Saint Hyacinth Mariscotti

However, one was forced to revise the good opinion one had formed of this child; for she had barely entered adolescence when she suddenly changed her conduct, becoming as frivolous and worldly as she had been pious and recollected until then. She thought only of her toilette and profane assemblies and seemed incapable of any serious thought. Her elder sister, Innocentia, was then giving the example of every virtue at the Poor Clare convent in Viterb Viterbe City in Italy where Gerard fell ill. o; she was taken to her to try to bring her back to the good, but neither the good care of her sister nor the wise lessons and salutary warnings of the nuns could do anything for this light heart. From the day she entered the convent, she manifested only one desire: to leave it as quickly as possible. She burned to throw herself into the whirlwind of the world and to taste those bitter and violent pleasures which, for her, were the supreme happiness of life. At first, she experienced only great disappointment: beautiful and flirtatious, she hoped to make a brilliant marriage; she saw her younger sister, Hortense, marry the Roman Marquis Paul Capizucchi, while no suitable match presented itself for her. She conceived a deep sorrow from this, became dark, melancholic, and of such a difficult mood that it was almost impossible to live with her.

The peace of the family was seriously compromised by this wayward young girl; she could no longer think of marrying, and there was no other resource for her but the convent. Although she manifested extreme repugnance for religious life, her father urged her to become a Poor Clare. She obeyed and entered a monastery of the Third Order Regular in Viterbo, where she received the name Sister Hyacinthe. But instead of forgetting the world, says the chronicler, she brought it in with her to the convent. She declared that she would not inhabit the horrible little cells of the nuns and had a magnificent room built for herself, which she adorned with princely luxury; she put splendid hangings, carpets, and gold and silver draperies in it; her jewels were spread out on a marble table; one would have thought they were seeing the dwelling of a worldly princess, rather than the retreat of a servant of Christ. She performed the exercises of piety with lukewarmness and endured the observances prescribed by the rule with a boredom she did not even try to disguise. For ten whole years, she led this kind of life, and neither the remonstrances of her superiors nor the exhortations of her parents could bring her back to conduct more in conformity with the spirit of the holy institute she had embraced.

The Lord, however, eventually cast a look of His divine mercy upon her: He brought a holy man to the convent, Father Antonio Bionchetti. At that mom père Antoine Bionchetti Confessor whose severity prompted the saint's conversion. ent, Sister Hyacinth, gravely ill, was lying on her bed of pain, and struck with terror at the thought of the fate that awaited her in the next world, she was crying out for a confessor. Father Antonio hurried over: at the sight of this sumptuous apartment and the luxury items with which a daughter of Saint Clare had surrounded herself, he stopped short and refused to hear her confession, saying that Paradise was not made for proud people. The poor nun showed violent despair: "So, I cannot be saved," she said, shedding a torrent of tears, "and it is written that God will have no pity on me." "Change your life," replied the servant of Christ, "leave behind these vain adornments, these jewels, these sumptuous clothes; be humble, be pious, forget the world and think only of the things of heaven; and perhaps then, forgiveness will come with repentance." The next day he heard her general confession; the unhappy woman was sobbing so hard that she could only utter broken words. Then she rose despite her weakness, replaced her silk dress with a coarse habit, and went to the refectory where she disciplined herself in the presence of her sisters, from whom she asked forgiveness with tears in her eyes and in her voice. The nuns, full of joy at the sight of this sudden transformation, consoled her, encouraged her to persevere in this good path, and promised her the help of their prayers: Saint Hyacinth was about to begin living for the Lord.

However, her conversion was still only partial, and she could not at first resign herself to leaving all the futilities that had until then been her joy. It was only a few months later, following a new illness, that yielding to the all-powerful influence of grace, and to the counsel of Saint Catherine of Sie na who appeared to her in sainte Catherine de Sienne Dominican mystic saint to whom Agnes is compared. the midst of her sufferings, she made a definitive and heroic resolution. She sacrificed everything she possessed in defiance of the rule, returned her furniture, dresses, and jewelry to the abbess, and donned the habit of a nun who had just died. She embraced a life of penance so austere that one cannot think of it without shuddering. She chose as her patrons in heaven the Saints who had, like her, first allowed themselves to be carried away by the torrent of the world: Saint Augustine, Saint Mary of Egypt, Saint William, Saint Margaret of Cortona. She no longer wanted to be called Hyacinthe Mariscotti, but Sister Hyacinthe of Saint Mary. She no longer consented to see her relatives and friends except by order of the abbess, and to practice the holy virtue of obedience, in which she had so often failed in the past; Jesus Christ suffering on his cross was her only thought and her only love.

