By Sandro F. Piedrahita Ad maiorem Dei gloriam “Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.” - Saint Teresa of Avila I have been praying without ceasing at the shrine to Fra Giacomo in the church of San Francesco in Citta di Castello since this morning. My parents heard that many people were visiting the shrine to ask for miracles and that many pilgrims had in fact been cured. According to my mother, people had been traveling to the church of San Francesco from all over Italy, even from as far as Germany, seeking Fra Giacomo’s intercession to rid themselves of all sorts of maladies. There were reports of the blind men seeing, the lame men walking, and the paralytics being healed. A deaf–mute girl was able to speak and hear. A woman with a hideous skin condition suddenly was cured. A man with a deadly tumor was no longer ill. My parents Parisio and Emilia della Metola were never particularly Catholic and seldom attended Mass, but somehow they decided that it was worth a try to visit Fra Giacomo’s shrine to demand a miracle. God knows how joyous they would be if instead of a disfigured hunchbacked dwarf they had a lovely princess for a daughter! But I know the Lord formed my inward parts and knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, just as the psalm reminds us. The truth is, my parents know how devoted I am to Christ and think I am somehow entitled to a miracle. If not you, they said when they announced our trip to Castello, who else deserves a cure? Don’t you spend your whole day praying? My father and mother – he so handsome, she so lovely, both patricians of noble lineage – were shocked on the day of my birth in 1287. I am blind, lame, a dwarf and hunchbacked. One of my legs is longer than the other, and I have a deformed arm and a misshapen face. Instead of the blessing they had expected on the day of my birth, when my parents saw me they felt cursed by what they considered a monster. And so early this morning they brought me to this shrine, to see if their unwelcome freak could somehow be restored through a fabulous miracle. For years they have tried to hide me, to pretend I do not exist. They told everyone I was dead. Since I was a six-year-old they have kept me hidden in a small stone cell without a door, attached to the chapel of Saint Mary in Metola, a place where nobody could see me, other than Fra Cappellano, who taught me about the Lord and gave me Holy Communion through a small square window. Later, in my sixteenth year, they transferred me to a secret underground vault in the palace at Mercatello, which was even worse, for I was not close to the house of God and could not listen to Mass or receive the Sacraments. But yesterday they decided for the first time in thirteen years to take me out of my prison cell. My parents desperately wanted to see if God would do something to rid them of a cross they felt they had unjustly borne for far too long. Of course they made sure I was heavily veiled, so that no one could see my face, and we left under cover of darkness. When we arrived at the shrine, I asked for a miracle mostly because it would please my parents. As for me, I long ago made peace with my deformity. To quote Saint Paul, I will boast gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. I think that when we initially arrived, my father and mother had some hope of a miracle, but as the hours passed and nothing happened, they became gradually less enthused. Soon my father went back to the inn – not being a man of faith himself, he had thought the idea of asking for a cure for so many disabilities was doomed to fail from the beginning – and as the hours passed and there was no miracle my mother too became increasingly desperate. “Pray hard and loud,” my mother ordered me, “so that God can hear your voice above that of all the rabble.” “God can hear me,” I told her. “There is no need to shout.” “Well, pray, pray!” she beseeched me. “Tell the God you pray to that it is unjust for Him to have given you such a punishment.” “I have not been punished by God,” I gently rebuked my mother. “Each person has a different cross to bear. God knows why I have been born this way. One should never question the designs of our Almighty God.” “Just pray,” my mother insisted. “Never mind whether or not you have been punished. I know that your father and I have certainly been punished. What great sin have we committed, that we should have deserved such a terrible blight?” “Please, Lord,” I said to satisfy my mother. “Heal me of my deformity. Restore my vision. Rid me of this disfiguring hunchback. Fix my legs and make my face beautiful like that of my mother. Make me the daughter my parents have always wanted.” And then I added, as I had been taught by Fra Cappellano, “But not according to my will, but yours be done, my Lord.” “Don’t say that!” my mother cried excitedly. “Don’t give Him the option of denying your request. You make it sound as if you didn’t care much either way. Demand a miracle, demand it