Today March 6

Today is the feast of St. Colette, (1381 -1447), virgin and reformer. A tiny, petite little French peasant girl, she was a delightful and attractive pixie. She was always drawn to God and filled her days with prayer . . . and even playing with animals. (That does my heart good.) Even in her later days, lambs and doves would gather around her and she could get even the shiest of birds to eat right out of her hand. Perhaps it's natural she became a Third Order Franciscan. But it wasn't a direct thing at all. She tried the Beguines first, but didn't fit in there; then the Benedictines, then the Poor Clares. Nothing. Almost as a last resort she became a Third Order Franciscan. She retired to a humble hermitage given to her by the Franciscan abbot of Corbie. It was attached to the church, and she could come and go as she pleased. First she received plenty of visitors, anxious to see such a curiosity. Later she received fewer, but many still welcomed her prayer and advice. Finally she received none at all. And all might have continued like this, had she not had a dream.

She had a vision of St. Francis himself, calling her to restore the female Franciscans (aka the Poor Clares) to their original severity. Asking for a sign, she received an unlikely one: she was struck blind for three days. Regaining her sight, she was then struck mute for three days more. She went out on pilgrimage, completely barefoot, determined to reform the order by hook or by crook.

Interestingly, she here made an error, albeit innocently. (Isn't it wonderful that saints are human?) She applied for permission to the WRONG pope. Yes, she sought authority from one who had no authority to give, Peter de Luna, pretender to the papacy, and going by the name Benedict XIII. He was the anti-pope in Nice, but the French generally acknowledged him as pope. Now equipped with what she thought was a mandate, she limped from convent to convent, preaching the idealism of the first founder of the order, St. Francis. Laughed at, ignored, spurned, she went on her way serenely, knowing she was pruning the now almost fruitless vine, preparing it to bear much fruit in future, which it did. Despite all the calumny of "realism," she WAS able to turn the Poor Clares around, to the point that even the male Franciscans reformed, embracing the poverty and prayerfulness of the Seraphic founder.

And here, too, she had a mysterious, some would say miraculous, sign to support her -- one of the most unusual in hagiographical history. Jesus Christ appeared to her mystically and gave her a golden reliquary, but unlike other examples of a heavenly "gift" that not everyone can see (think St. Catherine's mysterious golden "ring" from heaven), anyone can see this jewel-encrusted golden cross with a piece of wood in it, purported to be a fragment of the True Cross. You can see it yourself at the Monastere de Ste. Claire in Poligny, France, where Colette's remains themselves rest. Dear St. Colette, pray for us.