The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others

by Georgiana Fullerton

CHAPTER XI.

DEATH OF FRANCESCA'S FRIEND AND DIRECTOR, DON ANTONIO—TROUBLES IN ROME AND ITALY FORETOLD BY FRANCESCA—DEATH OF VANNOZZA, FRANCESCA'S SISTER IN LAW—FOUNDATION OF THE CONGREGATION OF OBLATES OF TOR DI SPECCHI.

THE extraordinary graces which had attended our Saint during her pilgrimage were the prelude of a trial which was awaiting her in Rome. Her earliest friend, her long-trusted guide, Don Antonio Savello, had died during her absence. Though she accepted this dispensation of God's providence with her habitual resignation, it cut her to the heart. She had deeply loved and reverenced her spiritual father; he had instructed her in childhood; directed her ever since with wisdom and faithfulness; and his loss was in one sense greater to her than that of any other friend. It occurred, too, at the very moment when she was about to carry out the Divine intimation with regard to the foundation of a new Congregation, when difficulties were every where staring her in the face, and the want of a powerful and willing auxiliary more than ever needful. She did not, however, lose courage, but prayed fervently that God would inspire her choice of a director; and much time she spent on her knees imploring this favour. No doubt the selection she made was the result of these prayers; and one of the proofs that God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. Her choice fell on Don Giovanni Mattiotti, the curate of Santa Maria in Trastevere, to whom she had already sometimes been to confession. He was a man of irreproachable character and distinguished piety, but of an irresolute and vaccillating disposition, easily disheartened; nor would he at first sight have appeared qualified for the direction of a person as far advanced in perfection as Francesca, on whom God had such great designs, and with whom He chose to deal in such wonderful ways. But the trials which Francesca had to endure from the irresolution of Don Giovanni; the patience with which she submitted to his varying commands; and the supernatural means through which he was taught to recognise her sanctity, and to assist in carrying out her designs, tended in the end to the glory of God, and the praise of the Saint, whose very humility was a trial to her, in those days of small beginnings, and often of painful doubts. Crosses of various kinds arose in connection with the undertaking. Some of the monks of Santa Maria Nuova, for instance, took occasion, on the visits of a father inspector, to complain of Don Ippolito, and to accuse him of transgressing the statutes, and going beyond his powers, in admitting a congregation of women to the name and the privileges of their order; especially considering that several of these women were married, and living in the world. But the visitor was a man of piety and prudence. He closely examined into the question, and satisfied himself that the institution tended to edification, and was pleasing to God; and he sanctioned it accordingly, as far as was in his power, and promised to advocate its cause with the father-general.

In the month of July of 1430 Francesca had a remarkable vision, which indicated to her the events that were speedily to follow, and which she prophesied with an accuracy, that, in the end, occasioned general astonishment. One night, after spending several hours in prayer, she saw a lurid light, through which a number of Satan's ministers were hurrying to and fro, shaking their torches, and rejoicing with dreadful glee over the impending calamities of Rome. The Saint fell on her knees, and besought the Lord to spare her unhappy country. Then falling into ecstasy, she beheld the Infant Jesus in His Mother's arms surrounded with angels, and St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John the Baptist in the attitude of prayer, pleading for mercy to the Eternal City, which they seemed to protect by their fervent supplications. At the same time she heard a voice that said, "The prayers of the saints have stayed the arm of the Lord; but woe to the guilty city if she repent not, for great afflictions are at hand." Some days afterwards the lightning fell simultaneously on the churches of St. Peter, St. Paul, and on the shrine of St. John Baptist in the Lateran Basilica. Francesca shuddered when she heard of it; she felt at once that the day of grace had gone by; and in thrilling words described to her confessor, and to several other persons that were present, the misfortunes that were about to fall upon Rome.

The fulfilment of her predictions was not long delayed, though nothing at the time seemed to give them weight. The unwearied exertions of Martin V. had succeeded in healing the wounds of Christendom. In Rome he had repressed anarchy, recalled the exiled citizens to their homes, rebuilt the churches, given a new impulse to the government, to the administration of justice, to politics, to literature, to science, and to art. He had worked hard to promote a reformation in the manners of the clergy, and effected in many places the re-establishment of the discipline of the Church. The legates whom he sent to all the courts of Europe had restored some degree of union between the Christian princes, and preached a crusade against the Turks and the followers of John Huss. He had called together a council, which was first convened at Pavia, and afterwards removed, first to Sienna, and then to Basle. But before he could him self join the assembly, death overtook him. Worn out with his indefatigable labours for the welfare of Christendom, he went to receive his reward at an unadvanced age, in the month of February of the year 1431.

