The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others

by Georgiana Fullerton

CHAPTER XIII.

DEATH OF FRANCESCA'S HUSBAND—SHE GOES TO RESIDE WITH THE COMMUNITY OF TOR DI SPECCC—HER LIFE AS SUPERIORESS.

FRANCESCA had been forty years married to Lorenzo Ponziano; and through her married life, the heart that had been consecrated to God from the first dawn of existence had been faithful in its love to him whom God Himself had appointed to be her chief earthly care: and blessed had been the course of that union; blessed by the tender affection which had reigned between the husband and the wife, and by the exercise of no common virtues, multiplied by the pursuits of one common object. Francesca had led the way; in meekness, in humility, in subjection; but with a single aim and an unwavering purpose. Many and severe trials had been their portion at different epochs of their lives; but the latter part of Lorenzo's existence had been comparatively tranquil. Lorenzo was the first to be called away. God spared him the trial he had probably dreaded. We seldom are called upon to suffer the particular grief that fancy has dwelt upon. His health had been breaking for some years past, and now it utterly failed, and his disease assumed an alarming character. Francesca, though apparently worn out with toil, with abstinence, and mental and bodily labours, found strength for every duty, and energy for every emergency. During Lorenzo's prolonged and painful illness, she was always at his side, nursing him with indefatigable tenderness, and completing the work which her example had wrought. His passage from life to eternity appeared but a journey. The efforts of Satan to disturb him on his death-bed, though often repeated, were each time frustrated. Lorenzo had been a just man, and his death was the death of the righteous. Few men would have shown themselves as worthy as he did of such a wife as Francesca. From the moment of his marriage he had appreciated her virtues, rejoiced in her piety, encouraged her good works, and to a great extent shared in them. No mean feelings of jealousy, no human respect, no worldly sentiment of expediency had influenced him. When he saw her renouncing all the pleasures and vanities of the world, dressing like a poor person, wearing herself out in the zeal of her charity, turning the half of his palace into a hospital, he did not complain, but rather rejoiced that she was one of those "whom fools have for a time in derision, and for a parable of reproach; whose life is esteemed madness, and their end without honour; but who are numbered amongst the children of God, and whose lot is amongst the saints." He had his reward; he had it when his sight failed him and his breath grew short, when he felt that his hour was come. He had it when in his dying ears she whispered words of peace; and Satan, with a cry of despair, for ever fled away from his couch; and when the everlasting portals opened, and the sentence was pronounced at the immediate judgment that follows death. Masses, prayers, fervent communions, and pious suffrages followed him beyond the grave; and when the saint, who had been the model of wives, stood by that grave a widow, her earthly task was, in one sense, done: but work remained; but it was of another sort. From her earliest youth she bad been a nun in spirit; and the heart which had sighed for the cloister in childhood yearned for its shelter in these her latter days. She must go and live in the shade of the tabernacle; she must be alone with her Lord during the few remaining years of life. This must have been foreseen by her children; and yet, like all trials of the kind, however long looked forward to, it came upon them at last as a surprise. When she said, "I must go," there was a loud cry of sorrow in the Ponziano palace. Baptista, the only son of her love, wept aloud. Mobilia threw herself into her arms, and with impetuous grief, protested against her leaving them. "Are you not afraid for me?" she exclaimed, "if you abandon me, you who have taught me to love God and to serve Him I What am I without you? Too much, too tenderly you have loved me. It cannot be that you should forsake me. I cannot endure existence without you." Her grandchildren also, whom she was tenderly attached to, clung to her, weeping. Moved by their tears, but unshaken in her resolution, she gently consoled them; bade them recollect that she was still to inhabit Rome; that her affection for them would be unchanged, and that she would always be at hand to advise and to aid them; but that her vocation must now he fulfilled, and the sacrifice completed. Then turning to Mobilia, as to a dearly-beloved child, she fondly said, "Do not weep, my daughter; you will survive me, and bear witness to my memory." This prediction was fulfilled; for Mobilia was alive at the time that the process for Francesca's canonisation was commenced, and the testimony she gave to her virtues and to her miracles was on that occasion most important, and the most detailed.

