Saint Bernardino of Siena

At the age of eleven, his paternal uncles brought him to Siena and placed him under the guidance of the most skilled masters. They never tired of admiring the penetration and beauty of their disciple's mind; but they admired above all his docility, his modesty, and his virtue.

His love for purity was extraordinary. If he happened to hear a word that wounded this virtue in the slightest, he would show by the redness of his face the pain he felt. Although he was naturally polite, obliging, and respectful toward everyone, he was no longer master of himself as soon as an indecent remark struck his ears. A man of quality having spoken a loose word in his presence, he rebuked him in a manner a little brisk, but forgivable in a child, and gave him such a hard punch under the chin that the sound of it echoed throughout the square where the event took place. The noble libertine, having become the laughingstock of the spectators, withdrew in confusion. But this reprimand struck him so vividly that he resolved from that moment to correct himself. Indeed, he watched over his tongue so well that for the rest of his life, he never fell into the same fault again. Having heard Bernardine preach several years later, he could not stop the flow of his tears, so vivid was the impression made upon his soul.

What we have just said is still not enough to paint the purity of Bernardine. His modesty was a restraint that held back the most dissolute. No one dared to stray from the laws of honesty in his presence. All loose conversation ceased as soon as he appeared. "Silence," the most libertine would then say, "here comes Bernardine." On these occasions, the Saint did not conduct himself in a way that made virtue ridiculous. One noticed in him a certain air of dignity that commanded respect. There was, however, a libertine who tried to solicit him to crime; but he drew only confusion from his infamous enterprise. Bernardine, not content with having marked his indignation to the corrupter, so animated his companions against him that they chased him with stones. His beauty was never detrimental to him, because he watched over himself continually. He also fervently claimed the protection of the Blessed Virgin, who delights in interceding with God for chaste souls.

When he had finished his course of philosophy, he applied himself to the study of civil and canon law; he then began to study the Holy Scriptures with great ardor. Other sciences became insipid to him, and he no longer felt any taste except for those that could make him grow in the love of God and in the knowledge of his duties.

At the age of seventeen, he entered the Confraternity of the Disciplinati of Our Lady, established in Siena at the hospital of hôpital de la Scala Hospital in Siena where Bernardino served the plague victims. the Scala, to serve the sick there. It was there that he began in particular to subdue his body through fasts, vigils, hair shirts, disciplines, and many other austerities. He practiced above all the interior mortification of his will; thus he was always humble, patient, gentle, and affable toward everyone.

In 1400, four years after his entry into the hospital, the plague, which had already devastated a large part of Italy, attacked the city of Siena. Every day, eighteen to twenty people died in the hospital. All those who distributed spiritual and bodily aid to the plague victims were carried off in a very short time. Bernardine did not lose courage; he engaged twelve men to join him in serving the sick. These generous Christians, forgetting the care of their own lives, faced all the horrors of a fearsome death. The Saint, finding himself charged with the entire care of the hospital, established an admirable order there. It would be difficult to express the pains he took night and day to relieve and console, as much as was in him, those who had recourse to his charity. God preserved him from the contagion of the scourge, which finally ceased after having lasted four months.

Bernardine, exhausted from fatigue, returned home. There he was seized by a violent fever that forced him to stay in bed for four months. During his illness, he edified as much by his patience and resignation as he had by his charity. Scarcely had he recovered when he resumed his former way of life. For a period of fourteen months, he rendered great services to one of his aunts named Barthéleme: she was a woman of rare piety, who had become blind, and who, besides that, suffered much from various illnesses.

After the death of his aunt, the Saint retired to a house in the suburbs of Siena, and made the walls of his garden his enclosure: there, redoubling his fervor, he applied himself to prayer and penance to know the will of God concerning him. One day, therefore, as he poured out his heart before a crucifix, he heard a voice saying to him: "Bernardino, you see me stripped of everything and nailed to a cross for your love; it is necessary, therefore, if you love me, that you also strip yourself of everything and lead a crucified life." To follow this counsel, he resolved to ent er the Order of Saint F Ordre de Saint-François Religious order welcomed by Engelbert in Cologne. rancis. He took the habit at the solitary convent of Colombière, a few miles from Siena, in the twenty-second year of his age and on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, which was also the day of his birth. It was also on this solemnity that he made his profession the following year; that, some time later, he celebrated his first Mass, and finally that he preached his first sermon: very remarkable circumstances, which he used to animate himself to serve such a good Mistress with greater fervor.