urgently, Margherita. You always pray so much, He has to listen to you.” “We can’t demand anything from God,” I responded in an even voice. “God will do whatever is best for my soul and for His greater glory.” “Oh, you’re hopeless,” my mother cried. “Maybe your father is right. Maybe even God can’t help you.” “For God nothing is impossible,” I replied. “Well, then pray,” my mother repeated. “If He is so powerful, let Him show His power.” Although I could not see anything, I could get a sense of who else was at the church based on my mother’s apparent disgust at the sight of the other pilgrims, which she made no effort to conceal. She complained about the “foul, pestilent odor of the crowds” and told me that but for her desire to see me healed, she would never have endured it. And it was true that the stench of sweat and dirt was everywhere, the smell of working men and women, many of them suffering from one illness or another, but I did not think of the malodor of the pilgrims but of their great faith and devotion, which I could hear all about me. “You should be thankful that I’m at your side, Margherita,” said my mother. “Realize that I’m doing this only for you. This place is full of hideous creatures, a parade of horribles, a lot of them filthy and disheveled. Many of them are visibly diseased, and I dread the possibility of contagion. There’s a woman whose face and arms are covered by red bleeding pustules, a man defaced by enormous black warts as big as eggs, another with repellent boils, and all you do is say, ‘Lord, do whatever you will.’ If you’re not going to put your heart into your requests, just let me know, Margherita, and we can put an end to all this praying.” “All right, I shall begin to pray the Rosary,” I said. “I shall pray to Mary as hard as I can. Mary is the most powerful of intercessors.” “Fine,” my mother said. “You’ve spent thirteen years doing nothing but praying. And today of all days you seem so hesitant.” “I have never really prayed for a cure,” I explained to my mother. “I don’t know if a cure is necessary. I have prayed for the power to accept my limitations, as a way of sharing Christ’s cross.” At various times, we heard people exclaiming thanks to the Lord for prayers that had been answered. There was one woman who was practically wailing, praising God because her son, who had been beset by maniacal hallucinations and delusions and whom she called a demoniac, had been completely cured. I know that she approached my mother and think she even hugged her, because my mother immediately exclaimed, “Don’t touch me, you dirty peasant woman! Don’t you know who you are dealing with?” Still, my mother turned to me and said I should redouble my prayers. “If such a lowly, common woman has been granted such a miracle, surely God can do no less for you. Ask God for what you deserve, you, the daughter of Parisio and Emilia della Metola.” But after a few hours of listening to me pray the Rosary, with no change in my condition, my mother simply disappeared. I assumed she had gone to the back of the church, to get away from the sickest supplicants, and I continued praying. Soon I found myself moving to and fro among the persons begging for miracles. There was barely any breathing room. Some people were rough, pushing me forward forcefully as they tried to approach the tomb of Fra Giacomo. At one moment I was knocked down onto the floor and the crowds simply walked over me until, with the assistance of my cane and a kindly man, I was able to get back on my feet. There were so many people at the church that it became unbearably hot, and my forehead started to sweat profusely under the mantilla veil my parents had told me to wear in order to hide my face. “Please heal my son’s clubfoot,” one woman cried. Another exclaimed, “Please let my daughter hear again.” And yet another prayed, “I need a cure for this terrible affliction of the lungs.” “Where’s the crucifix?” I asked in my blindness, and a man took me by the hand and led me through the crowds to a place where I could kneel. When I had been locked up for eleven years in the cell next to the chapel in Metola, I had at least that solace: the window of my room directly faced the chancel of the church, and I could hear the benediction and knew the image of Christ on His cross was only a few meters away from me. And despite my blindness, I imagined, somehow, I could see Jesus in His agony on that crucifix perched high above the altar as Fra Cappellano elevated the Host during the Eucharist. At any event, today, in the Church of San Francesco, I found myself kneeling at the foot of the crucified Jesus. I said, again, “If it is your will, my Lord, please cure me of my disfigurements and let me see. It is hard to be dwarfed, humpbacked, lame and blind. I am fatigued by my condition, but it is especially fatiguing to my parents.” And then I added, as always, “Not according to my will, but yours be done, my Lord.” I prayed fervently – no one could doubt that – I sincerely wanted a