Gabriel Candalucero succeeded him under the name of Eugenius IV. The first Consistory which he held was marked by a fearful accident, which people chose to consider as an evil omen. The floor of the hall gave way, and in the midst of the confusion that ensued a bishop was killed, and many persons grievously wounded. A discontented monk put about the report that Martin V. had died in possession of a considerable treasure; and the Colonnas, catching eagerly at this pretext, took up arms to make good their claims to this supposed heritage. Once more the adverse factions rose against each other, and blood flowed in the streets of Rome. The Colonnas were constrained to fly; and the monk, convicted of having conspired to deliver up the Castle of St. Angelo to the rebels, and to get the Pope assassinated, was condemned to death and executed. A temporary reconciliation was effected between Eugenius IV. and the too powerful family of the Colonnas; but their haughty and violent temper soon brought about a rupture. They advanced upon Rome at the head of their troops; a bloody engagement took place under the walls of the city, in which the pontifical troops had the upper hand, but many of the nobles perished in the affray.

Conflicts of a still more harrowing nature now arose between the Pope and the Council of Basle. Duke Philip of Milan availed himself of this opportunity to retrieve the sacrifices he had made in a treaty which the Pope had led him to sign with the Venetians. He forged a decree which, purported to proceed from the fathers of the council, appointing him lieutenant-general of the Church in Italy; and armed with this assumed title, he despatched to the Roman States Francesca Sforza and Nicholas Fortebraccio, two famous adventurers in his pay. The latter advanced upon Rome, and began to devastate its neighbourhood. The Pope, wholly unprepared for defence, warded off the danger by sowing dissension between the two generals, which he effected by giving up to Sforza, for his lifetime, the possession of Ancona, and of the provinces which he had conquered in the states of the Church. Sforza, in consequence, took part with Eugenius, and defeated Fortebraccio at Tivoli; but in the meantime a general insurrection broke out in Rome itself. The Ghibelline party attacked the Pope, laid siege to the church of the Holy Apostles, where he had taken shelter, and from whence he escaped with difficulty disguised as a monk, embarked on the Tiber, and found a refuge first at Pisa and then at Bologna. Rome was given up for five months to all the horrors of anarchy, the pontifical palace pillaged, and new magistrates chosen in lieu of those appointed by the Pope; the garrison of the castle of St. Angelo alone remaining firm in its allegiance to the sovereign Pontiff. Weary at last of so much disorder, the city of its own accord submitted itself to lawful authority. Eugenius sent a legate, who in some measure succeeded in re-establishing peace; but he himself remained in the north of Italy, engaged in convoking a council, wherewith to oppose the irregular decrees of that assembled at Basle.

These events, which spread over several years, are related in confirmation of the prophetical gifts of Francesca, who accurately foresaw and foretold them when nothing presaged their occurrence. At the time when this storm was about to burst over Italy, and the beginning of sorrow was at hand, she was doomed to experience another of the heavy afflictions that life had yet in store for her. Vannozza, her cherished companion, her sister, her counsellor, her bosom friend, was summoned to receive her heavenly crown; and she herself to add to all her virtues a more perfect detachment from all earthly ties. They had been united by every link that affection, sympathy, and similarity of feeling, tastes, and opinions can create between two hearts devoted to God, and through Him to each other. Their union had not been obscured by the smallest cloud. Together they had prayed, suffered, and laboured; and in trials and joys alike they had been inseparable. Francesca had been warned in a vision of the approaching end of her sister-in-law; and at length, strong in faith, she stands by her dying-bed; and when the Evil One, baffled in life, makes a final effort to disturb the departing soul, she prays for the beloved of her heart, sprinkles holy water on that much-loved form, reads aloud the history of the Passion of our Lord; and Vannozza, supported by those sacramental graces which Satan cannot withstand, followed almost beyond the verge of life by that watchful tenderness which had been her joy on earth, sees the evil spirit retire before the might of Francesca's angel, and breathes her last in perfect peace. The soul which had served and loved God so fervently upon earth was carried up to heaven in a form visible to the eyes of her friend; a pure flame, enveloped in a light transparent cloud, was the symbol of that gentle spirit's flight into its kindred skies.

