Saint Angelus of Jerusalem

After their vows, as they had before their eyes the life of those great Prophets who had sanctified this mountain with their tears, their prayers, and their penances, they wished to join the most rigorous exercises of mortification to continual prayer. Besides their Rule, which they observed to the letter, they undertook, with the permission of their superiors, many other austerities. Four days of the week, from the Holy Cross of September until Easter, they took only bread and water, and on the other days, they added only raw beans, never eating meat, nor anything derived from it, and never drinking wine. Instead of shirts, they wore coats of mail which they never removed, and they slept only on boards. Such were the bodily mortifications that they continued until the end of their lives. For their vocal prayers, they recited every day the one hundred and fifty psalms of David.

These two brothers performed several miracles, which can be seen in the Chronicle of their Order; we shall report only one here, to show the merit of obedience. The blessed Ange, being twenty-six years old, was sent by his superiors to Jerusalem to be ordained a priest. He resisted greatly so as not to be promoted to this dignity, which he regarded as a ministry infinitely elevated above his merits; but his humility had to yield to the will of those who held the place of Jesus Christ in his regard. On this journey, having arrived at the banks of the Jordan, he found it overflowing beyond the ordinary, with no means to cross it. This was not capable of stopping him on a journey undertaken out of pure obedience: he prayed to God for half an hour, inviting the sixty people who accompanied him to do the same. Then, he commanded the waters to make way for him, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by the merits of the holy patriarchs Elijah and Elisha, and in consideration of the holy obedience that sent him. Immediately the river obeyed his voice; and, stopping the course of its waters on one side, and flowing on the other toward the sea, it left the passage free for the whole assembly: God thus renewing the ancient wonders He had performed in the time of Moses, Joshua, and the prophet Elisha.

The news of this miracle soon spread throughout the country, and particularly in Jerusalem, whose inhabitants came to meet Saint Ange; as he was their compatriot, they begged the prior of the convent to keep him, which he did. The Saint therefore said his first Mass in that house. He then obtained permission to spend the Christmas holidays in the manger of Bethlehem; and, while he was there, a woman brought her son, who was dead, to his feet, begging him to resurrect him. Ange was quite taken aback by this request, not believing himself worthy to perform miracles; but, finally overcome by the tears of an afflicted mother, he spread his cope over the child; and as he prayed, his eyes raised toward heaven, the dead man returned to life, proclaiming the glory of the Almighty and the merit of His servant.

These miracles, making the blessed Angel known more than he wished, he resolved to place his humility out of these perils by fleeing the world. The very day after this resurrection, he withdrew secretly, with the permission of his prior, into a desert of Palestine, called the desert of the Quarantania, because of the forty-day fast that Our Lord performed there. He spent fifty years there in such great solitude that he was visited only by celestial spirits.

During this time, John, his brother, whom he had left on Mount Carmel, and who had become illustrious there through all kinds of virtues, was elected Patriarch of Jerusalem. This new prelate, no longer able to endure the absence of his holy brother, spared no effort to discover where he was. At the same time, God made it known to Saint Angel that He wished to use him for the conversion of souls in a distant land, and that he must, for this reason, leave the solitary and eremitic life. Thus he returned to Jerusalem, addressed his brother, and declared to him the order he had received from heaven to go to Italy, and from there to S icily. Sicile Italian island where the saint exercised his ministry. While waiting for the means to embark, he gave several sermons in that holy city, with such zeal that in a single one he converted no fewer than eighty Jews. After having given this consolation to his homeland, he took with him three of his confreres, one of whom was named Enoch; this is the one Enoch Brother of Ange and author of his biography. who wrote his life, as noted by Cardinal Baronius in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology.

Passing through Alexandria, according to the order he had received from heaven, he greeted the patriarch, who gave him relics to carry to Rome; after a first landing in Sicily, where he was miraculously pulled from the hands of pirates, he went to Rome to offer the relics he was carrying to Pope Hon orius III, a Honorius III Pope who instructed the canonization cause. nd to explain to him that God destined him to evangelize Sicily. The Pope gave him a very warm welcome and gave him the power to fulfill the mission to which God had called him. Before leaving, Angel visited the churches of this holy city, and met, in Saint John Lateran, Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, who saint François Founder of the Order of Friars Minor. were conversing together. Saint Francis, seeing him, said to Saint Dominic: "Here is an Angel of Jerusalem; his name is already marked in heaven, as that of a martyr." And, saying this, he advanced towards him, and threw himself at his feet; but Angel, who was enlightened by a similar light, raised him up and said to him: "What happiness, my dear Father Francis, to meet you, you who are a truly humble man, and who deserve to bear the sacred marks of our Redemption!" Upon leaving the church, he healed a leper, which was, in some way, the seal of his apostolic mission.

