REPORT OF A PRODIGIOUS MIRACLE THAT SAINT FRANCISCO XAVIER, APOSTLE OF INDIA, PERFORMED IN THE CITY OF NAPLES IN THE YEAR 1634.

Place: Nápoles
Year: 1634
Event: Milagro, Miracle

Taken from the authentic information made by the auditor of the most eminent Cardinal Archbishop of Naples, and from what was sworn by many of the most qualified witnesses of that city, as well as from the report that Father Marcelo Mastrilo of the Society of Jesus, on whom the miracle was performed and who wrote then, given vocally later in this court of Madrid by Father Diego Ramirez of the same Society.

The miracle that I want to refer, if you look at the way and its circumstances, is perhaps one of the rarest and most unique that have happened in the Holy Church. I will tell the most substantial part of it and the occasion from which it originated.

At the end of last year, 1633, the Count of Monterrey, Viceroy of Naples, planned to hold in his own palace a most solemn feast of the most pure Conception of Our Lady on the Sunday of her [infraoctava], which was December 11. And among other grandiose devices, he ordered it to be made in four sumptuous altars in the four corners of the palace courtyard, which were entrusted to four of the most important personages of that city. One of them fell to Mr. Carlos Vrancaccho, brother of the most eminent Cardinal of this man, who for the arrangement of it wanted to avail himself of the industry and assistance of Father Marcelo Mattrio of the Society of Jesus, for being his kinsman and very close friend and knowledgeable in the matter. He made the altar with all success and the whole party came out with the grandeur that was expected. And at the edge of it being that same Sunday night dismantling the altars stripping the walls and assisting the said Father to what he had to do, going to say something I do not know what to one of the officers who were on high, by carelessness or by misfortune, the man dropped a hammer that he was carrying in his hands or on his belt, which weighed more than two pounds and hit Father on the head, on the right side above the temple, which, both because of its great weight and its height, which was more than four stories high, wounded him very seriously. The Father fell to the ground, feeling great commotion and nausea, which caused him to vomit. Some blood began to flow from the wound, which did not seem to be very large. Some and others came, and all of them were hurt by the failure, so they put him in a carriage and took him to his college. The surgeons were called, then did their job as best they could, and more purposefully the next day. Of course, they recognized the danger, because the blow was so severe, in such a delicate part, and because the muscles and nerves of the temple were notably damaged, with other accidents and correspondences not very favorable; especially that the climate of the city of Naples is not in any way for head wounds. And so it happened that on the third or fourth day a burning fever came upon the sufferer, with very great pains of the whole head and more of the opposite and corresponding part, to the blow and notable load of the right eye, without being able to open it more and other accidents or fatal or very dangerous. Doctors and surgeons met with him, applied many and various remedies, with which, although he sometimes improved somewhat, but never in such a way that he was not always in manifest danger of death. He awaited the 21st day, since in this type of wounds could be the term on which only depends the good or bad success, and in which the process was finished and the death sentence was definitely given to the sufferer. Because at the beginning of the year (which became December 31 and the last of the year 33), almost suddenly the past accidents worsened notably and other no less pestilent accidents occurred again, especially that his left arm was affected, unable to move it any more, and his nerves or maxillary or jaw muscles were completely corrupted, so that it was no longer possible for him to open his mouth with any skill or strength. Perhaps the surgeons with irons and with exquisite violence opened his mouth a little, but he could not in any way swallow a single morsel of ratatouille, nor eat anything else, not even a drop of water or any other liquor. And so he spent that day and the next three, without being able to pass anything that could be of any sustenance to him, and if it was necessary for him to ask or say anything, he could hardly utter it faintly, nor could it be understood by those around him except with great difficulty. From this point on, everyone considered him to be totally hopeless, and every hour they expected that it would be the last of his life. And all the doctors, although with great feeling, took their leave of him, seeing him already dying without human remedy. Only one of them, as if in desperate business, wanted to test with a strange and almost reckless experience, if the inability to swallow anything came from corruption of the maxillary and temporal muscles, or obstruction and pregnancy of the tract or throat, by the abundance of bad humor: For this, opening his mouth with instruments and with great violence, he put a very thick wax candle three times up to his very mouth with incredible fatigue of the patient, but without any benefit, because then pouring a few drops of water in his mouth, he could not pass them in any way. Whereupon the surgeon clearly recognized that the damage came from above from the lesion and corruption of the muscles and that it was a totally hopeless business. Thus he and the others left him in everything and for everything and if they ever returned, it was more to witness his death than to remedy his illness.

