Page 44 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

O. R. VASSALL-PHILLIPS

brought, to remain with faithful souls who responded to his appeals,
in the Name and for the Love of Jesus Christ.
Indeed, his coming excited such enthusiasm among the warm-
hearted people of southern Italy, that the only difficulty was to
restrain their generosity within due bounds. Ladies wished to give
him their earrings. Men, who had nothing else, desired to cut the very
buttons — often so valuable in Italy — off their clothes that they
might give unto the Lord and His servant that which cost them
something. As he passed along his way, people knelt to receive his
benediction, and cried out to one another:
“The Saint — the Saint is coming! Here is the Saint!”
Still Brother Gerard's humility remained as profound as ever.
Unmoved by the applause of men, he reposed all his confidence in
God alone. No breath of pride was suffered to dim the lustre of his
virtue — no uprising of self-complacency permitted to cloud the
serenity of his childlike spirit. Through the light that he received from
above, his own nothingness was never absent from his sight.
Considering the abundance of the Divine gifts which had been
lavished so freely upon his soul, he marvelled at what he deemed his
base ingratitude. Like St. Francis of Assisi, he looked upon himself as
the last and least of men, and found his peace in his own abjection.

Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis, et divites dimisit inanes.

He hath put down the powerful from their seat, and hath exalted
the lowly and the meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath
sent empty away.

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