The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others by Georgiana Fullerton

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THE LIFE

OF

ST. FRANCES OF ROME,

BY

LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON;

OF

BLESSED LUCY OF NARNI,

OF

DOMINICA OF PARADISO

AND OF

ANNE DE MONTMORENCY:

WITH

An Introductory Essay

ON THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF THE SAINTS,

BY J. M. CAPES, ESQ. _N.B. The proprietorship of this Series is secured
in all countries where the Copyright is protected._ The authorities on
which the History of St. Frances of Rome rests are as follows:

Her life by Mattiotti, her Confessor for ten years. Mattiotti enjoined
her, as a matter of obedience, to relate to him from time to time her
visions in the minutest detail. He was a timid and suspicious man,
and for two or three years kept a daily record of all she told him;
afterwards, as his confidence in her sanctity and sanity grew complete,
he contented himself with a more general account of her ecstasies, and
also put together a private history of her life. After her death, he
wrote a regular biography, which is now to be found in the Bollandist
collection (Venice, 1735, vol. ii.).

Early in the seventeenth century, Ursinus, a Jesuit, wrote a life, which
was highly esteemed, but which was never printed, and, except in certain
fragments, is now lost.

In 1641, Fuligato, a Jesuit, wrote the second life, in the Bollandist
collection, which contains particulars of events that happened after
Mattiotti's time.

Other well-written lives have since appeared: especially a recent one by
the Vicomte de Bussiere, in which will be found various details too
long to be included in the sketch here presented to the English reader.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF THE SAINTS.

In presenting to the general reader a newly-written Life of so
extraordinary a person as St. Frances of Rome, together with the
biographical sketches contained in the present volume, it may be useful
to introduce them with a few brief remarks on that peculiar feature in
the histories of many Saints, which is least in accordance with the
popular ideas of modern times. A mere translation, or republication of a
foreign or ancient book, does not necessarily imply any degree of assent
to the principles involved in the original writer's statements. The new
version or edition may be nothing more than a work of antiquarian or
literary interest, by no means professing any thing more than a belief
that persons will be found who will, from some motive or other, be glad
to read it.

Not so, however, in the case of a biography which, though not pretending
to present the results of fresh researches, does profess to give an
account new in shape, and adapted to the wants of the day in which
it asks its share of public attention. In this case no person can
honourably write, and no editor can honourably sanction, any statements
but such as are not only possible and probable, but, allowing
for the degree of authenticity in each case claimed, on the whole
historically true. No honest man, who absolutely disbelieves in all
documents in which the original chronicler has mingled accounts of
supernatural events with the record of his own personal knowledge,
could possibly either write or edit such Lives as those included in
the following pages; still less could they be made public by one who
disbelieves in the reality of modern miracles altogether.

In presenting, then, the present and other similar volumes to the
ordinary reader, I anticipate some such questions as these: "Do you
really put these stories into our hands as history? Are these marvellous
tales to be regarded as poetry, romance, superstitious dreaming, or as
historical realities? If you profess to believe in their truth, how do
you reconcile their character with the universal aspect of human life,
as it appears _to us and to our friends?_ And finally, if you claim for
them the assent to which proved facts have a right from every candid
mind, to what extent of detail do you profess to believe in their
authenticity?" To these and similar questions I reply by the following
observations:

The last of these questions may be answered briefly. The lives of Saints
and other remarkable personages, which are here and elsewhere laid in
a popular form before the English public, are not all _equally_ to be
relied on as undoubtedly true in their various minute particulars. They
stand precisely on the same footing as the ordinary events of purely
secular history; and precisely the same degree of assent is claimed
for them that the common reason of humanity accords to the general
chronicles of our race. No man, who writes or edits a history of distant
events, professes to have precisely the same amount of certainty as to
all the many details which he records. Of some his certainty is all but
absolute; of others he can say that he considers them highly probable;
of a third class he only alleges that they are vouched for by
respectable though not numerous authorities., Still, he groups them
together in one complete and continuous story, and gives them to the
world as _history;_ nor does the world impute to him either dishonesty,
ignorance, credulity, or shallowness, because in every single event he
does not specify the exact amount of evidence on which his statement
rests.