His fervor increased noticeably every day. He added new austerities to those prescribed by the Rule, in order to crucify the old man more perfectly. He eagerly sought out rebuffs and humiliations. His pleasure was never greater than when, walking in the streets, children insulted him and threw stones at him because of the poverty of his habit and the nakedness of his feet. "Let them be," he would say, "they give us matter for merit and an occasion to gain heaven." He showed the same sentiments when one of his close relatives reproached him bitterly, and went so far as to tell him that he was disgracing his family and friends by the abject and despicable way of life he had embraced.

It was at the school of the Savior that he studied humility and the other Christian virtues night and day. He was often prostrate before a crucifix. One day it seemed to him that he heard Jesus Christ speaking to him again: "My son, you see me attached to the cross; if you love me, and if you wish to imitate me, nail yourself also to your cross, and follow me: by this you will be sure to find me." It was also at the feet of the crucified Jesus that he drew this ardent zeal for the salvation of souls.

As he had long been preparing himself in retreat for the ministry of preaching, his superiors ordered him to make use of the talent he had received from God. He initially encountered great difficulties due to a weakness of voice accompanied by hoarseness; but he was delivered from it through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, his ordinary refuge. For the space of fourteen years, the labors of his zeal were confined to the land of his birth. In the end, the brilliance of his virtue betrayed his humility, and he appeared in the Church like a shining star. One never heard him preach without experiencing the most vivid sentiments of religion. Sinners returned home filled with compunction, melting into tears, and firmly resolved to abandon their disorders.

Men came to deposit into his hands dice, cards, and other instruments of forbidden games, and women brought to his feet their gilding, their hairpieces, their makeup, their perfumes, and the other drugs that the vanity of that sex has invented to lose souls by wishing to embellish the body too much.

The word of God was in his mouth like a sharp sword and like a fire that consumes what is hardest and most capable of resistance. Thus, he was called the Trumpet of Heaven, the Evangelical Preacher.

One day, a famous preacher of the same Order was asked why his sermons did not produce as much fruit as those of the Saint. 'Father Bernardine,' he replied, 'is a burning coal. That which is only warm cannot likewise kindle fire in others.' The Saint, having been consulted on the true manner of preaching, gave the following rule: 'Take care in all your actions to seek first the kingdom and the glory of God. Propose to yourself in everything only the sanctification of His name. Preserve fraternal charity, and practice first what you wish to teach others: by this, the Holy Spirit will become your master; He will give you that wisdom and that strength to which no one can resist.'

He possessed the gift of miracles no less than that of eloquence. By the sign of the cross, he healed several illnesses that physicians deemed incurable. A little girl having been born with two ulcers, one on her chest, through which the breath of her lungs escaped, and the other on her belly, which left her entrails exposed, was healed by a blessing he gave her. Another child, who was nearly dead, was restored to perfect health in the same manner, and a third was delivered from the falling sickness by the power of his prayers. Even his enemies shared in his benefits: a roofer, mocking him as he passed in the street, fell from the roof he had climbed and broke his whole body; but having recognized his fault, he was immediately healed by the Saint's blessing. A woman was found healed of an incurable wound after touching the hem of his garments out of devotion. A poor leper, to whom he had given his shoes as alms, no sooner put them on than he felt relieved, and he was soon as healthy as if he had never been afflicted. Being one day obliged to cross a body of water to reach Mantua, where he was to preach, and the boatman having refused him passage because he had no money, he crossed it on his cloak, without even being wet when he reached the other side. Preaching on Our Lady, he applied to her these words from the Apocalypse: 'A great sign appeared in heaven,' and at that very instant the entire audience saw in broad daylight, above his head, a star of admirable brightness. Another time, preaching before Greeks who did not know Italian, he made himself understood by them as perfectly as if he had spoken to them in their own language.

