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Blessed Lucrezia Cevoli,
Pray for us ! |
⛪ Saint of the Day : June 12
⛪ Born : 11 November 1685
Pisa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
⛪ Died : 12 June 1767 (aged 81)
CittΓ di Castello, Perugia, Papal States
⛪ Beatified : 16 May 1993, Saint Peter's Square,
Vatican City by Pope John Paul II
⛪ Attributes :
Poor Clare habit * Crucifix
⛪ Patronage : Abbesses
‘Like Novice Mistress, Like Novice?’ Not Really! :
She might have been standing on the shoulders of a giant,
but the new Capuchin Poor Clare Abbess of CittΓ di Castello had to build her
own unique stairway to heaven. For no two Capuchins are exactly the same and,
for that reason, every Capuchin called to holiness of life must travel their
own path to Christ, Who is, Himself, the Way that we all must follow to reach
the Father’s House. When the renowned Capuchin mystic, Saint Veronica Giuliani,
died on the 9th of July 1727, the Capuchin Poor Clare Sisters of CittΓ di
Castello elected her disciple Sister Florida Cevoli as her successor. No one
seemed better placed to carry on the work of Mother Veronica. It was, in fact,
due to Sister Veronica’s fame for holiness that Lucretia Helen Cevoli(Sister
Florida’s secular name) had entered the Capuchin Poor Clares in the first
place. Sister Veronica was at first reluctant to accept the young Countess
Cevoli as a novice, but she was soon persuaded of the genuineness of the young
woman’s vocation. When Sister Veronica was later elected Abbess in 1716, Sister
Florida Cevoli became her Vicaress and, for the next eleven years, the two
worked hand in glove for the good of the Community. Like Saint Veronica, the
new Abbess too took an active role in the younger Sisters’ formation. She had
been Saint Veronica’s secretary and in this case the word ‘secretary’ retains
the true sense of the original word root means a close confidante (with whom
one can share one’s secrets) and a trusted collaborator. Furthermore, as
Abbess, she made every effort to ensure to preserve and publicise Sister
Veronica’s spiritual legacy. And she worked ceaselessly for Sister Veronica’s
beatification and canonization while providing lengthy testimonies to the
Investigating Tribunal for her beatification and canonization and printing
biographies and holy pictures of the venerable Servant of God. She even had a
Monastery built on the site of Sister Veronica’s family home in Mercatello.
Sister Florida loved her former Novice Mistress and admired her deeply but, for
her, Mother Veronica was a model of faithfulness to God, not a pattern to be
slavishly reproduced. Mimicry was never
Sister Florida’s thing. So she studiously strove to keep her distance from any
extraordinary phenomena that might have placed on a par with the famous
Stigmatist. Hers was much more a spirituality of the every day, hers was a holy
but ordinary life, extraordinarily well lived. And when Sister Florida was
beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1993, her own particular heroic
sanctity received the Church’s recognition.
More a ‘Martha’ than a ‘Mary’ :
No one understood their contrasting styles of holiness
better than their fellow Sisters who left us these words : “Sister Veronica was
very good at praying. Sister Florida had more spirit and more courage.” Both
these Sisters were endowed with the contemplative spirit of Mary and Martha’s
spirit of practical service, but it would be fair to say that Sister Florida
was much more practically minded. Never afraid to get her hands dirty, she
carried out the most menial of services for the Sisters in the Monastery, undertaking
the tasks of Cook, Infirmarian, Baker, Pharmacist and Sister responsible for
keeping the hatch through which offerings, goods, correspondence etc... were
passed pack and forth. She had, as one fellow Sister put it, “a hundred eyes
and as many hands.”
