Page 93 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

LIFE OF SAINT GERARD MAJELLA

truth, he is only a simpleton and a fool. People, as I find, are
strangely mistaken about him here at Naples. Please tell the Duchess
so from me.”
This lady had wished to see Saint Gerard that she might obtain at
his hands the cure of a sick child. When the servant brought back the
answer that he had received, she knew at once that it could have
come from no other than the Saint himself.
Early the next morning she went to the Church of the Holy Spirit,
where she knew that she would be sure to find Saint Gerard. As soon
as she saw him come in, she went up to him and begged of him to
obtain from God the recovery of her child.
“There,” said Gerard, turning his eyes to the tabernacle, “there
dwells the Giver of all good gifts.”
“It is from you and from Him,” replied the Duchess, “that this
grace on which I have set my heart must come.”
Gerard bowed to her, and promised to pray for her child. The
poor mother was still in the church when her maid came in quickly to
tell her that the little girl had been suddenly cured. It was
subsequently ascertained that the cure took place at the very moment
when our Saint had promised to recommend the child to God.
Ladies living in the world were far from being the only persons to
seek the help of Saint Gerard. In Naples, as elsewhere, Priests and
Religious vied with one another in the eagerness with which they
strove to obtain his advice, until at last his Superiors felt bound to
interpose.
It might be dangerous, even for Gerard — a Lay brother by
vocation — thus to be made the idol of a great city. Again, it was
hardly conducive to the calm, which should pervade a Religious
House, that the little Redemptorist Residence should become a
centre of attraction for crowds of eager visitors, anxious even at the
most inconvenient hours to see the marvellous worker of miracles,
with whose fame all Naples was ringing. Accordingly, after a stay of
about four months' duration in the capital, Gerard was, to his own
great contentment, attached by St. Alphonsus to the House of
Caposele, and thus restored once more to the ordinary Community
life of a Redemptorist Lay-brother.

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