Blessed Colomba of Rieti is always called after her birthplace, though she actually spent the greater part of her life away from it. Her celebrity is based — as it was even in her lifetime — mainly on two things: the highly miraculous nature of her career from its very beginning, and her intense devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She was one amongst a number of saintly Dominican women who seem to have been expressly raised up by God in protest against, and as a sharp contrast to, the irreligion and immorality prevalent in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These women, nearly all of the Third Order, had an intense devotion to St. Catherine of Siena, and made it their aim to imitate her as nearly as possible. Many seculars, men as well as women, shared this devotion, amongst these being Ercole I, Duke of Ferrara, who had a deep admiration for Colomba and for some other holy Dominican religious, her contemp oraries, the most notable of whom were Blessed Osanna of Mantua and Blessed Lucy of Narni.

 

For the latter Ercole’s veneration was so great that he never rested until he had got her to come with some of her nuns to live in Ferrara, where he built her a convent and where she died after many troubles. She began when quite a girl to practice austere penances and to subsist almost entirely on the supernatural food of the Holy Eucharist, and continued this for the greater part of her life. At nineteen she joined the Dominican Tertiaries, of whom there were many in town, though still living at home; and she soon won the veneration of her fellow townspeople by her personal holiness as well as by some miracles that she worked. But Colomba was not destined to remain in Rieti. In 1488 she left home and went to Perugia, where the inhabitants received her as a saint, and in the course of time built her the convent of St. Catherine, in which she assembled all the Third Order Dominicanesses, who desired her as superior in spite of her youth. In 1494, when a terrible plague was raging in Perugia, she offered herself as victim for the city. The plague was stayed, but Colomba herself was struck down by the scourge. She recovered only to save her sanctity severely tried by widely spread calumnies, which reached Rome, whence a commission was sent to examine into her life. She was treated for some time as an imposter, and deposed from her office of prioress; but finally her innocence triumphed.

 

In 1495 Alexander VI, having heard of Colomba’s holiness and miracles from his son the Cardinal Caesar Borgia, who had been living in Perugia, went himself to the city and saw her. She is said to have gone into ecstasy at his feet, and also to have boldy told him of all personal sins. The pope was fully satisfied of her great sanctity, and set the seal of approval on her mode of life. In the year of 1499 she was consulted, by authorities who were examining into the manner, concerning the stigmata of Blessed Lucy of Narni, and spoke warmly in favor of their being genuine, and of her admiration for Blessed Lucy’s holiness. Her relics are still venerated at Perugia, and her feast is kept by her order on 20 May.

 

Born: February 2, 1467 at Rieti, Umbria, Italy as Angelella Guardagnoli

Died: May 20, 1501 at Perguia, Italy of natural causes; at the moment of her death, her friend, Blessed Osanna Andreasi, saw Columba’s soul as a radiance rising to heaven; the whole city turned out for her funeral, which was paid for by the city fathers

Beatified: February 25, 1625 by Pope Urban VIII

Patronage: against sorcery; against temptation and Perugia, Italy

Representation: Dominican tertiary receiving the Eucharist from a hand reaching down from heaven; Dominican tertiary receiving the Eucharist from an angel; Dominican tertiary with a dove, lily, and book; Dominican tertiary with a wreath of roses, cross, lily, and rosary

 

Blessed Andrew was born near the world-famous shrine of Mary Magdalen. His entire life was centered around the shrine, and it is greatly due to his efforts that devotion to the great penitential has become so well established.

As a young man, Andrew may have heard the stirring sermons of Saint Vincent Ferrer, who was at that time preaching in France. Perhaps the purity and penitential zeal for which this great preacher was renowned gave the young Andrew the pattern for his own life. He soon demonstrated his choice of purity and penance by joining the Dominicans in his home town. After a happy and holy novitiate, he made his profession and was ordained. In a few years, a preacher and a guide for souls, he turned his attention to the neglected shrine of Saint Mary Magdalen.

This rugged and penitential region of France had been honored from the time of the Apostles as the chosen retreat for Mary Magdalen, who did penance there for the sins of her youth. From earliest days, it had been a place of pilgrimage, but had no definite arrangements for the care of pilgrims, nor any way of supplying their spiritual needs. In Blessed Andrew’s time, Dominican fathers from Saint-Maximin had taken over the spiritual care of the pilgrims as a mission work, but without financial help, and in the face of great trials.

