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cassianus · 4 years

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OF SOME OF HIS PENITENTS, WHO LED HOLY LIVES.

Philip drew into this work many of the principal men of the court, whose virtues were the subject of admiration. Among those was Giovanni Battista Salviati, brother of Cardinal Antonio Maria Salviati, a person of great distinction, as well from the nobility of his own family, as from his near relationship to Catherine of Medici, Queen of France; but much more to be esteemed for the goodness of his life, and the edifying examples of humility which he gave. He was assiduous in prayer, and in works of mercy, and in the continual practice of meditation, in which the Saint exercised him daily, he was constant in attending the hospitals, where he performed every sort of office for the sick, however vile and degrading. One day he went to the hospital della Consolazione, and found there a sick man who had formerly been his servant. He desired, according to his custom, to make his bed for him, and asked him to get up that he might be able to do so; the sick man asked him, why? “Why!” replied Giovanni Battista, “because I wish to make your bed for you.” The servant knew nothing of his master’s change of life, and thinking he was making game of him, said, “O Signor Giovanni Battista, this is not a time to make game of poor servants; I pray you let me alone.” Giovanni Battista answered, “I say I wish anyhow to make your bed, and what I am doing is in earnest, and not a mockery.” The servant, however, persisted in thinking that he was being made game of; and partly also moved by the respect he felt for his old master, obstinately refused to let him make his bed. The contest between them lasted for a long time, but at length the charity and humility of the master got the better of the pertinacious obstinacy of the servant.

This gentleman came at last to such a degree of mortification that, whereas before he dressed very showily, and was attended by a great number of servants, he would not, after he had become acquainted with the Saint, and had some experience of a spiritual life, dress even becomingly, or have any servants to follow him. But Philip bade him, out of proper respect, dress as his equals did, and be attended as man of his rank usually were. God rewarded these and his other virtues in the peace and happiness of his death; for when he had with exceeding devotion received the last Sacraments, and it was told him that the hour of his passage was come, he was all cheerfulness, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he sang out, “Laetatus sum in his, quae dicta sunt mihi, in domum Domini ibimus,” and shortly after breathed his last in Philip’s arms.

The Saint had a long while before drawn Giovanni Battista’s wife, Porzia de’ Massimi, to a spiritual life, and assisted her to advance far on the road to perfection; and it was with her assistance that he at last made the conquest of her husband. After his death she entered the monastery of Santa Lucia at Florence, that she might be the better able to servo God; but finding the air unhealthy, she returned to Rome, and shut herself up in the monastery of S. Catherine of Siena, near Monte Magnanapoli, where she died holily, according to the tenour of the life she had lived.

Together with Giovanni Battista Salviati was Francesco Maria Tarugi, of Montepulciano, a relation of popes Julius III. and Marcellus II., a man of lively genius, and in high favour with great people because of his engaging manners, which made him pass for one of the first among the courtiers. He went one day to S. Girolamo della Carità to confess, on the occasion of a jubilee published by Paul IV. When he had finished his confession, Philip took him into his room, and talked with him upon various topics. After this he made him make an hour of prayer with him, during which Tarugi, although he had never practised mental prayer before, felt such spiritual sweetness, that the hour passed away without his knowing how, so excessive was the interior delight which he experienced. This caused him to return there again; and as he often saw the Saint raised three or four feet from the ground at prayer, he formed a great opinion of him, and was inflamed with a great desire to change his life. There were, however, some impediments at the time, which seemed to make it necessary for him to defer his conversion, and he made a minute statement of them to Philip. The Saint answered, “Do not doubt; the hindrances will cease before a month is over;” and so it proved. Tarugi, therefore, returned to him afterwards, and made a general confession, during which Philip discovered to him his sins and secret thoughts. On this account he conceived such an affection for the Saint, that he cared no longer for the court or the world, and gave himself up so completely into Philip’s hands, and with such ready obedience, that the Saint did what he pleased with him, and afterwards made great use of him in winning souls.

