MAY 20TH, ST. BERNARDINE OF SIENA, CONFESSOR

Month in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Day 6 of the Novena in honor of the Holy Spirit/Ghost.

This Bernardine was born of the noble family of the Albizeschi, in the Republic of Siena, on the 8th of September, in the year 1380. His saintliness began to manifest itself from his earliest years. He was well brought up by a godly father and mother, and even when he was being taught the first rudiments of worldly learning, he used to give up his play-time to occupy himself with devout works, being much drawn to fasting, prayer, and the devotion to the most Blessed Virgin. He abounded likewise in tenderness for the poor. As time went on, that he might the more entirely do these things, it was his will to enroll himself among those who work in the Hospital of Blessed Mary, called “of the Ladder,” at Sienna. There, during the raging of an horrible distemper, he laboured with marvellous charity and great bodily suffering, in serving the sick. In bodily presence he was a very goodly person, but, with all his other virtues, he kept ever so holy a guard over his purity, that it soon came to pass that no one, however shameless, dared to say an unseemly word in his presence. He suffered a severe sickness, and when, after bearing it with the utmost patience, he recovered his health, he began to think of embracing some institute of the religious life. To make his way sure, he built a little hut in the outskirts of the city, where he hid himself and led a life of hardships of all kinds, continuing instant in prayer to God that He would be pleased to make clear to him what path he should follow. And so it came to pass by God's will that he chose the Order of Blessed Francis. In that Order he shone a bright instance of lowliness, long-suffering, and every other grace of a religious man. When the superior of his convent saw this, and had already considered what his teaching and knowledge of sacred learning were, he laid on Bernardine the duty of preaching. This the Saint humbly accepted, and finding that his usefulness was much impaired by his having a shrill, harsh voice, he betook him to implore the help of God, Who was pleased, not without a miracle, to free him from this drawback. Those were times fruitful in vices and crimes and the bloody civil wars which raged in Italy confounded all things Divine and human. Bernardine went through the cities and towns, and, in the Name of Jesus, that Name which he ever bore upon his lips and in his heart, he prevailed in great measure by his word and example, in setting up falling godliness and morality. Illustrious cities demanded him from the Pope as their Bishop, but this was an honour which his unconquerable humility caused him always steadily to refuse. At last the man of God, after untold labours, the working of many and great miracles, and the writing of godly and learned books, in the 67th year of his age, at Aquila in the Abruzzi, rested in a blessed death, upon the 20th day of May 1444. As the fame of new signs and wonders increased day by day, Pope Nicholas V., in the sixth year after his death, added his name to the roll of the Saints.