To all this was added the fact that he was already so immobile and so extremely frozen and cold that neither with human remedies nor fomentations could he recover any warmth, nor even feel the fire itself, no matter how close they applied it to him.

With this, on Monday afternoon, January 2, Father Carlos Sangri, provincial of that province, went to see him for his last farewell and consoled and encouraged him for that last trance that was already so near. But before he took his leave, the sick man insistently asked him that since he had had a fervent desire to go and preach the Holy Gospel to the Gentiles in the Indies for some years, now, not out of a desire to live, but to please Our Lord more, and to be more in need with His Divine Majesty, he would give him permission to vow to go to that holy employment, if the Lord would be good enough to give him life and salvation for some hidden purpose. The Father Province granted it to him willingly and with great tenderness, in spite of seeing him in that extreme, the sick man made his vow with great devotion and affection. A little later, when the Fathers saw that he was at the end of his life and that every moment seemed to be his last, I say the sacrament of Extreme Unction, because the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist was not possible in any way because of the remarkable tight mouth and throat that we have said. The good Father was strangely sorry to see himself dying without this most holy sacrament as viaticum, and he was much more hurt by the hunger his soul was suffering from this sovereign delicacy than by the hunger his body had been suffering from all the others for three days. He wanted to avail himself in this case of the intercession of the apostle of the Indies, our father St. Francis Xavier, and for this he asked the nurses to bring him an image of him. From many or different ones that were in the house (not without particular Divine Providence, although it seems very likely) they brought him an image of a nearby piece on a canvas, in which the holy Father was painted as a pilgrim, with a brown cape over his cassock and a staff in his right hand (in fact, as he walked when he went to preach the holy Gospel in Japan and other parts of India).

They placed it hanging on the left side of the bed, and with this the sick man began to pray insistently to the Holy Father in front of His image to obtain this singular mercy from the Lord, so that he could then receive communion, for which he also made use of a relic of the same Saint that he had there in a reliquary, applying it several times to his throat throughout the night. The morning of Tuesday, January 3, arrived, and it seemed to him interiorly that the Saint had granted him the favor of being able to receive Holy Communion, so he asked for Holy Communion to be brought to him. And having first experimented with an unconsecrated form, they brought him the Blessed Sacrament and he received it without difficulty, to his great consolation and the admiration of those present. This was even greater when they saw that by giving him something to eat or drink to sustain or refresh his body, since with the long lack of food for four days and with so much suffering he was extremely weakened and almost completely exhausted, it was not possible to get through anything, no matter how much they tried and strove for him then and for the rest of that day.

