Blessed Louis Morbiole

* Carmelite Breviary.* Bréviaire des Carmes Liturgical source for the biography.

He was born in Bologna. Forgetting the Christian principles in which his family had raised him, he gave himself over to all the pleasures and vices of the world. Burdened with debt, he was forced to leave his country and went to Venice, where the canons of Saint-Sauveur received him out of charity. A serious illness that struck him and the fear of God's judgments were the means that Heaven used to stop him on the path of evil. Louis, sincerely converted, returned to Bologna, charged his brother—to whom he abandoned his share of the property—with the task of satisfying his creditors, and entered the Third Order of Carmel. He appeared to his fellow citizens dressed in a simple sheepskin and barefoot, and asked their forgiveness for the scandals he had caused them. Feeling keenly the need to make a striking reparation for his disorders, he traveled throughout Italy, holding in his hand a staff to which a crucifix was attached, and preaching penance everywhere with a success that led people to believe that God had raised him up to reform the morals of his contemporaries. Without a fixed home, he slept on the ground. Later, a pious man took him in, but the Saint would not inhabit any dwelling other than the space under a staircase: this space was later changed into an oratory. He lived this way until the age of fifty-two. His body, first buried in the cathedral cemetery, was after ten months interred in the church itself, because of the miracles that soon illustrated his tomb. Gregory XVI approved the cult that had been rendered to him since the day of his death, on October 24, 1842, at the same time as that of the blessed Romeo, Louis Rabata, and Jacobin, all of the Carmelite Order.

He was born in Bologna. Forgetting the Christian principles in which his family had raised him, he gave himself over to all the pleasures and vices of the world. Burdened with debt, he was forced to leave his country and went to Venice, where the canons of Saint-Sauveur received him out of charity. A serious illness that struck him and the fear of God's judgments were the means that heaven used to stop him on the path of evil. Louis, sincerely converted, returned to Bologna, charged his brother, to whom he abandoned his share of the property, with the task of satisfying his creditors, and entered the Third Order of Carmel. He appeared to his fellow citizens dressed in a simple sheepskin and barefoot, and asked their forgiveness for the scandals he had caused them. Feeling keenly the need to make a striking reparation for his disorders, he traveled throughout Italy, holding in his hand a staff to which a crucifix was attached, and preaching penance everywhere with a success that led people to believe that God had raised him up to reform the morals of his contemporaries. Without a fixed dwelling, he slept on the ground. Later, a pious man took him in, but the Saint would not inhabit any dwelling other than the space under a staircase: this space was later changed into an oratory. He lived in this way until the age of fifty-two. His body, first buried in the cathedral cemetery, was after ten months interred in the church itself, because of the miracles that soon illustrated his tomb. Gregory XVI approved the cult that had been rendered to him since the day of his death, on October 24, 1842, at the same time as that of the blessed Romeo, Louis Rabata, and Jacobin, all of the Carmelite Order.

*Carmelite Breviary.*