These miracles gave authority to his words, which received no less from the example of his virtues, for he practiced himself, in imitation of Jesus Christ, everything he taught others. Indeed, in the midst of his evangelical labors, he omitted none of the exercises of the Franciscan Rule: he attended Matins, he said Mass every day, he gave an entire hour in the morning to prayer, during which no one could speak to him. He held his own judgment in such low regard that he consulted the opinions of others in all things, and although he was held in high esteem and from a very considerable family, he nevertheless always walked with his head bowed, and in such a simple manner that those who did not know him took him for a man of nothing, in whom grace shone no more than science.

He often had battles to sustain for chastity; but he always emerged victorious. One day, while begging, he was asked by a lady to enter her home to receive alms; but when he had entered, she brazenly revealed to him the passion she had long held for him, and declared that if he did not consent, she would call for help as if he were doing her violence, and thus cover him with shame. Such an unforeseen accident embarrassed Saint Bernardine at first; but, having invoked the Blessed Virgin, he suddenly received the spirit of counsel: and not only did he extricate himself from this danger with admirable prudence, but he stirred a lively repentance in the heart of this lady, and made her promise to keep an inviolable fidelity to her husband in the future; which she carried out.

Bernardino applied himself above all to inspiring the love of Jesus Christ and contempt for the world. He wished he had a trumpet whose sound could penetrate to the ends of the earth, in order to make this important oracle of the Holy Spirit resound in the ears of all men: Children of men, how long will you have a hardened heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lies? O children! how long will you love childhood? Ceaselessly he made the thunder of his voice heard, in order to awaken those carnal men who crawl upon the earth, to lead them to love Jesus Christ and to rise to the consideration of invisible goods. The memory of the Incarnation and the sufferings of the Savior drew him as if out of himself, and he could not pronounce the name of Jesus without experiencing extraordinary transports. Often, at the end of his sermons, he would show the people this sacred name written in letters of gold on a small tablet. He invited his listeners to kneel and to join him in adoring and praising the Redeemer of men.

Some ill-intentioned people took this as an opportunity to rise up against him, and gave a malicious interpretation to certain terms he was accustomed to using. They even painted him in dark colors to Pope Martin V. The Sovereign Pontiff sent for Bernardino and condemne d him to sile pape Martin V Pope who confirmed the tradition by a bull in 1437. nce forever. The humble religious submitted, without seeking to make his apology. The Pope soon recovered from the unfortunate impressions that had been given to him against the servant of God. After having maturely examined his conduct and his doctrine, he recognized his innocence, heaped praise upon him, and permitted him to preach wherever he wished; he even pressed him, in 1428, to accept the bishopric of Siena: but the Saint found a way to refuse this dignity; he also refused, a few years later, the bishoprics of Ferrara and Urbino, which were offered to him by Pope Eugene IV.

The first time he preached in Milan, Duke Filippo Maria Visconti allowed himself to be prejudiced against him o n the occasion of certain t duc Philippe-Marie Visconti Duke of Milan who proposed marriage to Marguerite. hings he had said in his sermons; he even threatened him with death, in case he should hold the same language in the future. Bernardino generously declared that it would be a great happiness for him to die for the truth. The Duke, to test him, or rather to catch him off guard, sent him a purse of one hundred ducats, having him told that he wished by this gift to enable him to provide more abundantly for the needs of the poor. The Saint refused it twice. A third person having come to bring it to him, he took him with him to the prisons, and in his presence gave the ducats to obtain the release of those who were held there for debt. Such disinterestedness dissipated all the Duke's prejudices; he conceived for the servant of God a singular esteem and veneration.

Bernardino preached in most of the cities of Italy. Everywhere, people spoke only of the marvelous fruit of his sermons. The greatest sinners were converted; ill-gotten goods were restored and injuries repaired; virtue took the place of vice and piety made new progress every day.

