Venerable Stephen Bellesini

Although he was still only a deacon, his superiors assigned him to preaching, for which he showed the most fortunate dispositions. The trials attest to the good that these sermons did among the faithful. The crowds were large. One saw in this the mark of a particular help that God had reserved for these religious populations in such bad times. As soon as he reached the age to be a priest, the Bishop of Trent laid hands upon him. He had to be carried in a litter to the cathedral, for he had just had a long and painful illness. The zeal he displayed in the ministry, in preaching and confession, his penitent life, his piety, all this is attested in the legal inquiries.

The foreign invasion and the change of regime that followed opened a new career for the venerable servant of God. It was in 1809. An imperial edict having suppressed the religious Orders in the Tyrol, the Augustinians of Saint Mark left their house, with the exception of four who obtained permission to remain there. Bellesini was of this number. He consoled himself for the suppression of his Institute by devoting himself with more zeal to the works of the divine ministry; but soon this resource was taken from him. A decree prescribed the oath for all priests who publicly exercised the ministry; the venerable servant of God preferred to renounce preaching rather than take this oath. It was then that he conceived the plan for free schools, in opposition to the elementary schools, called normal schools, whose establishment the government was pursuing with such persistence. God poured His blessing upon the attempt of the venerable servant of God, and persecutions attempted to hinder it.

His charity for the poor was no less worthy of admiration. More than once, having nothing to give, he took off his own clothes to dress them. The niece of the venerable servant of God, a nun in a monastery in Rome, testified to the following, among other edifying facts: "Poor people would come to ask him for some money to borrow, and would bring as collateral baskets that seemed full of linens, and the servant of God would give them what they asked for, and keep the collateral, which he was accustomed to entrust to my mother; upon opening these baskets to make a note of the items, one would find worthless rags; note that the borrowers never returned and were never seen again. He never complained about these deceptions, and when my mother pointed out the fraud to him and warned him to be more careful, he replied that he did not believe that those who turned to him were guilty of deceiving him. I remember being told how, very often, the servant of God would distribute to poor people the clothes he was wearing, and more than once he would return home, sometimes without trousers, sometimes without a shirt; so my mother, who kept track of the linens, told him to go easy on distributing the shirts, because there were few left; once he replied, among other things, that, having no money for a poor unfortunate, he had decided to give his shirt. My mother, speaking of the expenses incurred by the servant of God for the support of his schools for several years, told me that they were estimated at ten thousand florins; she added that she could only attribute to a special providence that the family had not been ruined by this expenditure of money and furniture, at a time when troops were devastating the countryside, when produce was not being harvested, and one had to house not only senior officers but also a good number of soldiers, providing them with everything they wanted. Although my father felt great displeasure at the departure of the servant of God, his brother, nevertheless it was time for him to leave, otherwise he would have consumed the entire family patrimony for the benefit of the schools and the poor. His life was more that of a penitent than of someone who was merely sober; he ate very little, and very often he would carry the leftovers under his cloak to some poor family. When he knew there were sick people he knew in any way, especially those from the schools, or the poor, not only would he go to see them, but he would bring aid, he would assist them in body and spirit, and he would not leave the dying until they had breathed their last in his arms.

After such full days, sanctified by the exercise of charity, the venerable servant of God spent part of the nights in prayer. "I do not know precisely," a witness testified, "what his night rest was, but I knew from my mother that in the evening, when he went into his room to pray, in the company of Father dall'Orsola, they spent a long time in meditation, a fact confirmed to me by Father dall'Orsola, who added that, in these long prayers, he felt overcome by sleep, whereas Father Étienne seemed never to be tired of praying; he also told us that his room, being adjacent to that of the servant of God, he was sometimes awakened by his groans and sighs. He was accustomed to going to bed very late and rising very early; and as he had set his Mass for very early, care was taken that there was someone in the house to open the door for him; it was thus known that he usually said his Mass at the appointed hour; but it happened several times that at that hour he was not seen leaving his room, and for fear that he might be unwell, they wanted to enter, and they would find him on his knees on the floor with a book in his hand, and sometimes on the prie-dieu, which led to the belief that, having fallen asleep while praying, he had spent the night in that position. Many times he was seen, in prayer, remaining motionless for a long space of time, so that he had to be called several times. He kept the Constitutions of his Order as much as possible, not allowing any woman to enter his room, not even his sister-in-law. In short, the very exemplary conduct he maintained, in the strict sense of the word, was never subject to criticism, except by the enemies of religion; the whole city respected him as a saint. He had the custom of taking a short trip during the autumn holidays, not as a simple relaxation, but to preach and encourage the representatives of other countries to found schools for the youth on the model of that of Trent."

