Blessed Mary Bartholomew Bagnesi

Her mother was in very delicate health, and her sisters had all left: thus, early on, the care of the household fell to her; she discharged the duties of a mistress of the house with a prudence beyond her years. She had the liveliness of a little bird, says the biographer, and was as recollected as a seraph. Always cheerful, the sadness of others pained her extremely. Be good, virtuous, she would say to those she saw upset and afflicted. With virtue, the joy that Jesus gives will come to you.

She was seventeen years old when she had the sorrow of seeing her mother die: overcoming her grief, she assisted her, had her receive the Sacraments, and comforted her with good words until her final moment.

Her beauty, her nobility, and her virtues themselves drew the gaze of several young men. Her father, who certainly acted with the intention of making her happy, gave his word, as much as one can give it in such an occurrence: upon the unexpected announcement of an arrangement to which she had not consented, the young girl—she was then eighteen years old—felt her whole being shaken. A strange revolution took place in her body: a universal trembling seized all her limbs. Marie was of average height and very pleasant appearance; from that moment on, her nerves contracted, an incessant fever burned her; if one adds to this a violent headache, frequent suffocation, and spasms, one will barely have an idea of what she endured during the forty-five years she still had to spend on earth. They turned not to doctors, but to charlatans. These empirics ordered a general plaster that produced such a frightful excoriation that the patient soon resembled the apostle Saint Bartholomew, flayed alive by his executioners. Because of this resemblance to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, and also because she had come into the world on his feast day, the Blessed one added the name Barthélemie to that of Marie. Tel was the extraordi nary means t Bienheureuse Religious of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Florence, known for her patience in illness. hat Our Lord used to win one more lover for the cross.

The servant of God immediately had a small altar set up before the bed of pain where she lay, which was adorned with devout images; so that her room resembled a small chapel; she obtained permission for Mass to be celebrated there every day. It was her consolation.

One day her father said to her: Behold, my daughter, you will not be able to enter a convent, as you had desired. Before I die, I would at least like to procure a satisfaction for you. Would it not please you to don in your bed the habit of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, which was illustrated and sanctified by Saint Catherine of Siena, that Saint who has always been so dear to you? — Oh! certainly, she replied; I have often thought of it. A Father of Saint Dominic, from the convent of Santa Maria Novella, came to perform the ceremony of the clothing, and after a year of novitiate, she was received into profession.

Following her consecration to God, she suddenly recovered enough strength to be able to visit the churches and monasteries of Flo rence; a Florence City where Julie served as a maid. fter which she returned to her bed, never to leave it again.

To the sufferings of the body were added the afflictions of the spirit. Two servants of the house subjected the poor invalid to a thousand indignities and insults, to which, joining her hands, she would only reply with these words: "I beg you, for the love of God, to forgive me." In the city, people barely believed in her illness, and public malice went so far as to claim that her house had become a conventicle where enemies of the State conspired in the shadow of religion.

Marie-Barthélemie nonetheless continued to receive affectionately those who came to see her, and to give good counsel to afflicted souls. "Confess often," she told her visitors; "find a virtuous and, above all, prudent confessor who will teach you the great art of prayer and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Make the greatest account of time, and do not let slip the opportunity to do good. Stop as little as possible for the conversations of men: conversation is the dissipation of the soul. If in solitude it is already difficult to unite oneself with God, how will it be possible amidst the noises of the world! Do not be concerned with being known by men: happy is he who does not entangle himself in the affairs of this world. Peace and happiness are, moreover, at this price!... Avoid curiosity, the source of a thousand anxieties. Why meddle in things that do not concern us? One does not think of what one does not know..." The Blessed one thanked God incessantly for having made it impossible for her to abuse her body. That holy joviality which had distinguished her in her younger years did not abandon her. When she saw melancholy on faces, "Come now," she would say, "come here, let me place you in the arms of Jesus. What! Should not the thought of the paradise reserved for us chase away all dark thoughts? Everything will end, sorrows like everything else. Do you think I will remain on my bed eternally? You know well that I will not. Since paradise is the reward for sufferings, let us suffer joyfully. Come, with abandonment, without ulterior motive, into the hands of God!" And her word was so convinced that one felt moved, changed, stronger, and more confident.

The demon, to whom it is given to tempt even the purest souls, did not fail to add to all her torments: he caused to arise in her the singular thought that she was not ill at all and that her conduct was nothing but hypocrisy. "Ah," she would then cry out, "provided that the evil spirit does not seize the outlets of my soul!" To these thoughts succeeded others, so that, to use her expression, the demon always had some bone to give her to gnaw.