Just such is the measure of belief to be conceded to the Life of St.
Frances, and other biographies or sketches of a similar kind. Some
portions, and those the most really important and prominent, are well
ascertained, incontrovertible, and substantially true. Others again, in
all likelihood, took place very much, though not literally, in the way
in which they are recorded. Of others, they were possibly, or even
probably, the mere colouring of the writer, or were originally adopted
on uninvestigated rumour. They are all, however, consistent with known
facts, and the laws on which humanity is governed by Divine Providence;
and therefore, as they may be true, they take their place in that vast
multitude of histories which all candid and well-informed persons agree
in accepting as worthy of credit, though in various degrees.

Supposing, then, that miraculous events may and do occur in the present
state of the world's history, it is obvious that these various degrees
of assent are commanded alike by the supernatural and the natural
events which are here so freely mingled together. Some are undoubtedly
true, others are probably either fictitious or incorrectly recorded.
The substance rests on the genuine documents, originally written by
eye-witnesses and perfectly competent judges; and as such, the whole
stands simply as a result of the gathering together of historical
testimony.

Here, however, the ordinary English reader meets us with the assertion,
that the supernatural portions of such lives are simply _impossible_. He
assumes--for I am not exaggerating when I say that he never tries _to
prove_--that these marvellous interruptions of the laws of nature never
take place. Consequently, in his judgment, it is purely ridiculous to
put forth such stories as history; and writers who issue them are guilty
either of folly, ignorance, superstition, or an unprincipled tampering
with the credulity of unenlightened minds. Of those who thus meet the
question of historical evidence by an assumption of a universal abstract
impossibility, I earnestly beg an unprejudiced attention to the
following considerations:

If it be once admitted that there is a God, and that the soul is not
a mere portion of the body, the existence of miracles becomes at once
probable. Apart from the records of experience, we should in fact have
expected that events which are now termed miraculous would have been
perhaps as common as those which are regulated by what we call the laws
of nature. Let it be only granted that the visible universe is not the
_whole_ universe, and that in reality we are ever in a state of most
intimate _real_ communion with Him who is its Creator; then, I say,
we should have expected to have been as habitually conscious of our
intercourse with that great Being, as of our intercourse with one
another. The true marvel is, that we are not thus habitually conscious
of the Divine Presence, and that God is really out of our sight. If
there is a God, who is ever around us and within us, _why_ does He not
communicate with us through the medium of our senses, as He enables us
to communicate with one another? Our souls hold mutual communion through
the intervention of this corporal frame, with such a distinct and
undeniable reality, that we are as _conscious_ of our intercourse as
of the contact of a material substance with our material bodies. Why,
then,--since it is so infinitely more important to us to hold ceaseless
communication with our Maker,--why is it that our intercourse with Him
is of a totally different nature? Why is it that the material creation
is not the ordinary instrument by which our souls converse with Him? Let
any man seriously ponder upon this awful question, and he must hasten to
the conclusion, that though experience has shown us that the world of
matter is not the _ordinary_ channel of converse between God and man,
there yet remains an overwhelming probability that some such intercourse
takes place _occasionally_ between, the soul and that God through whose
power alone she continues to exist.

In other words, the existence of miracles is probable rather than
otherwise. A miracle is an event in which the laws of nature are
interrupted by the intervention of Divine agency, usually for the
purpose of bringing the soul of man into a conscious contact with the
inhabitants of the invisible world. With more or less exactness of
similitude, a miracle establishes between God and man, or between other
spiritual beings and man, that same kind of intercourse which exists
between different living individuals of the human race. Such a conscious
intercourse is indeed asserted by infidels as well as by atheists,
to be, if not impossible, at least so utterly improbable, that it is
scarcely within the power of proof to make it credible to the unbiased
reason. Yet surely the balance of probability inclines to the very
opposite side. If there _is_ a God, and our souls _are_ in communication
(of some kind) with Him, surely, prior to experience, we should have
expected to be habitually conscious of this communion. And now that we
see that we are not at any rate habitually so, still the burden of proof
rests with those who allege that such conscious intercourse _never_
takes place. Apart from all proof of the reality of any one professed
miracle, the infidel is bound to show _why_ all miracles are improbable
or impossible; in other words, why man should never be conscious of the
presence and will of his ever-present God.

