Page 31 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

LIFE OF SAINT GERARD MAJELLA

for the hard life of a Lay-brother. On this ground he felt himself
bound to meet our Saint's petition with a positive refusal.
Meanwhile Gerard's mother and sister on their side were by no
means idle. They shrank from the very idea of losing him, and as they
knew that, notwithstanding the obstacles he had encountered, he was
far from giving up his project in despair, they locked him up, as they
thought safely, in his room. But the prisoner cut up his bedclothes,
and with their help let himself down from the window, leaving
behind a note to say that he had gone away to make himself a saint!
He now pursued the Redemptorist Fathers to a place called
Rionero, where they had gone to give a mission, and renewed his
request in the most humble and touching manner possible. Once
more refused, he exclaimed:
“Do but try me. This is all that I ask. You can send me away
afterwards if you please.”
Seeing that they were still determined not to accept him, he threw
himself on his knees and, crying bitterly, declared that if he were
refused admittance into the convent, he would be found every
morning outside its doors begging alms with the poor. This firmness
of purpose touched Father Cafaro to the heart. He made up his mind
to give Gerard the trial he craved so earnestly. Accordingly he sent
him to Iliceto with a note to the acting-Superior of the House, in
which he said simply:
“I send you a useless Brother.”
Saint Alphonsus has written the life of Father Cafaro, and left us
his testimony to the exceptional sanctity of the great servant of God
whom he knew so well. But even Father Cafaro could not foresee
how warmly God would espouse the cause of the new postulant.
That frail frame was to be so strengthened, that, in the discharge of
the daily duties of his laborious state, he should always prove one of
the most useful members of any community to which he might be
attached. But this in the future
For the moment he was only “a useless Brother.”

21