So great was the fervour of Tarugi, that he soon had more need of the bit than of the spur. He had such resignation to the will of God, that for the fifty years or more that he survived, he never, in good or evil, lost that interior peace which he acquired in the beginning of his conversion. This he himself declared. He was most obedient to the Saint in all things, and such was the respect he had for him, and the opinion which he had conceived of his sanctity, that after he was made cardinal, he boasted of having been Philip’s novice for fifty years, implying that from his twenty-ninth year, when he gave himself into the Saint’s hands, till the end of his life (for he reached the age of eighty three), he had no other conceit of himself than that he was Philip’s novice. He had an eminent gift of prayer and of tears; and his success as a preacher was such, that he was the admiration of the most eloquent men of his day; so that Baronius in his Annals calls him dux verbi. Clement VIII. made him bishop of Avignon, and afterwards cardinal of the holy church. In his extreme old age he begged of the fathers to let him return to die in the congregation; and a few mouths afterwards he surrendered his holy soul to God in the year 1608, aged eighty-three years and eight months, and was buried in our church of Santa Maria, in Vallicella.

Costanzo Tassono was another of the Saint’s first spiritual children. He was nephew of Pietro Bertani, Cardinal di Fano, and Majordomo of Cardinal Santa Flora. he was so given up to the court, that it seemed quite impossible for him to break away from its allurements and pursuits. Nevertheless, he applied himself to works of piety; and there was no exercise, however vile or difficult, in which he did not willingly engage. He confessed and communicated several times in the week, and often daily. He went continually to the hospitals to serve the sick, and went through every kind of mortification which the holy father put upon him. In obedience to Philip he was ordained priest, and said mass every morning, he was so completely detached from the good things and honours of the world, that he refused a rich benefice which was offered him. He was in the end, for his piety, taken into the service of S. Charles at Milan; and there he persevered in his holy life until the end. He died at Rome, his death having been foreseen by the Saint.

One of the oldest of the Saint’s children, and one of those most in his confidence, was Giovanni Battista Modio, of Santa Severina in Calabria. He was the author of some annotations on the poems of the B. Jacopone, and an Italian treatise on the waters of the Tiber. On one occasion, when he was suffering dreadfully from the stone without any prospect of relief, and every one considered him in the last extremity, Philip went to visit him according to his custom; and after having exhorted him to bear his cross manfully for the love of Christ, he went out of the house and retired into a neighbouring church to pray for him, which he did with most earnest vehemence. At the first tear which Philip shed, in the very selfsame moment, Mochio began to pass the stone, and in a short time recovered entirely; and attributing his recovery to the Saint’s intercession, he gave himself completely into his hands. He was a very tender-hearted man, and singularly compassionate to the poor. He had also considerable talent in preaching, so that, although he was a layman, Philip made him relate the lives of the Saints in the oratory, which he did to the great delight and profit of the hearers. After his death Philip appointed Antonio Fucci of Città di Castello to succeed him in this office of relating the lives of the Saints. He also was a very learned man, and what is of more importance, advanced in the spiritual life, and one of those who wished to accompany the Saint to the Indies to shied his blood for the holy faith, as we shall see afterwards.

Merzio Altieri, a Roman noble, was also another of his spiritual children. Under the discipline of the Saint he arrived at such perfection and taste of the Divine grandeurs, that, like another Moses, his spirit so abounded within him that he could not talk of God. He had such piety towards the poor, that he hesitated not to strip himself in order to clothe others, and gave in alms even the counterpane of his bed, expecting from the Lord the promised reward.

To these may be added Matteo Stendardi, nephew of Paul IV., Benardino Valle da Come, maestro di casa to Cardinal Montepulciano, Fulvio Amodei, Giacomo Marmita, of whom we shall speak afterwards, Giovanni Antonio of Santa Severina, and Ludovico Parisi, who served the Saint out of devotion for more than thirty years; and others of the principal families of Italy, who were all his penitents, and so many mirrors of perfection in the court of Rome.

Besides these he had others of a lower condition, who were also men of most saintly lives. Among them was Stefano, a shoemaker of Rimini, who had been a soldier for a long time, and was full of enmities, and altogether given up to the things of this world. Stefano came to Rome, and by some good inspiration went one day to St. Girolamo to hear the sermons and familiar discourses. Through reverence and respect for others he placed himself upon the back seats; but Philip, without ever having seen or known him before, went to him and drew him to the front seats. When the prayer was finished, he showed him great affection, and so captivated him by his manner, that from that day Stefano went continually to the sermons, and began to frequent the Sacraments. By this means he was delivered from his inveterate habits of sin and passion, and became a man of wonderful virtues. He was so given to works of charity, that although he was very poor, he took nothing from his weekly earnings but what was absolutely necessary, and gave the rest away for the love of God. His thoughts ran constantly on death, and he prepared himself for it daily, as if he were actually to die that day; but for all that he was never seen out of spirits or downcast, but always gay and cheerful. He was remarkable also for his obedience, and for his assiduity in prayer, in which he was greatly favoured by God, and was seen one day in the church of the Santissima Trinità di Ponte Sisto, suddenly surrounded by a resplendent light. Stefano lived in these exercises twenty-three years, living in a small house by himself. His friends told him that he would be dying suddenly without any one to assist him; but he answered that for that he put his confidence in the blessed Madonna, and was quite sure that she would not abandon him: and so it proved, for being assailed one night all on a sudden by his mortal sickness, he went out of his house and called his neighbours, who went for the parish priest, and then returned to help him into bed, where he received the last Sacraments, and gave up his soul to God.