After this, Francesca took leave of her family, and went straight to the Tor di Specchi. It was on the 21st of March, the festival of St. Benedict, that she entered its walls, not as the foundress but as a humble suppliant for admission. At the foot of the stairs, having taken off her black gown, her veil, and her shoes, and placed a cord around her neck, she knelt down, kissed the ground, and, shedding an abundance of tears, made her general confession aloud in the presence of all the Oblates; described herself as a miserable sinner, a grievous offender against God, and asked permission to dwell amongst them as the meanest of their servants; and to learn from them to amend her life, and enter upon a holier course. The spiritual daughters of Francesca hastened to raise and to embrace her; and clothing her with their habit, they led the way to the chapel, where they all returned thanks to God. While she remained there engaged in prayer, Agnese de Sellis the superioress, assembled the sisters in the chapter-room, and declared to them, that now that their true mother and foundress had come amongst them, it would be absurd for her to remain in her present office; that Francesca was their guide, their head, and that into her hands she would instantly resign her authority. They all applauded her decision, and gathering around the Saint, announced to her their wishes. As was to be expected, Francesca strenuously refused to accede to this proposal, and pleaded her inability to the duties of a superioress. The Oblates had recourse to Don Giovanni, who began by entreating, and finally commanded her acceptance of the charge. His orders she never resisted; and accordingly, on the 25th of March, she was duly elected to that office.

She was favoured with a vision which strengthened and encouraged her in the new task she had before her. The angel who for twenty-four years had been by her side, defending and assisting her on all occasions, took leave of her now with a benignant smile, and in his place another, more refulgent still, was ordained to stand. By day and by night he was continually weaving a mysterious woof, the threads of which seemed to grow out of the mystical palm which he carried. St. Benedict appeared to Franceses on the day of her election, and explained to her the meaning of those symbols. Gold was the type of the love and charity which was to govern her dealings with her daughters, while the palm implied the triumph she was to obtain over human weakness and human respect. The unceasing labours of the angel was to mark the unwearied efforts she was to use for the right ordering and spiritual welfare of the community intrusted to her care; and truly she laboured with indefatigable zeal in her new vocation. She had ever before her eyes the words of St. Paul to Timothy and to Titus: "Preach the word. Be patient in season and out of season. Entreat, rebuke, in all patience and doctrine. In all things show thyself an example of good works, in doctrine, in integrity, in gravity." Preaching far more by her actions than by her words, she gave an example of the most heroic virtues. It would be difficult to imagine any thing mom perfect than her life in the world; but the new duties, the new privileges of her present vocation added each day new splendour to her virtues. She appointed Agnese de Sellis her coadjutress, and begged her to share her room, and watch over her conduct, entreating her at the same time to warn her of every fault she might commit. Her strictness with her spiritual children, though tempered by love, was extreme. She never left a single imperfection unreproved, and allowed of no infractions, however slight, of the rule. Sometimes, when through shyness or false shame, they concealed some trifling offence which they were bound to confess, she read their hearts, and reminded them not to give Satan a hold upon them by such reserve. She was most careful of their health, and sought to procure them as often as she could some innocent recreation. They used occasionally to go with her to one or other of her vine-gardens without the walls, to take exercise in the pure open air. Francesca's gentle gaiety on these occasions increased their enjoyment; and the labour of gathering wood and grass, of making up faggots, and carrying away their spoil on their heads at night, was a part of their amusement. The conversation that was carried on between them the while was as merry as it was innocent. These young persons, born in palaces and bred in luxury, worked like peasants, with more than a peasant's lightness of heart.

