Hagiographia Devotionalis
Feast Day: 20 May — Duplex in the Roman Calendar Born: 8 September 1380, Massa Marittima, Tuscany Died: 20 May 1444, Aquila, Abruzzi Canonized: 24 May 1450 by Pope Nicholas V
I. Of His Birth and Early Years
In the year of grace 1380, on the very Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was born to the noble house of Albizzeschi a son who should one day be called the Apostolus Italiae — the Apostle of Italy. His father, Tollo degli Albizzeschi, served as governor of Massa Marittima for the Republic of Siena; his mother, Nera degli Avveduti, was a woman of singular piety. Both were taken from him in tender youth: his mother when he was but three years old, his father when he was seven. Thus orphaned, the child Bernardino was received into the household of his aunts, who raised him in the discipline of the Lord and the love of the Most Blessed Virgin.
Already in his boyhood the marks of sanctity appeared. He fasted strictly upon Fridays and the vigils of Our Lady; he gave his food to the poor; and so great was his horror of impurity that, hearing once a coarse jest spoken in his presence, the youth — scarce more than a child — struck the speaker upon the mouth with such indignation that none thereafter dared utter foul speech where Bernardino might hear it. His confessor in later years would testify that he preserved the lily of virginity inviolate unto his dying breath.
II. Of His Heroic Charity in the Pestilence
When in the year 1400 the plague descended upon Siena with such fury that twelve and twenty died each day in the great hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, the religious brethren who served the sick were themselves consumed, and the city stood in dread that none should remain to bury the dead. Then Bernardino, then twenty years of age, gathered to himself a company of young men, and presenting himself to the rector of the hospital, took charge of the whole house for the space of four months. He served the dying with his own hands, washed their sores, heard their last confessions read by the priests, closed their eyes in death, and bore their bodies to the grave. The pestilence touched him not, though it raged about him as fire among dry stubble. When at length the contagion abated, he himself fell gravely ill from his labours and lay near death for four months — yet was restored, that God might use him for greater works.
III. Of His Religious Vocation
Recovered from his infirmity, Bernardino retired into solitude that he might discern the will of God. There, in prayer and fasting, he heard the call to embrace the Ordo Fratrum Minorum of the seraphic Father St. Francis. In 1402, upon the eighth day of September — the very day of his nativity and of Our Lady’s — he received the Franciscan habit in the convent of the Osservanza near Siena, choosing the strictest observance of the Rule. He was ordained priest in 1404.
For twelve years thereafter he remained in the obscurity of the cloister, given to silent prayer, study, and the most rigorous mortification. He slept upon bare boards; he ate but little, and that of the coarsest fare; he scourged himself daily. Yet his superiors, perceiving the gifts of intellect and grace within him, at length commanded him to preach.
IV. Of His Apostolate and the Holy Name of Jesus
Once loosed upon the pulpit, Bernardino became a prodigy of sacred eloquence. For thirty-eight years he traversed the cities and villages of Italy on foot, preaching often for three and four hours together, sometimes thrice in a single day, to multitudes of twenty and thirty thousand souls. Cities emptied themselves into the public squares to hear him; bells were silenced at his coming that no sound might compete with his voice. He spoke in the vulgare of the people, with such fire of charity and such homely vigour that hardened sinners were seen to weep openly and to cast their dice, their cosmetics, their lewd books, and their instruments of vanity into great bonfires kindled at the close of his sermons — the celebrated bruciamenti delle vanità.
Above all, the holy Bernardine became the great Doctor and Apostle of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. He devised that sacred emblem, the IHS encircled by twelve golden rays upon a field of azure, which he caused to be inscribed upon tablets and elevated before the people at the conclusion of his preaching, that they might venerate the Name above every name, in nomine Iesu omne genu flectatur, caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum (Phil. 2:10). This devotion he carried into every quarter of Italy, and through his labours the Holy Name was inscribed upon the lintels of doors, upon the gates of cities, upon the banners of armies, and upon the very hearts of the faithful.
For this practice he was thrice accused of innovation and superstition before the Holy See — once by certain Augustinians, once by the Dominican brethren, once by adversaries within his own Order. Thrice he journeyed to Rome to answer for himself before the Sovereign Pontiff. Pope Martin V, after careful examination, not only acquitted him but commanded him to preach in Rome for eighty days, during which the city was renewed in fervour. Pope Eugenius IV likewise confirmed the devotion, and offered him in succession the bishoprics of Siena, Ferrara, and Urbino, all of which he refused, that he might continue his apostolate among the common people.
