Page 58 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

O. R. VASSALL-PHILLIPS

their burning thirst. Straightway the water was seen to reappear,
bubbling slowly upwards, and not stopping until the well was as full
as before the catastrophe.
“I beg of you,” said Gerard, as a final word of friendly warning to
the proprietor who, true to his word, now hastened to supply the
pilgrims' needs — “I beg of you never more to refuse to anyone that
which belongs of right to all the world. If you do, you will find to
your cost that God will again refuse it to yourself.”
They then all quenched their thirst, and we are told that, from that
day forward, the offence was never repeated. Water was never
refused from that well to any who passed by — at least during the
lifetime of him to whom Saint Gerard had taught the duty of charity
by a sermon more eloquent than could be preached from any pulpit.
On their way home the pilgrims visited not only Our Lady of
Foggia once more, but also a little chapel in a sequestered wood
dedicated to Maria Coronata. Here Saint Gerard went into yet
another ecstasy. His companions must have been well used to the
sight by this time. Yet one of them ventured to ask him, when he
came to himself, what had been the matter with him during the
trance.
“Oh! it is nothing,” was the humble answer, “it is only a weakness
to which I am subject.”
Thus ended the famous pilgrimage to Monte Gargano, a
pilgrimage never to be forgotten by those who took part in it. Among
these was a young man called Peter Paul Blasucci, brother to the
young novice, Dominic Blasucci, whose life has been written by St.
Alphonsus, and who had died in the freshness of his first fervour,
and in the odour of great sanctity a few months previously. Peter
Paul Blasucci at this time was barely a year professed. But during this
journey, Saint Gerard told him that one day he would be elected
Superior-General of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.
The prophecy was fulfilled forty years later, when, in the year 1793,
the General Chapter elected Father Blasucci to govern the
Congregation founded by St. Alphonsus.
The pilgrimage to Monte Gargano had lasted nine days. The little
band returned with their purse better replenished than when they
first started on their pious travels.
Confidence in Divine Providence is a bank that never breaks, a
well that never runs dry.

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