Then, he went a second time to Sicily, where his arrival was signaled by several miracles; and no sooner had he set foot on the island than he began to preach the truths of the Gospel: which he did with such success that, in a short time, he converted four hundred Jews, who received holy Baptism. It is said that roses and lilies were seen falling from his mouth while he spoke. He also healed several sick people, among others the Archbishop of Palermo. The Saint, after restoring his health, made himself known to him and asked for his approval to exercise his mission throughout the extent of his diocese.

There was on this island a count, called Berengar, who was o f great Bérenger Uncle of Ismidon who sent him to study in Valence. authority throughout the country, but of a very scandalous life; he was publicly living with his own sister. The Saint, to whom God had made this disorder known while still in Palestine, came to the city of Alicata, where t Alicata City in Sicily where the saint was martyred. his incestuous man made his residence. He spoke to him first in private; but having gained nothing from him, he pointed out to him in public the abomination and horror of his crime, and threatened him with the punishments of God and the rigors of His justice; he did so with such energy that the count's closest confidants abandoned him, and his sister, finally yielding to the reproaches of her conscience, acknowledged her fault, confessed her crime, and washed it away with a torrent of tears, declaring loudly that, for twelve years, her life had been full of infamy before God and before the angels, although men might not have seen all its horror and all its abomination.

But the hardened count, gnashing his teeth like a madman against his physician, swore that the freedom of his speech would cost him his life. Indeed, while the servant of God continued his preaching, Saint John the Baptist, by whose order he had undertaken this mission, appeared to him on the first day of May and assured him that the fifth day following would be the day of his triumph and glory. Angel prepared himself as if for a great feast, and this happy day for him having arrived, he mounted the pulpit to finish saying everything that the Spirit of God inspired him to say for the fulfillment of his mission. Then he went to say Mass in the church of Saint James, upon leaving which assassins threw themselves upon him and pierced him with five sword thrusts. The people began to stir; but the holy Martyr calmed them, and, with perfect presence of mind, he recited aloud the first psalm: 'Blessed is the man who has not walked in the assembly of the ungodly'; and the thirtieth: 'In you, O Lord, have I hoped,' up to the verse: 'Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.' And, while saying these words, he expired on May 5 of the year 1225, or thereabouts; this was two years after the meeting of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis. The whole assembly saw a ray of light which, coming out of his mouth, rose to heaven, and a kind of dove which seemed to take flight along this brightness; he also appeared at the same time to the Archbishop of Palermo, letting him know that he was going to heaven, and asking him to have his body buried in the place where he had shed his blood for the glory of his Master. The Archbishop gave him a funeral in accordance with his great reputation for holiness.

He is represented: 1st, holding in his hand a palm in which are threaded the three crowns of virginity, preaching, and martyrdom; 2nd, with a sword that pierces his chest and splits his head.

The Roman Martyrology says that he died at the hands of heretics, from which it is inferred that the count had added heresy to his incest. As for the holy relics that he brought from Alexandria to Rome, the catalog is written at length in the Annals of the Church, under the year 1220; it was an image of the most holy Virgin Mary, the bones of an arm and a leg of Saint John the Baptist, the head of the prophet Jeremiah, an arm of Saint Catherine, virgin and martyr, and the bone of a leg of Saint George, martyr of Cappadocia.

The diocese of Amiens possesses some relics of the Saint: a shoulder blade is kept in a reliquary at Assevillers; a forearm bone at Chaulnes.

This Life was drawn from the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius and from a manuscript which is in the Vatican, no. 3843, concerning the affairs of the Order of Mount Carmel. Pope Honorius III placed Saint Angel among the number of the holy Martyrs, shortly after his death, as noted by the Rev. Fr. François Victor, physician, in his Treatise on the Consolation of the Saints.