Blessed Bernard of Corleone

It will be easily understood that Philip's character, naturally violent and impetuous, could not be softened by such a way of life; on the contrary, he became in a way ferocious. A war commissioner having spoken to him haughtily, he struck off his head with a blow of his saber. He cut off the arm of a gentleman who had raised his hand to slap him. Proud and determined, he killed three bandits in Palermo who wanted to kill him, and disarmed several soldiers who had sought to measure themselves against him. In the midst of these excesses, he nevertheless sometimes showed sentiments of equity and justice. Here are several examples.

Philip learns that two soldiers have taken from one of his compatriots the money for the wheat that this man had sold in Palermo. Touched by compassion, he pursues the thieves, catches up with them, threatens them, intimidates them, and forces them to hand over the purse, which he immediately goes to return to the poor laborer. His conduct was even more generous toward a young person whom he heard screaming in a wood through which he was passing with one of his friends. He goes toward the place from which the cries are coming, and finds there a young girl who was defending herself with courage against four abductors. At this sight, Philip, seized with a just indignation, fires a pistol shot at the most determined of these libertines, puts the others to flight, reassures the innocent victim, and immediately escorts her back to her parents.

However, the principles of religion he had received in his early childhood were not entirely erased from his mind; and, although he was far from making them the rule of his conduct, he sometimes remembered them, and these moments were for him those of his good deeds. Thus, having one day won a considerable sum at gambling: "It is just," he said, "to redeem my sins." He immediately entered the hospital of Palermo, threw this money into the alms box intended for the sick, and withdrew with haste. But these were only fleeting flashes that quickly gave way to the most criminal passions. Hatred was one of those that dominated him the most; and not content with exercising it toward his living enemies, he wanted to manifest it toward a dead man who had once displeased him. The funeral of this man was being held in the church; and Philip, forgetting at once the respect due to the holy place and the consideration deserved by an afflicted family, publicly showed, in the very temple, the joy he felt at the passing of this alleged enemy. He lived in a country where, at that time at least, religion was respected and protected; such a scandal could not, therefore, remain unpunished. His impious action was reported to the magistrates, who hastened to open an inquiry against him. The fear of a criminal trial with which he was threatened forced him to hide; but soon abandoned by all, desperate and pursued by the officers of justice, he had no other recourse than to take refuge in a church to enjoy the right of asylum.

It was there that the mercy of God awaited this great sinner to touch and convert him. At the moment he had caused the scandal that brought about his trouble, he had felt his fault: and besides, he had been mistreated by the relatives of the deceased, whose memory he had insulted. These combined circumstances had made some impression on him; but the moment for effective repentance had not yet arrived. It was therefore in this church where he had taken refuge that, having cast his eyes upon a crucifix, he began to understand how criminal he was before God. Grace then acting in his soul, he watered the floor with his tears, offered to the Lord the sacrifice of a contrite and humbled heart, which is never rejected, renounced the world forever, and made the resolution, if God would be pleased to accept him, to enter the Capuchins to spend the rest of his days there in the practice of penance.

Philip did not delay for a moment in executing the resolution he had taken; he presented himself to the Father Guardian of the convent of Palermo, where he wished to be admitted; but the superior, knowing him by reputation, treated him with rigor, reproached him for his vices, and sent him to the Father Provincial, who was then making his visitation in that district. The latter did not receive the penitent any better; then, overcome by his solicitations, he gave him hope that he would be received if he would make amends for his scandals and especially the outrage he had committed against an entire family. Although born in an obscure condition, this unfortunate young man had a noble soul capable of great things. He was one of those lively characters who have an equal ardor for good and for evil; he therefore had the courage to overcome his natural pride and go throw himself at the feet of those he had offended. Having obtained their forgiveness, he returned to the Capuchins, w ho admitted him to Bernard de Corléon Sicilian Capuchin lay brother, former soldier who converted. the novitiate and changed his name from Philip to that of Bernard of Corleone.

One sees too often in the world men who, having undertaken their conversion, leave this important work unfinished and look back after having put their hand to the plow. Such was not the new novice. He worked with as much care to acquire virtues as he had once put into satisfying his passions. The harsh treatment and humiliations he was made to endure to test him could neither discourage him nor weary his patience. The King's Lieutenant of Palermo himself came to the convent with several officers of the garrison, driven by curiosity and desiring to verify the conversion of Philip, whose bad conduct was not unknown to him. He spoke to him at first with haughtiness and contempt; but he received such humble answers that this magistrate, no longer doubting his change, embraced him, apologized for having treated him so, and commended himself to his prayers.

The fervor of Brother Bernard having been sustained throughout the time of his novitiate, his superiors permitted him to pronounce his vows. The people from the surroundings of Corleone flocked to the ceremony of his profession to ascertain if he was truly converted; he made his sacrifice with such piety and joy that he dispelled all the doubts of those present and moved them to tears. This edifying exterior was, moreover, only the expression of the sentiments of his heart. When he saw himself professed, and thereby more master of following his attraction for mortification, he declared a cruel war on his body and applied himself to extinguishing even the last spark of his former passions. He took the discipline until he bled, fasted in the most rigorous manner, nourished himself only on bread and water, slept on the floor of his cell, and gave himself over to many other austerities, never ceasing to afflict his body in order to subject it to the spirit.

