30/04/2024
A Saint who was one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church, yet who’s existence has been mostly forgotten.
This forgotten Saint performed more miracles in a single day then all of the miracles performed by other saints over their entire life.
Then one of these days, as his mother was speaking of this, she clearly heard her son say “If you wish for rain, carry me in procession, and you shall be favorably heard”.
Hearing these miraculous words, the mother rushed to the city magistrate, who immediately decreed that a precession should take place. The baby Vincent was carried triumphantly; shortly after the precession was completed, the sky suddenly became overcast and copious rain fell for several hours.
When Vincent was six years old, he was taken to a child of the same age who had a dangerous pustule on the neck. He was asked to touch the affected part, but instead, Vincent kissed it.
The moment his lips touched the flesh, it was instantly cured; the wound had disappeared.
When Vincent was nine years old, he went to the home of one of his classmates to fetch him for school. Hearing the mother weeping, he hastily ascended the stairs of the house and found the mother, who cried out, sobbing:
“My son is dead!”. Vincent smiled and said to the mother:
“Let us go, my friend is not dead, he is sleeping;
let us go to see him.”
Vincent approached the bed, and taking the cold and rigid co**se by the hand exclaimed:
”Get up, it is time to go to school!”
The nine year old boy opened his eyes as if he had been in a deep sleep.
The boy dressed himself and they both headed off to school as if nothing had occurred.
In the year 1396, after over twenty years of having played key roles in many activities within the Church, including confessor to Pope Benedict XIII, Father Vincent became grievously ill and for twelve days laid at deaths door. On October 3, 1396, in Avignon on the eve of the Feast of St. Francis, the saint’s room was flooded with celestial light. Our Lord, St Francis and St Dominic all appeared to him. Jesus instructed him regarding his mission, which was to go out to preach the Gospel and repentance; that this would be a merciful occasion of repentance and conversion from God. Jesus touched Vincent on the face which instantly cured him, then the vision disappeared.
St Vincent commenced his new apostolate on November 25, 1398
at the age of 48.
Pope Benedict XIII granted him
“Legatus a Latere Christi”;
the fullest powers to preach in any church.
His authority for such was second only to the Pope himself.
Over the next twenty years St Vincent would travel through Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and England preaching conversion, offering mass, hearing confessions, and working miracles to confirm his message.
He walked on foot everywhere, wore a rough hair shirt, fasted, disciplined himself every night, slept on the hard ground, and allowed himself only five hours of sleep.
There were thousands of the faithful who traveled with him from town to town.
At times the number would swell to ten thousand.
Those followers, who had been public sinners, were required to perform the most rigorous public penances.
The followers of
St. Vincent became examples of Christian piety exhibiting perfect peace and charity.
St Vincent Ferrer died the evening of April 5, 1419, the Wednesday of Passion-week.
At his dying moments, the windows of the room opened by themselves and a large flock of pure white, beautiful tiny birds, no larger than a butterfly, filled the room and the house. As soon as he breathed his last,
they all disappeared leaving a delicious scent.
The saint’s body, which reflected the years of fasts and long travels, suddenly became fair and luminous, as though it were living.
Another prodigy was that someone who had candles used at the Saint’s Mass, but which had disappeared from a locked box, were discovered back in their box and miraculously lighted at that same time. The Saint’s dead body gave off a piercingly sweet fragrance.
The Duchess of Brittany who washed the body, perceived the same sweet odor from the water she had used.
This water was carefully preserved and many miracles occurred through its use;
while the fragrance remained until the water itself had evaporated.
The Saint’s body, clothed in the religious habit, was carried in solemn procession to the Cathedral of Nannes where it was exposed for public veneration. The people witnessed the suppleness of the limbs, the fresh color of the face, and the exquisite perfume which it exhaled.
Two dead persons who were placed beside the dead Saint were restored to life, to bear witness to the sanctity of Vincent. The remains of this Saint were placed in a marble vault in the Cathedral of Vannes, France.
That evening, a l***r was instantly cured after prostrating himself on the slab of the Saint’s tomb.
On hearing this, multitudes of invalids followed his example and were also cured.
The sculptor who carved the Saint’s tomb, moved by the many healing stories, and who had a leg wound which no remedy could heal, was moved to have recourse to our Saint. He said:
“Friend of God, good Father Vincent, pray to God for me!”
At that moment his leg pain was gone and in a few days the leg was perfectly healed.
Four hundred people recovered their health by merely lying on the bed in which the Saint had died.
After he was placed into his tomb there continued to be daily miracles at his tomb.
Each Sunday there was a reading of the list of miracles which had occurred the prior week.
The bells of the Cathedral would be rung when an extraordinary miracle occurred.
There was a fourteen month old child named Vincent Pistoia who was killed by his mother.
His body had been dismembered by the mother.
The father, who had a great devotion to
St Vincent, in his grief rushed to the tomb of St Vincent and poured his request in tears and prayers.
When the hour for closing the church came, the poor man was afraid to go home; but when he did, it was to find his child alive and well in his cradle, yet with the marks of the knife plainly visible, marks which never effaced. This child would grow up and join the Dominican order on April 15, 1481, spread devotion of St Vincent to Sicily, and lived to the age of 105 years. A living testimony to the miracle.
While preaching at Salamanca to several thousands,
St Vincent said:
“I am the Angel announced by
St. John in the Apocalypse, that Angel who shall preach to all peoples, to all nations, in every tongue, and say to them:
‘Fear the Lord, and give Him honour, because the hour of His judgment is come.’ ” This was the task given to him when Jesus,
St Francis and
St Dominic appeared on October 3, 1396, in Avignon.
The world had become so corrupted that
St. Ferrer said “No, I do not believe that there ever existed in the world so much pomp and vanity, so much impurity, as at the present day;
to find in the world’s history an epoch so criminal, we must go back to the days of Noah and the universal flood.”
He was instructed to preach repentance and conversion;
that this would be a merciful occasion from God before the coming of the Antichrist.
Our Saint thought that the end of this age, the General Judgement and the return of Jesus was not long in coming. So, why didn’t the end come back in the 1400’s?
Was our Saint wrong? Hard to answer this. One thought is that due to the great conversion away from sin which occurred, God held back his wrath; allowing more opportunity for souls to find heaven. Or perhaps it is our earthly concept of time which makes us feel that events foretold in prophecy need to occur in a few years, instead of hundreds of years. One thing which is certain, that
St Vincent was the Angel of the Apocalypse spoken of by St John in his writings.
I doubt God will send another since we have so thoroughly ignored the one He already sent.
~Catholic Saint of the Day
