Venerable Brother Egidio of Saint Joseph

But the Lord, who perfects His elect through tribulations, prepared for him a very sensitive trial. Franci s was on François Alcantarian Franciscan religious, thaumaturge in Naples. ly in his eighteenth year when he lost his father. The pain he felt, following this cruel loss, was inexpressible. Fortunately, piety came to his aid, and, by inviting him to look toward heaven, where he had an immortal Father, it spread a divine balm over this stinging wound. To provide for the needs of his family, which had just lost its main support, Francis set to work with tireless ardor; but the Lord, who had much higher views for him, did not delay in manifesting His adorable designs by withdrawing him from the midst of the world at the very moment when he appeared to have been chained to it by the bonds of a sacred and rigorous duty. His mother having entered into a second marriage, Francis resolved to enter a religious Order and to devote himself entirely to the service of God. Faithful to the voice of the Lord, he requested the favor of being admitted into the Order of Saint Peter of Alcantara; which took place during the month Ordre de Saint-Pierre d'Alcantara Reformed branch of the Franciscan Order. of February 1734, at the convent in the city of Lecce. Francis was then twe nty-four years ville de Lecce City where he was admitted into the religious order. and two months old. The next day he went to Galatone, where the novitiate of the province Galatone Location of the novitiate. of Lecce was located. Twenty days after his entry into this house, he donned the habit of the Seraphic Order and took the name of Brother Egidio of the Mother of God.

He soon became an object of astonishment and admiration for all the religious. The beautiful virtue of simplicity shone in him with incomparable brilliance. This virtue had been one of the most precious ornaments of his youth; in religion, it blossomed like a flower transplanted under a sky favorable to it. Through sheer candor, he became, so to speak, entirely transparent; the deepest feelings of his heart painted themselves upon his face, and his brow was the faithful mirror of his soul. His faith showed him the eye of God open upon him wherever he was, and this thought rendered him in some way incapable of sinning. The holy Rule was for him a sacred and inviolable law from which he did not believe it possible to be dispensed. He never distinguished between points of great or small importance. As soon as he knew that a thing was forbidden or commanded, everything was said for him. He walked where duty traced his path, and he deviated neither to the right nor to the left in the way of good. The virtue of obedience seemed entirely natural to him; his superiors employed him for everything, without ever encountering a shadow of resistance. With the thought that it is the virtue of obedience that makes the religious, he had no other will than to accomplish that of others.

Fraternal charity, the practice of which, according to Saint Augustine, constitutes the principal saint Augustin Cited for his definition of fraternal charity. penance of the religious, did not even present him with obstacles to overcome. He truly loved his neighbor as himself from the depths of his heart, and he was always ready to sacrifice himself for their needs and their tastes. His happiness was to do good, and it was doing him a service to provide him with numerous occasions for it. His humility rendered him insensible to offenses; filled with low sentiments of himself, he sincerely believed he deserved all kinds of contempt. The slightest testimony of regard confounded him and made him see a subject of edification in the one who offered it to him.

Prayer was the charm of this soul so pure. He had always loved to converse with God, the angels, and the Saints; but, as soon as he saw himself clothed in the seraphic livery, he was in an almost continuous transport of love and gratitude. His prayer escaped from his heart like flames from a furnace. When he appeared before the Most Blessed Sacrament or in the presence of the Madonna, his naive faith showed him God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints as present as if he had seen them with his own eyes. He addressed God as the tenderest of fathers, Mary as a Mother from whom he knew he could expect everything, and the Saints as friends and brothers keenly desirous of helping him. The religious of the monastery of Lecce could not see without admiration so many virtues in a young novice.

The year of his novitiate had not yet elapsed when the superiors of the monastery warned him to prepare for the great day when he was to contract an eternal alliance with the Lord. The news of a favor that crowned all those he had already received made him tremble with happiness. It was on February 28, 1755, that he pronounced his solemn vows and, following the custom of the Alcantarine family, changed his name and became known as Brother Egidio of Saint Joseph. A few days lat frère Egidio de Saint-Joseph Alcantarian Franciscan religious, thaumaturge in Naples. er, his superiors sent him to the convent of Squizzano, a small town near the city of Nardo, where he received the position of assistant cook. This occupation allowed him to enjoy the sweetness of solitude at his ease, and to put the finishing touches to his sanctification through the practice of perfect recollection and continual prayer. But the Reverend Father Provincial having ordered him to leave this convent and go to Naples to that of Saint Paschal Baylon, the humble Brother hastened to the place that had just been assigned to him and fulfilled the same office there.

The religious of Saint Paschal did not take long to notice his great piety and high perfection. They saw him with an always even temper, a smile on his lips, active in the duties of his job, calm and unhurried in his actions. They never heard a complaint from his mouth nor a murmur. He was kind and charitable towards all; no one seemed to bother him, and everyone found him disposed to serve them with as much zeal as if he had only them to satisfy; in a word, he offered to all eyes the accomplished model of a proven virtue. The Fathers of the reform of Saint Peter of Alcantara, seeing that he combined all the qualit ies that constitute the perfect religious, cast Pères de la réforme de saint Pierre d'Alcantara Reformed branch of the Franciscan Order. their eyes on him to fill the position of porter. In this job, his virtues began to attract the attention of the public: in a short time, his name was on everyone's lips, and people came from all parts to commend themselves to his powerful prayers. This concourse redoubled when the rumor spread that he had obtained health for the sick, made desperate affairs prosper, and converted hardened sinners. From then on, the wealthy families of Naples wanted to have him in their palaces, and the sick at the foot of their beds of pain. Such an unexpected event determined the superiors of the convent to apply Brother Egidio to a job that would allow him to respond to the confidence that his virtues had acquired for him: they therefore named him Brother questor. This was then the beginning of an infinite number of miracles that he performed in the city of Naples for more than fifty years.