One fine sunny January day—and those who have inhabited Rome well know how fine a January day can be—Francesca and seven or eight of her companions had been since early dawn in the vine-gardens of Porta Portese. They had worked hard for several hours, and then suddenly remembered that they had brought no provision with them. They soon became faint and hungry, and above all very thirsty. Perna, the youngest of all the Oblates, was particularly heated and tired, and approaching the Mother Superior, with a wearied expression of countenance, she asked permission to go and drink some water at a fountain some way off on the public road.

"Be patient, my child," Francesca answered; "the fountain is too distant." She was afraid of these young persons drinking cold water, heated as they were by toil and exposure to the sun. They went on with their work; and withdrawing aside, Francesca knelt down, clasped her hands, and with her eyes raised to heaven, said, "Lord Jesus, I have been thoughtless in bringing my sisters here, and forgetting to provide food for them. Help us in our need."

Perna, who had kept near to the Mother Superior, probably with the intention of urging her request, overheard this prayer, and, a little irritated by the feverish thirst she was enduring, said to herself with some impatience, "It would be more to the purpose to take us home at once."

Francesca read the inward thought, and turning to the discontented girl she said, "My child, you do not trust enough in God. Look up and see." Perna obeyed, and following the direction of Francesca's hand, she saw a vine entwined around a tree, from whose dead and leafless branches were hanging a number of the finest bunches of grapes, of that purple and burnished hue which the fervid sunbeams of August and September impart to that glorious fruit.

"A miracle! a miracle!" exclaimed the enraptured Perna; and the other Oblates assembled round the tree in speechless astonishment, for they had seen all day the bare and withered branches. Twenty times at least they had passed and repassed before it; and at all events the season for grapes had long gone by.

After kneeling to give thanks to God for this gracious prodigy, they spread a cloth on the grass, and gathered the precious fruit. There were exactly as many bundles as persons present; and with smiling faces and joyful hearts Francesca's children fed on the supply which her prayer had obtained for them. Obedience was a virtue of which the Saint herself gave a most perfect example, and which she unremittingly required of others. One of the Oblates having refused one day to comply with an order she had received, Francesca fixed her eyes upon her with an expression of so much severity, that the person in question suddenly fainted away, and remained afterwards speechless and in a state of insensibility. The doctors were sent for, and declared that her life was in imminent danger. This was a severe trial to the Saint; she could not reproach herself for a severity which had been a matter of duty, not of passion, but at the same time she trembled for the soul of one who had apparently lost the use of reason at the very moment she was committing a serious fault. After addressing a fervent prayer to God, and invoking the Blessed Virgin, she went straight to the bed-side of the sister, and taking her by the hand with great solemnity, addressed to her these words: "If it be true that our congregation is approved of God, and has His Holy Mother for its foundress, in the name of Holy Obedience, I command you to speak to me." The Oblate seemed to awake from a long dream, and opening her eyes, she distinctly said, "Mother, what would you have me to do?" From that moment she rallied, and was soon restored to health.

Another time, when an aged member of the congregation was dying, and every moment expected to be her last, Franceses prayed that she might not be allowed to depart in the absence of Don Giovanni, the director of the house. For six days and six nights the sick woman lingered between life and death. On the arrival of her spiritual father she revived, went to confession, and received the last Sacrament Then, as she again sank into insensibility, Francesca bent over her and said, "Sister Catherine, depart in peace, and pray for us;" and in that instant the aged woman expired.

The poverty of the congregration was extreme. The slender means of the first Oblates had been exhausted by the purchase of the house and the erection of a small chapel. Francesca had indeed made over to it her two vineyards of Porta Portese and of St. Paul without the Walls; but the trifling revenue they furnished was wholly inadequate to the support of fifteen persons; and moreover the religions were so endued with the spirit of their foundress, that they never could bring themselves to turn away a beggar from their doors as long as they had a slice of bread to bestow. They often went a whole day without eating, rather than deny themselves the happiness of feeding the poor. Francesca, happy in the virtues of her children, but tenderly anxious for their welfare, was indefatigable in her efforts to procure them the necessaries of life. She used on these occasions to beg of her relations, or even of strangers; and Almighty God allowed her sometimes to provide for them in a miraculous manner.

