Antonio Van de Pere, Aparición de la Virgen a San Félix de Cantalicio, 1665
Peasant, ploughman, and poor son of St. Francis—this is St. Felix of Cantalice: a man worked, worn, and wounded for the love of God. “Rough, uncouth, uncultured, and unlettered,”[1] everything about St. Felix contradicted the ways of the world and defied human respect, yet, throughout Rome, his company was eagerly sought after by paupers and princesses alike. The cause of this was his radiant sanctity. So evident and pure was his holiness that St. Philip Neri, the Apostle of Rome, “once said of Felix that he was the greatest saint the world possessed.” [2] The life of this joy-filled saint is vividly retold for the devotion and enjoyment of English readers by Lady Amabel Kerr in her work: A Son of St. Francis: St. Felix of Cantalice. Gathered from the works of his original hagiographers, this biography was published in 1900 and recently republished under the title: Brother Deo Gratias—so often did he give thanks to God, that is what the children of Rome affectionately named him: Brother Deo Gratias.
Lady Amabel Kerr, from A Round table of the representative Irish and English Catholic novelists..., 1897
In Cantalice, Italy, in the year 1513, Felix was born to Santi de' Porri, a poor farmer, and his wife, Santa. This quiet, orderly, Christian household existed in stark contrast to the local community, which was infamous throughout the Kingdom of Naples, even in those days, for its discord and disorderly conduct. Despite the wickedness of his neighbors, St. Felix was reared well in a holy home. His parents taught him the rudiments of the faith, his basic prayers in Latin, and one of them, being better educated, even read to him from the Gospels and the Lives of the Saints. From the earliest years of his life, the flower of sanctity had already begun to bud. This deeply rooted love of God led little St. Felix to rebuke his fellow children whenever they spoke sinfully or idly. Because of this, the other children of Cantalice, “though they found his high moral standard very inconvenient, revered him for his piety,”[3] and they even called him “Felix the Saint.”
At the age of nine, he was sent to work for a certain Marco Pichi in Città Ducale, just south of Cantalice. When he left his parents' home, he took with him “His only earthly possessions, namely, a little lead crucifix, and three common prints of our Lady, St. Francis, and St. Bonaventure.” [4] There, he lived and labored for twenty years, diligently serving his new master with filial love. Initially, his fellow servants were angered by his notable piety: for he always knelt to pray, before and after meals, upon rising and before going to sleep; on vigils, he touched no food but bread and water alone; his diet was so modest that he seemed always to be fasting; and he kept such a guard over his tongue that he rarely spoke unless addressed, except to reproach sins. However, in time, the sincerity of his cheerful manner and helpful disposition began to win them over—“by degrees, as his gentle, unselfish ways won their affection, they accepted his rebukes, and vouchsafed a kindly tolerance of all his pious eccentricities.”[5] Although he did not begrudge his new state, he found it difficult to satisfy his desire to pray in solitude. For this reason, Marco permitted him the use of a small cupboard as a private cell: “Thither he stole after his fellow-servants were asleep, and there he spent the night in prayer, and in mortifications which already began to be heroic.”[6] During his years of service, he received the Sacraments every Sunday, although his duties prevented him from fulfilling his greatest desire, namely, to hear Mass daily—nonetheless, God may have granted this young man the gift of bilocation, for “There were people ready to swear that they had seen him on his knees in the church, while others could have equally sworn that they had at the same moment seen him working in the fields.”[7]
Nearing his thirtieth year, and twenty years of faithful service, St. Felix had long desired to become a hermit. However, he discerned that this was not God's will for him, for “if God bade him go higher, it must be higher in the same direction in which he had already walked, and that, to be perfect, he must exchange ordinary for religious obedience.”[8] Bearing this in mind, he decided without hesitation to join the Capuchin Friars, who had been founded only fifteen years prior. “This name, given to the friars on account of the hoods they wore, in accordance with what they held to be the primitive Franciscan rule, was illustrative of their desire to carry out the intentions of their seraphic father in small things as well as in great, and to be as like him in the habits they wore as in their spirit of holy poverty.”[9] This was precisely what St. Felix knew he was called to, but, for some reason, he hesitated, perhaps not wishing to disappoint his master by leaving, and so delayed his intention to enter religion. One day, while breaking in two oxen, the beasts suddenly trampled him, dragging the plough-share straight over him. Marco, who had seen the accident from afar, rushed to Felix, certain that he would be mangled if not killed—but he saw him rise up, unharmed, though his clothes were cut to ribbons. Recognizing this as God's chastisement for his disobedience, he immediately told his master that he must depart for the Capuchins. When others heard of his decision to enter the Capuchin Order, however, his kinsfolk “were alarmed by the severity of the Order chosen by Felix, and begged him to reconsider his decision and be content with some less rigorous way of serving God,” [10] “for the austerities and poverty of the early Capuchins frightened those who were acquainted with their ways.” [11] But none of their worldly concerns could dissuade him. “If I enter religion at all,” he said, “I will choose the most perfect way. It is better to leave a thing alone than not do it thoroughly. With me it must be all or nothing!” [12] Indeed, if the Capuchins had frightened his kin, the future mortifications of St. Felix the Capuchin would have utterly terrified them.
