Page 104 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

O. R. VASSALL-PHILLIPS

knock at the door. It was Gerard himself. He went straight up to her
and said: “You called me; I am here to be of service to you. Have you
a lively faith in God? If so, be cured!”
He then made the sign of the Cross upon the girl's forehead, and
left her without another word. Her pains had vanished; she got up
quite well. Needless to say, her first anxiety was to thank her
wonderful benefactor. But he was nowhere to be found. On inquiry it
transpired that he had been seen by no one in the place outside of the
Di Gregorio household. Except for that supernatural visit to the sick-
room he had not been at Lacedogna all the day.
On another occasion Saint Gerard had a long conversation with a
great friend of his, a very charitable man, called Theodore Cleffi.
Before leaving the Saint, Theodore promised to prepare a list of the
most necessitous persons in Caposele and bring it to the convent. On
his way home he went into a cottage, where he knew that there was a
man who was very ill and in a state of extreme destitution. On being
asked by his visitor of what he stood in the greatest need, the poor
sufferer replied cheerfully:
“I need nothing, for Brother Gerard has been with me a short
time ago. He has relieved all my wants.”
Theodore's surprise may be imagined. For the moment he was
dumbfounded; then he said bluntly that that was certainly untrue, as
he had himself been with Brother Gerard in the convent, at the very
time that he was supposed to be paying this visit of charity. But when
the sick man persisted in his assertion, and in confirmation thereof
produced the presents that the holy Brother had just made him, there
was no longer any room for reasonable doubt, at least in the mind of
one who knew the gifts and sanctity of the Servant of God. It was
clearly a case of Bilocation.
Father Tannoia, than whom no one had better opportunities of
knowing the truth, and whose evidence is beyond suspicion, tells us
that Saint Gerard made frequent use of this most marvellous
endowment. Thus once, on not receiving some news that he
expected from Muro, he said quietly:
“I must go there tomorrow.”
It was afterwards stated on unexceptionable authority that he was
seen in Muro the next day, although, on the other hand, it is equally
certain that he did not leave the convent at Caposele.
The mysterious presence of the Saint in more than one place at

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