From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 2nd - St. Francis of Paola, Thaumaturge, Prophet   
      
   Born in Paola, Calabria, Italy, in 1416; died at Plessis-les-Tours, France,   
   on   
   April 2, 1507; canonized in 1519. Francis's parents were of modest means and   
   very devout. They were childless after many years of married life and prayed   
   earnestly for a son. When God granted their prayer, they named the child   
   after   
   Saint Francis of Assisi, who was their special intercessor. At 13, he joined   
   the   
   Franciscans at San Marco. There he was taught to read and learned to live   
   austerely, which he did for the rest of his life. At 14, he accompanied his   
   parents on a pilgrimage to Assisi and Rome. When they returned, he retired   
   for a   
   time to a place about a half mile from the town, and later, at age 15, to a   
   more   
   solitary place by the sea, where he lived in a cave as a hermit.   
      
   He was eventually joined by two other men (1436). Neighbors built them three   
   cells and a chapel, where they sang the divine praises and where Mass was   
   said   
   for them by a priest from a nearby church. The foundation of his order in   
   1452   
   is said to have been called the Minimi fratres ('least brothers'), who   
   accounted   
   themselves least in the service of God. Their rule of life was notably   
   austere.   
      
   About 17 years later, a church and monastery were built for them by the   
   people   
   of the area who had grown to love them, under the sanction of the archbishop   
   of   
   Cosenza. Francis maintained a regular discipline in the community. His bed   
   was   
   on a plank or the ground, with a log or stone for a pillow. He did not allow   
   himself a mat until he was quite old. Charity was the motto he espoused, and   
   humility was the virtue he urged his followers to seek. He asked that they   
   observe a perpetual Lent, abstaining from meat, eggs, and dairy products.   
      
   The order received the approval of Pope Sixtus IV in 1474. The rule Francis   
   wrote emphasized penance, charity, and humility. In addition to the three   
   monastic vows he added one of fasting and abstention from meat. The friars   
   were   
   then called the Hermits of Saint Francis of Assisi (until the name was   
   changed   
   to Minim Friars in 1492), and they were composed of uneducated men with one   
   priest. Francis also penned a rule for tertiaries and nuns.   
      
   If you read the long testimonies of the healed and the witnesses in the Acta   
   Sanctorum, you would understand how Francis came by this reputation as a   
   miracle-worker, and for other spiritual powers, especially his gifts of   
   reading   
   minds and prophecy. Francis attained such fame as a worker of miracles that,   
   in   
   1481, the dying King Louis XI of France sent for Francis, wishing the hermit   
   to   
   heal him, and promising to assist the order. Francis declined the   
   invitation,   
   but Louis appealed to Pope Sixtus IV, who ordered Francis to go. The king   
   sent   
   the dauphin to escort him to Plessis-les-Tours. When Louis fell on his knees   
   before Francis and begged him to heal him, Francis told him that the lives   
   of   
   kings are in the hands of God and that Louis should pray to God.   
      
   The king and Francis had many discussions, and although Francis was an   
   uneducated man, Philip de Commines, who was often present, wrote that he was   
   so   
   wise that hearers were convinced that the Holy Spirit spoke through him. He   
   brought about a change of heart in the king, and Louis died, comforted, in   
   his   
   arms.   
      
   For a time he was tutor to Charles VIII, who respected Francis as his father   
   had, and asked his advice on spiritual and state matters. Francis is   
   credited   
   with helping to restore peace between France and Brittany, and between   
   France   
   and Spain. Charles built a monastery for Francis and his followers in the   
   park   
   of Plessis and another at Amboise, on the spot where they had first met. In   
   Rome, he built the monastery at Santa Trinità del Monte on the Pincian Hill,   
   to   
   which only French Minims were admitted. From the French court the renown of   
   the   
   saint spread to Germany and to Spain. The Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand   
   the   
   Catholic founded new monasteries for him in their domains.   
      
   But Francis was so beloved that the French kings would not allow him to   
   leave,   
   and thus he spent the last 25 years of his life in France. He became famous   
   for   
   prophecies and miracles. He spent the last three months of his life in   
   solitude   
   in his cell, preparing himself for death. On Palm Sunday, he became ill, and   
   on   
   Maundy Thursday, he assembled his brethren and urged them to love God, to be   
   charitable, and to strictly observe the duties of their rule. He received   
   the   
   sacraments barefoot with a rope around his neck, according to the custom of   
   the   
   order, and died the following day.   
      
   As a witness at the canonization proceedings, "the worthy Jean Bourdichon,   
   painter and chamberlain to our lord the king," testified that he had gone to   
   the   
   monastery of the Minimi after the death of Brother Francis and, in order to   
   paint a likeness after the actual visage, had made a mold and cast of the   
   face.   
      
   The saint died on the morning of Good Friday at ten and the burial took   
   place on   
   the morning of Easter Monday. Regarding the funeral, Bourdichon says that a   
   vast   
   crowd of believers assembled and went home gladdened and greatly consoled by   
   the   
   sight of the deceased. The same witness further testified that since the   
   body   
   was interred in a spot very frequently flooded by the nearby river, the   
   brothers   
   decided, on the advice of the princess, in order that it should not decay   
   more   
   quickly than it need, to disinter him and to rebury him in a stone   
   sarcophagus   
   in a higher grave. This took place 12 days after the funeral.   
      
   The witness was present when the corpse was taken out of the earth and laid   
   in   
   the sarcophagus. He saw the face as sound, unravaged, and without trace of   
   dissolution as it was before interment. He knew this, because he purposely   
   laid   
   his face against that of the dead, in order to detect decomposition by the   
   sense   
   of smell. He regarded the absence of decomposition as a miracle. He deposed   
   further that he made another mask to enable him to make a more accurate and   
   better painting. Asked whether, after the brother's death, the body had been   
   eviscerated or opened, he declared that he knew nothing about this. The next   
   witness said such proceedings had not taken place. As late as 1527, the   
   corpse   
   was still completely unchanged. Later it was burned by the Huguenots   
   (Attwater,   
   Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Gill, Schamoni, Walsh, White).   
      
   In art, dressed as a venerable friar, Saint Francis's emblem is the word   
   Caritas   
   in a circle of rays. At times he may be portrayed (1) standing on his cloak   
   in   
   the sea (a story told of several saints) (Roeder, White); (2) levitated   
   above   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)