The ravages caused by the factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines often ga ve exercise to his zeal Guelfes et des Gibelins Italian political and civil conflicts that Bernardino sought to pacify. . Having learned that trouble and division were in Perugia, he hastened to go to that city. Upon entering, he said to the inhabitants: "God, whom you grievously offend by your divisions, sends me to you as an angel, to announce peace to men of good will on earth." He preached four sermons on the necessity of a general reconciliation. At the end of the last one, he cried out: "Let all those who have sentiments of peace come and stand on my right!" There remained on his left only a young nobleman who was whispering under his breath. The Saint gave him a severe reprimand and predicted that he would perish miserably. The prediction did not take long to be fulfilled.

Emperor Sigismund had great veneration for him; he wan ted him to follow hi L'empereur Sigismond King of Burgundy to whom Pelade predicted his ruin. m to Rome and to attend the ceremony of his coronation, which took place in 1433. Bernardino then returned to Siena. He spent some time there reviewing his works and putting the finishing touches on them.

Amidst the applause and honors he received from all sides, he always maintained the deepest humility. One could see by his entire conduct the esteem he had for this virtue. A religious of his Order asking him one day what one must do to reach perfection, instead of answering him, he threw himself at his feet. He showed by this that he sincerely loved humility, and that this virtue elevates the soul and unites it to God; but the care he took to hide himself from men did not prevent his holiness from shining forth outwardly. He was honored with the gift of prophecy and that of miracles. He cured several incurable diseases, and it is said that he raised four dead people to life.

In 1438, he was elected Vicar-General of his Order. He re-established the strict Observance in several convents and had a great number of new ones built, to most of which he gave the title of Saint Mary of Jesus, for he had a singular devotion to these holy names. When he took the habit, there were no more than twenty monasteries of the strict observance in all of Italy and about two hundred religious; when he died, there were more than three hundred convents and at least five thousand religious.

Five years later, he asked to be relieved of his office. He continued to preach in Romagna, in Ferrara, and in Lombardy. He returned to Siena in 1444. At the end of the winter of the same year, he went to Massa, where he gave a very pathetic speech on union and Christian charity. The beginnings of a malignant fever could not stop the vivacity of his zeal. Finally, he succumbed to the violence of the illness and was forced to take to his bed upon arriving in Aquila, in the Abruzzo. He prepared himself for death by receiving the sacraments of the Eucharist and Extreme Unction; then, feeling his strength diminishing more and more, he asked his brothers to place him on the ground, in order to breathe his last in the same manner as his Father Saint Francis. It was thus that he passed from this life to a better one, in the year of grace 1444, on the eve of the Ascension, at the hour of Vespers, as they were singing this antiphon in the choir: "Pater, clarificavi nomen tuum hominibus quod dedisti mihi; nunc autem ad te venio"; he was sixty-four years old.

God soon made known the glory of His Saint through several miracles that were performed at his tomb, and which l ed Pope Nichol pape Nicolas V Friend of Albergati, whose election to the pontificate he predicted. as V to place him in the catalogue of Saints, six years after his death, in the year of t he Jubilee (1450). Sa Saint Vincent Ferrier Dominican preacher who was the spiritual guide of Margaret. int Vincent Ferrer had predicted it long before, when, preaching in Alexandria, in Lombardy, he said publicly "that there was a person in his audience who would be the light of the Order of Saint Francis, of all Italy and of the Church, and who would be declared a Saint with him."

His body, enclosed in a double reliquary, one of which is of silver and the other of crystal, is kept by the Franciscans of Aquila.

