Today September 10

Today is the feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentino (1245-1305). He is the patron saint of infants, probably from the manner of his coming to be. His parents were happily married but still infertile in their late middle age. They (especially Mom) prayed to St. Nicholas, patron of children, and conceived. As with so many other grateful mothers, she consigned him to God's service when the time came. He joined the Augustinians and became a notable preacher. He went to college and studied theology (this after he was professed at 18, but before he started preaching), was ordained at 25, was novice-master briefly, and alms giver at the gate -- for which he was criticized for being too generous! An easy touch, was St. Nicholas. He was sent around to many friaries to preach and in one of them -- a really nice one, not noisy and uncomfortable like his usual houses -- he was tempted to stay, but he heard an interior voice saying: "To Tolentino, to Tolentino. Persevere there." Such was the greatness of his heart that he went there immediately and stayed the last 30 years of his life.

He preached there -- in season and out of season -- performed miracles (often using the words "The good God will heal you" or loaves of bread marked with a cross -- to focus on something else other than himself), and upset people. One guy tried to disrupt his sermons with a sword fight. But "Nicholas refused to be intimidated, and his perseverance began to make an impression on his persecutor. Afterward he came and apologized to St. Nicholas and began to reform his ways." - Butler's Lives. Among his cures (mentioned in Butler's Lives) were the cure of a diseased child, a blind woman and even a dead man. Nicholas rescued him from the lake where he had been thrown a week before, revived the body, led the man back home to his family, heard his confession and anointed him. Then, before the eyes of all, the man again died, his flesh shriveling off his bones, but in peace now he had made a good end. The Bollandists, fairly early but also fairly skeptical hagiographers, include this story in their annals since it was well corroborated.

Nicholas suffered almost a year with his final illness and was bedridden towards the end of it. He expired peacefully. His last words were edifying: "My dearest brethren, my conscience does not reproach me with anything -- but I am not justified by that." St. Nicholas, pray for us.