The sick man was in agony for moments and drowning him at every point by the abundance of his moods, and he was so corrupted that he continually lowered his head and it was a great wonder to notice that he was not surrendering his soul at every moment. It was already after nine o’clock at night and the Fathers and Brothers of the College were some in the sick man’s room, as many as could fit, assisting him in that trance and the others in the Church with the Father Rector commending him instantly to Our Lord. The church was already furnished with black for the burial, the clothes and the rest with which the deceased body was to be shrouded, and even the bath with which he was to be washed. Already in the room of the sick, he, although with his full judgment and not entirely lost his speech, already in the throats of death, while everyone waited every moment that he had just swallowed him, when he heard a voice, which twice called him by name: “Marcellus, Marcellus”. He then, with a clear voice and raising his hands in an encouraging manner (things that he had not been able to do for a long time), he aniseed and made signs to those present to be quiet, to see who was calling his name, and then, the same voice came clearly again, which already seemed to him more than human, which again called his name: “Marcelo, Marcelo”. It seemed to him that it came from the image and that it was undoubtedly some great favor of St. Francis Xavier. And so at one point he turned to her on his left side (being so that there were some days that with the help of many he could only slightly move in bed): And at the same time he turned from the place where he was and from those who were present and from everything else and found himself in another region of life, alien to everything here. She went to fix her eyes on the Image and found in the midst of her and her bed the Holy Father, whom she represented (and immediately recognized him) in his very form of a pilgrim and with a most kindly face and a most benevolent countenance. He began to speak to her in his Italian language with incredible affability and said, “Well, what is to be done?” And the Father, keeping silent, added, “Do you want to die or go to the Indies?” The Father replied that Nelidas neither wished nor desired anything else but what was most pleasing to the divine Majesty. “Now then,” replied the Saint, “do you not remember the vow you made yesterday with the permission of your Father Provincial to go to the Indies if God would give you life?” And the Father answered that he well remembered, and the Saint added: “Then say with me joyfully”. The Saint began to say, smiling and with a very peaceful countenance. Those present heard, not what the Saint said, but what the Father spoke, because it was already in a very clear voice. And seeing him reasoning in that way, the majority imagined that he was already delirious (a sure sign that the doctors had announced his death already present), although to others it seemed that it was not delirium, but something supernatural. And all confessed afterwards, that all the time that it lasted, they felt in their souls an inexplicable consolation and extraordinary devotion; as if there was something heavenly there. And one and all watched with great suspense to see what was going on.

What the Saint was saying and what the Father was repeating, and what those present heard him say, was the formula of the substantial vows of religion, which those of the Company make after the two years of the novitiate, with some words that the Saint was adding and the Father repeating, which are those that here will be marked in different letters, with the others in the following form.

[…Latin]Omnipotens Sempiterne Deus, ego Marcellus…Which in English means: All powerful and everlasting God, I Marcellus Mastrilus, although totally unworthy of appearing in v our divine obeisance, but confident in your infinite mercy and pity, and moved by your infinite mercy, and moved by your infinite mercy and moved by the desire to serve you, I vow before the Blessed Virgin Mary, before you, the Holy Father Francis Xavier, and before the whole heavenly court, to your divine Majesty, poverty, chastity and perpetual obedience in the Society of Jesus and especially in the apostolic mission of the Indies, which I also vowed yesterday in the presence of my Father Provincial, and I promise to enter the same Society (that is, to accept the degree that will be given me in the Society) to live in it perpetually, understanding everything in conformity with the constitutions of the same Society and the decrees and instructions of the Holy Father Francis Xavier regarding the mission of the Indies.

I humbly beseech therefore your immense goodness and clemency by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the merits of the Holy Father Francis Xavier, that you deign to accept in odor of gentleness this holocaust and the vow that I have unworthily made, and as you gave me grace to desire it, offer it and vote it, so you give me abundant grace to fulfill it and shed the blood for your love.

Having finished this formula, the Saint told him with an affable countenance that he was now healthy and that he should give due thanks to Christ our Lord for such a great benefit, and that as a sign of gratitude and reverence he should kiss the wounds of the Holy Crucifix that was there. (The Father kept him with him in bed and almost always in his right hand, to commend his soul to him in the last trance). The good Father did so with great devotion. Then the Saint spoke to him again and asked him: “Do you have any of my relics?” And when the Father answered that he did (because he really had them with others in a small reliquary at his bedside, as we said), the Saint added: “Well, esteem them very highly”. And then he asked him again if he had any relic of the Holy Wood of the Cross of Christ, and when he answered that he did, the Saint told him to touch the offended part with it. The Father took the reliquary and applied it to the wound on his temple. But the Saint motioned him with his head to the left and with his right head, touching it to his own head, he pointed to the side opposite the wound and urged him to touch the left side of his head somewhat behind and above the ear, which was the part where the patient had always, from the beginning, felt the greatest fatigue.

