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ST ANDREW AVELLINO, CONFESSOR - 10 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER 

Saints celebrated on the 10th of November

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SAINT ANDREW AVELLINO, CONFESSOR

St Andrew Avellino was a native of Castro Nuovo, a small town in the kingdom of Naples, and born in 1520. In his infancy he gave early tokens of the most happy dispositions to virtue. 

A beautiful complexion exposed his chastity to several snares and dangers; which he escaped by assiduous prayer, mortification, watchfulness over himself, and care in shunning all dangerous company. 

To pretend a desire to serve God, and resist the world and vice, without a strenuous application to all the exercises of virtue, especially penance and prayer, he called a vain and foolish illusion. 

HE WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST

After mature deliberation he took the ecclesiastical tonsure, and was sent to Naples to study the civil and canon law. Being there promoted to the degree of doctor in laws, and to the dignity of the priesthood, he began to plead such causes in the ecclesiastical court, as the canons allow clergymen to undertake.

This employment, however, engrossed his thoughts, too much dissipated his mind, and insensibly weakened his affection for holy meditation and prayer.

A fault into which he fell opened his eyes, and made him see the precipice which lay before him. Once in pleading a cause, in a matter indeed which was of no weight, a lie escaped him; for which, upon reading these words of holy scripture, The mouth that lieth killeth the soul, he was struck with so great remorse and deep compunction, that he resolved immediately to renounce his profession, and to give himself up entirely to a penitential life, and to the spiritual care of souls. 

HE GAVE HIMSELF UP ENTIRELY TO THE SPIRITUAL CARE OF SOULS

The archbishop judging no one more proper than Andrew to be the director of souls that were engaged by the obligations of their state in the career of evangelical perfection, committed to him the care of a certain nunnery in that city.

The holy man’s zeal for removing all obstacles to the recollection of those spouses of Christ, in which consists the very essence of their state and virtue, stirred up the malice and rage of certain wicked men in the city, whom he had forbid being ever admitted to the grate to speak to any of the nuns. 

HE RECEIVED THREATS

He once narrowly escaped death, with which they threatened him, and another time received three wounds in his face. These injuries he bore with invincible meekness, being ready with joy to lay down his life for the spiritual interest of souls, and for the defence of justice and virtue. 

Out of an earnest desire of more readily attaining to a perfect disengagement of his heart from all earthly things, in 1556 he embraced at Naples the rule of the Regular Clerks, called Theatins, in whom flourished at that time, to the great edification of the whole city, the religious spirit and fervour which they had inherited of St Cajetan, who died there in the convent of St Paul, in 1547. 

Our saint, out of the love he bore to the cross, on this occasion changed his name of Lancelot into that of Andrew. 

By the humiliations and persecutions which he had met with even amongst his dearest friends, (which trials are always the most severe to flesh and blood,) he learned what incomparable sweetness and spiritual advantages are found in suffering with patience and joy, and in studying in that state to conform ourselves to the holy spirit and sentiments of Christ crucified for us. 

SUFFERING WITH PATIENCE 

To bind himself the more strictly to the most fervent pursuit of perfect virtue in all his actions, he made two private vows. The first was, perpetually to fight against his own will: the second, always to advance to the utmost of his power in Christian perfection. 

ABSTINENCE AND EXTERIOR MORTIFICATIONS

Wonderful were his abstinence and exterior mortifications, and the indifference with which he treated his body; but much more his love of abjection and hatred of himself, that is, of his flesh and his own will. 

By the eminent sanctity of many of both religious and secular persons who had the happiness to be his penitents, it appeared visible that saints possess the art of forming saints. 

Cardinal Paul Aresi, Bishop of Tortona, the author of many works of piety and ecclesiastical learning, and the Mecaenas of his age, had a particular esteem for our saint, and often made use of his advice and assistance in his most important affairs. 

St Charies Borromeo did the same, and obtained of him some religious men formed by his hand, and animated with his spirit, for the foundation of a convent of his Order, at Milan. That great saint had nothing so much at heart as such a reformation of the clergy, that all amongst them might be replenished with the spirit of the apostles. 

REFORMATION OF THE CLERGY

He had, soon after he was made archbishop, pitched upon the Theatins, whom St Andrew had formed to a perfect ecclesiastic spirit, to set before the eyes of his clergy a model and living example from which they might learn the apostolic spirit of the most perfect disengagement from the world. 

THE MOST PERFECT DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE WORLD

Our saint founded new convents of his Order at Placentia, and in some other places; and was honoured by God with the gifts of prophecy and miracles. 

"INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI"

After having given the world an example of the most heroic virtues, being broken with labours and old age, he was seized with an apoplexy at the altar as he was beginning Mass, at those words, Introibo ad altare Dei; which he repeated thrice, and was not able to proceed. 

He was prepared for his passage by the holy sacraments, and calmly resigned his soul into the hands of his Creator, on November 10, 1608. His body is kept with honour in the church of his convent of St Paul at Naples; and he was canonised by Clement XI. 

(From: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

[St Andrew Avellino is the patron saint of those suffering from high blood pressure and strokes.]




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