One day that the sister whose turn it was to attend to the victualling department found herself unable to put upon the table any thing but two or three small fragments of bread, she went to consult the Saint, who immediately proposed to go out with her and beg. According to her invariable custom, she asked Agnese de Sellis, her coadjutoress, for permission so to do. Contrary to her habit on such occasions, Agnese refused, and said, that if it was necessary for any one to beg, she, with another of the sisters, would undertake it. Then Francesca, after a moment's thought, replied, "I think that God will provide for us without any one going out of the house;" and calling the Oblates to the refectory, she asked a blessing on the bread, and distributed it in minute portions amongst them. Each on beginning to eat her share saw it multiply apace; and not only were their wants thus supplied at the moment, but enough remained when they had done to furnish them with food for the next day.

The gift of prophecy she also exercised more frequently than ever at this period. Once, when she was praying in her cell, the nuns heard her exclaim, "O King of Heaven, support and comfort that poor unhappy mother;" and some hours afterwards, they heard that at that very moment a young nobleman, Jacobo Maddaleni, had been thrown from his horse and killed on the spot, to the inexpressible grief of his mother. Lorenzo Altieri was dying, and his wife Palozza overwhelmed with sorrow; she had several young children, and was almost in despair at the idea of losing her husband. The physician had declared his case hopeless; and when she sent for Francesca her heart was breaking. The Saint came up to her, and said compassionately, "Dear sister, give up the love and the vanities of the world, and God will take pity upon you. Lorenzo will yet recover; he will be present at my burial." The prediction was fulfilled, and Lorenzo, restored to health, assisted, as she had said, at the funeral of the Saint; and Palozza, whose heart had been entirely converted at that moment, and who had vowed in case of his death to retire into a convent, whenever her children could spare her, led henceforward, in every respect, the life of a Christian wife and mother.

The Superioress of the Sisters of the third order of St. Francis consulted her one day on the admission of a young girl, who had requested to be admitted among them. Francesca had not seen or known any thing of the candidate, but unhesitatingly answered, that the vocation was not a real one, and she recommended that she should be refused. "She will enter another monastery," she added, "and after remaining in it a short time, will return to the world, and soon after she will die." It happened exactly as the Saint had foretold: Francesca da Fabrica went into the convent of Casa di Cento Finestre, on the shores of the Tiber, gave up the habit before the end of the year, and a sharp fever carried her off soon after her return. Gregorio and Gentilesca Selli had a little girl of four years old, who was paralysed, and up to her waist her frame appeared completely withered. They had often been urged to have recourse to the spells or charms then so much in vogue, but had always refused to seek a blessing through such means. They were carrying the little child to Francesca, full of faith in her prayers, which they were coming to ask, when she exclaimed at the first sight of them: "Happy are you who have not sought your child's recovery in unlawful ways. In three days, my friends, she will be restored to health;" and the prediction was fulfilled to the letter.

It would be useless to multiply such recitals as these. As she advances in years, especially since her retirement at Tor di Specchi, more and more frequent become the exercise of those supernatural gifts with which God had endowed the gentle Saint of Rome. No day elapses that some new prodigy does not call forth the grateful enthusiasm of the warm-hearted and devout Trasteverini. If a child is trodden under foot by a runaway horse, Francesca is sent for, and at the sight of the Saint he revives. If a young boatman, in the prime of youth, is thrown into the Tiber, and curried away by the stream under the arches of the Ponte Rotto, from whence his afflicted mother receives him into her arms without a symptom of life, she calls out to her friends, "Run, ran to the servant of God: go to Francesca dei Ponziano, and bid her pray for the boy." And when they return, the mother is weeping still over her apparently lifeless child; but they shout from a distance, "The servant of God says he will not die;" and in a few instants, Paul Guidolini opens his eyes, and smiles on his mother, who some years later becomes one of the Oblates of Tor di Specchi. If Francesca sits down for a moment to rest on the steps of a church, as she did one Good Friday, after the service at St. Peter's, a paralytic woman kneels at her feet, and obtains that she should lay her hand on her withered limbs, which are instantly restored. There is no illness on record which her prayers, or the touch of her hand, does not dispel and subdue. She restores sight to the blind, the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lame walk at her bidding; pestilence and madness and fits and wounds and possession itself disappear before the power with which Almighty God has endued her; and she walks this earth of ours dispensing blessings, as the faithful handmaid of Him who went about doing good.