cure. But I trusted that, no matter what happened, God’s decision would be the best one for both myself and my parents. The hours passed, and I continued praying. I prayed the Rosary ceaselessly, but there was no change in my condition. Then I finished praying, and amid the crowds, I searched for my mother. I called out her name and heard nothing in response. I had been locked up for years with scarcely any human contact – at first just Fra Cappellano teaching me about the faith when I lived in a cell next to the chapel at Metola and later, when I was moved to Mercatello, only the servants bringing me food. So I was wholly unaccustomed to being in such a large and boisterous crowd, with everybody moving in different directions, not knowing exactly where I was, whether I was close to the altar or to the exit. Somehow I managed to make it to the back of the church, where I thought my mother would be waiting, but still I couldn’t find her. I took hold of a woman by the arm and asked her if she could help me, told her that my mother was named Emilia. The woman, realizing that I was blind, agreed to help me, and asked among the crowds for my mother. But my mother was not there, and eventually the woman stopped looking for her. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said in a kind voice. “But your mother is nowhere to be found.” I kept searching for hours, making my way with difficulty among the throngs. Finally the sexton tapped me on the shoulder and told me it was time to leave, that I could return the next morning. I left the church and walked out into the rain, not knowing what had happened to my mother. On the wagon as we traveled to Castello, my father Parisio had warned that there were outlaws who preyed upon the pilgrims, and my father had even enlisted an escort of twelve guards to protect our carriage. For the first time in my life, I felt absolute terror. Perhaps my parents had suffered an accident in the city. Perhaps they had been killed by bandits. I made the sign of the cross and said a prayer for their safety. Surely the Lord would not let anything happen to them, since they were all I had in this world. So I sat down on the steps of the church and waited for hours, never stopping my prayers – not for a cure to my deformity, but for the healthy return of those I loved so much. At some point the sexton appeared again and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for my parents and asked him if he could direct me to the Avellino Inn, where my parents and I had been staying. I remembered that my father Parisio had said it was the best inn in all of Castello – fitting a man of his stature, a hero against Metola’s enemies. The sexton told me the inn was not too far away, perhaps two kilometers, and that all I needed to do was follow the street of San Provolo directly until I heard the noise coming from the inn. The sexton added that many people gathered to drink at night on Saturdays at the Avellino Inn, and that I couldn’t miss it even if I tried. I don’t know if he realized that I was blind. But then he warned me, “It is dangerous for a woman such as you to travel the streets of Citta di Castello by herself so late at night. A bandit may appear, and you might be ravished.” I uncovered my face and told him there was no such danger. “Have you seen my face, how hideous it is to mortal eyes?” I asked him. “Have you seen the curvature of my spine? The unevenness of my legs? I am in no danger of losing my chastity.” So I started on my journey, for the first time making my way through the roads of a city, blind, lame and completely alone. Although I wrapped a shawl about my head, it did nothing to protect me from the rain. The streets were barren, probably because of the weather, and I couldn’t find anyone to give me further directions. I noticed there were structures on either side of the road, what I imagined to be houses, and I walked with one hand on the walls and another on my cane. Surely this way I wouldn’t get lost, if I simply followed the houses on what I imagined was the street of San Provolo. But it was hard to walk on the uneven, muddy road, and I stumbled and fell several times, just like the Christ had fallen as He carried His Cross on the way to Calvary. Every time I fell, my garments got covered in more and more mud. In all my years on this earth, I had never realized how challenging it was to be lame and blind at the same time. But the hours passed, and at some point, I concluded that I had taken the wrong course. There were no longer any houses, only what seemed to be empty fields. I kept walking anyway, but in the opposite direction, trying to return to the place where I had come from, until I ran into a pack of dogs. I had never heard a dog bark before, let alone seen one, but Fra Cappellano had instructed me about the animals in God’s creation and had told me about dogs, cats, cows, and so many other creatures. I did not know what to do when faced with all those dogs – there must have been