So the Father applied the reliquary to that part, and the Saint said to him again, “Say with me….” And he went on saying the following salutation and prayer to the Holy Cross and the Father repeating it.

[…Latin] In Romance it is:

I greet Thee tree of the Cross. I salute Thee most precious Cross. Ali I dedicate and consecrate myself totally forever and I humbly beseech Thee, that the grace of shedding for myself the blood, which the Apostle of the Indies Francis Xavier, after suffering so many labors, did not deserve to attain, may be granted to me, although I am totally unworthy.

These words the Saint was saying to him with inexplicable devotion and, especially when he reached those of the middle, he showed an affection and tenderness so grave and such a sadness and feeling so vivid, that he well declared the ardent desire that in life he had had to shed his blood for the Lord that it seems that even in heaven in a certain way he is with those fervent desires to die for Christ.

After this, to better dispose him to fulfill the vow and to follow the standard of the Cross, the Saint wanted him to say the words of the following renunciation, and so he said them to him:

[…Latin]

It means: I renounce and give up my parents and relatives, my friends, my own house, Italy and all the things that could hinder me from the mission to the Indies and I dedicate everything to the good and health of souls among the Indians, in preference to the Holy Father Francis.

To these last words of the Saint, Father Marcellus added out of devotion: “My Father, my Francis”. To which the Saint smiled at him and finally said with a very pleasant and smiling face: “Be very encouraged and cheerful and repeat these same things every day”. And having said this, the Saint disappeared, and death and sickness disappeared together. And at the same moment it seemed to Father Marcellus that he was where he had been before, and he began to hear and see what the Fathers who were around his bed had said and done (for he had seen and heard nothing of them in space). They were all remarkably astonished and suspicious, and each one was discussing in his own way what was offered to his eyes and ears. The Father found that he was quite healthy and brave, and when he saw that he was hungry, he asked for food, and they gave him whatever was at hand, and he received it with great enthusiasm. But then he remembered that it was right above all things to give due thanks to his benefactor. And so he asked all present to kneel and say the antiphonal, verses and prayer of St. Francis Xavier before his image and they did so, repeating three times at his request that verse: “Ora pronobis sancte Pater Francisce”. And answering the same three others: “Ut dignus efficiar promossionibus tuis”. And when he had done this, at his request, they brought him something to eat, and the Father did so without any difficulty in receiving it and arranging it in his hands, neither in chewing it nor in swallowing it. To the astonishment and amazement of all those present, who could not quite believe their own eyes, some still wondering if it was some delirium of the sick man or some illusion of his imagination. But the Father assured them, saying clearly that he was completely healthy and courageous through our Father St. Francis Xavier and the particular way and everything that had happened he told in secret to the Father Rector who had already come from the church. He, for the glory of God our Lord and the honor of his great servant, then published it to all those who were there, who I cannot say if they were more amazed or rejoiced at the mercy of the Lord, the rare intercession of the Saint and the marvelous health of the Father. They returned many times to see him and speak to him, while he was already seated on his bed, encouraged and joyful, and saying that he could get up and say Mass the next morning. And looking at his face carefully, they found him already full and of very bright color and in everything without a trace of the past illness and weakness and as different from what he had been a short time before, as if he were dead and consumed with wine, and he was perfectly healed and in fact, asking for his own clothes, he got up at once and walked around the room with encouragement and with the other Fathers knelt at the image of the Saint, which they then placed there on an altar with many lights and devoutly said the “Te Deum laudamos” in thanksgiving. She still had the bandages and cloths of the wound on her head, which at this time she confidently took off and they found her (a marvelous thing again!) without a trace, nor any sign of the wound, nor the slightest scar, indeed as if such a thing had never happened. With this, the admiration and joy of all grew again, and when it was already close to midnight, several Fathers went out of the house to give notice of what had happened to the people who were waiting for the Father to die, especially to his relatives and to our Father Provincial who was in the professed house, and to others like him, to some of whom the case seemed so exquisite and incredible that they doubted whether those who were giving them the notice were real men or feigned ghosts from the other life.

