St. Felix was born to a peasant family in Cantalice. When he was twelve, he was hired out as a shepherd and plowman. He found such work conducive to meditation. A turning point in his life came when the team of oxen he was driving suddenly bolted, knocking him down and pulling the sharp plow across his body. When he found himself completely unharmed, he determined once to present himself for admission as a lay brother at the local Capuchin monastery of Citta Ducale.
Very quickly, Felix acquired a reputation for holiness. Even members of his community referred him as “the saint.” After making his final vows, he was sent to Rome, where he lived for forty years, serving the community’s official beggar for food and alms. People call him “Brother Deo Gratias,” for his habit of constantly giving thanks to God. Among his friends was St. Philip Neri, who read aloud to the illiterate brother the proposed rule for his new order and afterward incorporated his comments and amendments.
Felix was well know for his austerity. He walked barefoot, lived on little than bread crusts and table scraps, and was later found t have worn a shirt of iron links. If anyone insulted him he would reply, “I pray God that you may become a saint!”
He died on May 18, 1587, after receiving a vision of Our Lady. He was canonized in 1712.
St. Paschal, who was born in Spain, spent his early life as a shepherd. Though he had no formal education, he taught himself to read and write, and he enjoyed the long days and nights with his flock, which afforded hours of uninterrupted prayer. At the age of twenty-one, he applied for admission to a friary of reformed Franciscans of St. Peter of Alcántara, a community known for its strict poverty and austerity. Paschal adapted happily to this environment, assigned mostly to menial tasks and joining his brothers in care for the poor and sick.
What distinguished Paschal was his extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist. He would spend hours each night or early morning on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament. Often he volunteered to serve at one Mass after another. Even while he lived he was known as “the saint of the Eucharist.” And later, long after his death, he would be named the patron of all Eucharistic congresses and confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament.
On one occasion, Paschal was sent on a mission to France carrying letters for the minister general of the Observant Franciscans. It was a dangerous undertaking to cross Huguenot territory in his Franciscan garb, and several times he was stoned and severely injured. Nevertheless, he returned safely to resume his simple life.
He died on May 17, 1592, at the age of fifty-two. He was canonized in 1690.
I was born poor and am resolved to die in poverty and penance.
Francis Ignatius Vincent was born to a large family in the village of Laconi in Sardinia. He was a frail child and during one bout of illness his mother vowed, should he recover, that she would give him to the Franciscans. When he did rally, his father balked at fulfilling this pledge. “Today or tomorrow,” he reasoned, “this year or the next, it all comes to the same thing.” But Francis would not be deterred from his vocation. When he was twenty-one, he applied to the Capuchins and received the name Brother Ignatius.
Ignatius spent most of his life in obscure and humble assignments. He had no special talents, save his extraordinary aptitude for begging. This became the principal occupation of his life. People proved exceptionally happy to give him alms, and in exchange he often reconciled feuding neighbors, reformed sinners, or left a trail of miraculous healings.
There was in town a notorious moneylender whom Ignatius never approached. The moneylender took offense at this ostracism and complained to the Capuchin superior, who subsequently instructed Ignatius to include this man on his rounds. Ignatius complied with this command, and he returned that evening with a bag filled with food. But when he opened it up it was dripping with blood. “What is this?” asked the superior. “Father Guardian,” Ignatius replied, “this is the blood of the poor. And that is why I ask nothing from that house.”
Ignatius died on May 11, 1781. He was canonized on 1951.
Benedetta Gattorno was born in Genoa to a wealthy family. Married at twenty-one, she was widowed six years later, with two young children to care for – one of them deaf and mute. Despite these challenges, she underwent what she called a “conversion” to greater love of God and her neighbors. Already a daily communicant, she took private vows of chastity and obedience, later adding poverty when she became a Franciscan tertiary.
Her confessor urged her to established a religious congregation, but she worried about what would happen to her children. In this, she received encouragement from Pope Pius IX. During an audience, he reassured her that God would provide for her children. And so, in 1866, she founded the Daughters of St. Anne (named for the mother of Mary), and later took the name Anna Rosa. The mission of the sisters was to be “Servants of the poor and ministers of mercy,” seeking out and responding to all forms of suffering – whether among the poor, the abandoned, orphans, the sick, or elderly. She took a special interest in deaf children.
In 1878, the first sisters left Italy to establish houses in Latin America and other parts of Europe. By the time of Anna Rosa’s death on May 6, 1900, there were thirty-five hundred sisters at work in over three hundred houses. She was beatified in 2000.
