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Hearts of Jesus and Mary- Saints |
Blessed Bartolo Longo: Modern Rosary Saint
Madeline Pecora Nugent, SFO
SINNER. SATANIST.
SOCIAL worker. Saint. A strange progression taken by Blessed Bartolo
Longo. On February 11, 1841, a sweet tempered physician's wife of
Latiano, Italy, gave birth to a son whom she named Bartolo. Devoted to
Our Lord and His Mother, she taught all her children to pray the Rosary
daily and to visit and care for the poor, while Dr. Longo instilled in
them a love of music and beauty. Bartolo would later describe himself as
"a lively and impertinent imp, sometimes rather a rascal." The priests
who educated him found Bartolo to be highly intelligent, cordial, and
accommodating although prone to a fiery temper.
When Bartolo was ten, his
mother died. Slowly Bartolo began to drift away from his faith.
Eventually he studied law from a private tutor, then attended the
University of Naples to complete his education. It wasn't the same
University of Naples where St. Thomas Aquinas taught, but a
dangerous place for Bartolo's young mind. Searching for meaning in
life, Bartolo became emneshed in the political movements and
spiritism so popular with college students at that time in Italy.
Deeply involved with a satanic sect, Bartolo aspired to the satanic
priesthood, so he entered upon a long preparation of studies,
fastings, and mortifications. On the night of his ordination by a
satanic bishop, the walls of the "church" shook with thunder while
blasphemous, disembodied shrieks knifed the air. Bartolo fainted
with fright and for a while afterwards was deeply tormented and
physically ill. Despite this depression and nervousness, he
exercised his satanic priesthood by preaching, officiating at
satanic rites, and publicly ridiculing Catholicism and everyone and
everything connected with it.
During these bleak years, the
Longo family was besieging heaven for their wayward member. One day
Bartolo seemed to hear the voice of his dead father begging him to
return to God. Troubled, he paid a visit to one of his friends from
Latiano, Professor Vincenzo Pepe, who
was living and teaching near
Naples. Shocked by Bartolo's appearance, Pepe exclaimed, "Do you
want to die in an insane asylum and be damned forever?" When Bartolo
admitted his mental confusion, Pepe took him under his wing. He
introduced the troubled young man to many holy people who gave him
support and counsel. One of these was a well-educated Dominican
priest, Alberto Radente, who gave Bartolo a detailed course in the
Catholic faith which included the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
After much study, prayer, and a lengthy confession, Bartolo was
again admitted to the sacraments. On the feast of the Annunciation,
March 25, 1871, he was professed into the Third Order of St. Dominic
and given the name of Brother Rosary in recognition of his favorite
daily prayer.
To complete his break with
satanism, the new convert made one final visit to a seance, held up
a medal of Our Lady, and cried out that he renounced spiritism
because it was "a maze of error and falsehood." He then went to
student parties and cafes, denouncing the "religion" he had formerly
embraced and proclaiming his faith in the Catholic Church. This was
a brave thing to do as the Catholic Church was, at that time, being
suppressed. He considered becoming a priest but was discouraged by
both friends and his spiritual director. After making a retreat, he
discerned not to marry, but rather to devote himself unreservedly to
God and Our Lady. He was later to write:
"I place myself, my God,
in your hands; as a son I abandon myself to your fatherly
embrace; roll and roll again this mud, it has nothing to say; it
is enough that it serve your designs and not resist your will
for which I was made. Ask, command, prohibit. What do you wish
that I do, or that I not do? Lifted up, knocked down, suffering,
dedicated to your works by sacrificing my will to yours, I can
only say, as did Mary: 'Behold I am your servant. 0 Lord, let it
be done to me according to your Word."
Friar Radente told Bartolo
that he had to repair the damage he had caused to others, so he
joined his pious friends in caring for the poor, sick, and needy.