An Aristocratic Childhood :
Yet when she first knocked at the Monastery door
requesting admittance no one expected the young aristocrat to be able to endure
the hardships and austerity of Capuchin Poor Clare living. For before she
became a Nun, Sister Florida Cevoli had been a Countess in her own right. She
was born in the town of Pisa, Northern Italy, on the 11th of November, 1685,
the eleventh of Count Curtius Cevoli of Pisa and his wife, the Marquise Laura
della Seta’s fourteen children. The newborn Countess Cevoli, whose baptismal
name was baptized Lucretia Helen, turned out to be a chubby baby and as a
result was late learning to walk. Soon she was the centre of her family’s
attention but, even as a child, she felt drawn to Jesus as a future Spouse and
was ready to forego even innocent childish pleasures for love of Him. At the
age of thirteen she was sent to a Ladies Finishing School run by the Poor
Clares of St. Martin. There she received a good classical education, mastering
Latin and Italian and excelling in poetry composition, embroidery, calligraphy
and other skills appropriate to a young Lady of her ilk. However she was not
musically gifted and, when she sang, her voice left much to be desired. As a student in the school Lucretia Helen was
noted by her teachers not only for her intelligence but her love of solitude
and silent prayer. Added to the was her noticeably grave demeanour, which led
to her being nicknamed ‘the Little Abbess.’
Christ’s Noble Bride Adjusts to an Austere Married Life :
Yet at the end of the five-year long education course at
Saint Martin’s Monastery, Countess Lucretia Helen Cevoli did not become a Poor
Clare Nun there; rather, to everyone’s surprise, she opted to join the Capuchin
Poor Clares in far-off CittΓ di Castello. In accordance with the customs of the
time, her journey to the Monastery was a spectacle quite similar to the wedding
procession of any noble bride. Dressed in a pink brocade bridal gown, she made
her rounds of relatives and friends to bid a last farewell in a horse-drawn
carriage escorted by Knights on horseback and waited upon by retinue of ladies
of noble rank. When she eventually arrived at the CittΓ di Castello Monastery’s
main entrance, she carried a large wooden cross on her shoulders and made her
way through the cloister doors for the first and last time. But she had to wait
a few more days before she was received as a novice on the 7th of June, 1703.
From that moment onwards Countess Lucretia Helen Cevoli would be simply known
as Sister Florida. The first few months of her novitiate were not that easy.
Her fellow Capuchin Poor Clares seemed more akin to demons than religious.
However, with Saint Veronica’s help and expert guidance, Sister Florida went on
to not only adapt smoothly to the hardships of the Capuchiness Novitiate, but
even to supplement these with a few self-imposed hardships of her own. She
displayed a strong desire for contemplative prayer and readily engaged in the
life of the Community. She made Solemn Profession on the 10th of June, 1704,
but, as was normal at the time, she remained in the novitiate for a further two
years of formation. But she undertook this two-yearlong formation course
wearing the white veil of a novice, rather than the usual black veil of a
Professed Nun.
A Sister Among Sisters and Zealous Promoter of Poverty :
The responsible duties entrusted to Sister Florida by the
Community from the moment she was professed clearly demonstrate the fact that,
despite her young age, she was a mature, reliable and competent religious, a
hard worker, endowed with natural-born leadership qualities. Little wonder then
that the Sisters chose her as Vicaress when they elected Sister Veronica as
Abbess and that Florida was herself elected Abbess after Saint Veronica’s death
in 1727. As Abbess, she inculcated in her Sisters a more genuine devotion to
Saint Francis and Saint Clare and was always anxious to reinforce an authentic
observance of the Rule of Saint Clare. She was particularly uncompromising in
everything concerning poverty. She replaced the crystal holy water fonts in the
Sisters’ cells with earthenware crocks. She took down the oil paintings of the
Way of the Cross that hung on the walls the Monastery’s choir and hung up
simple black and white prints of the fourteen stations in their stead. She even
tore off the gold ornamentation and brocades that embellished the liturgical
vestments kept in the sacristy. As the years went by, she somewhat eased up in
her demands on the Sisters in this respect but she herself continued to lead a
life of strictest poverty to the end. As a typical Capuchin, she was generous
in providing whatever was necessary for the other Sisters’ health and personal
hygiene, but unrelentingly harsh on herself. Her rough habit, for instance, had
so many patches sown on that it is hard to make out the original material any
more. Moreover, Sister Florida who was steeped in the genuine Capuchin
Franciscan tradition which stresses fraternal charity, joyful fellowship and
equality, strove to rid the Monastery of all the social distinctions that can plague
Community living. As Abbess, she expected genuine obedience but wanted no special treatment accorded to her
and insisted that the Sisters address her simply as ‘Sister Florida’. She also
insisted that all the Sisters were to use the more intimate polite Italian
second person pronoun of “voi”(a less formal polite form of ‘you’ in English)
in addressing each other, instead of the then prevalent formal word,
“Lei”(somewhat akin to ‘your ladyship’ in English), a highly honourific form of
address with inherent connotations of formalism and social inequality. She was
less successful in her efforts to integrate the Extern Sisters into the
enclosed community, which were met with stiff resistance, and, in the end, she
had to give upon this project altogether.