As much as Brother Bernard had formerly been a friend of independence and jealous of following his own will in everything, so much did he show himself, since his entry into religion, to be submissive and obedient. The slightest signs from his superiors were for him orders that he hastened to fulfill. Indifferent to all tasks, he was chosen to fill that of infirmarian, at a time when a contagious disease reigned in the convent, which made this office all the more difficult and dangerous. Far from making the slightest complaint, he devoted himself to it with joy, gave the sick the most assiduous care, rendered them the most humiliating services, and proved to all that he was animated, with regard to his neighbor, by the most vivid and sincere charity.

This same ardor of charity determined the servant of God to request permission from the provincial father to bring aid to the inhabitants of the town of Scarlato, among whom an epidemic disease had broken out and many were dying for lack of remedies. Having obtained it, he conducted a general collection in their favor in the city of Palermo; it was so abundant that it gave him the means to assist these poor sick people and to provide for all the needs of the indigent of that place. He did not limit himself to rendering services of this kind to his neighbor. It was enough for someone to be in distress for Brother Bernard to seek to deliver them from it. A poor man from Palermo, a father of a family, entered a gardener's enclosure one night and stole seventy-seven plants; the latter, having discovered the culprit, prosecuted him and had him sentenced to the galleys for several years. The wife of this unfortunate man, desperate at having been unable by any means to sway the gardener and free her husband, went to find the holy religious and begged him to help her in her necessity. Bernard, lending himself willingly to the woman's desire, went to the gardener, spoke to him so effectively that he finally overcame his obstinacy, persuaded him to withdraw the charges, had the sentence revoked, and restored the freedom of this unfortunate man.

While he was thus occupied with such zeal in doing good for his brothers and procuring for them all the relief that was in his power, he completely forgot himself, living in the most absolute destitution. A rigid observer of the vow of poverty, he had for his use only the wretched habit that covered him, a rosary, a cross, a discipline, a hair shirt, and a few other instruments of penance. Thus he expiated the pleasure he had once taken in indulging in gambling, and the desire to win at it. God, who wished to make him perfect, permitted that he should also have to expiate, but in the harshest manner, his former love of independence. Brother Bernard, traveling by obedience from Palermo to Messina and making the journey by sea, the vessel on which he was traveling was captured by a corsair from the B États barbaresques Place of the saint's captivity. arbary States. The holy religious, reduced to slavery, had to suffer everything one can imagine that is harshest from the master to whom he had been sold; but however painful his condition was, it afflicted him less than the impudent solicitations of a young slave. The resistance he offered to the criminal passion of this unfortunate woman so irritated her that, taking advantage of the influence she had over the mind of their common master, she had him put in irons, thrown into a dreadful dungeon, and overwhelmed with blows. He spent sixteen months there, deprived of all external aids of religion and having no other resource than prayer. At the end of this time, he was exchanged and returned to Sicily, where he made up for the pain he had experienced during his captivity of being unable to receive this divine nourishment through fervent communions.

The servant of God, after his return from the Barbary States, gave new proofs of the most sincere and solid piety. One noted above all his tender devotion to the passion of the Savior, to the Holy Eucharist, and to the august Mother of God. His charity toward his neighbor seemed to constantly increase. The plague having manifested itself in 1666 in Castelnuovo, a city in Sicily, Brother Bernard, w Castelnuovo Sicilian town affected by the plague in 1666. ho was fulfilling the office of questor at the Palermo convent, asked his superiors as a grace to accompany six Capuchin religious who were going to the places infected by the contagion. Having arrived there, he gave himself entirely to the care of the sick in private homes and in hospitals; however, the scourge spared him: but he did not survive this last act of charity for long. Worn out by fatigue and especially by his rigorous mortifications, he was seized by a high fever which made it necessary to put him in the infirmary. The illness soon made progress that Bernard himself noticed. Having asked for the Holy Viaticum, he received it with sentiments of humility and a fervor that touched all those present. It was believed that he knew the moment of his death, by the care he took to have the hours counted when he was near his end. The priest who was assisting him having told him that it was three o'clock, he approached with respect the crucifix he was holding to his mouth, and fell asleep in the sleep of the just, at the age of nearly sixty, on January 12, 1667.

Such a high opinion was held of his holiness that the great men of the Kingdom of Sicily wished to carry him to the grave on their shoulders. His funeral procession resembled a triumph, due to the innumerable crowd of people who attended it and who, before this ceremony, had rushed to his poor garments to keep them as relics. Several miracles were soon performed at his tomb and determined the Archbishop of Palermo to work on the process of his beatification. His body, exhumed after seven months to be placed in a more suitable location, was found without any sign of corruption. Pope Clemen t XIII beati Clément XIII Pope who granted indulgences for the cult of Saint Gregory. fied this servant of God on May 15, 1768.

See the life of Blessed Bernard of Corleone, written in Italian by Father Modigliana, in-4°, Rome, 1769, and the French abridgment of the same life, by Father Jean Chrysostome de Bethune, Capuchin, 1751, in-18.