about a dozen of them – and I was afraid that if I moved, they would pounce upon me. And indeed when I made the slightest movement, I heard more than one of the dogs starting to growl quite fiercely. I imagined them shredding me to pieces, biting my legs, my face, my head, and there was nothing I could do to protect myself, no human to rescue me. I was completely alone. And then I said a small prayer to the Lord, and the animals ceased their barking and growling, starting to sniff me with curiosity instead. Suddenly I knew I was safe. I even dared to caress one of the dogs, with woolly hair and floppy ears, and he was gentle as could be, wet and shivering just like I was. I sat on a rock in the rain and decided to wait for dawn, when the people would fill the streets again and I could be told how to make my way to the Avellino Inn to find my parents. I tried to wipe off the mud from my skirt and blouse, but it was useless. Finally day broke and shortly thereafter I heard a group of women walking together. I told them, “I am blind. Please help me. I need to find the Avellino Inn. Somehow I got lost last night.” “Well, you’re nowhere near it, but it just so happens we’re going in that direction. You can walk with us. You just have to follow the river for a couple of kilometers and then walk south for another kilometer.” “Are we close to a river?” I inquired. “Yes,” one of the women told me. “It is the Tiber River. You can’t hear it because it’s raining. But if you prick your ears, you will sense its movement.” Finally, soaking wet and muddied, I arrived at the Avellino Inn. I said to the concierge, “I am looking for my parents, Parisio and Emilia della Metola. Can you please tell them I am here?” “Well, I’m sorry,” the woman answered in a curt tone, and then she hurled out a few words that hurt like knives. “They left yesterday afternoon. Apparently they left without you. Although they did leave a message for you.” She handed me a piece of paper. “I can’t see,” I said. “Can you tell me what it says?” The woman began reading. “Since you have not made the slightest effort to demand a miracle and you are so happy in your condition, we have decided that it is best for you to face your perils with God alone. We are done with worrying about you and will leave everything in His hands. Find a church or convent where they will take you in and feed you. Or learn to beg if you must. Please do not look for us again. Parisio and Emilia.” I started weeping. I began reeling. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked the innkeeper. “I can’t see. I can barely walk. I’ve been locked up in a room for years, never having to make my way around a city. How am I supposed to keep on living?” “I’m sorry,” the innkeeper responded. “You can’t stay here. I am not running a charity. In any case, there is no room at the inn at the moment. Perhaps you should just walk to the cathedral in the center of town. That is where all the beggars go to ask for alms. I am sure that seeing your condition, many people will give you something. Enough to eat at least. Few people are as cursed as you appear to be, my dear.” I responded, amid my tears, “I am a temple of the Holy Ghost, made in His image and likeness. My condition is not a curse but a gift from God.” And with that, alone and blind, I began to brave the streets of Citta di Castello, unable to cease weeping. With the passing of the years, I would learn to navigate those streets, from east to west, from north to south, as if I could see them with the eyes of God Himself. I mouthed another prayer to Jesus – not a desperate prayer, for I confided in Him – and then I started to walk. Eventually I asked a man I found on the street for directions to the Cathedral. “As you can see, I am blind and crippled,” I told him. “My name is Margherita. I need to find the Cathedral to see if someone will take pity on me and at least give me enough so that I may eat. I ate nothing yesterday, since I prayed all day and night. God knows that I am hungry. Even a loaf of bread and cheese would do.” “I, too, am a beggar,” the man volunteered in a tone that can only be described as cheerful. “My name is Giuseppe, and I am on my way to the cathedral. You can walk with me. You are new in town. What brings you here?” “My parents live in a castle on top of a mountain in Metola. They are very wealthy, noble people. They came to Citta di Castello on a horse and wagon to ask for a miracle from Fra Giacomo, and when I wasn’t healed, they simply left me, as if I were an animal to be cast away and forgotten. Frankly I am worried about their state in the eyes of God. To leave me alone under such conditions is surely the gravest of sins. I shall spend whatever is left of my life praying for their souls.” “That is the least of your worries,” Giuseppe told me. “You are in peril in this city, some bandit might try to assault you to see if you have anything worth stealing. Better not to walk alone in this town.” I told Giuseppe I was sure God