V. Of His Reform of the Order
Saint Bernardine was not only an apostle but a reformer. He found the Observants of his Order numbering scarce three hundred friars; he left them above four thousand. As Vicar General of the Observance from 1438 to 1442, he restored the primitive rigour of the Rule, founded or renewed many convents — among them La Capriola at Siena, Monte Alverno, and the Osservanza itself — and trained up a generation of preachers and saints, including St. John Capistran and St. James of the Marches, who continued his work after him.
VI. Of His Death and Glorification
In the spring of 1444, already worn by labours and infirmities, the holy Father set out upon his last journey, preaching as he went through the towns of central Italy. Reaching Aquila in the Abruzzi, he was no longer able to continue. There, in the convent of his brethren, he received the Most Holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction with the recollection of a saint, and on the vigil of the Ascension, the twentieth day of May 1444, having gazed long upon the tablet of the Holy Name, he gave up his soul to God.
Miracles multiplied at his tomb. Within six years, on the twenty-fourth day of May 1450, Pope Nicholas V solemnly inscribed him among the saints of the universal Church.
VII. Of His Virtues for Our Imitation
The holy Bernardine offers to us the example of:
- Perfect detachment from honours, in his thrice-repeated refusal of episcopal dignity;
- Apostolic zeal, in his ceaseless labours for the salvation of souls;
- Burning love of the Holy Name of Jesus, by which he wrought countless conversions;
- Fidelity to the discipline of his Order, restoring its primitive observance;
- Heroic charity, especially toward the sick and the poor;
- Constancy under calumny, bearing the accusations of his enemies with meekness and silence until vindicated by the Vicar of Christ.
St. Bonaventure had taught that the Name of Jesus is mel in ore, melos in aure, iubilum in corde — honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, jubilee in the heart. Bernardine made of this teaching the very substance of his apostolate.
Collecta ex Missa Sancti Bernardini
Domine Iesu, qui beato Bernardino Confessori tuo eximium sancti nominis tui amorem tribuisti: eius, quaesumus, meritis et intercessione, spiritum nobis dilectionis tuae propitius largire. Qui vivis et regnas…
O Lord Jesus, who didst bestow upon blessed Bernardine, Thy Confessor, a singular love of Thy holy Name: grant unto us, we beseech Thee, by his merits and intercession, the spirit of Thy love. Who livest and reignest…
Practica Devotionis
For the imitation of this great saint, the faithful may undertake:
- The devout pronunciation of the Holy Name at every temptation, every sorrow, and every danger, after the manner Bernardine taught, with the indulgence attached by the Church to its devout invocation.
- The veneration of the IHS monogram in one’s home or oratory, particularly upon the threshold.
- The recitation of the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, especially upon Sundays and during the month of January.
- A particular examination of conscience concerning the sin of profane swearing and irreverence toward the Sacred Name, against which Bernardine preached with such vehemence.
- The reading of the saint’s sermons De Nomine Iesu (Sermons 46–53 of his Latin works), which remain among the noblest expositions of this devotion in the patrimony of the Church.
Ad Maiorem Lectionem
For those who would penetrate more deeply into the life and teaching of this great Doctor of the Holy Name, the following sources are recommended:
- Opera Omnia S. Bernardini Senensis, ed. P. Pacificus Perantonius, Quaracchi 1950–1965, nine volumes — the critical edition of his sermons and treatises.
- The contemporary Vita by Maffeo Vegio, who knew the saint personally.
- The Vita by Leonard Benvoglienti, also a contemporary witness, contained in the Acta Sanctorum, Maii, tom. V.
- The sermons De Nomine Iesu and De Evangelio Aeterno, foundational for understanding his theology of the Holy Name and his Christocentric vision.
Sancte Bernardine, Apostole Nominis Iesu, ora pro nobis.
If you wish to pursue this further, the Lives of the Saints path opens naturally onto the great Franciscan tradition — Saints Bonaventure, John Capistran, and James of the Marches all stand in close relation to Bernardine. Alternatively, the Spiritual Practices and Devotions path would draw out the theology of the Holy Name as a school of interior prayer, from St. Bernard of Clairvaux through St. Bernardine to the Litaniae Sanctissimi Nominis Iesu of the Roman tradition.