But I will not fail to mention on this occasion that the evening before, the Fathers, not wanting to leave anything to be tried, sent for a very great surgeon of the city and well known at home to apply I know not what very effective medicine or caustic. He, contrary to what was expected and against what he always used to do, there was no remedy that he wanted to come (perhaps because it seemed to him that the business was already finished) and he later affirmed that when he sometimes determined to go, he felt as if he was being held back by someone who inwardly told him not to go in any way. And it was undoubtedly that the Saint wanted that such sudden and miraculous health could not even apparently be attributed to any natural medicine. This surgeon, then, his conscience bothering him lately, and feeling that he had done wrong in not going to the Company, he decided to go there around midnight and calling at the gatehouse, and making plans to give the doorman his excuses, he found him with all the others rejoicing and happy for the miraculous health of the Father, and he went into the part of the joy and went out immediately to publish it throughout the city.

While this was going on, the Father Rector, judging the case to be as worthy of memory as it is, wished it to be written down immediately, since the species were then so [alive] and the circumstances so fresh. And so he asked Father Marcelo if he would dare to dictate it to him so that he could write it down for him, but the Father replied that he was so good and so hard-working that he could write it himself with his own hand; and so he did so, and in much better handwriting than at other times he used to do, spending well over two hours of that night, without feeling any harm or fatigue from this work, nor from all the talking and nothing to rest during the whole of it.

Finally, the next morning, Wednesday, January 4, arrived and Father Marcelo, as if nothing had happened, went down to the church very early and said his mass very early in the morning in front of many people of all kinds who had already come and received communion from his hand, and there were innumerable people who came that whole day to hear from his own mouth the marvels of the Lord in his saint. And it was a new kind of miracle that he did not feel any harm, nor any pain in his head, which was so weak before, being all day and night reasoning with so many so continuously and attending in the afternoon for more than five continuous hours with great intention and attention to the juridical information that the Auditor of the Cardinal Archbishop wanted to make that same day; But in fact, the heavenly visit of the Holy Father left him completely healthy and robust, and this was well seen in the following days, because at the end of that week his mother fell ill with the illness that God had taken her (perhaps to remove that hindrance of the mission to the Indies) and the Father attended her days and nights, without ever undressing, nor almost resting a pinto in ten days without her feeling any weakness, nor the slightest trace of what had happened. This health, effort and encouragement has continued until now, the feast day of the same Saint and the second of December, when the Father is in this Court of Madrid on his way to the apostolic mission of India and Japan.

Having seen such a great marvel by means of the pilgrim image of the Holy Father Francis Xavier, the house fathers and the devotees of that city judged that it was right to place it in a public and decent place so that the people could see it, so that the people could venerate it and avail themselves of its patronage and so after a few days a very solemn procession was drawn up, which was attended by all the nobility and almost all the people of Naples and the Holy Image was taken very consecrated apparatus and placed in the Church of our College in a chapel that there is in it of St. Francis Xavier, where it is visited with incredible frequency and devotion and has made our Lord for her and makes every day many and very illustrious miracles of which we could make another very long relationship. And the room where this happened has become a very devout chapel and oratory.

They were also made for greater devotion several and various transfers and copies of the miraculous Image, at the request of many serious and pious people, who sought and achieved them (and some are already today in the Imperial College of the Society of Jesus in Madrid) and there was a painter who consecutively made almost three hundred without having fun to paint anything else in his office, He then wanted to turn to I don’t know what other works of his art, but then his illness struck him and he soon died, something that was very well known throughout Naples, and it seems that the Saint did not want the hand that had been so purposefully employed in portraying his miraculous image to have any fun painting anything else. He certainly did not want to reward with eternal glory the artist who had taken such pains to illustrate his holy image.

LAVS DEO.

WITH LICENSE,

Printed in Madrid, in the Printing House of the Kingdom, Year 1634.

To see the Spanish version, modernized and transcribed, click here.

To see the French translation, click here.