would protect me and quoted from the twenty-third psalm. “Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For God is near me, His rod and staff, they comfort me.” Then I remembered another psalm that Fra Cappellano had repeated to me constantly over the years, probably because he was furious about what my proud parents had done to me when I was a child. “My father and my mother have forsaken me,” I quoted Fra Cappellano, “but the Lord has taken me up.” “So you are a pious woman,” Giuseppe said. “And you know your Scriptures.” “The Lord has always protected me, and I trust He will continue to do so. He is my refuge and my strength, even when the people I most love have failed me.” “Well, you certainly need strength. Being crippled like you isn’t easy, especially since you’re also blind. And I assume your parents didn’t leave you any money. But you’re lucky it’s Sunday. I will take you to the Cathedral, on the Piazza Gabriotti, where you can meet the other beggars and join us in begging for alms after each of the Masses.” “Are there a lot of beggars?” I asked. “Quite a few, especially now that so many crippled people have come to town to ask for a miracle from Fra Giacomo. The great majority have not been cured. We have a group of regulars who hang together and help each other out. Pool together our resources. Maybe you can join our group.” “That would be nice,” I said. “I feel so alone in this big city.” “During the rainy season, we sleep under bridges or sometimes go to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, but it is pretty distant, and some of the beggars are too lame to go that far. Giovanni has no arms and legs, so he has to be carried. Elena is hopelessly crippled, even worse than you are. And Gianna is too old to walk very far. I myself am pretty disfigured, although of course you can’t tell. I am missing a leg and can barely walk with my crutches, Margherita. And my arms are so withered that it is impossible for me to work. I can barely feed myself with both hands.” “I can see your heart, which is what’s important,” I said. “I can sense a kind and loving soul, lovely in the sight of God.” “And when it is not raining,” Giuseppe continued, “we sleep wherever God finds us.” “Can we please slow down?” I said. “I am not used to walking, and last night I walked for hours. Both my legs are aching horribly, as my unused muscles must have been terribly strained. So we shall have to take it a little slow. I hope you don’t mind, Giuseppe.” “Not in the least,” Giuseppe answered. “I don’t walk that quickly either, Margherita,” he added with a laugh. After a long, slow walk, Giuseppe took me to the steps of the cathedral. “I would like to go inside,” I said. “I heard so much about the marvelous Cathedral of Citta di Castello from Fra Cappellano. He described the vaulted arches, how high the ceiling is, the marvelous stained glass panels showing the Stations of the Cross. I want to enter and feel the sense of wonder, even though I cannot see anything. I would like to attend Mass, Giuseppe, to receive the Holy Eucharist. After what I went through last night, I have so much to be thankful for today.” “Thankful?” Giuseppe echoed. “You’ve just been abandoned by your parents, crippled, penniless and blind in a strange town. What do you have to be thankful for?” “I found you, didn’t I?” I replied. “And at least I know my parents are safe. For the first time in my life, I feel the warmth of the sun upon my cheeks. I’m so used to being cloistered in a small cell that even something as simple as that fills my heart with joy. To breathe the open air, to hear the clop-clop of horses on the open roads, to smell the flowers that I could only imagine when I was being hidden away, to listen to the cries of children being tugged at by their mothers, the slow murmur of the river, the grinding sound of the wagons transporting beautiful ladies and men of import on their way about town. What reason is there not to be thankful to the Lord, Giuseppe?” “You’re an odd bird, aren’t you, Margherita? Nothing seems to affect you.” “God alone suffices,” I answered. “Why shouldn’t we all be thankful?” As the two of us walked up the steps leading to the cathedral, which was quite a challenge for me, even with my cane, Giuseppe asked me to move a little bit to the right, as we were approaching Lucia with her paralytic son. “She always appears before the others and begs from the steps leading to the cathedral, unlike the rest of the beggars, who congregate at the piazza at the bottom of the stairs. That is because few people give her alms, as they blame her for her son’s condition. The rumor that has spread about town is that Lucia’s son was born healthy, but his own mother severed his spine in order to cripple him, to receive more money when she was begging. But if she is guilty of such a monstrous action, it has had the contrary effect. Not many people feel like rewarding her for such a crime, and so she receives less than any of the other beggars. Sometimes