Monday, February 7, 2011

"...a Saint who works miracles...as a matter of course"

Coolness abounding, pointed out by Alison and elaborated on by Magnificat:
Saint Gerard Majella is known as a Thaumaturge, a Saint who works miracles not just occasionally, but as a matter of course. It has been said that God raises up not more than one every century. He was born in Italy at Muro Lucano, south of Naples, in 1726...

He showed himself to be a model of every virtue and he did the work of four, still finding time to take on himself that of others. He would say: “Let me do it, I am younger, take a rest.” He made the heroic vow of always choosing what appeared to him most perfect. He was perfectly obedient to his superior’s wishes, even when not expressed; and one day, to demonstrate this to a visiting authority who required a proof, his immediate Superior sent him out, saying: “I will tell him interiorly to return; he needs no other command than this...

”The most famous of Saint Gerard’s miracles occurred when a mason fell from a scaffolding during the construction of a building. Gerard had been forbidden by his Superior to work any more miracles without permission. He stopped the man in mid-air, telling him to wait until he had obtained permission to save him. He received it, and the man descended gently to the ground. When a plague broke out, he had the gift of bilocation; he was seen in more than one house at the same time, assisting the sick. Not a page of his life, it is said, was without prodigies, all tending to the glory of God and motivated by prodigious charity towards his neighbor.

He was condemned falsely at one time, as a result of a connivance between two individuals; the Superior General, Saint Alphonsus Liguori himself, who did not know Gerard personally, was induced to believe the black calumny. Later the guilty ones wrote him a letter confessing their fault, and Gerard, who had said nothing at all when relegated into solitude, was asked why he had not said he was innocent. He replied that the Rule required that the religious not defend themselves...

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