Page 117 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

LIFE OF SAINT GERARD MAJELLA

stupefaction took him into another room, and said:
“Are you aware, Father, that you have a Saint at present in your
house? I am the man of whom he spoke just now. At the instigation
of Satan, I was going to commit a certain sin, when suddenly remorse
seized me, and I checked myself at the very edge of the abyss. I tell
you this to my own confusion and to the glory of your guest.”
We now come to the beginning of the end. A severe haemorrhage
compelled Gerard to stay his course at San Gregorio. He knew that it
was the herald of death. Already at the commencement of the year he
had said to Dr. Santorelli, the medical man, who, as we have already
seen, was much in his confidence:
“This year I shall die of consumption.”
“How can you know that? asked the doctor.
“I have begged the favour of Our Lord,” replied Gerard, “and He
has granted it to me.”
“But why do you mention consumption rather than anything
else?”
“Because that complaint will leave me most to myself,” answered
the Saint.
A short time before he had told a Lay-brother that he had asked
Our Lord to allow him to die of consumption, with no one near him
at the end.
This heroic prayer was now about to be granted.
The doctor at San Gregorio did not think much of the attack, and
contented himself with bleeding his victim. On August 22 Saint
Gerard seemed well enough to leave for the neighbouring hamlet of
Buccino. That same evening a new haemorrhage came on. Two
doctors were hastily called in, and once more prescribed the universal
panacea of eighteenth-century physicians for all the ills that flesh is
heir to. He was bled anew and ordered to return without delay to
Oliveto, where the air was thought to be better suited to his
precarious state of health. At Oliveto he went to the hospitable house
of his friend, the Archpriest, Don Salvatore, and thence wrote the
following letter to his Father Rector: —
I wish to inform your Reverence that while kneeling in the church
at San Gregorio, I began to spit blood. I told a doctor what had
occurred. After examining me, he said several times that this
haemorrhage came from the throat, not from the chest, and assured
me that there was no cause for anxiety. He then bled me, and I

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