At the same time, more and more ecstatic grew her prayers, more visible to all eyes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in her soul, more removed from the natural conditions of existence the tenour of her life. At the hours of meals, which she observed in obedience to the rule, her companions notice that she hardly ever eats, but that her face is turned to the window, and her eyes fixed on the sky, while rays of light seem to play around her, and her countenance grows dazzling from the celestial brightness which overspreads it. Longer and longer became her orisons; often in visiting a church she falls into an ecstasy, which lasts till night. The sublimity of her vision, the glimpses of heaven which she enjoys, the sight of angels, and of the Lord of angels, is occasionally exchanged for the terrific apparitions, the renewed assaults of Satan, who attack her at times with redoubled violence, now that her ultimate triumph is at hand, and the crown about to descend on a brow which already shines with the mystic radiance of sanctity. The old frescoes of the original chapel of Tor di Specchi represent some of these mysterious struggles between Francesca and the Evil One; and her cell bears the impress of that strange violence which Satan is permitted to exercise at certain moments, and which is the type of the warfare which is ever waged between him and God's Church. He can shake it at times by the storms he raises; but vain are his attempts to overthrow it. The mark of Satan's fury is stamped on the roof of Franceses's lowly cell; but the relics of the canonised Saint now fill the chamber which, in his impotent rage, the tempter once sought to destroy. But this life of wonders, of trials, and of miracles, was drawing to a close. She who had been the holiest of maidens, of wives, and of widows, had all but finished her course, and many were the intimations she received of her approaching end.

On one of these occasions she selected one of the chapels in Santa Maria Nuova as a place of sepulture for the Oblates, and obtained from the Olivetan Monks that it should be reserved for that purpose. She often spoke of her death to the sisters, and told Rita, one of the companions of her youth, that she would succeed her in the government of the congregation. Don Ippolito, one of her coadjutors in the foundation of the order, had often implored two favours of her, that she would look upon him as her spiritual son, and that she would summon him to her death-bed. She assured him that the prayers of such a worthless sinner as herself were not deserving of a thought; but, moved by his importunities, she promised in the end to comply with his request. Accordingly, towards the end of the year 1439, when he was in Sienna on business, he received a letter from Francesca, in which she reminded him of his desire to be present at her last moments, and in consequence exhorted him to conclude his affairs, and return to Rome as soon as possible, which he accordingly did. On Christmas-day and on the Feast of St. Stephen she had visions of the Blessed Virgin and of the infant Jesus, which she communicated to Don Ippolito in the church of Santa Maria Nuova, where she had gone on her way back from San Lorenzo without the Walls and St. John of Lateran, which she had successively visited. The religious said to her with emotion: "Mother, you will now grant me the favour I have so often asked of you."

"Yes," replied the Saint, who had been all day in a kind of ecstasy, though she moved from one place to another; "yes; I look upon you now as my father, as my brother, and as my son." And so saying she left him, and returned to Tor di Specchi, still absorbed in contemplation.

Don Ippolito followed her with his eyes till she had disappeared from his sight, and joy and sorrow were struggling in his heart; for he felt that the time was come for her great gain and her children's unspeakable loss.