In 1812, Bavaria regained possession of Tyrol. One of the first acts of the government was to appoint Father Bellesini as General Director of the schools. The venerable servant of God worked to destroy every vestige of the normal schools; he abolished their rules and methods, and replaced them with regulations designed to ensure piety and instruction. These were the ones he had tested in his free schools. We find them among the documents printed on the occasion of the introduction of his cause. The government approved them, and as experience has continued to show their excellence, the Austrian government has never repealed them and still observes them today. The venerable servant of God held the position of General Director for five years, until 1817. Fearing the loss of such a devoted and useful priest, everything was done to keep him in Trent; he was offered a canonry at the cathedral, which he refused: his vows drew him elsewhere.

Étienne Bellesini had never ceased to regret his convent, and urgently asked the Lord for the grace to return to it. The restoration of religious Orders, which Pius VII undert ook imm Pie VII Pope who authorized the cult of Blessed Rainier. ediately after his return to Rome in 1814, offered him the means to finally fulfill his vows. Eight years had passed since the suppression of the convent of Saint-Marc, and there remained no hope of re-establishing it. The venerable Bellesini turned his eyes toward the Papal States, where the magnificence of Pius VII had restored the cloisters. Foreseeing that the inhabitants of Trent would not willingly consent to his departure, he resolved to escape secretly, without confiding his secret, without taking a passport for abroad. We shall tell of all the perils of such a journey. The letter he wrote from Ferrara to resign from the schools and announce his plan produced a most painful sensation in Trent. The government, hoping to bring him back through severity, ordered him via the newspapers to return to his homeland under penalty of confiscation and exile. Placing his duty above all else, the venerable servant of God willingly left to the government a portion of his director's salary that he had not yet collected, and resigned himself to perpetual exile.

Two obstacles stood in the way of his departure: first, the Austrian government never gave religious people passp gouvernement autrichien Political authority opposing the departure of religious personnel. orts for abroad; furthermore, a law of that time expressly forbade religious people expelled from convents during the French domination from emigrating to return to their cloisters. The convents were suppressed in these regions, and there was no hope of seeing them re-established. He resolved to run all the risks of a furtive departure as soon as he knew that religious houses were reopened in the Papal States. Obtaining a passport for abroad was not possible for a religious: he took one for the Venetian States. He accomplished his plan during the holidays; as if he had wanted to take a little cillégiatura, he made his relatives believe he was going on a short tour. He nevertheless hired a carriage at his own expense, and set off, entrusting himself to God. Arriving at a post where police agents asked for his passport, he presented the one he had, and said he was going to a neighboring country, which in fact he had to cross. At the border, he had his carriage go ahead, and followed it from a distance, on foot, breviary in hand, urgently commending himself to God, and the guards paid no attention to him. This great peril passed, he found another. The carriage was already embarked, and the passports of the other passengers having been examined, the venerable servant of God found himself in the greatest perplexity, for lack of being able to show his own, when one of the men directing the embarkation told him to hurry and get into the boat; he did so, and they forgot to ask for his passport. Upon arriving in Ferrara, he presented himself to Cardinal Spina, then legate in that city, and informed him of his position and the motive that had led him to leave his country; the cardinal had a passport given to him for the Papal States, and it was thus that he was able to freely arrive in Rome at the convent of Saint Augustine. During the time he stopped in Ferrara, he stayed at the convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance, and he wrote to his brother who lived in Trent, to let him know that he was in a safe place, that they should no longer think of him, and that he was returning to his Order.

Father Rotelli, General of the Augustinians, entrusted Bellesini with the position of master of novices, which he fulfilled in Rome for four years, and th en for five ye Citta di Pieve Location where the Augustinian novitiate was situated. ars in Città della Pieve, where the novitiate was transferred; he discharged his duties to general satisfaction. The virtues he practiced during this nine-year period as master of novices made his holiness shine no less brightly than in previous times. His charity was seen in the zeal he showed to everyone, without respect of persons, fervent in his ministry, full of solicitude in his rebukes, fatherly in his corrections, discreet in his commands, compassionate toward all weaknesses, in a word, becoming all things to all men. The Spirit of God that reigned within him was shown in his fidelity to fulfilling the divine laws and the rules of his Order, in his angelic purity, his constant self-hatred, and his contempt for all the things of this world in order to desire only those of heaven.