Francesco Maria, commonly called Il Ferrarese, was another of Philip’s spiritual children. He was a man of the greatest simplicity, and of such goodness and purity of life, that he sometimes heard the angels singing, and was physically sensible of the noisome odour of sin. He had also a most eminent gift of tears, and when he communicated, which was ordinarily every day, or heard any one speak of the things of God, and particularly of Paradise, he wept immoderately. He was so enamoured of suffering, that being one day in excessive agony from the stone, he prayed God to send him a still heavier infirmity; and no sooner had he said this than he immediately recovered. He had a burning zeal for the salvation of others; and seeing a Jew one day, he was smitten with such compassion for his soul, that he prayed every day for him for three years continuously, beseeching the Divine Majesty to give him the grace of conversion. His prayers were not in vain, for being one morning at S. Peter’s, he saw most unexpectedly that very Jew go to receive holy baptism, and his heart so melted within him at the sight, that he immediately began to shed most abundant floods of tears.

Another time Francesco Maria Tarugi found him weeping bitterly, and being very importunate with him to tell him the cause, the good man (although an entirely uneducated person) answered, that he was thinking of those words which Christ said to his disciples, When you have done all these things, say, we are unprofitable servants; “for,” said he, “if the apostles, after having done so many miracles and converted the world, were for all that to say, We are unprofitable servants, what am I to say, who have done nothing? it is for this cause I weep, nor can I contain my tears.” Another time the same Tarugi found him in prayer, standing, and every now and then he drew back a little, making gestures of surprise. This having lasted some time, Tarugi asked him why he did so: he answered, “I am considering the greatness of God, and the more I consider it, the more it seems to grow before me, and its very immensity forces me to step backward, even corporally.”

Philip had also for his penitent another servant of God, named Tommaso Siciliano, whom he led to such a height of perfection, that he considered it an immense privilege to become some day sweeper of S. Peter’s. This post he obtained according to his desire, and continued to sweep the church for many years with the greatest diligence and delight. Indeed he never left it except when he went to the holy father to confession. At night he slept in his clothes, on the predella of one of the Seven Altars. The devil, always the enemy of humility and perseverance could not endure to see him continuing this exercise with so much sweetness, and endeavoured one night to terrify him from his undertaking. While Tommaso was asleep the malignant spirit made such a disturbance, that the good man, when he roused himself, thought by the noise that all the benches in the church were being thrown up into the air, and were falling down on the floor broken in pieces. Jumping up, he ran to the lamp and lit a candle, but he found all the benches quiet in their places. He then searched the church diligently, thinking there might be a robber lurking in it; and in his search he saw the demon behind one of the columns, in the form of an Ethiopian; upon which he went boldly up to him, and lifted up his hand to give him a blow, upon which the enemy disappeared; and the intrepid Tommaso went back to his place as if nothing had happened, and fell quietly asleep.

Another of Philip’s penitents was Fra. Ludovico, of Spoleto; not that he was really a friar, but was so called because he wore the habit of S. Francis. This servant of God was most poor in earthly goods, but richly endowed with every virtue, and of a life most singularly pure; in consequence of which the Saint set him to take charge of the girls of Santa Caterina de’ Funari, and, knowing his goodness, would never let him abandon that employment, although he wished it. Pietro Molinaro was also one of Philip’s most intimate friends, a man who, through the abundance of his tears, had lost his sight, though God restored it to him again by miracle. There were very many others of different trades and professions, who lived under the care and discipline of Philip, and died in the odour of sanctity; but for brevity’s sake we must omit particular mention of them, except as our narrative may from time to time lead us to touch upon them.

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