As always, there are skeptics that disbelieve articles such as this article you are about to read. We hear from these Doubting Thomas’ quite often. Mostly the nay-saying comes from certain Protestant televangelists. We hear them say: “The Roman Catholic Church is a cult”; “It’s possessed by the devil”; “Catholics pray to bread” (reference to the Holy Eucharist). And on and on with their hatefulness, especially with regard to the Saints whom some think we pray to instead of God. If these doubters would click on: “TheAmazing True Story of St. Paschal of Bayon” their minds might be changed. And after they read this following article about the life of St. Vincent Ferrer they just might become believers in the miracles provided by God through his saints, as many others have.
Now, if these
doubters would believe in Holy Scripture, then perhaps they’ll believe the
instructions Jesus gave his Apostles:
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the
lepers, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.” (Matt. 10:
8). And this is exactly what St. Vincent Ferrer did so convincingly.
One of the greatest
miracle workers-thaumaturges in the history of the Catholic Church was
Dominican priest St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419). He moved in the limelight
before both ordinary people and the great of the world. He once converted
10,000 Jews at one time by marching right into their synagogue and preaching to
them; the Jews turned their synagogue into a Catholic Church.
So great a
missionary was St. Vincent Ferrer that he can only be compared to the 12
Apostles. His accomplishments were incredible and rare in the whole history of
the Church; his life story contains one amazing story after another, many of
these are documented in the book “St.
Vincent Ferrer—“The Angel of the Judgment” by Father Andrew Pradel, O.P.
Some would consider
it a conservative estimate that St. Vincent Ferrer converted 25,000 Jews and
8,000 Moors; his total number of conversions was around 200,000 souls-among
them Moors, Jews, heretics, and apostate Catholics. At Toulouse he spoke on the
Passion for six hours without a break before a crowd of 30,000 at the Place St.
Etienne. When he cried out, “Arise you
dead, and come to Judgment!” the whole crowd fell on their faces begging
for mercy.
Learning about the
many other wonders of St. Vincent makes it easier to accept the accounts of his
death-to-life miracles. The Acta Sanctorum records 873 miracles performed by
the saint, but there were actually many more. In 1412 Vincent himself told a
crowd, “God has wrought in His mercy,
through me a miserable sinner, three thousand miracles.” After that Vincent
lived seven more years, which was a period of even greater miracles.
The Bollandist
hagiographers tell of 70 persons who were delivered from diabolical possession
by St. Vincent Ferrer. He had such power over devils that it was often enough
for him to touch a possessed person for him to be freed; at other times, a
possessed person would be freed from the devil merely upon going to the same
place as where Vincent was or even simply when Vincent’s name was pronounced.
St. Antonius
(Antoninus), Archbishop of Florence, another learned Dominican about 30 years
old when Vincent died, stated that St. Vincent had raised 28 persons from the
dead. But others claimed that St. Antonius’ estimate fell short of the actual
number raised. Perhaps there is some confusion in distinguishing those Vincent
personally raised during his life and those raised through his intercession
after his death. The author Fr. Pradel states that St. Vincent Ferrer “resuscitated more than 30 persons during
his lifetime.”
Near Palma of
Majorca St. Vincent Ferrer stilled a storm in order to preach from a wharf. At
Beziers he stopped a flood. At the gates of Vannes he cured a great number of
the sick. At Guerande he delivered a man possessed by the devil and more dead
than alive. In France he had the British victors at Caen praying together with
the defeated French for a sick man, who was cured—and all of them, enemies or
not, shouted for joy. At Leride he cured a cripple in the presence of the king.
Vincent once said
to a novice, Alphonso Borriga, “You will
become pope and will canonize me.” And years later that novice, then became
Pope Callixtus lll, did exactly that. Vincent told St. Bernardine of Sienna
that he (Bernardine) would be canonized before himself—and so it happened. Once
a mute woman signed to him, and then she spoke, asking for speech and bread. He
promised her bread, but took back her speech, saying that she would make ill
use of it. He made beautiful an ugly woman who had been beaten by her husband
for her looks.
At Pampeluna an innocent
man had just been condemned to death. St. Vincent knew of his innocence and
pleaded for him, but in vain. As the grim procession led the poor man to the
scaffold, they met another procession, that of a man already dead. The corpse
was being borne on a stretcher to the burial place. Vincent seemed to have a
sudden inspiration. He stopped suddenly and addressed the corpse: “You no
longer have anything to gain by lying. Is this man guilty? Answer me!”
The dead man sat
up, then spoke the words: “He is not!” As
the man began to settle down again on his stretcher, Vincent offered to reward
him for his service. He gave him the opportunity of remaining alive on earth.
But the man responded, “No, Father, for I
am assured salvation.” With that he died again as if going to sleep, and
they carried his body off to the cemetery.
On one occasion
when St. Vincent was preaching to thousands at Salamanca, he suddenly stopped
and said: I am the angel of the
Apocalypse and am preaching judgment!” Then he directed: “Some of you go near St. Paul’s Gate, and
you will find a dead person borne on men’s shoulders on the way to the grave.
Bring the corpse hither, and you shall hear proof of what I tell you.”
