From: "Trudie" 

March 28th - St. John Of Capistrano (A.D. 1456)

CAPISTRANO is a little town in the Abruzzi, which of old formed part of the
kingdom of Naples. Here in the fourteenth century a certain
free-lance-whether he was of French or of German origin is disputed-had
settled down after military
service under Louis I and had married an Italian wife. A son, named John,
was born to him in 1386 who was destined to become famous as one of the
great lights
of the Franciscan Order. From early youth the boy's talents made him
conspicuous. He studied law at Perugia with such success that in 1412 he
was appointed governor of that city and married the daughter of one of the
principal
inhabitants. During hostilities between Perugia and the Malatestas he was
imprisoned, and this was the occasion of his resolution to change his way
of life and become a religious. How he got over the difficulty of his
marriage is not altogether clear. But it is said that he rode through
Perugia on a donkey with his face to the tail and with a huge paper hat on
his head upon which all his worst sins were plainly written. He was pelted
by the children and covered with filth, and in this guise presented himself
to ask admission into the noviceship of the Friars Minor. At that date,
1416, he was thirty years old, and
his novice-master seems to have thought that for a man of such strength of
will who had been accustomed to have his own way, a very severe training
was necessary to test the genuineness of his vocation. (He had not yet even
made his
first communion.) The trials to which he was subjected were most humiliating and
were apparently sometimes attended with supernatural manifestations. But Brother
John persevered, and in after years often expressed his gratitude to the
relentless instructor who had made it clear to him that self-conquest was
the only sure road to perfection.

In 1420 John was raised to the priesthood. Meanwhile he made extraordinary
progress in his theological studies, leading at the same time a life of
extreme austerity, in which he tramped the roads barefoot without sandals,
gave only three or four hours to sleep and wore a hair-shirt continually.
In his studies he had St James of the Marches as a fellow learner, and for
a master St Bernardino of Siena, for whom he conceived the deepest
veneration and affection.
Very soon John's exceptional gifts of oratory made themselves perceptible.
The whole of Italy at that period was passing through a terrible crisis of
political
unrest and relaxation of morals, troubles which were largely caused, and in
any case accentuated, by the fact that there were three rival claimants for
the papacy and that the bitter antagonisms between Guelfs and Ghibellines
had not yet been healed. Still, in preaching throughout the length and
breadth of the peninsula St John met with wonderful response. There is
undoubtedly a note of exaggeration in the terms in which Fathers
Christopher of Varese and Nicholas of
Fara describe the effect produced by his discourses. They speak of a
hundred thousand or even a hundred and fifty thousand auditors being
present at a single
sermon. That was certainly not possible in a country depopulated by wars,
pestilence and famine, and in view of the limited means of locomotion then
available. But there was good evidence to justify the enthusiasm of the
latter writer when he tells us: "No one was more anxious than John
Capistran for the conversion of heretics, schismatics and Jews. No one was
more anxious that religion should flourish, or had more power in working
wonders; no one was so ardently desirous of martyrdom, no one was more
famous for his holiness. And so he was welcomed with honour in all the
provinces of Italy. The throng of people at his sermons was so great that
it might be thought that the apostolic times were revived. On his arrival
in a province, the towns and villages were in commotion and flocked in
crowds to hear him. The towns invited him to visit them, either by pressing
letters, or by deputations, or by an appeal to the Sovereign Pontiff
through the medium of influential persons."

But the work of preaching and the conversion of souls by no means absorbed
all the saint's attention. There is no occasion to make reference here in
any detail
to the domestic embarrassments which had beset the Order of St Francis since the
death of their Seraphic Founder. It is sufficient to say that the party known as
the "Spirituals" held by no means the same views of religious
observance as were
entertained by those whom they termed the "Relaxed". The
Observant reform which had been initiated in the middle of the fourteenth
century still found itself hampered in many ways by the administration of
superiors general who held a different standard of perfection, and on the
other hand there had also been exaggerations in the direction of much
greater austerity culminating eventually in the heretical teachings of the
Fraticelli. All these difficulties required adjustment, and Capistran,
working in harmony with St Bernardino of Siena, was called upon to bear a
large share in this burden. After the general chapter held
at Assisi in 1430, St John was appointed to draft the conclusions at which
the assembly arrived and these "Martinian statutes", as they were
called, in virtue of their confirmation by Pope Martin V, are among the
most important in the history of the order. So again John was on several
occasions entrusted with inquisitorial powers by the Holy See, as for
example to take proceedings against
the Fraticelli and to inquire into the grave allegations which had been
made against the Order of Gesuats founded by Bd John Colombini. Further, he
was keenly interested in that reform of the Franciscan nuns which owed its
chief inspiration to St Colette, and in the tertiaries of the order. In the
Council of
Ferrara, later removed to Florence, he was heard with attention, but between the
early and the final sessions he had been compelled to visit Jerusalem as
apostolic commissary, and incidentally had done much to help on the
inclusion of
the Armenians with the Greeks in the accommodation, unfortunately only
short-lived, which was arrived at Florence.

