Blessed Villana de Bottis

Villana Villana Fourteenth-century Florentine saint, member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. , born i n Floren Florence City where Julie served as a maid. ce at the beginning of the 14th century to the honest family of famille de Bottis Noble or honorable family from Florence from which Villana descended. Bottis, appeared from her childhood entirely devoted to celestial desires and the holiest works of penance. Sighing after the divine spouse, she left her father's house to go and hide in a convent of nuns. But it was in vain that she fled, for God wished to make the riches of His mercy shine in her in a more brilliant manner. She married against her will, to obey her father, and, soon seduced by the pomps and vanities of the world, she gradually abandoned the exercises of the spiritual life to which she had first devoted herself. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who did not want the wandering sheep to perish, permitted that at a certain moment when she was taking great care to adorn herself, and was admiring the charms of her face in a mirror, she saw herself twice as resembling a demon.

Terrified by this vision which made her know the ugliness of her soul, she abandoned her rich clothes, left behind her finery, and ran, dressed very simply, to the Preac hing Friars of S Frères Prêcheurs Mendicant religious order founded by Saint Dominic. anta Maria Novella, shedd Sainte-Marie la Neuve Church where the saint's body was deposited. ing abundant tears, by which she purified her soul of its former stains.

Thus changed by the right hand of the Most High, Villana, in order to redeem the time, devoted herself with ardor to fasting, prayer, all works of penance, and the contempt of perishable things. Not only did she return to that degree of fervor she had formerly abandoned, but she was soon inflamed with the fires of divine love and merited such abundant graces that she was often rapt in ecstasy, especially during the holy Sacrifice and when she took part in a reading or a spiritual conference. When she was warned to set limits to her austerities, she replied that the sweetness of the divine love with which she was filled made her find bodily food tedious. The poor excited her charity so keenly that the authority of her parents and her husband was required to dissuade her from going to beg from door to door for her sustenance. Jealous to become more and more conformed to Jesus crucified, she had to endure insults, calumnies, outrages, long and cruel infirmities, the insults of demons, and the traps that were set for her. All these trials were so far from overcoming her courage that she ardently desired to see them increase even more.

Amidst her holy practices and her other works of penance, courage, and piety, it is certain that Villana deserved to enjoy, on several occasions, heavenly apparitions and conversations. Her cell sometimes shone with supernatural light; often, too, she predicted the future. Finally, when the time approached to receive the reward for her virtues, exhausted by her glorious labors, victorious over the artifices of the devil, she received with deep devotion the sacraments of the Church. She then had the Passion of the Lord read to her, and when it reached these words: *Bowing his head, he expired*, she placed her hands in the form of a cross on her chest, and rendered her holy soul to God, in the year 1360. Her body, clothed in the habit of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, exhaling a heavenly fragrance, was from then on the object of the incessant veneration of the faithful, to the point that, for a month and more, it was not possible to celebrate her funeral. The admiration was general; many people vied for scraps of her clothing. The writers of the time say that the holiness of Villana was attested by miracles. It is therefore not surprising that the cult of this servant of God has been maintained for several centuries, and that it has reached us, increasing day by day. It is after having known all these facts, and having canonically examined them, that Pope Leo II, on the favorable advice of the Congregation of Rites, deigned to permit the Order of Preachers and the clergy, both secular and regular, of the diocese of Florence, to celebrate the office and the Mas diocèse de Florence City where Julie served as a maid. s in honor of Blessed Villana.

*Dominican Breviary.*