Protestants, however, and even weak Catholics, regard the record of one
of those mysterious lives, in which the soul of a man or woman has been
repeatedly brought into this species of communion with invisible beings,
as a tale which, though it is just possible that it may be true, is yet,
on the face of it, so flagrant a violation of the laws of nature, as
to be undeserving of positive hearty belief. They confound the laws of
physical nature with the laws of universal nature. They speak of the
nature of this material earth, as if it was identical with the _nature
of things_. And this confusion of thought it is to which I would
especially call attention. Miracles are contrary to the ordinary laws of
physical nature, and therefore are so far improbable, but they are in
the strictest conformity with the nature of things, and therefore _in
themselves_ are probable. If the laws of nature rule God as they control
man, a miracle is almost an impossibility; but if God rules the laws of
nature, then it is wonderful that something miraculous does not befall us
every day of our lives.

Again, it is in a high degree probable that miraculous events will
generally, so to say, take their colour from the special character of
that relation which may exist between God and man at the time when they
come to pass. If, in the inscrutable counsels of the Almighty, man is
placed, during different eras in his history, in different circumstances
towards his Creator and Preserver, it would seem only natural that
the variations in those circumstances should be impressed upon the
extraordinary intercourse between God and His people. Or, to use the
common Christian term, each _dispensation_ will have its peculiar
supernatural aspect, as well as its peculiar spiritual and invisible
relationship. If man was originally in a higher and more perfect state
of being than he is now, it is probable that his communion with God was
singularly, if not totally, unlike what it has been since he fell from
primeval blessedness. If after his fall, two temporary states have been
appointed to him by his God, then the miracles of each epoch will bear
their own special corresponding characteristics. And lastly, if by a
new exercise of regenerating and restoring power it has pleased the
Invisible One to rescue His creatures from the consequences of their
ancient ruin, then again we may expect to recognise the history of that
redemption in the whole course of the miraculous intercourse between
the Redeemer and the redeemed until the end of time. The supernatural
elements in the Paradisiacal, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the
Christian states, may be expected to be in many respects distinct, each
embodying with awful and glorious power the invisible relations which
the God of nature and of grace has thought fit to assume towards His
creatures.

And such, in fact, has been the case. Not only is the ceaseless
existence of a miraculous intercourse between God and man one of the
most completely proved of all historical events, but the miracles of
each dispensation are found in a wonderful degree to correspond with
the relationship of God to man in each of the separate epochs. The same
superhuman consistency is found to pervade all the works of God, both
where nature and grace are separate from one another, and where the
common laws of nature are burst through, and the material universe
is made as it were the bondslave of the unseen. The impiously meant
assertions of unbelief are fulfilled in a sense which unbelievers little
look for; and they who cry out in their hatred of miracles, that all
things are governed by unchanging _law_, may learn that in truth
unchanging laws do rule over all, although those laws have a range and a
unity in the essence and will of God, of which mortal intelligence
never dreamed. The natural and the supernatural, the visible and the
invisible, the ordinary and the miraculous, the rules of the physical
creation and the interruptions of those rules,--all are controlled by
one law, shaped according to one plan, directed by one aim, and bound to
one another by indissoluble ties, even where to human eyes all seem lost
in confusion and thwarted by mutual struggle.