Day and night, she mortified herself. She took the discipline with such severity that the floor of her cell was all red with blood. In memory of the divine wounds of the Savior, she made large wounds on her feet, hands, and side, which she herself reopened continuously and which she only allowed to heal upon a formal order from her superiors. She had procured an immense crucifix, which she carried almost all day on her shoulders, and to the arms of which she had herself tied at night with iron chains. A bundle of vine branches now served as her bed; a stone was her only pillow. She trod with her delicate, dainty feet upon the rough paving of the convent courtyard, on which she often left traces of blood; and every Friday, in memory of the thirst of Jesus, she placed a handful of salt in her mouth. She drank only water, and ate only very hard bread that she let burn in the oven, to make it unpleasant to the taste. Once, to punish herself for having found a little mutton she had eaten on Easter day to be good, she let a piece of it rot in her cell for fourteen days, and made a meal of it. During Advent and Lent, she lived on salad and roots boiled in water. In a word, she pushed her austerities, her fasts, and her other penances as far as the preservation of her life permitted.

Humility is the virtue of angels: Hyacinth possessed it to the highest degree. Rich in all the gifts of nature and grace, truly holy in the eyes of men and in the eyes of God, she continued to regard herself as the last of sinners. The poorest lay sister had a more beautiful habit and a less severe cell than hers. She sought every opportunity to be despised and humiliated. Often she came to the refectory without a veil, a rope around her neck, and she would kiss the feet of the nuns, asking their pardon for the scandal she had been. She would lie down on the threshold and beg the sisters and novices to walk over her body. She did the most repugnant work of the convent, swept the cells, and almost always while dragging herself on her knees, to tire herself more. The nuns did not spare her harsh words, and many of them treated her openly as hallucinated and mad. She rejoiced in this in the depths of her heart, and preferred by far the coarsest insults to the praises that the superior often gave her. When she was named sub-prioress and mistress of novices, she only decided to accept these dignities upon the absolute order of the abbess: "How do you wish," she said, weeping, "that I should direct others in the path of virtue, when I hardly know how to conduct myself?"

One day, in the parlor, a young girl who had come to visit a nun who was her friend spoke in very glowing terms of the blessed Hyacinth, and said that in the world she had heard her virtues celebrated many times. The holy girl happened to be passing by, and she heard this conversation: "Men," she replied without making herself known, "always speak of what they do not know; this nun is the greatest sinner in the universe."

She ceaselessly implored the prayers of all the people who had any relationship with her. "It has been fourteen years since I changed my conduct," she wrote to a nun; "during this time I have prayed sometimes for forty hours in a row, I have attended several masses every day, and I find myself further than ever from perfection. When will I be able to serve my God as He deserves? Pray for me, my friend, so that the Lord may give me at least hope!"

God had granted her the gift of working miracles, but she defended herself against them as if they were a crime. Some Italians, while sailing on the sea, were suddenly assailed by a violent storm and found themselves in danger of death. One of them immediately thought of the blessed sister, whose holiness was proverbial, and joining his hands, he cried out: "O Sister Hyacinthe, come to our aid, or we perish." At that very instant, the passengers saw, standing at the bow of the boat, a Poor Clare in a white habit, who was smoothing the waves and guiding the craft with supernatural strength toward the harbor. Deposited safe and sound on the shore, they immediately ran to the convent to express all their gratitude to the blessed one. The abbess ordered her to come to the parlor, but no sooner had she heard them say: "It is she who saved us from the storm," than she fled, like a culprit pursued by justice, and went off, blushing with shame, to hide in her cell.

It is because she was so deeply convinced of the magnitude of her faults that the blessed Hyacinthe endured with perfect calm and tranquility the sufferings that it pleased God to send her. For seventeen years she was afflicted with almost continuous colic, produced by the poor food to which she had restricted herself and by the very excess of her austerities. Her pains were sometimes so violent that she would occasionally lose consciousness at the very moment she entered the choir. However, the same angelic smile illuminated her face, and she was never heard to groan except over the magnitude of her faults.

the demon, who saw with fury this soul escaping him, tried against her all his temptations and all his ruses; he broke himself against a virtue more solid than iron ramparts and bronze gates. All the powers of hell did not prevail against the bride of Christ, supported as she was by the love of her God and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. She opposed the attacks of the evil spirit with prayers, meditations, long contemplations at the feet of the crucified Savior, the reading of good books, and the advice of her confessor, and she triumphed with the help of the Most High. If it is true that emerging victorious from temptations, when one has previously succumbed to them, is more pleasing to God than all prayers and offerings, the name of the blessed Hyacinthe must have been inscribed before many others in the golden book of heaven.

