Today October 5

Today is the feast of Blessed Bartolo Longo, layman (1841 -1926). This great man was a very eloquent and learned writer, a good student at a good (Catholic) school, and a searcher for the "ultimate truth." At the University of Naples Bartolo fell for spiritualism, that weird, seance-riddled precursor to today's New Age movement (which is itself a modern version of gnosticism -- there's nothing new under the sun, they say). He fell into a depression. Later, he seemed to hear the voice of his dead father calling him to come back to God. Whether it was a case of his good angel trying to warn him, or the actual soul of his father communicating with him, or a result of mental disturbance, it doesn't really matter. He sought help from wise men, living (Professor Pepe and Father Radente) and dead (St. Thomas Aquinas), and their truth and testimony delivered him. He became a Thomist and a brave witness. He even went to a seance and right in the middle of the meeting declared: "I renounce spiritualism because it is nothing but a maze of error and falsehood!"

An "all-or-nothing" guy, he gave up his law practice and devoted himself entirely to charity. He wondered (later) why no one -- none of his friends -- encouraged him to become a priest. It was not to be. He had many good-hearted platonic female friends, one of whom was a countess by the name of Marianna. The two of them were seen in public together so often people thought they were having an affair! They mentioned the problem to their good friend Leo XIII and he said (and I quote): "Lawyer, you are free; Countess, you are a widow; get married and no one can say anything against you." So they married and honeymooned in Rome. They went there "good friends and returned good spouses" - Countess Marianna. And they stayed together, faithfully and happily for 39 years until her death at 88. (He died 2 years later at 85.)

He and she were so committed to living out the Gospel imperative to help the poor that they built a whole TOWN for them, kind of like Boys' Town. They started with a boys' orphanage (and later added a girls' one), and it became much, much larger: he built a printing press, hospital, typing school, music studio, vo-tech, post office, railroad station and retirement center. Wow. He was busy. Above all, he stressed catechism: "People without catechism are people without religion." And over all he put Mary. He even called the Boys' Town "City of Mary." He was devoted to the rosary, which he said every day, even when he was so sick in his final illness he couldn't move. And his City of Mary, his "new Pompeii" had a miraculous old picture of the Madonna and Child (with a rosary, which she was giving to St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena), miraculous in the sense that numerous and wonderful unexplained cures were attached to it. Though it had seen better days (and even been transported in a wagon full of manure), it cleaned up nicely and was even adorned with real diamonds from grateful petitioners.

He always hated having his character called into question, so it was particularly hard on him in his last days that he was accused of financial discrepancies in his management of his City of Mary. He exclaimed, "I have sacrificed all I had for the last 50 years for Our Lady, and now they call me a thief!" He later, much later, was exonerated, but it still was a depressing time for him.

He was always marked by a sincere affective relationship with the Virgin Mary, which his last words bear out. "My only desire is to see Mary, who has saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan."

Blessed Bartolo Longo, pray for us.