These temptations gave her very low sentiments of herself. "Fear God," she often said; "see in my person how He punishes sin. I have well deserved all that I suffer." She repeated this maxim of Saint Augustine: "The sinner is struck because of his sin; after having forgotten God during his lifetime, he will surely have to remember Him after his death." Moreover, humility did not destroy confidence in her, and hope did not degenerate into presumption.

To strengthen her, the Lord raised her to the most sublime contemplation, even to ecstasy. But as she often fell into syncope, the resemblance between these two states served her wonderfully to hide the favors of which she was the object. The stone disease, which had been added to so many other tortures, was to put an end to this long martyrdom. After having received Extreme Unction eight times during her illness; after having exhausted the chalice of suffering, Marie-Barthélemie went to receive in heaven the crown due to her patience (May 28, 1577). The Carmelite convent of Saint Mary of the Angels, where Saint Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi sanctified herself, received the mortal remains of the Blessed: immediately after her death, the nuns rendered her a private cult of veneration, and had the glory of Saint Magdalene not come to eclipse hers, the process of her beatification would have been pushed more actively. It was certainly not Saint Magdalene's intention to delay it, since she assured that the soul of Marie-Barthélemie enjoyed in heaven a glory equal to that of Saint Catherine of Siena. It was only in 1804 that Pius VII approved the cul t that Pie VII Pope who authorized the cult of Blessed Rainier. had been rendered to her from time immemorial.

-- SAINT CHERON SAINT CHÉRON Roman martyr, apostle of Chartres in the 1st century. , MARTYR IN THE CHARTRES REGION (1st century).

The wisdom and science of this world are foolishness before God.

Passage from the epistles of Saint Paul that converted Saint Cheron.

Saint Cheron was Roman by birth and a patrician. His education corresponded to his rank. He owed his conversion to a reading he happened upon in the epistles of Saint Paul. Having been instructed and baptized, he formed the resolution to give himself to God and would never consent to the will of his parents who exhorted him to marry. When they had died, he distributed to the poor the great wealth they had left him and entered into holy orders. However, it does not appear that he went beyond the diaconate, his humility having prevented him from rising higher. He left Rome during the reign of Domitian to come to the Gauls. He first visited Marseille and Lyon and the surrounding regions, where his teaching and miracles brought a great number of people to the faith. Finally, he arrived in Chartres around the tim Chartres Episcopal city of the saint. e when Saint Denis was laying saint Denis Saint and evangelizer of the Parisians, contemporary of Saint Cheron. the first foundations of the Christian faith among the Parisians. God made him powerful in works and in words, and not only did he strengthen in their belief the Christians converted by Saint Potentian and Saint Altin, but he considerably increased the number of the faithful, and earned the title of Apostle of Chartres.

Amidst the people who were attached to him, he regretted not being able to win the glorious palm of martyrdom, the desire for which inflamed his soul; but he finally owed to charity what the enemies of the faith denied him. He had set out for the land of the Parisians, with some of his disciples, in order to also carry the evangelical seed into that land. They were barely three leagues from Chartres when they fell into an ambush of thieves. Inspired by his charity, Cheron advised his companions to think of their safety while he diverted the attention of the brigands with his speech. The disciples moved away, and Cheron advanced toward the thieves: they seized him to rob him; but, furious at finding neither gold nor silver on the minister of God, they immediately cut off his head. The disciples emerged, in the evening, from the hiding place where they had escaped the thieves and found the body of their master lying lifeless on the ground. They carried it away to bury it on a mountain that he had indicated to them during his lifetime as being the place of his burial. This mountain, quite near Chartres, was subsequently named Montagne-Sainte.

God made the tomb of Saint Cheron famous through many miracles; for this reason, a citizen of the city of Chartres had a church built in honor of this Saint, as early as the time of the sons or at the latest the grandsons of Clovis. Papoul, Bishop of Chartres, entrusted the administration and service of this church to a congregation of clerics: later, Ferdinand de Ville-Neuve gave it in full ownership to the Canons Reg ular of Saint Augustine. The same can chanoines réguliers de Saint-Augustin Order under which Bertrand united his canons. ons already possessed the other church of Saint-Cheron, which stood three and a half leagues from Chartres, at the very place where the Saint had been killed; even now there exists in this place a village named Saint-Cheron du Chemin. In 1824, Claude-Hippolyte de Montalte, Bishop of Chartres, bought back the site of this ancient monastery, and established a minor seminary there. In 1849, Louis-E ugene Regnauld, also Louis-Eugène Regnauld Bishop of Chartres in the 19th century. Bishop of Chartres, performed the dedication of a new church in this same place, in which he honorably placed the relics of Saint Cheron, relics profaned at the end of the 18th century, but collected and preserved in large part by some pious persons.

A.A. SS., Proges de Chartres : — M. Cartier the younger published, in the Revue archeologique de Paris, year 1849, a 13th-century seal on which the legend of Saint Cheron is represented.