After having crushed the demon when he attacked her, Hyacinthe occupied herself with delivering from his infernal power all those who had succumbed to it. Sinners, especially those who had fallen the most heavily, were the object of her solicitude. When she saw a fault committed against God, it seemed to her that her heart was going to break; she took her share of the sin, mortified herself, and punished herself as if she had been the guilty one herself: "My God," she would say, "why can I not make men understand the magnitude of their nothingness, and place before their eyes hell with all its horrors, in order to bring them back to You by fear, if not by love? O my sovereign good, to think that one does not know You, and that one does not love You! O light of the world, to think that one does not see You! What more cruel torment for those who see You, who know You, and have no other object than You!"

When she tried to convert a sinner, she had an irresistible eloquence that came from the heart and went to the heart. She felt for them an immense pity that translated into passionate words and prayers so touching that one could not help but promise her to amend one's ways and return to the bosom of the Church. The unfortunate women who sold their souls with their bodies were especially the object of her ardent solicitude; she would have them come near her, show them the horror of their conduct, rebuke them gently like a mother scolding her child, and draw tears of repentance from the most hardened. Most of the time, she gave them money and suitable clothing, and had them enter respectable houses or convents.

Often, by the sole force of her prayers, she brought back stray souls to the good. A mother, whose son was living in an unworthy manner, came to find her with tears in her eyes and asked her for advice: "Be at peace," the Saint told her, "God will come to your aid." She immediately knelt down and addressed fervent supplications to heaven. That very day, the repentant young man came to implore his mother's forgiveness for his faults.

Blessed Hyacinthe had the love of chastity to the highest degree, and all her words tended to inspire this virtue: "Holy and immaculate virginity," she often said, "what praises can sufficiently celebrate you?" And again:

"Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus, by your spotless virginity before the Conception, help me to remain myself chaste and pure in my soul.

"Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus, by your spotless virginity during the Conception, help me to remain myself chaste and pure in my body.

"Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus, by your spotless virginity after the Conception, help me to remain myself chaste and pure in my words."

It was she also who addressed this prayer to Mary:

"Let us place ourselves under the protection of the holy Mother of God; O glorious and thrice-blessed Virgin, assist us in our needs, and deliver us from all evil." Amen.

One of the conversions that does the most honor to the blessed Hyacinthe is that of François Pacini, a soldier of fortune, whose cruelty, insolence, and shamelessness had made him sadly famous throughout Italy. The Saint heard of him, and she resolved to make him a pious man who feared God. She fasted, prayed, and mortif ied herself for François Pacini A cruel soldier converted by the saint's influence. forty days; then she wrote to him to come see her at her convent for very important business. Pacini replied at first that he had sworn never to set foot in a cloister, and he refused. But Hyacinthe did not consider herself beaten: at her prayer, a converted sinner named Simonetti, who had once been a friend of Pacini, went to find him and mocked him: "How you have changed," he said to him, "since you no longer even dare to face the gaze of a woman." Pacini feared being thought to have been afraid for once in his life; he came to find Hyacinthe, promising himself he would make her regret her action for a long time. He had reckoned without God, who, when it pleases Him, breaks the most insolent courage and transforms devouring wolves into timid sheep. Scarcely was he in the presence of the Saint than he felt himself trembling; he could only murmur confused words, and, suddenly seized with horror at the picture she painted of his crimes, he fell to his knees, shed bitter tears, and promised to go to confession. The following Sunday, the day of the Passion of Our Lord, he went barefoot and with a rope around his neck to kneel in the middle of the church and make amends. Later he went to Rome dressed in a pilgrim's habit and consecrated the rest of his life to the Lord.

It would be too long to enumerate all the conversions that the holy nun brought about, the convents she reformed through stern letters addressed to overly lenient superiors, and the cities where the mere reputation of her holiness transformed worldly and frivolous gatherings into pious assemblies. From all sides, she was asked for advice and prayers. It was at her instigation that Ca milla Savelli, Camille Savella Roman noblewoman who founded monasteries under the influence of the saint. Duchess of Farnese and Savelli, founded two monasteries of Poor Clares in Farnese and Rome. Novices flocked to the convent of Viterbo to walk under her guidance on the path of perfection, and many of them, among others Blessed Lucrezia, followed in her footsteps so well that they died in the odor of sanctity.