He constantly combined gentleness with firmness, charity with regularity. The novices respected and loved him because of the humility and gentleness with which he treated them, and the charity he showed, whether in reprimanding them or assisting them in their illnesses; he was seen day and night by their bedsides to bring them the help they needed. Città della Pieve being situated in a very cold climate, the servant of God, so that rising in the morning would be less painful, took it upon himself to wake everyone, a task which each novice should have done in his turn; he would light the fire, heat the water, and carry it to the cells. He was so attentive to everything that was done that nothing escaped him. He corrected the slightest faults, the lightest transgressions of the Rule. His penances consisted of kissing the earth, which he called our mother, depriving the culprit of wine, or half of the ordinary breakfast; sometimes he excluded him from the private chapel of the novitiate for several days; these punishments were always just. He gave his advice with a firmness always accompanied by gentleness; he imbued it with an inexpressible kindness and caution. He was constantly seen presiding over the exercises of the novitiate, like a lamp on a lampstand, becoming a novice with the novices, and practicing the word of the Gospel: *Coepit Jesus facere et docere*. He would come several times at night to see if they were sleeping; for he forbade staying awake without permission, even to study. He never got into his bed, and he was constantly found in prayer, or on his knees before his Crucifix. Could one not venerate a man always occupied in prayer, and who had condemned himself to a perpetual fast? He let nothing appear forced: everything was natural in him and bore the imprint of virtue.

The venerable servant of God ardently desired the restoration of common life in the convents of the Order. He asked for this grace from God through incessant prayers, and by sharing his desires with his novices, he encouraged them to pray for it. He also did his utmost to inspire in them a love of religious poverty, telling them that one must be rich in spirit and poor in temporal goods, to strip oneself of all attachment to comforts, ease, and money, and to imitate in this point, as in the rest, the spirit of poverty of Saint Augustine. Leo XII restored common life in the convent of Genazzano in 1826. Bellesini immediately asked to Gennazzano Site of the saint's final pastoral ministry and death. move to this house, and obtained it as soon as his time as master of novices was finished. He had been practicing poverty there for four years when, the parish having become vacant by the death of the pastor, he was chosen to replace him.

He fulfilled these pastoral duties for nine years until his death. This is the most glorious period of this beautiful life. This holy and fervent religious, already broken by mortification and illness, did not tire for an instant in the fulfillment of his duties. He was seen to be indefatigable in the worship of God, the administration of the sacraments, the spiritual instruction of his flock, the discipline of morals, the care of the poor, and the observance of ecclesiastical rules. All the moments of his life were applied to the duties of his ministry; he reserved none for his own relief. Although weakened by age and cruelly tormented by a chronic hernia, he was always ready, night and day, to hear confessions, to preach, to visit the sick. He never showed the slightest annoyance, the slightest impatience; nothing was ever able to stop him, neither distance, nor the rigor of winter, nor the heat of summer.

His whole life is a perfect model of the true pastor and father of souls. Not only did he preach every Sunday and on all holy days of obligation, in accordance with canonical rules, but he also did so on suppressed feast days, and every day during Lent. Catechism was his greatest delight; he never missed it on Sundays, morning and evening, and almost every day throughout the year. It is recounted what he did for the sanctification of Sunday, to extirpate blasphemy, to remove scandals, to reconcile families, to relieve the poor, and to assist the sick. He established the Sisters of Charity in his parish, in concert with the Venerable Gaspard del Bufalo. He asked for alms everywhere for his poor, at the doors of houses w hile making collec Gaspard de Buffalo Contemporary saint who collaborated with Bellesini. tions. He did not fear going into debt for his poor. God had given him, as to Solomon, latitudinem cordis quasi arenam, quæ est in littore maris. It was at the bedside of the sick that his charity shone with the brightest luster. Through food, remedies, and help of every kind, he was always seen occupied in assisting the infirm.

His private life was the same as in Trent, and in the novitiate of Rome or Città della Pieve. Universal mortification, continual prayer, self-abnegation, this is what is seen in the depositions of the witnesses. He surpassed himself during the epidemic that invaded his parish in 1839. One saw this sixty-five-year-old man, broken by age and illness, not giving himself a moment of rest, traveling day and night through the streets of the city to care for the sick, rich or poor, hearing confessions, administering the sacraments, and receiving the last sighs of the dying. This epidemic was still raging when the last hour of the venerable servant of God struck. He rendered his soul to God on February 2, 1840, the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin.

Without speaking of Father Bellesini's ardent faith, his constant love for the Blessed Virgin, his filial affection for the Church and the Sovereign Pontiff, one can summarize in two words the main features of his public life, whose moralizing and teaching influence still endures: he was a true martyr of charity towards his neighbor, a living host of devotion and sacrifice for the general good.

Shortly after his death, his reputation for holiness and the numerous miracles that occurred at his tomb through his intercession gave rise to the desire for his canonization. The Sacred Congregation of Rites having received, in 1843, the legal inquiries made in Trent, Rome, and the diocese of Palestine, ten years had not yet passed when the introduction of the cause was submitted to the same Congregation in 1852, and signed by Pope Pius IX on January 15 of Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. the same year.

We have borrowed this life from the Amérits.