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| Saint Luke Casali, Pray for us ! |
⛪ Other Names :
• Luke Casalius • Luca Casali • Luca of Nicosia
⛪ Born :
• Nicosia, Sicily, Italy
⛪ Died :
• c.800 at the monastery of Saint Philip in Agira, Sicily, Italy • Most Relics still in Agira • Some Relics in Nicosia, Sicily, Italy
⛪ Patronage :
• Nicosia, Sicily, Italy (his intervention ended a plague there in 1575
Luke Casalius (in Italian, Luca Casali; d. earlier 12th cent. ?). Hard on the heels of the feast of St. Leo Luke of Corleone (1. March) and not long after that of St. Luke of Messina (27. February) comes yet another Luke venerated in Sicily, this time at two towns in today's Enna province, Nicosia and Agira. He has a Vita redacted from now lost manuscripts at Nicosia -- and probably polished up as well -- by Ottavio Gaetani SJ (d. 1620) in his _Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum.
According to this account Luke was a native of Nicosia educated in early childhood by the head (Gaetani's word is _praefectus_) of the monastery of St. Philip at Agira who was then staying in a Nicosia suburb. When Luke was ten, this person brought him to the monastery, where he became a monk and later was ordained priest. Having exhibited all sorts of exemplary behavior, Luke in time was elected _praefectus_ but declined, only to relent when his monks got the pope to persuade him to accept. His conduct in office was praiseworthy, though he went blind while administering his charge.
Luke's blindness led to a miracle. On the way back to Agira from a visit to his family in Nicosia the monks who were his companions convinced him that a crowd of townspeople was following in the hope of hearing a sermon. When Luke obligingly preached to a landscape devoid of people (other than the saint and his companions), the rocks that lay about the place responded with a chorus of _Amen_, thereby proving his sanctity to the astonished tricksters. Luke died at the monastery in Agira and was buried there; upon the urging of the people of Agira, the pope entered him in the number of the saints. The people of Nicosia, wishing to honor one of their own, dedicated a church to him on the spot where the rocks had responded to his preaching. Thus far Luke's Vita.
Luke's cult blossomed in 1575, when he freed Nicosia from a plague (presumably the same one from whose ravages Corleone was spared that year through the intercession of St. Leo Luke). Nicosia made him its patron and celebrated his feast at public expense. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Luke's presumed remains, along with those of Philip of Agira and of other saints, were discovered in a hidden resting place in the abbey. With the exception of a relic granted to Nicosia, they remain there today.