Of what we should now call the miraculous, or supernatural, communion
between God and man in Paradise, we know historically but little. The
records of revelation being for the most part confined to the state of
man as he is, and his actual and future prospects, present but a glimpse
of the conscious communion which was permitted to the first of our race
in their original bliss. It is, however, believed by theologians, that
in Paradise what we should now term miracles did not exist; for this
reason, that what is now extraordinary was then ordinary. God conversed
with man, and man held communion with angels, directly and habitually;
so that in a certain sense man saw God and the world now unseen.
[Footnote: See St. Thomas, Summa, pars prima, quaest. 94. art. 1,2.] For
it is not the mere possession of a body which binds the soul with the
chains of sense; it is the corruption and sinfulness of our present
frames which has converted them into a barrier between the spirit within
and the invisible universe. As Adam came forth all pure and perfect from
the hands of his Creator, a soul dwelling in a body, his whole being
ministered fitly to the purposes of his creation, and with body and soul
together he conversed with his God. It was not till the physical sense
became his instrument of rebellion, that it was dishonoured and made his
prison-house, and laid under a curse which should never be fully removed
until the last great day of the resurrection.

Upon the fall of Adam, a new state was introduced, which lasted
about two thousand five hundred years. During its continuance, the
supernatural intercourse between Almighty God and His degraded creatures
took an entirely different character. What had originally been
continual, and as it were natural, became comparatively rare and
miraculous. Henceforth there _seemed_ to be no God among men, save when
at times the usual laws of the earth and the heavens were suspended
and God spoke in accents which none might refuse to hear. Of these
supernatural manifestations the general aspect was essentially typical
of the future redemption of the lost race by a Saviour. That promise
of deliverance from the consequences of sin, which Almighty God had
vouchsafed to the first sinners, was repeated in a vast variety of
miraculous interventions. Though there may have been many exceptions to
the ordinary character of the Patriarchal miracles, still, on the whole,
they wear a typical aspect of the most striking prominence.

The first miracle recorded after the fall is the token granted to Abel
that his _sacrifice_ was accepted. A deluge destroys all but one family,
who are saved in an ark, the type of the Church of God, and a rainbow is
set in the sky as a type of the covenant between God and man. A child is
miraculously born to Abraham in his old age, who is afterwards offered
to God as a type of the Redeemer, and saved from death by a fresh
supernatural manifestation of the Divine will. The chosen race become
captive in Egypt, as a figure of man's bondage to sin; a series of awful
miracles, wrought by the instrumentality of Moses himself, a type of
Jesus Christ, delivers them from their slavery, terminating with the
institution of the Passover, when the paschal lamb is eaten, and they
are saved by its blood, as mankind is saved by the blood of the Lamb
of God. The ransomed people miraculously pass through the Red Sea,
foreshadowing the Christian's regeneration by baptism; as they wander
afterwards in the desert, manna descends from heaven to feed them, and
water gushes from the rock to quench their thirst, and to prefigure that
sacred food and those streams of grace which are to be the salvation of
all men. Almost every interruption of the laws of nature bespeaks the
advent of the Redeemer, and does homage to Him as the Lord of earth and
heaven.

At length a code of laws is given to the chosen race, to separate them
completely from the rest of men, and a promise of perpetual temporal
prosperity is granted to them by God as the reward of their obedience,
and as a figure of the eternal blessedness of the just. From that time
with, as before, occasional exceptions, the supernatural events which
befall them wear a new aspect. Their peculiarly typical import is
exchanged for one more precisely in conformity with the leading
principle of the new dispensation. The rites and ceremonies of the new
Law prefigure the Sacrifice and Redemption of the Messias; but the
miracles of the next fifteen hundred years are for the most part
directed to uphold that rule of present reward and punishment, which was
the characteristic feature of the Jewish theocracy. The earth opens to
punish the disobedience of Core and his companions. Fiery serpents
smite the murmuring crowd with instant death; while the promised Saviour
is prefigured, not by a miracle, but by the erection of a brazen serpent
by the hands of Moses. The walls of Jericho fall prostrate before the
trumpets of the victorious Israelites; one man, Achan, unlawfully
conceals some of the spoil, and an immediate supernatural panic, struck
into his countrymen, betrays the committal of the sin. Miraculous water
fills the fleece of Gideon, to encourage him to fight for his country's
deliverance. An angel foretells the birth of Samson to set his people
free, when they are again in bondage. Samson himself is endowed with
supernatural strength; exhausted with the slaughter of his foes, he
prays for water to quench his thirst, and a stream bursts forth from the
ass's jawbone with which he had just slain the Philistines. Bound in
chains, blinded, and made a jest by the idolaters, his prayer for a
return of his strength is heard by God, and he destroys a multitude in
his last moments.

