† St. Bernard of Corleone † (January 12)

† Saint of the Day †

(January 12)

✠ St. Bernard of Corleone ✠

Religious:

Born: February 6, 1605
Corleone, Sicily, Kingdom of Sicily

Died: January 12, 1667 (Aged 61)
Palermo, Sicily, Kingdom of Sicily

Venerated in: Roman Catholic Church

Beatified: May 15, 1768
Pope Clement XIII

Canonized: June 10, 2001
Pope John Paul II

Feast: January 12

Patronage: Corleone

Saint Bernardo da Corleone - born Filippo Latini - was a Roman Catholic professed religious from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He was a cobbler like his father until the latter died and he became a violent-tempered soldier who was quick to challenge to a duel those who offended him or the causes he believed in. But one duel went too far and he almost killed his opponent; he fled to the Franciscans in Palermo where he experienced a radical conversion and repentance for his previous life. He became severe with himself and inflicted harsh penances on himself such as flagellation.

The process for his sainthood opened on 18 December 1725 under Pope Benedict XIII and he became titled as a Servant of God while the confirmation of his life of heroic virtue allowed for Pope Clement XIII to title him as Venerable on 2 February 1762. The confirmation of two miraculous healings attributed to his intercession allowed for Clement XIII to preside over the beatification on 15 May 1768. Latini received canonization from Pope John Paul II centuries later on 10 June 2001 after the confirmation of one more miracle.

Philip was his baptismal name. He was third of the six children of Leonardo and Francesca Latini of Corleone, Sicily. Leonardo owned a small vineyard, but little more. Philip received no formal education. He did, however, learn the cobbler’s trade; and when his father died, he plied that trade to support his mother as well as himself.

When young Latini was growing up, his hometown was garrisoned by mercenary troops hired by Spain, which then ruled Sicily. From these swashbucklers, the young citizen learned a more dubious skill – immensely popular in the 17th century – swordsmanship. Indeed, he acquired the reputation of being the best blade in Sicily. This talent, however, he used only defensively: on behalf, for example, of the women and poor peasants often abused by the local soldiery. “Christian causes” he called them.

Swordplay was nevertheless not the safest nor most Christian of skills. One of the military in Corleone was always trying to provoke Philip to duel. On one occasion, when he did cross swords, he wounded this enemy badly. To escape prosecution, he invoked the right of sanctuary, fleeing to the local church for shelter until the coast was clear. He stayed inside the church for a week. During that period of forced inactivity, he had a chance to ask himself whether his combative lifestyle was leading him. Was he not risking his soul?

By the time he emerged and vindicated his innocence, Philip had decided to make amends by entering the religious life. At the age of 27, he entered the Capuchin Franciscan order at Caltanisetta, Sicily, as a lay brother, receiving the religious name of Bernard. This was in 1632.

The way in which Brother Bernard strove particularly to make amends for his violence towards others was in directing his violence against himself. For even slight faults of uncharity in the religious community, he treated his own flesh unmercifully. But along with this stern self-discipline, he advanced by giant steps in his prayer life. Many spiritual gifts were reported of him as time passed: prophecies, wonders, miracles.

Among the more genial graces bestowed on Fra Bernardo was the ability to heal animals. In a truly Franciscan spirit, he felt a loving kinship with all lesser animals. He was sad to see them in pain, for, as he said, they could not speak in order to tell human beings of their illnesses, and there were (at that time) no doctors to prescribe for them or medicines to cure them.

Because of the reputation, Bernard acquired of curing animals, owners of all sorts of lesser creatures brought them to this “supernatural veterinary”. He would usually say the Our Father over them, and then lead them three times around the cross that stood in front of the Capuchin church. “He cured them all,” says his biographer. Still, more remarkably, he is reported, while on his deathbed, to have “bequeathed” this special grace of healing upon another Franciscan who had been his associate and admirer.

Bernard of Corleone was a “modern” saint. Yet every now and then, even in contemporary sophisticated times, God sometimes raises up people that seem to be “throw-backs” to the remarkable saints of earlier Christianity. Their savage means of self-discipline remind us of those practiced by the hermit saints of the fourth century. Their sense of kinship with lesser animals reminds us of the crystalline sense of communion with all creation that characterized St. Francis of Assisi. Now, Satan detests self-discipline and discourages any true love of creation, so people like Saint Bernard of Corleone are his most dangerous enemies, and those whom they inspire are already beyond his seductions.

Brother Bernard Latini of Corleone died at Palermo, Sicily, on January 12, 1667, at the age of 62. This uneducated cobbler and swordsman, who had gone on to triumph in the duel against himself, was declared “blessed” on April 29, 1768, by Pope Clement XIII, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on June 10, 2001.
~ Father Robert F. McNamara