When the Emperor Frederick III, finding that the religious faith of the
countries under his suzerainty was suffering grievously from the activities
of the Hussites and other heretical sectaries, appealed to Pope Nicholas V
for help, St John Capistran was sent as commissary and inquisitor general,
and he set out for Vienna in 1451 with twelve of his Franciscan brethren to
assist him.
It is beyond doubt that his coming produced a great sensation. Aeneas
Sylvius (the future Pope Pius II) tells us how, when he entered Austrian
territory, "priests and people came out to meet him, carrying the
sacred relics. They received him as a legate of the Apostolic See, as a
preacher of truth, as some great prophet sent by God. They came down from
the mountains to greet John, as though Peter or Paul or one of the other
apostles were journeying there. They eagerly kissed the hem of his garment,
brought their sick and afflicted to his feet, and it is reported that very
many were cured... The elders of the city met
him and conducted him to Vienna. No square in the city could contain the crowds.
They looked on him as an angel of God." John's work as inquisitor and
his dealings with the Hussites and other Bohemian heretics have been
severely criticized, but this is not the place to attempt any
justification. His zeal was
of the kind that sears and consumes, though he was merciful to the
submissive and repentant, and he was before his time in his attitude to
witchcraft and the use of torture. The miracles which attended his progress
wherever he went, and which he attributed to the relics of St Bernardino of
Siena, were sedulously recorded by his companions, and a certain prejudice
was afterwards created against the saint by the accounts which were
published of these marvels. He went
from place to place, preaching in Bavaria, Saxony and Poland, and his
efforts were everywhere accompanied by a great revival of faith and
devotion. Cochlaeus of Nuremberg tells us how "those who saw him there
describe him as a man small of body, withered, emaciated, nothing but skin
and bone, but cheerful, strong and strenuous in labour... He slept in his
habit, rose before dawn, recited his office and then celebrated Mass. After
that he preached, in Latin, which was afterwards explained to the people by
an interpreter." He also made a round of the sick who awaited his
coming, laying his hands upon each, praying, and touching them with one of
the relics of St Bernardino.

It was the capture of Constantinople by the Turks which brought this
spiritual campaign to an end. Capistran was called upon to rally the
defenders of the West
and to preach a crusade against the infidel. His earlier efforts in Bavaria, and
even in Austria, met with little response, and early in 1456 the situation
became desperate. The Turks were advancing to lay siege to Belgrade, and
the saint, who by this time had made his way into Hungary, taking counsel
with the great general Hunyady, saw clearly that they would have to depend
in the main upon local effort. St John wore himself out in preaching and
exhorting the Hungarian people in order to raise an army which could meet
the threatened danger, and himself led to Belgrade the troops he had been
able to recruit. Very
soon the Turks were in position and the siege began. Animated by the prayers and
the heroic example in the field of Capistran, and wisely guided by the
military experience of Hunyady, the garrison in the end gained an
overwhelming victory. The siege was abandoned, and western Europe for the
time was saved. But the infection bred by thousands of corpses which lay
unburied round the city cost the life first of all of Hunyady, and then a
month or two later of Capistran himself, worn out by years of toil and of
austerities and by the strain of the siege. He died most peacefully at
Villach on October 23, 1456, and was canonized
in 1724. His feast was in 1890 made general for all the Western church, and
was then transferred to March 28.

Sources:
The more important biographical materials for the history of St John of
Capistrano are printed in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. x. See BHL.,
nn. 4360-4368. But in addition to these there is a considerable amount of
new information concerning St John's writings, letters, reforms and other
activities
which has been printed during the present century in the Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum edited at Quaracchi; attention may be called in
particular to the papers on St John and the Hussites in vols. xv and xvi of
the same periodical. This and other material has been used by J. Hofer in
his St John Capistran, Reformer (1943), a work of much erudition and value.
English readers may also be
referred to a short life by Fr V. Fitzgerald, and to Léon, Auréole
Séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iii, pp. 388-420.

From:
(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995)


Quote:
"Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it
should, but rather as God pleases, then you will be undisturbed and
thankful in you prayer."
-Abba Nilus

Bible Quote
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field. Which a
man having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that
he hath, and buyeth that field.  (Matthew 13:44



The fifth glorious mystery prayer of the Eucharistic Rosary, to be offered
before the Blessed Sacrament:

The Crowning of Mary in Heaven, offered for perseverance unto a happy death
will merit a crown of eternal glory.

Divine Son of Mary, to make Thy holy Mother partaker of Thy own glory, Thou
hast crowned her queen of heaven and earth and appointed her our advocate
and the living channel of Thy graces.  From the Eucharist not less than
from heaven, Thou willest that every grace shall reach us through her
maternal hands.

O Jesus, we adore Thee in Thy unspeakable glory, of which Thou hast made
Thy Mother partake with Thee, and we beg Thee, through the intercession, a
great confidence in her powerful protection and great earnestness in
imitating her virtues; in particular her purity, humility, and fidelity to
grace.

Imprimatur:  + John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York, Sept 19, 1908.

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