Soon after, he presented himself to the Capuchins in Città Ducale, only that he might be sent to one of their houses far away. The Father Guardian, after having thoroughly tested his intentions, sent St. Felix to Rome with a letter of introduction. In Rome, however, he was nearly turned away for advanced age—for his hard labors had bowed his back and stolen all appearance of youth. But after having heard him speak, and seeing his manner, the Vicar-Provincial recanted and admitted him to the novitiate in Anticole:
“But before sending him away Father Volterra advised him to sell all he had and give to the poor. This had already been done, and when he had stood begging for admission to the house of St. Francis, no one on earth could have been poorer than he.” [13]
Jean-Antoine Watteau (Attr.), Saint Felix of Cantalice, 18th c.
In the year 1547, after his twelvemonth novitiate and three years of retreat at the convent of Tivoli, St. Felix was sent to Rome to fill the position of alms collector for the community—a task in which he would toil for forty years, until his death. With this assignment begins the unchanging manner of St. Felix's religious life: forty years of begging, marked by a sacred monotony of excruciating mortifications and exuberant joy, the latter flowing in right order from the former.
To understand the mortifications of St. Felix – for “he led a life of what may be called unceasing mortification,”[14] – one must first comprehend his conception of suffering. For him, “sufferings were the roses which grew in paradise, which God of His goodness distributes from time to time among His children.” [15] Suffering, he knew well, is both a punishment for sin and, more importantly, a share in the glory of Our Crucified Lord. This was, is, and shall always remain true: by way of grace and the sacraments, “Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (CCC 1521). This understanding of pain is often ridiculed by the carnal-minded, and so the heroic penances of St. Felix would be reduced to madness rather than mastery, “For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness”(1 Cor 1:18), “And they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Gal 5:24). Only by keeping this reality before our eyes – only, as it were, by looking at his penances through the Wounds of Christ – can we see St. Felix's actions as they ought to be seen: as a reflection of Our Lord's Passion. In this light, the litany of St. Felix's mortifications cannot fail to call to mind Our Lord's path to Calvary. Before beginning, it must be known that St. Felix, in accordance with the obedience of religion, never took upon himself a penance which his superiors did not first approve—which sheds light both on his humility and the intensity of the Capuchin reform.
To begin with, St. Felix did not give restful sleep to his body; for his bed, a plank of wood, and for his pillow, a faggot of vines; but upon these, he did not lay, rather, he knelt in prayer until he collapsed to his elbows, then to his chest, either against the wall or upon the bundle of vines. This ordeal, which he called rest, lasted for an hour or two, then he rose to start his day. [16] From his cell, he stole to the Church, even as the friars were departing from their midnight Office. There he prayed, hearing and serving many Masses, until the hour of Prime. Then he began his rounds of the city, begging for alms, with heavy wallets slung over his shoulder. At this point, it would serve us well to hear of his vesture: “In the earlier days of the Capuchin reform the friars wore habits made of a sort of sackcloth, such as was used for galley-slaves,”[17] though this was soon exchanged for serge; finding one of these old habits in a storeroom, St. Felix begged his superiors to let him use it, and his wish was granted. “He wore it till it literally dropped off him; and, from the frequent cutting off torn fragments and sewing up rents, it was in the end ludicrously short and narrow. As for his cloak, it was so patched that it would have defied any one to find out which was the original material.” [18] Moreover, in his day, the Capuchins had been dispensed so as to wear sandals, but St. Felix received permission to be discalced. Now, with his threadbare coverings and bare feet in mind, we turn to his task: trudging about the filthy streets of Rome, through mire and upon jagged pavers and sharp refuse, in extreme heat and bitter cold, chapping winds and soaking rains, from early morning until sunset, day after day, year after year. This produced in the flesh of his legs “the most painful cracks and sores... [and] far from doing anything to alleviate the pain he pretended to cure the wounds in a manner which must have caused real torture, for he stitched them up with packthread, making holes for the purpose with a cobbler's awl.”[19] As for his feet, so battered and wounded were they, it was “terrible to behold.”[20] And it was in this state that he made pilgrimage, on foot, to the seven churches of Rome—every Sunday, his one day of “rest.” Yet his normal sufferings were not enough for this pilgrimage: “Unknown to men, he added to the penance of fatigue by wearing under his habit a terrible breastplate armed with spikes which lacerated his flesh as he walked along.”[21] In addition to his weekly pilgrimage, he took up the breastplate in supplication and reparation whenever calamity or disorder struck the city. When his duties kept him out past supper, he would return to his cell without eating—but not before bringing food and even flowers to his brethren in the infirmary. As for his own nourishment, his diet consisted mainly of herbs, unless obedience compelled him to eat something different. Three days of the week, he took only bread and water. Moreover, he would often mix his scanty food with ashes from the kitchen fire—and as for the fire and stove, even in the dead of winter he never approached them to warm himself, preferring a brisk walk, for he saw the fire as a place of temptation to idle speech: after all, was it not there, warming himself by the fire, that St. Peter had denied our Lord? The day having ended, his night with God began.
