Blessed Andrew is a personage still very much alive among
the people of the Abruzzi because of his holy life and his reputation for
miracles which God has worked through his intercessions.
The birthplace of Blessed Andrew is certain: Mascioni, on
the shores of Lake Campotosto; no less certain is the place of his death: the blessed andrew of montereale Augustinian monastery in
Montereale, a short distance from Mascioni, to which the Blessed retired a few
years before his death. He lived to the age of eighty-three, and his earthly
sojourn ended on 17 April 1480.
The sad events of the Avignon Schism had negative effects
on the Church and the Augustinian Order well beyond 1417, the year in which
Martin V was elected to the supreme pontificate. The quest for unity n the
Order, which had been split by the schism, and the path of reform were the most
urgent concerns of the general chapters and the priors general of the time.
Those same events were inevitably echoed in the first part of Blessed Andrew’s
life. According to tradition, he had from childhood worked as a shepherd. A
meeting with Augustinian Father Augustine Terni, prior of the monastery in
Montercale, decided Andrew’s entrance into that same monastery and the
beginning of his novitiate. He was ordained a priest at the age of twenty-five,
and then, in light of his bent for studies, was destined for teaching. To that
end he acquired the various academic degrees of bachelor, reader, and master of
theology while attending the general house of studies of the Order in Rimini
and in Siena; he appears as director of studies in the latter place in 1459.
During these same years, enjoying as he did the trust of
his superiors and his fellow religious, he held offices in government. He was
vicar general and visitor of some monasteries; he was elected prior general of
the Province of the Valley of Spoleto and in that capacity took part in the
general chapters of Avignon in 1455 and Pamiers (France) in 1465.
In 1459, for reasons we do not know, he resigned from the
priorate and his position as director of studies in Siena, and in 1461 by order
of the Prior General, Father William Beechi, a Florentine, he was sent was sent
away from the monastery of Norcia, along with the local prior, Father Jerome of
Cittaducale. This was “at the request of various religious of the province, in
order to avoid scandal and begin the reform of that monastery.”
In 1468, when William Beechi was still the prior general,
he appointed Blessed Andrew as his vicar general for visiting the monastery of
Attrice. In 1471, Andrew was again elected prior provincial of the Province of
the Valley of Spoleto.
Thus far we have told the cold facts of this “external”
life as a religious. Other sources help us to know more about his interior
life. A few months after the Blessed’s death, his contemporary, Ambrose of
Cori, who had been provincial of the Roman Province and was now prior general
of the Order (1476-1482) listed thirty-six Blessed of the Order, in the
Chronicle of the Order which he published in 1481. At the time when Blessed
Andrew had been expelled from the monastery of Norcia, Ambrose was director of
studies in Perugia and therefore knew Andrew personally. In the 36thplace in
his list he put Blessed Andrew of Montercalc, “who lived in our time and is made
glorious by many signs and miracles. He was very learned in canon law,
philosophy, and theology, and showed the greatest example of holiness in
preaching, helping the poor, and enduring abuse, and in every kind of
patience.”
In a few words Ambrose exalts Blessed Andrew well above
even fervent religious, tells us of his reputation for miracles and of his
teaching, and calls himBlessed, thereby, in all likelihood, expressing the
sentiments of the people.
In the epitaph engraved beneath the image of the Blessed
on the wall of the choir in the Church of Saint Augustine in Montereale — an
epitaph that is now gone but was cited by Riccitelli in 1581, and went back to
the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century — people
could read the following:
Here lies the body of Blessed Andrew of the Order of
Hermits of Saint Augustine, who worked countless great miracles. Due to his
holiness of life, the austerity of his ways, and his Catholic teaching, due
also to his honeyed preaching and great miracles, he was famous throughout
Italy and France.
He is dear to God and humanity and is an honor to the
Order, an adornment of his native land, and of great advantage to his neighbor.
He was and is a great benefit to the world, having preached the Word of God for
fifty years. He was born in1480 and died at the age of eighty-three.
His works have not come down to us. At that time an
inventory of goods had to be made by the Master of Theology. A copy of the one,
which the Blessed compiled on the day of his death, has survived, and in it
there is a list of books he had loaned out. Among these was the Decretals, a
gloss on the subject, and a “little book,” a term suggesting a work of his own.
The other objects listed give a glimpse of the simplicity of his life, for
among them are a “little brass jar, four table forks, a little bell, and some
other little things.”
Among the many writers who have spoken of him, mention
may be made of Blessed Alonso de Orozco, who, in his Chronicles of the Glorious
Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church (1551), lists Andrew among the
blessed and describes him as “a very gifted man and a great preacher; very
patient and charitable; he performed many miracles.”
Although Andrew had the reputation of being a saint, it
was only in the years 1756-1757, and during the pontificate of Benedict XIV,
that the cause of his beatification was taken up by the diocese of Rieti, of
which Montereale was a part. During the process witnesses bore unanimous
testimony to Andrew’s commitment to the struggle against schism and heresy, his
exercise of the preaching office over several decades, his journeys to France,
and the role he played at the court of the King of France, where he was the
queen’s confessor and spiritual director. They also attested that his name was
Antonio Artesi.
The Augustinian Family celebrates his memory on 18 April.
Rotelle, John, Book of Augustinian Saints, Augustinian
Press 2000
Blessed Andrew of Montereale by Armando Marrocco (1986),
Bascilica of Saint Rita, Cascia, Italy.
