Post #5926

Among other virtues, despite the beauty of his forms, he most holyly kept chastity, so that not even the most licentious dared utter a less than honest word in his presence. Tried by a serious illness, endured very patiently for four months, as soon as he recovered, he conceived the plan to embrace the religious life. To make his way easier, he rented a small house at the edge of the city, where he lived in hiding, leading a more austere life, and continuously pray God to let him know the side he had to take. Then following divine revelation, received through the mouth of St. Vincent Ferrer, he chose among all the Order of Minor Observants of the Seraphic Father St. Francis, where he entered on the 8th of September 1402, took his vows in 1403 and was ordained priest in 1404. He distinguished himself for humility and patience and in all the other religious virtues. The superior of the convent, having noticed this, and already knowing of Bernardine's knowledge and expertise in the sacred letters - his training had in fact taken place at the school of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church -, imposed on him the obligation of preaching: and he accepted it most humbly although he was not known to be suitable for his thin and faint voice, begging for God's help, he felt miraculously freed from this impediment. Those were for Italy times full of vices and crimes, and bloody factions, trampled on all divine and human laws: Bernardine traveling through cities and villages, in the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which he always had on his lips and in his heart, with word and with his example he whipped private and public sins (especially usury) and largely restored piety and morals that had disappeared. Hence it happened that illustrious cities asked the Pope as their bishop, a charge which he constantly refused with invincible humility; he also refused the post of Apostolic Preacher offered to him by Martin V and held only the post of Vicar General of the Order. However, Bernardine did not limit himself to the popular mission. In fact, during his rest times he devoted himself to the drafting of the Latin Sermons and to the formation of his brothers: his disciples were St. John of Capistrano, St. James of the Marches, blessed Bernardine of Feltre. Finally, the man of God exhausted by immense efforts, after having performed many and great miracles and also written versed and pious books, ended his 66-year life in L'Aquila in Abruzzo, on May 20, 1444. Famous for new miracles, six years after his death, on 24 May of the Jubilee year 1450, Pentecost Sunday, the Supreme Pontiff Nicholas V enrolled him in the list of Saints.