Bernard, one of the wealthiest young men of Assisi, became intrigued by reports about one of his peers—Francesco di Bernardone, previously known as something of a dandy and carouser—who had recently aroused wonder, as well as ridicule, by his ostentatious embrace of poverty. His curiosity piqued, Bernard invited Francis to dine with him and spend the night in his home.
During the course of the night, he was so moved by the sound of his guest’s ardent prayers that he confronted Francis the next day and asked his help in discerning God’s will. Opening the missal at random, Francis alighted on the text, “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all you own, and give it to the poor.” A second time he opened the book and found, “Take nothing for your journey.” On a third attempt, he found, “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself.” “This is the advice that the Lord has given us,” Francis proclaimed. “Go and do as you have heard.” Taking these instructions to heart, Bernard disposed of his property and adopted Francis’s way of life.
Becoming one of Francis’s most trusted companions, Bernard accompanied him on many journeys. He established a house in Bologna and undertook a special mission to the shrine at Santiago de Compostela. When Francis was on his deathbed in 1226, “like the patriarch Jacob, with his devoted sons standing around him, grieving and weeping over the departure of so beloved a father,” he asked, “Where is my firstborn son?” Placing his hand on Bernard, he bestowed a special blessing, and enjoined him to “be the head of all your Brothers.”
Bernard himself died around 1241 and was buried near his spiritual father in the Basilica of Saint Francis. His last words were, “I find this in my soul: not for a thousand worlds equal to this one would I want not to have served Our Lord Jesus Christ…. My dearest brothers, I beg you to love one another.”
Eugenia de los Dolores, to use her baptismal name, was born in Cordoba in Argentina. Drawn from an early age to religious life, she dreamed of staring a religious institute for the care of poor and abandoned children. Her path, however, was convoluted. Staring as a Franciscan tertiary, she was persuaded to join a Carmelite convent. When her health failed, she left and joined a convent of the Visitandine Sisters. This too proved too rigorous for her constitution.
Finally, with support from a Franciscan priest, she returned to her original plan. With two companions, she founded the Franciscan Tertiary Missionaries of Argentina, dedicated to providing religious education for poor children. Her congregation flourished.
Maria died on August 25, 1885. She was declared blessed in 2002, becoming first Argentinian woman to be beatified.
These martyrs are three priests, two Conventual Franciscans and an Italian missionary priest, murdered in August 1991 by the Shining Path guerrillas of Peru.
Alessandro Dordi, the eldest, was born in Italy in 1931. He had arrived in Peru in 1980. Michael Tomaszek, thirty-one, a Polish priest, had arrived in Peru in 1989, where he joined his fellow Franciscan, Zbigniew Adam Strzalkowski, thirty-three, who had arrived in 1988.
The two young priests were still struggling to learn Spanish, serving in a parish in the town of Pariocota, where they trained catechists, administered the sacraments, and served their neighbors in every way they could. Meanwhile the specter of the Shining Star was growing. This utlra-revolutionary movement targeted not only the authorities but also trade unionists, peasant leaders, and even whole villages that rejected their vision of pure communism. The priests were targeted as “enemies of the people,” whose pastoral work undermined the thirst of revolution.
On August 9, 1991, the guerillas attacked Pariocota, seized the two Polish priests, and shot them. When the news reached the neighboring parish of Fr. Dordi, he presumed that his own end was approaching. “Goodbye,” he wrote to a friend, “I am going back now and they will kill me.” He was murdered on August 25.
Officially recognized as martyrs, the three were beatified in December 2015.
Louis was born to a royal family. His father, Charles II, was king of Naples and Sicily. This had its downside. When Charles was taken prisoner in a battle with the king of Aragon, he agreed to secure his release by surrendering his three sons as hostages. Thus, Louis remained a prisoner in Barcelona for seven years. Yet he did not find this arrangement uncongenial. Impressed by the Franciscan friars who tutored him, he vowed one day to join them.
Upon Louis’s released in 1295, his father tried to arrange his marriage to the daughter of his former captor. Louis refused. What is more, he insisted on surrendering his title. “Jesus Christ is my kingdom,” he said, “If he is all I have, I shall have everything. If I don’t have him, I lose everything.” Though his family acceded to his wish, they drew the line at his becoming a Franciscan.
When Louis was twenty-three, a further setback to his desire for a simple life came when Pope Boniface VIII appointed him bishop of Toulouse. There was, of course, the matter of his first being ordained a priest. Louis agreed on condition that he could make a religious profession among the Friars Minor, thereby fulfilling his childhood dream. Clothed in a tattered habit, he appeared on foot in his new bishopric. Stripping the episcopal palace of all luxury, he set an example of simplicity for the whole diocese. But he hated the burden of office, and after only three months he asked to resign. Permission was denied. Nevertheless, he soon fell ill and died a few months later, on August 19, 1297.
Louis was canonized in 1317. The famous mission of San Luis Obispo in California was named for him.
In October 1875, Sr. Mary Magdalen Bentivoglio and her sister Constance, with whom she had entered the Poor Clares, sailed from Italy to New York to establish the first contemplative community in the United States. They had departed with the personal blessings of Pope Piux IX, who urged them to offer “a silent sermon accompanied by prayer and union with God, to make known to many that true happiness is not to be found in things temporal and material.”
Unfortunately, they had departed with no assurance of a welcome. Not knowing a word of English, they were left to beg and rely on charity for most of a year while seeking a bishop who would accept them. The bishop of New York told them that a contemplative enclosure was out of character with the American spirit; the need was for teaching sisters. After fruitless efforts in other cities, the two sisters were finally welcomed by the Bishop of Omaha, and they made their home in that diocese.
For years, they suffered cold and hunger. As Mother Mary Magdalen wrote,
“It is certain that on the one hand we do not want pamper anyone, but on the other hand we do not want to kill anyone.”
But new postulants did arrive, and in time Mother Mary Magdalen traveled to establish a new foundation in Evansville, Indiana, where she lived until her death on August 18, 1905.
The Third Order of St. Francis has traditionally claimed St. Roch as a member, and his name appears on the calendar of Franciscan saints. But little is known of his actual life. According to legend, he was born to a noble family in Montpellier, France. At the age on twenty, when his parents died, he renounced his fortune and took up the life of a mendicant pilgrim. While on a journey to Rome, he encountered a number of plague-stricken cities. There he courageously nursed the sick and effected many cures, supposedly by making the sign of the cross.
Eventually, Roch himself was struck by the plague. Rather than seek help in a hospital, he dragged himself into the woods to die. There he was discovered by a dog who brought him food and cured him by licking his wound. Upon recovering, he resumed his ministry, caring for the sick and curing many people, along with their livestock. Eventually he returned to Montpellier, where he died.
For many centuries, St. Roch was invoked as a protector against plague and pestilence. He is often depicted in the company of a dog – whose memory, some have argued, deserves equal veneration.
