the tenour of her life At the hours of meals, which she observed in obedience to the rule, her companions notice that she hardly ever eats, but that her face is turned to the , and her eyes fixed on the sky, while rays of light see froer and longer beca a church she falls into an ecstasy, which lasts till night The subliliels, and of the Lord of angels, is occasionally exchanged for the terrific apparitions, the renewed assaults of Satan, who attack her at times with redoubled violence, now that her ultimate triumph is at hand, and the crown about to descend on a brohich already shi+nes with the inal chapel of Tor di Specchi represent soles between Francesca and the Evil One; and her cell bears the ie violence which Satan is permitted to exercise at certain moed between him and God's Church He can shake it at times by the storms he raises; but vain are his attempts to overthrow it The mark of Satan's fury is stamped on the roof of Franceses's lowly cell; but the relics of the canonised Saint now fill the chaht to destroy But this life of wonders, of trials, and ofto a close She who had been the holiest of maidens, of wives, and of s, had all but finished her course, andend
On one of these occasions she selected one of the chapels in Santa Maria Nuova as a place of sepulture for the Oblates, and obtained from the Olivetan Monks that it should be reserved for that purpose She often spoke of her death to the sisters, and told Rita, one of the coovernation Don Ippolito, one of her coadjutors in the foundation of the order, had often implored two favours of her, that she would look upon him as her spiritual son, and that she would summon him to her death-bed She assured him that the prayers of such a worthless sinner as herself were not deserving of a thought; but, moved by his importunities, she proly, towards the end of the year 1439, when he was in Sienna on business, he received a letter from Francesca, in which she reminded him of his desire to be present at her last moments, and in consequence exhorted him to conclude his affairs, and return to Roly did On Christmas-day and on the Feast of St Stephen she had visions of the Blessed Virgin and of the infant Jesus, which she communicated to Don Ippolito in the church of Santa Maria Nuova, where she had gone on her way back from San Lorenzo without the Walls and St John of Lateran, which she had successively visited
The religious said to her with erant me the favour I have so often asked of you”
”Yes,” replied the Saint, who had been all day in a kind of ecstasy, though she moved from one place to another; ”yes; I look upon you now asshe left him, and returned to Tor di Specchi, still absorbed in contemplation
Don Ippolito followed her with his eyes till she had disappeared fro in his heart; for he felt that the tiain and her children's unspeakable loss
CHAPTER XIV
FRANCESCA'S LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH
FRANCESCA was fifty-six years old Her fras, and austerities, was enfeebled also by frequent illnesses; but her activity, her indoed, never wearied, never gave way under the pressure of physical or s It was probably a trial of the latter description, one which she had always been keenly alive to, that hurried her end
A fresh schisrief of all the faithful The refractory bishops asseenius, and to elect as anti-pope the aged Amadeus, Duke of Tuscany, who had abdicated in favour of his son, and was living as a hermit on the shores of the Lake of Geneva The usurper took the name of Felix V, and this unhappy schism lasted ten years Francesca turned to heaven her weary eyes--she besought her Lord to take her away from this scene of trial: too keenly did she feel the woes of the Church; too deeply did she sorrow over these renewed conflicts, and the consequent dangers to which the souls of Christians were exposed Perhaps it was given to her in that hour to foresee the fearful stor over the Church,--the ainst the Mystical Bride of Christ, and rob her of her children
On the 3d of March, 1440, Francesca was sent for by her son Baptista, as laid up with a sharp attack of fever She instantly obeyed the su at the Ponziano palace, found him already much better, and able to leave his bed; but, at the earnest request of the whole fareed to spend the whole day with theustina, who had accoht Towards evening she greeak that she could hardly stand; and Baptista and Mobilia implored her to stay at the palace, or else to let herself be carried in a litter to the convent; but she persisted in setting out on foot Stopping on her way at the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, she went in to ask, for the last ti, and found Don Giovanni in the Chapel of the Angels--that spot where she had so often been favoured with divine revelations As he was inquiring after Baptista, he was struck with the more than habitual paleness of her face, and the evident exhaustion she was labouring under, and commanded her, as a matter of obedience, instantly to return to the Ponziano Palace, and to spend the night there, This order was a severe trial to Francesca, for she felt at once that if she was not now to return to Tor di Specchi, she would never again enter those halloalls; but, faithful to the spirit of perfect obedience, she meekly bowed her head in token of submission, and went back to her son's house