Seeing the need of a permanent foundation at the shrine, Andrew set about creating one. He interested the queen in his project, and obtained enough money from her to build a monastery, which was a gem of architecture as well as a source of spiritual power. Andrew had studied art before his entry into the order, and he used his talents in building, beautifully and permanently, whatever he was called upon to do.

A lover of great beauty in the physical order, Andrew was the same in the spiritual. He was famous as a confessor, and his wise government as prior gave help to the spiritual growth of the new convent. A practical man as well as deeply spiritual, Andrew established two mills near the shrine that would provide the people with a means of earning a living while remaining there. Quite naturally, a priest who interested himself in the welfare of the people to this extent could hope for great influence with them, and this he had, both at Saint Maximin and at Aix, where an altarpiece he painted may still be seen.

After his death, Blessed Andrew was buried in the Church of the Magdalen. His tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage; his help especially was sought in the cure of fevers.

Born: 1375 at Saint Maximin, Provence, France

Died: May 15, 1450 at Aix-en-Provence, France of natural causes; buried in the Church of the Magdalen; his tomb became known as a site of miraculous cures.

Beatified:1902 (cultus confirmed) by Pope Leo XIII

Patronage: against fever

So many romantic legends intertwine themselves with the story of Blessed Giles that it is difficult to see the man himself. His life, even stripped of its legend, however, is the story of the triumph of grace in the human soul.

He was the son of Rodrigues de Vagliaditos, governor of Coimbra under King Sancho the Great. From his childhood, Giles was destined for the priesthood for which he studied at Coimbra. He was ordained at an early age, but with no good intention, for he saw in the priesthood only a chance to wield power. His father’s influence gained for him a number of rich benefices, which he used sinfully for power and pleasure.

Being a brilliant student, he advanced rapidly in his chosen field of medicine, an art that was at the time often linked with necromancy or black magic. He neglected his priestly duties and seemed bent only on the pleasures of life.

Thoroughly irreligious and pleasure-seeking young man, set out for Paris to work for higher degrees in medicine. On the advice of a stranger he met on the way, he went to Toledo instead and became a student of the black arts. According to one story, he met the devil and signed a contract with him, in which he promised his soul in return for a universal knowledge of medicine. Thereupon he spent seven years in bondage to his evil master, learning all his arts.

Having gained the highest degrees in medicine, Giles went to Paris and became a successful physician. At the peak of worldly success, he began to have horrible visions. He saw himself in a cemetery of a monastery of which he enjoyed the revenues. There he saw a specter who carried a skull and an hourglass. The specter knocked at one and then another of the tombs, calling out, “Arise, faithful monk!” At each summons another fearful specter appeared, until at one tomb there was no answer.

“Giles,” he called. “What–not there?” He poised the hourglass and murmured, “There are yet a few sands to run!” After this fearful vision, says the legend, Giles repented of his misspent life, destroyed his magic books and potions, and set out in haste for Coimbra on foot.

At Palencia he met the friars of the newly founded Order of Preachers. He was still troubled by diabolical attacks, but they helped him to make his peace with God. Joining them, he spent seven years in terrible penance, after which Our Lady returned to him the fateful scroll he had signed with Satan.

It is known that Giles had spent his youth badly, and that after entering the Dominicans he did fervent penance. By nature he was witty and charming, and he found the silence hard to keep. Actual violence to his natural disposition was necessary to make him into the humble and reserved religious he later became.

Blessed Giles occupied several positions of authority in the order, including provincial of Portugal, and his medical skill proved to be a blessing in the care of his sick brethren. He made a practice of going about the dormitories, cleaning up the students’ rooms while they were at class. His heroic penance did much to undo the scandal he had caused in his early years.

Giles was sent back to Portugal after his early training, and his preaching was noteworthy, even in that age of renowned preachers. He founded a number of monasteries and did much to establish the Dominicans in Portugal. His last years were filled with visions and ecstasies. He lived to be very old, regarded by all but himself as a very great saint.

Born: Born 1185 at Vaozela

Died: 1265 of natural causes

Beatified: May 9, 1748 by Pope Benedict XIV (cultus confirmed)

 

One of the most charming legends in Dominican hagiography is that of little Imelda, who died of love on her first Communion day, and who is, by this happy circumstance, patroness of all first communicants.