The men went on
their errand, the multitude waited, and soon the bier was brought with the dead
woman upon it. They raised the litter and set it up so all could see. St. Vincent
bade her to return to life and the dead woman sat up.
“Who Am I?” Vincent
asked her. She answered: “You, Father
Vincent, are the angel of the Apocalypse, as you have already told this vast
assembly.” In the case of the woman, after her testimony she died again. In
another almost identical account, this time it was a man, Vincent asked him
what was his preference, live or die again. The man asked to live, and St.
Vincent responded, “Then be it so!” The
man is reported as having lived many more years.
There was a rich
Jew of Andalusia, named Abraham, who began to leave the church in anger while
Vincent was preaching. The Jew did not like what he was hearing. As some people
at the door opposed his passing through, St Vincent cried out: “Let him go! Come away all of you at once,
and leave the passage free!” The people did as he ordered, and at the
instant the Jew left, part of the porch structure fell on him and crushed him
to death. Then the saint rose from his chair and went to the body. He knelt
there in prayer. “Abraham came to life.” And his first words were: “The religion of the Jews is not the true
faith. The true Faith is that of the Christians.”
In memory of this
event the Jew was baptized Elias (in honor of the prophet who had raised the
boy from the dead). The new convert established a pious foundation in the
church of the “accident” and the miracle. Bishop Peter Ranzano accounted for
this miracle.
The father of a
certain child had given Vincent lodging while he was on a missionary journey.
His wife, a virtuous woman, suffered from a bad attack of nerves, and at times
was close to madness. Upon his return from hearing one of Vincent’s sermons,
the father came upon a terrible tragedy. His wife had gone mad, cut their small
son’s throat, then chopped up the boy’s body and roasted a portion of it, which
she then attempted to serve her husband.
When he realized
what had happened, the man fled in horror to St. Vincent. Vincent told him
that—as in the case of the crushed Jew—the tragedy would be for the glory of
God. St. Vincent went with the father back home and prayed as he gathered the
bloody pieces together. He said to the father: “If you have faith, God, who created this little soul from nothing, can
bring him back to life.”
Vincent knelt and
prayed. He made the sign of the Cross over the reassembled body. The pieces
became united together, the body came to life again, and Vincent handed over to
the father a living child. This event is depicted in a painting by Francesco
del Cossa in the New Picture Gallery in the Vatican. Bishop Ranzano claimed
this as one of the miracles submitted in the canonization process for St.
Vincent Ferrer.
There are those
that scoff at miracles such as this. But, what do they say about the Valley of
Bones? “Ye dry bones, hear the word of
the Lord…behold, I will send SPIRIT into you, and you shall live. And I will
lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you
with skin: and I will give you spirit and you shall live…and the spirit came
into them, and they lived…” (Ezekiel 37: 4-10) “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew
19: 26). Cannot God delegate this power
to His Saints? He has done so all through history.
Some may be
surprised to know that the above miracle is not without some real, though
lesser, counterparts. St. Francis of Paola restored a lamb from its mere bones
and fleece, and in the palace of the King of Naples he revived an
already-cooked fish; also, St. Philip Benizi restored a child partially
devoured by a wolf. A similar wonder was worked for a young man who was with
his parents in a group of pilgrims on their way to the famous shrine of Santiago
(St. James) de Compostella in Spain. They stopped at La Calzada, where the
young man was falsely accused and hanged. The poor bereaved parents continued
their pilgrimage, and on their return journey they were astonished to find
their son still alive eight days later.
But the story goes beyond this wonder. When
the lad’s mother rushed to tell the magistrate (he was at diner), the
magistrate said, “Woman you must be mad!
I would as soon believe these pullets which I am about to eat are alive as that
man who has been gibbeted for eight days is not dead.” At his words the
pullets on the dish rose up alive. There was a great procession with the live
birds to the shrine of St. James at Compostella. The Bollandists relate this
miracle, as do many other authors. And there have been other miracles similar
to it in the lives of the Saints.
One should note
that none of these miracles were performed for mere sensationalism, which the
saints despise. They were worked for various good purposes, especially the
conversion of sinners and the strengthening of faith. As St. Vincent told the
bereaved father, miracles are worked for the glory of God. This was also stated
by Christ at the grave of Lazarus, and to his Apostles. The saints’ power of
course is limited by God, to whom all power belongs. Otherwise, with
unrestricted powers, the saints could be “as gods.”
St. Vincent Ferrer
died at Vannes, Brittany, France in 1419, and the canonical process at Vannes
brought to light an incredible number of wonders, including a surprising number
of resurrections from the dead. In the French work—“Histoire de St. Vincent Ferrier” by Pere Fages, O.P., there are a
number of accounts of the dead raised through St. Vincent.
Additionally, St.
Antonius, O.P., a contemporary of Vincent, said he raised 28 from the dead,
however others claimed this count fell far short of the real number. Irregardless,
the fact remains that St. Vincent Ferrer brought back to life at least two
dozen people, all for the glory of God and the conversion of sinners.
Pray the Rosary,
wear the Brown Scapular, and ask the assistance of St. Vincent Ferrer. He will
help you.