The mortal remains of Vannozza were laid in the church of the Ara Coeli, in the chapel of Santa Croce. The Roman people resorted there in crowds to behold once more their loved benefactress,—the mother of the poor, the consoler of the afflicted. All strove to carry away some little memorial of one who had gone about among them doing good; and during the three days which preceded the interment, the concourse did not abate. On the day of the funeral, Francesca knelt on one side of the coffin, and, in sight of all the crowd, she was rapt in ecstasy. They saw her body lifted from the ground, and a seraphic expression in her uplifted face. They heard her murmur several times with an indescribable emphasis the word, "When? when?" (Quando? quando?) When all was over, she still remained immovable; it seemed as if her soul had risen on the wings of prayer, and followed Vannozza's spirit into the realms of bliss. At last her confessor ordered her to rise, and to go and attend on the sick. She instantly complied, and walked away to the hospital which she had founded, apparently unconscious of every thing about her, and only roused from her trance by the habit of obedience which, in or out of ecstasy, never forsook her.

From that day her visions grew more frequent and more astonishing. She seemed to live in heaven; and during those hours of mystical intercourse with saints and angels, and with the Lord of angels and of saints, to obtain supernatural lights which guided her in the foundation of her new congregation. The Blessed Virgin revealed to her that St. Paul, St. Benedict, and St. Mary Magdalene were to be its protectors; and that Don Giovanni Mattiotti, her director, Fra Bartolommeo Biondii, of the order of St. Francis, and Don Ippolito, of the Olivetan Obedience, were to co-operate with her in its establishment. To Don Giovanni a particular message was sent to confirm him in the intention of forwarding the work, and to warn him against discouragement from the many difficulties it would meet with. Wonderful were the sights which it was given her to see in those long ecstasies, during which her soul seemed to absent itself from her all-but spiritualised body. Sometimes a speechless contemplation held all her faculties in abeyance; at others, in burning words, she described what passed before her mental sight. At times her motionless attitude almost wore the semblance of death; while often she moved about and performed various actions in connection with the subjects of her visions. In the churches which she frequented,—in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in Santa Maria in Trastevere, in the Chapel of the Angels in Santa Cecilia, in her own oratory,—she is favoured with the presence of celestial visitants. The various ecclesiastical feasts of the year bring with them analogous revelations; she spends her time in the cave of Bethlehem and the house of Nazareth, on the mountains, where Jesus was wont to pray, where He was transfigured, where He agonised, and where He died. She adores with the shepherds and the wise men; she listens to His voice with the disciples and the devout multitude; she suffers with the Mother of sorrows, and weeps with the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross. The beauties of the New Jerusalem, the lovely pastures, the fresh waters, the bright flowers, the precious stones, which typify the glories of the world to come, are spread before her in those mystic trances. Deeper and more mysterious revelations are vouchsafed, wonderful secrets disclosed to her under expressive symbols, and St. Paul is her guide through those regions where he was ravished in spirit while still, like her, an inhabitant of earth. One day that she was in ecstasy a voice of more than common sweetness addressed to her these words—"Thy path is strewn with thorns, Francesca, and many an obstacle will stand in thy way, ere thy little flock can be gathered together in our abode. But remember that hail does not always follow upon thunder, and that the brightest sunshine often breaks through the darkest clouds."

Encouraged by this intimation, the Saint began in earnest to consider of the means of establishing her congregation. During a short absence which her husband made from Rome, she invited all the Oblates to her house, and having made them share her slight repast, she assembled them around her, and spoke to them to the following effect: "My dear companions, I have called you together in order to impart to you the lights which I have received from the Lord and His blessed Mother with regard to our congregation. For seven years we have been especially consecrated to her service, and have bound ourselves to live in chastity and obedience, and to observe the rules prescribed to us; and I have long thought that as we have been united in spirit and in intention, so ought we to be in our outward mode of life. For a while I fancied that this my desire might only be the result of my maternal affection for you, and of my solicitude for your advancement. But the Lord has at last revealed to me that it is His will that I should found a new spiritual edifice in this city, the ancient stronghold of religion and of faith. It will form an asylum for those persons of your sex and of your rank who have conceived the generous resolution of forsaking the world and its allurements; I have tagged of the Lord to select for His purpose one less unworthy than myself, but I dare no longer withstand the manifestation of His will. I am prepared to accomplish His bidding; but without you, my sisters what can I do? You are the foundations of the building, the first stones of the new spiritual house of His mother. You are the seed from which a plentiful harvest is to spring. Earthly cares, the temporal affairs of life, must no longer take up your time. He summons you to a retreat, where you will live in His presence, imitate His example, and copy the virtues of Mary, where you will pray for Rome, and turn away His wrath from the degenerate and guilty city. Have you not heard how two years ago the thunderbolts fell on her sacred towers? Do you not see how every day fresh miseries are gathering on the devoted heads of her people? But God is full of mercy; when most incensed at our sins, He casts about for souls that will appease His anger. He has turned His eyes upon us. He bids us unite, and stand in the breach between Him and the daring sinners who each day defy Him. Why tarry we longer? why further delay? The arms of the Blessed Virgin are wide open to receive us. Shall we draw back from her embrace?—No, rather let us fly to her feet."

