Happy feast of Blessed Lucy of Narni!
Posted: November 15th, 2005, 3:02 pmHappy feast of Blessed Lucy of Narni!
(1476 - 1544)
Born at Narni, Italy, the oldest of eleven children, she resisted one attempt to have her marry and then agreed to marry a Count Peter in 1491 on the advice of her confessor and a vision of our Lady she is said to have experienced. They lived together as brother and sister for three years when he released her and she became a Dominican regular tertiary at Rome. She later went to Viterbo and during the three years she was there experienced the stigmata and participated in the Passion every Wednesday and Friday. She was subjected to repeated examinations by skeptics who after thorough investigation were convinced her supernatural experiences were real. When twenty-three, Duke Ercole I of Ferrara built a convent for her at Ferrara and selected Lucrecia Borgia to staff it with novices, many unsuited to be nuns, with Lucy as superior. Unable to cope with the problems of that position, she was replaced by Sister Mary of Parma and after the death of the duke in 1505 was relegated to obscurity in the convent for the next thirty-nine years. She died there on November 15, almost forgotten, but miracles at her grave began a cult, which was confirmed in 1710.
(From John Delaney's DICTIONARY OF SAINTS)
[signed]
Paul F. Ford
(author of the Companion to Narnia and the Pocket Companion to Narnia )
(1476 - 1544)
Born at Narni, Italy, the oldest of eleven children, she resisted one attempt to have her marry and then agreed to marry a Count Peter in 1491 on the advice of her confessor and a vision of our Lady she is said to have experienced. They lived together as brother and sister for three years when he released her and she became a Dominican regular tertiary at Rome. She later went to Viterbo and during the three years she was there experienced the stigmata and participated in the Passion every Wednesday and Friday. She was subjected to repeated examinations by skeptics who after thorough investigation were convinced her supernatural experiences were real. When twenty-three, Duke Ercole I of Ferrara built a convent for her at Ferrara and selected Lucrecia Borgia to staff it with novices, many unsuited to be nuns, with Lucy as superior. Unable to cope with the problems of that position, she was replaced by Sister Mary of Parma and after the death of the duke in 1505 was relegated to obscurity in the convent for the next thirty-nine years. She died there on November 15, almost forgotten, but miracles at her grave began a cult, which was confirmed in 1710.
(From John Delaney's DICTIONARY OF SAINTS)
[signed]
Paul F. Ford
(author of the Companion to Narnia and the Pocket Companion to Narnia )