Tradition says that Imelda was the daughter of Count Egano Lambertini of Bologna. Her family was famous for its many religious, including a Dominican preacher, a Franciscan mother foundress, and an aunt of Imelda’s who had founded a convent of strict observance in Bologna.

Imelda was a delicate child, petted and favored by her family, and it was no surprise that she should be religious by nature. She learned to read from the Psalter, and early devoted herself to attending Mass and Compline at the Dominican church. Her mother taught her to sew and cook for the poor, and went with her on errands of charity. When Imelda was nine, she asked to be allowed to go to the Dominicans at Val di Pietra. She was the only child of a couple old enough not to hope for any more children; it was a wrench to let her go. However, they took her to the convent and gave her to God with willing, if sorrowing, hearts.

Imelda’s status in the convent is hard to discern. She wore the habit, followed the exercises of the house as much as she was allowed to, and longed for the day when she would be old enough to join them in the two things she envied most–the midnight Office and the reception of Holy Eucharist. Her age barred her from both. She picked up the Divine Office from hearing the sisters chant, and meditated as well as she could.

It was a lonely life for the little girl of nine, and, like many another lonely child, she imagined playmates for herself–with this one difference–her playmates were saints. She was especially fond of Saint Agnes, the martyr, who was little older than Imelda herself. Often she read about her from the large illuminated books in the library, and one day Agnes came in a vision to see her. Imelda was delighted. Shut away from participation in adult devotions, she had found a contemporary who could tell her about the things she most wanted to know. Agnes came often after this, and they talked of heavenly things.

Her first Christmas in the convent brought only sorrow to Imelda. She had been hoping that the sisters would relent and allow her to receive Communion with them, but on the great day, when everyone except her could go receive Jesus in the Eucharist, Imelda remained in her place, gazing through tears at the waxen figure in the creche. Imelda began to pray even more earnestly that she might receive Communion.

When her prayer was answered, spring had come to Bologna, and the world was preparing for the Feast of the Ascension. No one paid much attention to the little girl as she knelt in prayer while the sisters prepared for the Mass. Even when she asked to remain in the chapel in vigil on the eve of the feast, it caused no comment; she was a devout child. The sisters did not know how insistently she was knocking at heaven’s gate, reciting to herself, for assurance, the prayer that appeared in the Communion verse for the Rogation Days: “Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.”

The door was opened for Imelda on the morning of the Vigil of the Ascension. She had asked once more for the great privilege of receiving Communion, and, because of her persistence, the chaplain was called in on the case. He refused flatly; Imelda must wait until she was older. She went to her place in the chapel, giving no outward sign that she intended to take heaven by storm, and watched quietly enough while the other sister went to Communion.

After Mass, Imelda remained in her place in the choir. The sacristan busied herself putting out candles and removing the Mass vestments. A sound caused her to turn and look into the choir, and she saw a brilliant light shining above Imelda’s head, and a Host suspended in the light. The sacristan hurried to get the chaplain.

The chaplain now had no choice; God had indicated that He wanted to be communicated to Imelda. Reverently, the chaplain took the Host and gave it to the rapt child, who knelt like a shining statue, unconscious of the nuns crowding into the chapel, or the laypeople pushing against the chapel grille to see what might be happening there.

After an interval for thanksgiving, the prioress went to call the little novice for breakfast. She found her still kneeling. There was a smile on her face, but she was dead.

The legend of Blessed Imelda is firmly entrenched in Dominican hearts, though it is difficult now to find records to substantiate it. She may have been eleven, rather than ten when she died. The convent where she lived has been gone for centuries and its records with it.

Several miracles have been worked through her intercession, and her cause for canonization has been under consideration for many years. As recently as 1928 a major cure was reported of a Spanish sister who was dying of meningitis. Other miracles are under consideration. The day may yet come when the lovable little patroness of first communicants can be enrolled in the calendar of the saints.

Born: Born in Bologna, Italy, in 1322

Died: died on the Feast of the Ascension, May 13, 1333

Beatified: cultus confirmed in 1826 by Pope Leo VII

Patronage: named patron of first communicants by Pope Pius X.

Representation: In art, Imelda is a very young Dominican novice, kneeling before the altar with a sacred Host appearing above her. She is venerated at Bologna and Valdipietra.