As she pronounced these last words Francesca fell into an ecstasy, which lasted for some time, and during which she pleaded with God for those who were to belong to the new institute. Her companions gazed upon her with silent veneration; and when she came to herself, all with one accord, and with tears of joy, professed themselves ready to make every sacrifice which God might require of them, and to adopt the mode of life and the rule which Francesca might suggest. But their assent was only a preliminary step in the undertaking. It was necessary to find a house suitable to their purpose, to obtain the consent of the still existing parents of some of the Oblates, to fix in a definitive manner their rule and constitutions, and finally to procure the sanction of the Holy Father, and his approval of the new order. Francesca attended in turn to each of these objects. To the first place she consulted her three coadjutors on the choice of a house; and difficulties without number arose on this point. The priests were alarmed at the sensation which this undertaking would produce, and were quite at a loss to find money for the purchase. Francesca had long since given away almost all that she possessed. What little remained was devoted to works of charity which could not be abandoned, and all agreed that she was on no account to have recourse on this occasion to her husband or to her son. While they were deliberating, Francesca was favoured with a vision, in which the divine assistance was promised to the Oblates, and their protectors (Don Giovanni in particular) exhorted to perseverance. Encouraged by these assurances, they looked out for a house adapted to the requirements of a religious community; and after many researches Don Ippolito proposed to Don Giovanni a building in the Campitelli district, on the spot where the old tower, known by the name of "Tor di Specchi," used to stand, directly opposite to the Capitol, and not far from the Santa Maria Nuova. Various obstacles arose to the purchase of this house, which was neither as large nor as convenient as might have been wished; but they were finally overcome, and the acquisition completed towards the end of the year 1432. This house, which was at first considered only as a temporary residence, was subsequently added to, and has remained to this day the central house of the order; and in the pontifical bull the congregation is designed by the name of "Oblates of Tor di Specchi." This matter once arranged, Francesca succeeded in dissipating the objections raised by the parents of some of the younger Oblates, and to reconcile them to the proposed alteration in their daughters' mode of life. It was doubtless a trial to her that while she was removing all the difficulties in the way of the more perfect life which her companions were about to lead, she herself could only, like Moses, look on the promised land of spiritual seclusion which they, her disciples and her children, were entering on, and after which she had yearned from the days of her childhood. But she never hesitated as to her line of duty; it was clear before her. Lorenzo had released her from all obligations but one—that of residing in his house and watching over his old age. His infirmities were increasing, and her attentions indispensable to his comfort. No one could supply to him Francesca's care. She offered up to God the daily self-denial of her existence; and by fresh tokens of His favour He rewarded her obedience.

Her next anxiety was the formation of the constitution and of the rules which were to govern the infant congregation; and in frequent conferences with her pious coadjutors the subject was discussed. After many deliberations, during which they could arrive at no conclusion, it was agreed that the matter should be laid before God in prayer; and their hope was not deceived. In a series of visions,—in which St. Paul in the first instance, and on other occasions the blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, appeared to Francesca,—directions were given her so ample and so detailed as to the rule which her spiritual daughters were to follow, that there remained no room for hesitation. The several fasts which they were to observe; the length of time which they were to devote to prayer, to work, and to sleep; the manner in which their actions were to be performed; the vocal prayers they were to recite; the solitude, the silence they were to keep; the poverty, the community of goods which they were to practise; their dress, their occupations, their separation from the world, their detachment from all earthly ties of interest and kindred which they were at all times to be inspired with; the precautions to be taken in procuring the consent of parents, and securing the free action of the Oblates who might hereafter join the order, were all indicated with the greatest precision; and instructions were transmitted to Don Giovanni and his co-operators to enlighten them as to the guidance and government of the congregation. The miraculous manner in which the Saint had often read their most secret thoughts, the miracles they saw her perform, and the admirable tenour of her life, in which the most active virtues were combined with the deepest humility, and supernatural favours received with the most profound self-abasement, were to them a warrant of the genuineness of her revelations, the substance of which, condensed and reduced into a series of rules, are to this day observed by the Oblates of Tor di Specchi.