The Saint of Viterbo showed equal solicitude for the physical sufferings and the moral ailments of humanity. The amount of alms she gave is almost incredible. One wonders by what means, poor and destitute as she herself was, she was able to distribute so much money and clothing to the poor. She went herself to visit the shamefaced poor and bring them everything they needed. In the sad hovels where she sometimes spent long hours, she brought with her peace, joy, hope, and well-being. She had an inexhaustible ardor for charity: 'If only I could, like the Lord on the mountain in times past,' she would say, 'multiply the clothes I wear and the bread I eat, to clothe and feed all the unfortunate of this world? I will go and preach beneficence and charity through the streets! Poverty is holy; it is a daughter of heaven; men must respect it. When the poor suffer, Mary, their queen, weeps in heaven, and the generations of the rich, who pass by without lowering their eyes to their misery and without reaching out their hands to them, are cursed by the Lord. Whoever despises the poor, despises Jesus Christ; whoever rejects them, commits a crime against God.'

A few months before her death, she felt herself, so to speak, slowly consumed by the fire of divine love; this was the sign by which she was to recognize that she would soon return to the heavenly homeland. God had also announced to her that in her final moments, she would receive from a priest a magnificent statuette of the Most Holy Virgin; this is indeed what happened: she placed it in her cell, and from then on she thought only of dying well. She wrote to Cardinal Brancaccio to commend to him the confraternity she had founded under the patronage of Mary. On January 29, she confessed with great piety and received Holy Communion; and on the very evening of that day, at the moment she was reciting the litanies of the Blessed Virgin with her sisters, she was suddenly seized with such violent colic that she had to be taken to the infirmary. They tried to give her hope that she would not suffer for long: "It is true," she replied, "a few more hours, and I shall be forever delivered from all the evils of this world." The most famous doctors of Viterbo conferred on the means to save her: "Thank them for their good will," she murmured, "but tell them that tomorrow I shall be in heaven with my Fiancé."

Those present could not hold back their tears. She asked one last time for forgiveness from the abbess and all the nuns for the faults she had committed and the scandal she had caused, and begged them to pray for her at the hour of death. Then she confessed again several times, murmured: "Jesus, fiancé of my soul, come to my aid," and: "Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit," and on the evening of January 30, 1640, she fell asleep in the bosom of God. She was fifty-four years old, and she had entered the convent in her twentieth year.

At the news of her death, there was universal mourning in Viterbo.

Miracles that were accomplished through her intercession, such as the healing of a lame man, further increased the enthusiastic veneration of the people. Finally, her funeral could be celebrated. A Franciscan friar, amidst the sobs and groans of those present, delivered the funeral oration for Sister Hyacinth and recalled with emotion her incomparable virtues. Then she was buried in the common vault of the convent. Her discipline, her large cross, the board that served as her bed, and her other instruments of penance were sent to the illustrious families of the Mariscotti, the Ruspoli, and the Capizucchi.

Eight days after the Saint's death, a leprous child was healed at her tomb.

André Cecconi, a familiar of Cardinal Mariscotti, sent on a mission by the Pope to Spain, fell into a river and thought he would drown; he invoked the help of Hyacinth and felt himself supported by an invisible hand until he reached the other bank, where he arrived safely.

Blind and mute people recovered their sight or speech at her tomb, and the holiness of the blessed one was thus affirmed more each day. In 1618, Cardinal Urbain Sachetti, Bishop of Viterbo, instituted a solemn procession in her honor, and some time later he asked Pope Alexander VIII to canonize her; this request was supported by the entire Order of Saint Francis, by the convent of the Poor Clares of Viterbo, by the Emperor, by the Kings of Spain and Poland, by the Duke of Tuscany, and by most of the princes of Christendom. A first trial opened in Rome at that time; a second, under the pontificate of Urban VIII; finally, on February 18, 1698, eleven cardinals, ten prelates, and eleven regular counselors of the Roman court met one last time to examine the documents presented from all sides.

In 1726, Pope Benedict XIII placed Sister Hyacinth in the rank of the blessed, and in 1807, Pope Pius VII canonized her.

Saint Hyacinth is the patroness of Viterbo: her office is cel ebrated on F pape Pie VII Pope who authorized the cult of Blessed Rainier. ebruary 6, in the States of the Church and in a large number of dioceses in France.

We have extracted this life from our Seraphic Palm (12 vol. in-8°), to give an idea of this work dedicated to all the Saints of the various Orders of Saint Francis: charming details abound there, and in a biography, these are the details one loves. Because of the length of most of these biographies, it would be impossible for us to reproduce them in the Petits Bollandistes without abbreviating them: we can therefore only refer to our Palm, which is like a complement to them.