Page 48 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

O. R. VASSALL-PHILLIPS

traced, and his murderer was not brought to justice. He kept his
dread secret locked up in the inmost recesses of his own breast.
From God he could not hide it, but he was mad enough to conceal it
from the Priest of God even in the sacred tribunal of penance. For
years he had made bad Confessions, and lived in a terrible state of
sacrilege, until God, in His great mercy, brought him one day into
contact with Saint Gerard. The holy Brother looked at the poor man
intently, and then said to him without more ado:
“Sir, your conscience is indeed in a sad state. You will have to
make your Confessions all over again, beginning from the time when
you killed that man near the cherry-tree, and then buried him in your
orchard. You have never told it yet in Confession.”
The guilty man was thunderstruck. On his return home he told all
to his wife, who made the whole story known after his death.
Meanwhile his soul had been won by the Saint. He hastened to
approach the Sacraments in good earnest. No longer was he a
sacrilegious trifler with holy things. A real penitent, he hastened to
make a good Confession, and thus regained the peace of mind that
had not been his for many a year, and which in all probability never
would have been his again, had it not been for Brother Gerard's
charity.
For three years the servant of God was passing and repassing
through the kingdom of Naples on his appointed rounds, everywhere
persuading the greatest sinners to turn away from vice and lead a life
of virtue. We cannot here do more than select two or three of the
tales of wonder that embellish the story of these journeys with a
beauty all their own. Saint Gerard was deeply steeped in the true
Franciscan spirit, and we find him, like St. Francis and St. Antony,
often calling to his aid the services of his “brothers the animals,”
who, whenever there was question of causing sin to be avoided, or of
teaching some deep spiritual truth, seemed almost to be endowed for
the moment with the gift of reason at his word.
On one occasion he noticed that the horse he was riding — for
Gerard's journeys, according to the custom of the time, were usually
made on horseback — had lost its shoes. So he went to the nearest
forge and asked to have the beast re-shod. His task peformed, the
blacksmith claimed an exorbitant sum in payment. Now Gerard had
made a Vow of Poverty. The money that was demanded of him was
not his to give. Besides, he wished to teach the man a wholesome

38