And thus, through all the history of the Kings and the Prophets, the
power of God is repeatedly put forth to alter the laws of nature for the
purpose of enforcing the great rule of the Mosaic law. The disobedience
of the Jews might, if God had so pleased, have been invariably punished
by the instrumentality of the ordinary course of events, shaped by the
secret hand of Divine Providence so as to execute His will, just as
now we find that certain sins inevitably bring on their own temporal
punishment by the operation of the laws of nature. And so, in the vast
majority of instances in which the Jews were rewarded and punished,
we find that the Divine promises and threats were fulfilled by the
occurrence of events in the natural order of things. But yet frequently
miracles confirmed and aided the work of chastisement and blessing; and
of the numerous wonders which were wrought from the giving of the law
to the coming of Christ, we find that nearly all bore this peculiar
character. For many centuries also a constant miraculous guidance was
granted to the people in the "Urim and Thummim," by which they were
enabled, when they chose to remain faithful, to escape all national
calamities and enjoy the fullest blessings of the promised land.

Under the Christian dispensation, again, a new character is imprinted
upon the supernatural history of the Church, which is, in fact, the
impression of the Cross of Christ. While the characteristics of the
Patriarchal and Jewish miracles are not wholly obliterated, an element,
which if not entirely new, is new in the intensity of its operation, is
introduced into the miraculous life of the children of Christ, which
life is really the prolongation of the supernatural life of Jesus Christ
Himself. It is accompanied also with a partial restoration of that
peculiar power which was possessed by man before he fell, when his
body became a veil to hide the world of spirits from his soul. While
prophecies of future events have not wholly ceased in the Christian
Church, and miracles are frequently wrought for the conferring of some
temporal blessings, yet these other wonderful features distinguish the
supernatural records of Christianity from those of both Patriarchal
and Jewish times. The undying power of the Cross is manifested in the
peculiar sufferings of the Saints, in their mystic communion with
the invisible world, and in that especial sanctity to which alone
miraculous gifts are for the most part accorded under the Gospel. Not
that all these three peculiarities are to be observed in the life of
every Saint under the Gospel. Far from it, indeed. The supernatural
life of the Saints varies with different individuals, according to the
pleasure of that Almighty Spirit, who communicates Himself to His elect
in ten thousand mysterious ways, and manifests Himself according to His
own will alone. Still, at times, they are found united, in conjunction
with those miraculous powers which were possessed under the old
dispensations in one individual. In such cases we behold the Life and
Passion of the King of Saints visibly renewed before our eyes; the
law of _suffering_,--that mysterious power, as life-giving as it is
unfathomable,--is set before us in an intensity of operation, which at
once calls forth the scoffs of the unbeliever, and quickens the faith of
the humble Christian; the privileges of eternity are anticipated, and
the blessings of a lost Paradise are in part restored. Jesus Christ
lives, and is in agony before us; the dread scene of Calvary is renewed,
united with those ineffable communications between the suffering soul
and its God, which accompanied the life and last hours of the Redeemer
of mankind. Our adorable Lord is, as it were, still incarnate amongst
us, displaying to our reverent faith the glories of His Passion in the
persons of those who are, in the highest sense that is possible, His
members, a portion of His humanity, in whom He dwells, who dwell in Him,
and whose life, in a degree incomprehensible even to themselves, is hid
with Christ in God. Such a Saint was St. Frances of Rome, one of those
glorious creations of Divine grace by means of which, at the time when
the Holy City was filled with bloodshed and ravaged with pestilence, and
when the heaviest disasters afflicted the Church, Almighty God set
forth before men the undying life of the Cross, and the reality of that
religion which seemed to be powerless to check the outrages of its
professed followers.

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