Devotion to the holy name of Jesus dates back to Bernardine of Siena. This practice was initially treated as a novelty, and the zeal with which the Saint preached it brought him much trouble. This is why he is represented in a Franciscan habit, holding on his chest the monogram of Jesus: J. H. S. It is said that a tablet-maker, who had lost his livelihood due to the success with which Saint Bernardine had preached against card games and other games of chance, came to complain to him; the man of God advised the merchant to make small tablets on which the divine name would be traced and to sell them; at this trade, the tablet-maker made a fortune. — At the feet of the Saint is a miter, to indicate that he refused ecclesiastical dignities. — Old prints readily represent him in the pulpit, for during sixteen consecutive years, others say eighteen, he did not pass a single day without preaching. — He is also painted kneeling before an image of Our Lady placed on a gate of Siena. This refers to a trait of his youth, which all Manuals of devotion to the Blessed Virgin report. His fellow students once mocked him because he did not seek to please any lady. "The lady of my thoughts is the most beautiful in the world," replied Bernardine. And as curiosity was piqued, the pious young man led them before the statue of the Queen of heaven and earth. Others recount the same fact differently, which could, moreover, have occurred in these two ways: Bernardine had a holy cousin, named Tobia, daughter of the pious Diana; she was thirty years older than him, and having become a widow, had embraced the Third Order of Saint Francis. Seeing Bernardine so well-built and so young, she feared greatly that he might lose the purity of his body and soul. To preserve this precious treasure for him, she continually addressed prayers to God, to the Blessed Virgin, and to all the Saints. She herself made remonstrances to him in this regard. He replied: I am already taken by love; I will die the very day I cannot see the one who is dear to me. Many times he added: I am going to see the one I love, who is more beautiful and noble than all the girls of Siena. Tobia, hearing these words and not understanding their meaning, was deeply afflicted; she suspected him of being in love with some mortal girl; he, on the contrary, meant the Blessed Virgin Mary. Above the gate of Siena that leads to Florence, there was an image of the Blessed Virgin in her glorious assumption. Bernardine was accustomed to visiting it twice a day, morning and evening, and to devoutly saying his prayers there. It was of her that he spoke when he said to Tobia: I cannot sleep at night when the previous day I have not been able to see the image of my beloved. To clear up her worries, Tobia spied on him for several days in a row, at the hour he had told her: I am going to see the one I love. She saw him each time stop before the image of the Virgin above the gate, kneel down, devoutly recite his prayers, and then return straight and promptly to his home. The pious Tobia, seeing all her suspicions turn into spiritual consolation, said one day to Bernardine: My dear son, I pray you, do not keep me in suspense any longer, and let me no longer be afflicted every day because of you. Tell me for whom you are smitten with love, so that, if she is of a suitable rank, we may procure her for you as a wife. Bernardine replied: O mother, since you order it so, I will reveal to you the secret of my heart, which I would have revealed to no other. I am smitten with love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, whom I have always loved, whom I desire to see with all the strength of my soul, whom I have betrothed as a most chaste spouse, and in whom I have placed all my hope; it is she whom I love supremely, she whom I seek, she whom I would like to contemplate unceasingly with the respect that is her due; but as I cannot obtain her in this world, I have resolved in my heart to visit her image every day. And that is the one I love! At these words, the pious Tobia could not hold back her tears; she embraced Bernardine with spiritual joy and said to him: Now I will die content, since I am assured by your own mouth of your holy devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The Bollandists reproduce in their May Appendices a bust of Saint Bernardine of Siena, which will please all those who take the trouble to look at it. The head of the Saint, hooded, is surmounted by a halo; the hands are passed into the sleeves. In a corner of the frame is the monogram of the holy name of Jesus. Before him are placed, so as to form a triangle, three miters, which recall the three bishoprics he refused. In legend, these words: Manifestavi nomen tuum hominibus: "I have made your name known to men." Readers will remember that these words were sung in church at the moment when Saint Bernardine gave up his spirit: as they alluded to his apostolic mission, they did not fail to apply them to him and give them to him as a motto.

The Poor Clares of Amiens possess relics of the holy reformer of the Franciscans.

Taken from his two Lives, written one in the very year of his death, by Bernard of Siena, and the other shortly after, by Maëti Viggio. These two authors had known the Saint particularly well. Voyse Benachonius, t. v. May.

The Life of Saint Bernardine was also composed by Saint John of Capistrano, his faithful disciple, and by several other authors, reported by Father Luke Wadding, in the year 1488, in the Annals of his Order. He left many instructive works, which Father de La Haye had printed in four volumes, and which a re in the hands of ever saint Jean de Capitrian Franciscan saint who guided Ladislaus toward perfection. yone.