On November 26th, the Franciscan family celebrates one of its great saints: St Leonard of Port Maurice, who performed an amazing number of missions, by which he has received the title of the Apostle of Rome and of Italy as well as the Apostle of the Most Holy Sacrament and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
St. Leonard, certainly one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the Church, was born on December 20, 1676 in Porto Maurizio, Italy. Upon his birth he was given the name Paul Jerome Casanova by his father, Domenico Casanova, who was a sea captain, and his mother, Anna Maria Benza. At the age of 13, his uncle Agostino took the responsibility of educating the little Paul Jerome to pursue a career as a physician. However, when the boy felt that medicine was not for him and decided otherwise his uncle simply disowned him. Thus, Paul Jerome began to study at the Jesuit College in Rome.
On October 2, 1697, Paul Jerome joined the Franciscans of the Strict Observance and was given the name Brother Leonard. In 1703, he was ordained a priest in Rome. Initially he started teaching for some time while hoping to go as a missionary in China. However, a bleeding ulcer kept him in his native Porto Maurizio for at least four years so as to recover and regain his strength.
Divine Providence had great plans for this generous Franciscan. In 1709, St. Leonard of Port Maurice was sent to Florence to accomplish his mission of preaching, in the city and nearby region. His great gift for preaching was such that he was invited to visit and preach in other areas. There was abundant good fruit of St Leonard’s inspiring sermons and ministry, including an impressive increase in the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, Sacred Heart, Immaculate Conception, and the Stations of the Cross, which he set up in over 500 different places, including the Colosseum. He also gave us the Divine Praises, which are said at the end of Benediction. So brilliant and holy was his eloquence that once when he gave a two weeks’ mission in Rome, the Pope and College of Cardinals came to hear him.
St Leonard was sent as a missionary to Corsica by Pope Benedict XIV in 1744 and managed to restore discipline to the holy orders there, but local politics greatly limited his success in preaching. He returned to Rome exhausted, and died that night on November 26, 1751 at the monastery of Saint Bonaventure in Rome. St Leonard of Port Maurice died a most holy death in his seventy-fifth year, after twenty-four years of uninterrupted preaching at the Franciscan Friary of St Bonaventure in Rome.
From St. Leonard of Port Maurice, we find a fascinating example of faithful servitude and spiritual stamina. One may look at how he lived his life with Christian perseverance, always seeking out opportunities to build the Kingdom of God, until his death.
The second reading of the liturgy of the hours, taken from the Office of Readings for the memorial of St Leonard of Port Maurice, presents to us a glimpse from his powerful writings. In the pericope, St Leonard helps us understand how the Meditation on the Passion of Christ will arouse true and fruitful contrition of our heart. As one can certainly notice, the Way of the Cross is powerful enough in bringing people to repentance and uniting them once again with Jesus. He wrote:
With desolation is all the land made desolate because there is none that considers in his heart. Behold the source of all our ills, that no one ponders on those things which demand diligent consideration. Hence arise manifold disorders in our conduct. The last things are especially ignored: God’s benefits, and all that the Son Of God bore for us in his most bitter passion are consigned to oblivion; the duties and obligations proper to each state of life are carelessly discharged. Nor are those dangers which surround our life on every side foreseen and guarded against. Since, therefore, the world is filled with iniquity, rightly does Jeremiah complain “With desolation is all the land made desolate.”
But is there any remedy for such evils? Truly this much desired medicine is, in great part at least, ready. This do I desire to make known to all prelates, parish priests, priests, and other ministers of God, at whose feet I prostrate myself. It is, in short, that pious exercise which they call the Way of the Cross. If by their zeal and industry it were to penetrate into all individual parishes and churches, it would certainly prove a strong bulwark against the flood of vices; it would enrich with the greatest virtues all who occupy themselves with the holy thought of the suffering and love of Jesus Christ.
O how many salutary insights, what sincere remorse of heart, what unconquerable steadfastness of soul are inspired by the assiduous meditation on the most bitter passion of the Son of God! Daily experience has taught me that men’s conduct is quickly changed for the better by this holy manner of prayer.
This Way of the Cross is the antidote against vices, the purifying of passions, an efficacious incentive to virtue and holiness of life. In very truth, if we vividly represent the bitter torments of the Son of God as in so many painted pictures before our mind’s eye, we can scarcely refrain from detesting the filth of our own lives, after so great an illumination; further, we are urge to answer so great a love by loving in return, or at least to bear willingly those crosses which abound in every state of life.
In his famous sermon called The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved, at its conclusion, St Leonard of Port Maurice exhorts us that the Cross of Jesus is the powerful means for our salvation. He said: Brothers, I want to send all of you away comforted today. So if you ask me my sentiment on the number of those who are saved, here it is: Whether there are many or few that are saved, I say that whoever wants to be saved, will be saved; and that no one can be damned if he does not want to be. And if it is true that few are saved, it is because there are few who live well. As for the rest, compare these two opinions: the first one states that the greater number of Catholics are condemned; the second one, on the contrary, pretends that the greater number of Catholics are saved. Imagine an Angel sent by God to confirm the first opinion, coming to tell you that not only are most Catholics damned, but that of all this assembly present here, one alone will be saved. If you obey the Commandments of God, if you detest the corruption of this world, if you embrace the Cross of Jesus Christ in a spirit of penance, you will be that one alone who is saved.
Almighty and merciful God, you made blessed Leonard an outstanding herald of the mystery of the cross. Grant through his intercession that we may recognize the riches of the cross while on earth, and attain to the fruit of its redemption in heaven. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.