In the course of the night a virulent fever ca she was as ill as possible Francesca's first care was to send for her director, and to request hihters of her illness Four of thenese, Rita, Catherina, and Anastasia,) hurried to her side; and when they heard her entreat Don Giovanni not to omit any of the necessary precautions for her soul's welfare, they all burst into tears, and seemed at once to understand that their beloved ently consoled the with her Augustina, atched her during the night, and witnessed the ecstasy during which the following vision was vouchsafed to the sufferer:--Our Lord appeared, surrounded with angels and with saints, and announced to her that in seven days she would die, and receive the crohich was prepared for her in heaven Sister Augustina saw her face shi+ning with supernatural brightness; a radiant s on her lips, and heard her say with ineffable unction: ”Be Thou eternally praised and blessed, O my dear Lord Jesus Christ! Thanks be to Thee for the unmerited favours I have received at Thy hands To Thee, to Thee alone, do I owe all the blessings I have, and have yet to receive” When Don Giovanni saw her afterwards, he i; but she related to hihters that her end was approaching
Their tears and their sobs choked their utterance; and the Saint gently reproved that excess of sorrow, and bade thereatthe next two days she suffered much; but no word or sound of complaint escaped her Her face was as serene as if her body had been perfectly free from pain; and to those who expressed a hope that she would yet recover, she only answered with a sweet se will end from Wednesday to Thursday next” She asked for the Sacraments, confessed, went to communion, and received Extreme Unction Ardent ejaculatory prayers, devout aspirations, burning expressions of love, were ever rising from her heart to her lips Each day she repeated, as if she had been in perfect health, the Office of the Blessed Virgin, the Rosary, and all her usual prayers The Oblates watched by her in turns, and Mobilia hardly ever left her side; so that the smallest particulars of that wonderful death-bed were carefully recorded Francesca allowed all those ished to see her to co, and of consolation for all
When the news of her illness was spread in Roreat city was stirred to its very depths, and aSaint Nowise disturbed or annoyed at this oppressive testimony of their affection, she had a smile, or a look, or a kind word for each No cloud obscured her understanding; no irritability affected her temper Peace ithin and around her, and heaven's own calm on her brow and in her heart The evil spirits, the arch-enelory of God, had been per life--are banished now, and stand at bay, gazing, no doubt, froe, on that peace which they er mar Don Giovanni, who had known so well her for her last illness, if Satan'sher ”No,” she wouldd ansith a smile; ”I see them no ht archangel, whose task is nearly at an end, is still at his post; he weaves the last threads of the mystic woof, and seeht which surrounds hi for she is still in the same state Glorious visions pass before her; divine for Mass, which her confessor says in her rooain; and from the consecrated Host He speaks to her entranced soul The Blessed Virgin and the angels surround her, and the voices of the blest make sweet music in her ears Late on that day, when her ecstasy was over, the weeping Oblates surround her bed, and with suppliant accents implore her to ask of God yet to leave her upon earth, for the sake of the souls intrusted to her care It was a hard request: to have had a glimpse of heaven, and to turn back; to have tasted the cup of celestial bliss, and to draw back fronation, of holy indifference, she exclaiood pleasure mine If He Chooses me to tarry yet on earth, so be it then I am ready to remain in this miserable world, if He corew rapidly worse, and froain ”I shall soon rest in God,” she replied to those ere urging her to repose The Oblates once more kneel around her to receive her last instructions: one of them alone, Francesca del Veruli, is kept away by a severe illness, which confines her to her bed Touching were the last words of the dyingshe pronounced on their heads
_Love, love_, was the burden of her teaching, as it had been that of the beloved disciple ”Love one another (she said), and be faithful unto death Satan will assault you, as he has assaulted h patience and obedience; and no trial will be too grievous, if you are united to Jesus; if you walk in His ways, He will be with you” Then with earnest accents she thanked Don Giovanni, in her own name and in that of the order, for all he had done to them; and commended the Oblates to his fatherly care