After all other had retired to their cells, St. Felix went to the church. “Then his first act was to take a severe discipline. So unsparing was he of himself that one and all of the hidden spies described with horror what they beheld.”[22] “The severity of his sanguinary disciplines made those shudder who watched him unobserved.”[23] St. Felix would kneel in prayer:
“The prayers overheard by the watchers were conversational outpourings to our Lord or his blessed Mother. He would also often address his holy father, St. Francis, to whom he would stretch out his arms as if he beheld him with his eyes. "Oh, my father," he would say, "your poor Brother Felix commends himself to your care. Remember that he is your son, and that, however unworthy he may be, he loves you with all his heart. Help me, dear Father, and direct all the actions of my life. Do not leave me till you have brought me to the feet of Jesus, whom you loved so much when you were on earth."”[24]
So he passed the first half of the night, until, as was his duty, he rang the bell to call the friars to their midnight Office, finally retiring to his cell, only to repeat it all over again, day after day, in his life of sacred monotony.
Now, surely, the reader might say, this means that St. Felix was a miserable man, bringing down so much suffering upon himself like this. Quite the contrary, in fact! “This need not surprise us, for the experience of centuries has made it into a truism, that those saints who have been the most ruthless in their austerities have likewise been remarkable for their joyousness of heart and manner.”[25] Indeed, in this little book, for all the suffering endured by St. Felix, Lady Amabel Kerr does not fail to relate twice the joy and thrice the miracles, and a hundred more wonderful things. Saint and thaumaturgus, Felix was a veritable wellspring of joy and song, cheerfulness and thanksgiving, a font overflowing with God's gifts of healing and knowledge. It was not his misery that made all of Rome flock to him, but his wonderful spirit and his closeness to God. “Press the cross with love,” he would say to the ill and the suffering, “Press it as hard as you can, and your trouble will be changed to delight.”[26] And who could doubt the veracity of his advice, coming, as it was, from one as poor and happy as he? Although he never learned to read, he had memorized many of the psalms and antiphons sung by the friars, and even composed rough canticles of his own. These he would sing with the children of Rome, and they, in turn, singing all through the streets, popularized his simple verses, until he could be found, while collecting alms, even in the drawing-rooms of the wealthy, to the delight of all, “shouting out his sacred verses to the top of his voice.”[27] So it was that he lived, day after day, in his sacred monotony, until, in 1587, with that same indomitable joy, St. Felix yielded up his spirit, even as he sang his favorite canticle:
Gesù tu mi creasti
Perché ti debbo amare.
Io to bramo; io to chiamo
Tanto che mi sent' il cuor mancare. [28]
Peter Paul Rubens, San Felice da Cantalice, 17th c.
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1. Amabel Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias: St. Felix of Cantalice (Port Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press, 2019) 73.
2. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 60.
3. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 3.
4. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 5.
5. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 6.
6. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 5.
7. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 7.
8. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 8.
9. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 9.
10. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 11.
11. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 9.
12. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 10.
13. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 14.
14. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 29.
15. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 31.
16. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 29.
17. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 23.
18. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 24.
19. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 30.
20. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 30.
21. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 28.
22. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 36.
23. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 28.
24. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 37.
25. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 31.
26. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 38.
27. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 54.
28. Kerr, Brother Deo Gratias, 110.