One of this pious group was the wealthy widow Countess Mariana di
Fusco. The Countess commissioned Bartolo, who was a lawyer, to
collect the rent from poor farmers on a vast tract of land she owned
near the ancient city of Pompeii. She needed the money to support
her five children. In 1872, Bartolo arrived in marshy Pompeii,
accompanied by two armed escorts to protect him from bandits that
overran the area. He was shocked and filled with pity at the
ignorance, lack of faith, superstition, poverty, and moral
corruption of the people. The aging priest in a decaying church
rarely saw any parishioners. People and animals slept together in
ramshackle, filthy quarters. How could Bartolo help? Bartolo later
wrote,
"One day in the fields around
Pompeii called Arpaia. . .1 recalled my former condition as a priest
of Satan. Father Alberto had told me repeatedly never again to think
of, or reflect on (this), but I thought that perhaps as the
priesthood of Christ is for eternity, so also the priesthood of
Satan is for eternity.
"So, despite my
repentance, I thought: I am still consecrated to Satan, and I am
still his slave and property as he awaits me in Hell. As I
pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of
despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my
ear of the voice of Friar Alberto repeating the words of the
Blessed Virgin Mary:
'One who propagates my
Rosary shall be saved.' These words certainly brought an
illumination to my soul. Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: 'If
your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be
saved, I shall reach salvation because I shall not leave this
earth without propagating your Rosary.' At that moment the
little bell of the parish church rang out, inviting the people
to pray the Angelus. This incident was like a signature to my
firm decision."
Later he wrote, "What is my vocation? To write about Mary, to have
Mary praised, to have Mary loved."
Bartolo lost no time. He made
repeated trips to the Valley of Pompeii to teach the people how to
pray the Rosary. Beginning in 1873, he organized a yearly Rosary
feast, incorporating music, fireworks, races, and a lottery into it.
In 1875, as part of a parish mission, he invited a group of priests
to speak about devotion to the Rosary. To conclude the mission, he
promised to display a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the
painting that he obtained has been the cause of numerous miracles of
healing. He constructed a church to hold this image and then, around
it, an entire city dedicated to helping orphans and the poor. He
also wrote books about the Rosary and composed novenas and a prayer
manual. In all of these works, he was assisted by the Countess. When
evil rumors began to spread about the relationship between the widow
and the handsome, intelligent lawyer, Bartolo and the Countess
consulted their friend Pope Leo XIII, a great devotee of the Rosary.
"Lawyer, you are free; Countess, you are a widow; get married and no
one can say anything against you." So on April 7, 1885, they were
married. In this chaste union, for Bartolo had taken a vow of
chastity, the couple continued their charitable works until the
Countess's death in 1924.
Bartolo was tireless in his
work. He founded a congregation of Dominican nuns to help educate
the orphans in his city and also brought in the Christian Brothers
for the boys. He urged people to learn the catechism and worked to
have defined by Rome the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin. After laboring fifty years for his "Lady," Bartolo was the
object of calumny and slander as lies spread about his mishandling
of funds. He bore these with resignation and was cleared of all
charges. In 1906, Bartolo turned all his property, including his own
personal property, over to the Holy See. He then assisted the new
head of the administration and continued to work in the city he had
built, but only as a humble employee. He remained at his work at the
Shrine until he was 85-years-old, ever promoting the Rosary and
going to confession twice weekly.
Over the years his prayer had
become so intense that one of those who saw him could say, "I often
saw him with his arms outstretched and his eyes fixed on heaven or
on the image of Our Lady, or even with his eyes half-closed, totally
enraptured without being aware of those around or near him." Asked
if he saw the Blessed Mother, Bartolo would answer, "Yes, but not as
she is in heaven." During his last hours on October 5, 1926, he
prayed the Rosary, surrounded by the orphans whom he so loved. "My
only desire is to see Mary, who has saved me and who will save me
from the clutches of Satan," he said with his final breath. On
October 26, 1980, Pope John Paul II pronounced Bartolo Longo
Blessed, calling him the "Man of Mary."
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
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