I think she leaves with nothing.” “I understand,” I said, as I continued clambering up the steps in silence. When we finally entered the cathedral, I asked Giuseppe to guide me to the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I extended my hand and felt the bearded face of the Christ, thinking it was exquisite. So similar to the face on the statuette of Jesus that I had always kept with me at Metola and Mercatello. Then I touched the Lord’s left hand, rubbing the scar where He had been crucified, then the right hand, wounded too and pointing to His heart, which I pressed gently with my fingers, imagining that I could see it, the red heart surrounded by a crown of thorns and from which a flame emerged. I had heard Fra Cappellano describe it in detail so many times, and touching it ignited my heart with the sweetest of recollections. “Oh, Giuseppe,” I cried out. “What a joy it is to be so close to Jesus! To be in this wondrous, holy place dedicated to His praise and exaltation!” After attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist, Giuseppe instructed me in how to beg. I should stand upright, he told me, so that those exiting the church would realize the enormity of my disability. And when people approached me, I should tell them, in my most insistent voice, “Please give whatever you can afford. I am blind, dwarfed, hunchbacked and crippled. The Lord will repay you in spades in Heaven. Remember that the Good Lord said, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these, you did for Me.’” And the people gave. They gave and gave. I collected many coins in a jar that another beggar, a friend of Giuseppe, had given me to keep the money I received. But as soon as the crowds dissipated, I asked Giuseppe to take me to where Lucia and her paralytic boy were begging. “Have you collected much?” I asked Lucia. “No, not much,” the woman responded. “Maybe two or three coins, you must have heard that the people all say that I am an unnatural mother. But I have confessed all my crimes, have thrown my sins at the feet of God’s mercy.” “Well, if the Lord has forgiven you, who am I to judge you?” And with those words I proceeded to give Lucia everything I had collected after the Mass. “Thank you,” Lucia whispered. “Surely one day you will be with God in Heaven.” “Go to the shrine of Fra Giacomo with your crippled boy this afternoon,” I advised her. “And he will be healed. I can assure you of that.” Giuseppe berated me. “What are you doing? Have you lost your senses? How are you going to eat today?” “That woman needs the money more than I do,” I explained. “I do not have a paralytic son to take care of. And the Lord will provide. There will be more Masses today. I promise you we will have our fill tonight, that we will feast like rich men.” “And why did you tell that poor woman that her paralytic son will be healed? Why make her hope for something that won’t happen?” “I know he will be cured, Giuseppe. Deep down, the Lord has given me that knowledge. If you only knew what I have in my heart...” “How can you believe that, given that you yourself were not blessed with a miracle?” “Ah, but I was!” I responded. “I have been incarcerated my whole life, and now I have the liberty of the streets. I am free, Giuseppe! I am completely free! How can you say that is not a miracle? When I was living in a dungeon, with only a pallet and an old bench to sit in, unable to attend Mass, unable to receive the Eucharist…If my parents had not abandoned me, I would have had to return to my prison. Now I am liberated so that I can fulfill whatever plans the Lord still has for me, and I believe He has wonderful plans. So don’t pity me, Giuseppe. As one of the glorious psalms says, ‘Out of my distress I called on the Lord, the Lord answered and set me free.’” And with that, I returned to the plaza at the foot of the cathedral, and I continued to beg before the second Mass. Sandro Francisco Piedrahita is an American Catholic writer of Peruvian and Ecuadorian descent. Before he turned to writing, he practised law for a number of years. He is Jesuit-educated, and many of his stories have to do with the lives of saints, told through a modern lens. His wife Rosa is a schoolteacher, his son Joaquin teaches English in China and his daughter Sofia is a social worker. For many years, he was an agnostic, but he has returned to the faith. Mr. Piedrahita holds a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale College and a law degree from Harvard Law School.
Sandro's other work on Foreshadow: The Crucifixion of St. Peter (Part 1 of 2; Fiction, August 2022) The Crucifixion of St. Peter (Part 2 of 2; Fiction, August 2022) A World for Abimael Jones (Part 1 of 2); Fiction, March 2023) A World for Abimael Jones (Part 2 of 2); Fiction, March 2023) A Jew and Her Cross (Part 1 of 2; Fiction, April 2023) A Jew and Her Cross (Part 2 of 2; Fiction, April 2023)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
ForecastSupport UsArchives
November 2024
|