Scarcely did he see himself charged with this duty than he showed great zeal for the decoration of the Church and the magnificence of worship. Nevertheless, external worship was not what concerned him most. However ardent his zeal for the beauty of the house of God appeared, the zeal he displayed in procuring for Him adorers in spirit and in truth was even greater. On the days when he had the happiness of receiving Holy Communion, he became a touching spectacle of edification for the entire community. The expression his face took on at the moment he approached the holy table struck all who saw him. He resembled an angel of heaven who had approached the throne of the divine Majesty with fear and love. After uniting himself with God, he seemed to have forgotten this world and to have plunged into the depths of the Divinity. He no longer knew what was happening around him: the presence of his God absorbed him; he saw nothing else but the greatness of his Beloved, and tasted nothing but the sovereign Good.

It was not possible for Brother Egidio to love the divine Son of God so vividly without conceiving a tender affection for His heavenly Mother. The immeasurable love with which he was consumed for Our Lord engendered in his heart an incomparable tenderness for the most holy Virgin. After soliciting and obtaining from his superiors a painting representing Our Lady of the Well, he placed it on an altar and introduced its feast into the customs of the convent. It was celebrated on the fourth Sunday of the month of August. He also had a very particular devotion to the glorious patriarch Saint Joseph, to Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Peter of Alcantara, and Saint Paschal Baylon. This fami liar commerce he ha saint Pascal Baylon Franciscan saint to whom Egidio had a devotion. d with the Saints allowed him to taste

in advance something of the felicity of heaven. Although the necessities of life kept him captive on earth, he dwelt in spirit among the Blessed. He saw them with the eyes of faith, he spoke to them, he invoked them unceasingly. He treated them as friends and brothers; he had made them the companions and consolers of his exile.

The spirit of penance yielded nothing to the other virtues in the venerable Brother. His abstinence, rigorous in ordinary times, redoubled even more on the days when the Franciscan Rule makes it a special precept for all members of the Seraphic family. He carried the spirit of mortification into all his conduct: he granted little rest to his body, and even then he had found the secret of diminishing its comfort as much as possible through the hardness of his bed. Besides the disciplines of the rule, he took others in secret. A man of the world, with whom he was familiar, having entered his cell, asked him why, in addition to his discipline of ropes, he saw another of iron blades. The Saint began to smile, and answered him: "When the demon delivers only small assaults to me, I use the discipline of ropes; but when his attacks are violent, I seize the discipline of iron, and I force him to take flight." But his great mortification was the life he led: his entire existence was a martyrdom as cruel as it was silent. His incessant errands in all the quarters of the city of Naples, his extreme sobriety, his perseverance in an imperturbable equanimity in the midst of so many requests and importunities, his constant self-forgetfulness, his perpetual attention to the needs of others, the exact practice of an austere Rule, an irreproachable fidelity to great as well as small things, the continual guarding of his senses and his heart in the midst of an enthusiastic crowd, this is what made him the admiration of all, and raised Brother Egidio to the rank of the greatest penitents.

There are no solid virtues without a deep humility to serve as their foundation; thus the Lord, who always measures His graces to man according to the part he is to have in the fulfillment of His designs, had favored His servant with an incomparable humility. Brother Egidio performed the most astonishing miracles and aroused universal admiration without ever perceiving that he could be anything in these great wonders. He saw in them only the omnipotence of God, in whose eyes great and small things are equally easy, and he could not conceive that men were blind enough to stop at the weak instrument He deigned to use. The venerable Brother had acquired the reputation of a Saint, a wonder-worker, and a man powerful before God, when the Lord, judging that the earth was no longer worthy of him, sent him a mortal illness and called him to Himself to reward him. It was in the year 1812. He was struck by dropsy of the chest which forced him to take to his bed, never to rise again. Soon the illness made frightening progress, and the pains the sick man endured were intolerable. The beautiful virtues of the venerable Brother Egidio never shone as brightly as they did on his deathbed. He had always loved holy poverty as the most precious jewel of the Franciscan Order; he wished to give it a final token of his esteem and affection by asking the Reverend Father Guardian to choose the poorest and most worn habit for him to be clothed in after his passing. His faith was so vivid that it showed him future things as if they were present. His hope had passed into a state of sweet and sure confidence, which no longer allowed for fear or a shadow of doubt. He spoke of heaven as his father's house; he prepared to go there because he was expected. The flames of divine charity devoured him, and he could barely contain them. He saw himself on the point of going to see Jesus, whose name returned incessantly to his lips, Mary whom he loved as the tenderest of mothers, and the glorious Saint Joseph, who had been the protector of his life and the author of his religious vocation. Finally, fortified by the Sacraments of the Church, he render glorieux saint Joseph Protector of his life and author of his vocation. ed his soul to God on February 7, 1812.

As soon as the news of his death spread, throngs of people immediately began to head toward the convent of S aint-Pascal to contempl couvent de Saint-Pascal Convent where he lived in Naples. ate one last time the face of the friend of God. His holy remains were exposed for several days in the church to satisfy the devotion of the faithful, who tore his clothes into pieces to keep them as relics. On the fifth day, the religious secretly held the funeral of the venerable Brother and buried him in the common grave; but, in 1836, the body was exhumed with great solemnity, and it was placed in a modest monument erected near the door of the church. The cause for the beatification of the venerable servant of God is already very advanced. The miracles he has performed since his death are, so to speak, without number. His bones flourish, according to the language of Scripture; and the fruits they produce are fruits of grace and salvation.

We have used, to compose this biography, the Annales de la sainteté ou XIXe siècle Annales de la sainteté ou XIXe siècle Bibliographic source used for the text. .