ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 25th of December
Prayer to the Angels and the Saints
Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.
In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.
Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.
Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
BL. JACOPONE DA TODI, RELIGIOUS
(Properly called Jacopo Benedicti or Benedetti)
Franciscan poet, born at Todi in the first half of the thirteenth century; died at Collazzone about 1306. Very little is known with certainty about the life of this extraordinary man.
Born at Todi (1228?), of the noble family of Benedetti, Jacopone took up the study of law - probably at Bologna, as might be inferred from the fact that this was the most famous school of law at the time, and from the manner in which he speaks of Bologna in the poem “Senno me pare e cortesia”. On returning home, he exercised - the legends say with some avarice - the profession of an advocate (procuratore). In course of time (1267?) he married a noblewoman, who in one version of the legend is called Vanna, daughter of Bernardino, Count of Collemedio (Coldimezzo near Todi).
THE TRAUMA OF HIS WIFE'S DEATH
It was the great piety and the tragical death of his young spouse that brought about an entire change in Jacopone. A great feast was being celebrated at Todi - probably in 1268. Among the onlookers was Jacopone’s wife in rich array. Suddenly the raised platform from which she was witnessing the spectacle gave way, crushing her fatally. When the poet reached her side Vanna was already dying; on opening her dress, he found a hair cloth beneath the splendid robes.
The terrible blow caused by his wife’s death, together with the evidence of her secret penance for his sins, made such an impression on Jacopone that for many years he seemed to be no longer himself.
HE LED A ROAMING LIFE FOR A FULL DECADE
Abandoning his profession, and wearing the habit of a Franciscan Tertiary (bizochone), he led a roaming life for a full decade. During this period he was the terror of his friends and relations, and became a sort of Christian Diogenes. It was then probably that the former proud doctor of law, Jacopo dei Benedetti, mocked and scoffed at by the boys in the streets of Todi, received the nickname of Jacopone. Once, saddled and bridled like an ass, he crawled on all fours in the public square of Todi; on another occasion, to the great confusion of his family, he appeared at a wedding in his brother’s house, tarred and feathered from top to toe. When asked by a citizen to carry home a pair of capons for him, Jacopone brought them to the man’s family tomb, saying that this was his true house.
HIS WAS THE FOLLY OF THE CROSS
Jacopone’s folly was however the folly of the Cross, as he says:
Senno me pare e cortesia
Empazir per lo bel Messia.
(A wise and courteous choice he’d make
Who’d be a fool for the dear Lord’s sake.)
ADMISSION TO THE FRIARS MINOR
About 1278 he sought admission into the Order of Friars Minor at his native town, a request which after some difficulty was granted. Out of humility he chose to be a lay brother. In the great convent of S. Fortunato, at Todi, the so-called party of the “Community” of the Franciscan Order certainly prevailed. This party was strongly opposed to that of the more zealous friars, called the “Spirituals”. The sympathies of Jacopone were with the latter.
Boniface VIII, who had under unusual circumstances succeeded Celestine V, the friend of Spirituals, having recalled all privileges granted by his predecessor and thus subjected anew the zealous friars to their regular superiors, and having engaged in a struggle with the two Cardinals Colonna, Jacopone took sides with these two protectors of the Spirituals against the pope.
Perhaps there were also personal reasons for enmity between Boniface and the poet, dating from the time when the former, then a young man (1260), obtained an ecclesiastical benefice at Todi, where his uncle Peter was bishop from 1252 to 1276. Palestrina, the stronghold of the Colonnas, having been taken in 1298 by the papal troops, Jacopone was imprisoned in the fortress above the town, known today as Castel San Pietro.
SOME OF HIS MOST TOUCHING POEMS
Some of Jacopone’s most touching, and also most aggressive, poems were composed in this dungeon. Not even in the great Jubilee of 1300 did Jacopone obtain pardon, the Colonnas and their partisans having been excluded from the Jubilee by a special Bull. Boniface VIII was captured at Anagni on September 7, 1303, and upon his death, which occured shortly afterwards (October 11), Jacopone was set at liberty.
Now an old man, broken down, tried and purified by hardships, he withdrew first to Pantanelli, a hermitage on the Tiber, three hours distant from Orvieto, then to Collazzone, a small town situated on a hill between Perugia and Todi.
CONSOLATION AT THE HOUR OF DEATH
There is no record of a Franciscan monastery at that place, but there was a Poor Clare Convent, S. Lorenzo, served as was usual by Franciscan Friars. It was here that Jacopone died on December 25, 1306, just at the moment when the priest was intoning the Gloria in Excelsis Deo at the midnight Mass; his last moments were consoled by the presence of his faithful friend, Blessed John of La Verna, from whom he had especially desired to receive the Last Sacraments, and who really arrived just before the poet’s death.
His body was brought to Todi and buried in the church of the Poor Clares of Montecristo (Tobler’s version of the legend) or Montesanto (Bartholomew of Pisa, Marianus Florentinus), outside the walls of Todi. In 1433 it was discovered in Montecristo and removed to the Franciscan church of S. Fortunato inside the town, where his tomb is still to be seen, embellished by Bishop Cesi in 1596 and adorned by a beautiful inscription:
"OSSA BEATI JACOPONI"
“Ossa Beati Jacoponi De Benedictis Tudertini. Fratris Ordinis Minorum. Qui stultus propter Christum. Nova mundum arte delusit. Et caelum rapuit. Obdormivit in Domino. Die XXV Martii. An. Dom. MCCXCVI. Ang. Caes. Episc. Tudert. Hic collocavit ann. MDXCVI.” “Here lie the bones of Blessed Jacopone dei Benedetti da Todi, Friar Minor, who, having gone mad with love of Christ, by a new artifice deceived the world and took Heaven by violence... (translation of Knox Little.) The date, March 25, 1296, is however obviously erroneous.
"BLESSED JACOPONE"
Jacopone is often called blessed, and has been considered a “blessed” or a “saint”, in the technical sense of the words, by different authors. As a matter of fact, Jacopone has not been beatified or canonised by the Church, although various efforts have been made in this direction - for example, by the municipal council of Todi in 1628, and by the chapter of the cathedral of Todi in 1676. Lastly, in the years 1868 and 1869 the postulator of the causes of saints of the Friars Minor collected call the documents proving the cultus ab immemorabili paid to Jacopone, in order to obtain its official confirmation.
The chief obstacle to the confirmation of the cultus lies in the part Jacopone took against Boniface VIII and the satires he wrote against this much calumniated pope.
(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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