A Lamp Brightly Shining Forth from the Lampstand of God’s
House :
The former Countess Cevoli tried her best to forget her
social rank but it remained a reality that could not be ignored. From the time
she was elected Abbess, Sister Florida’s reputation for holiness spread far and
wide and she became more famous during her lifetime than Saint Veronica had
been during hers. People from all walks of life visited her and corresponded
with her by mail. Among her visitors were Princess Violante de’ Medici from Tuscany
and the Polish Princess Maria Clementina Sowieski, Consort of Prince James
Stuart, “the Old Pretender” to the Thrones of England, Scotland Ireland and
France. Sister Florida Cevoli hidden contempative life was a brilliant ray of
light that pierced the walls of the enclosed Monastery and enlightened all
around her, especially those in need of her prayers, advice or encouragement.
The townspeople of CittΓ di Castello came to owe Sister Florida a huge debt of
gratitude. In 1758 they had unsuccessfully rebelled against the Pope who was
the Ruler of the Papal States But thanks to Sister Florida’s mediation. they
were able to obtain a general amnesty from Pope Clement XIII.
Humility and Patience in Suffering :
She had witnessed many of Saint Veronica’s mystical
experiences, and she herself had no small share of her own. But she did
everything she could to keep these hidden. We will never get to read her
spiritual diary. She made sure to burn it as soon as the confessor who made her
keep it had passed away. Nevertheless eye witnesses’ testimony and her
remaining correspondence give us a glimpse of her personality and spiritual
life. Never in good health, during the last years of her life, she suffered
from the painful itchiness which is a symptom of the herpes that left her body
covered in sores. In 1747, she had prayed to be spared tangible mystical
phenomena, including the crowning with thorns and a wound of love that pierced
her heart, offering her body to be tormented by natural ailments instead.
Contemplating Christ's passion and desiring to become like her Suffering
Redeemer, Sister Florida was never one to shy away from physical hardship and
bodily sufferings. To these were added an extreme interior sense of desolation,
all sorts of temptations and the psychological impact of bodily illness and the
debility of old age. Besides the irresistible temptation to scratch, the herpes
brought with it the added humiliation of emitting a terrible stench that made
her repulsive to anyone who happened to be nearby. All this suffering, she bore
with infinite patience, genuine joy and even at time a touch of humour. All the
while, however, Sister Florida managed to keep her condition so well hidden
from the Sisters, that they never suspected that their hardworking Abbess might
be suffering to such an extent. Sister Florida’s humility was outstanding and
she was never slow to point out her own defects. “O poor me!” she would sigh
“Over all these many years in religion what good I could have done but did not
do it! Pray that I may be converted.” She could never fulfil her desire fast
due to health problems and she often had to eat some bread outside the
community’s mealtimes. When one of the Sisters urged her to be a little more
discrete in doing this, lest her bad example should scandalize the younger
Sisters, she simply responded: “God knows that I do not fast, and, if he knows
it, I am quite happy that his creatures should know it also.”
Passionately in Love with Her “Beloved Good” :
As well as being devoted to the Mystery of Christ’s
Passion, Sister Florida also sincerely loved the Mystery of Christ in the
Eucharist. During her time as Abbess, Holy Communion four times weekly became a
common practice in the Monastery – something of a rarity in those days. For
Sister Forida, the divine love of Christ’s Sacred Heart was the driving force
of her life and her devotion to Mary, His Holy Mother, was always heartfelt and
tender. Striving to live always in God’s presence, she paid attention to His
indwelling in her soul, even while she occupied herself with everyday tasks.
Truly in love with God all her life, she spoke passionately about Him who was
her “Beloved Good,” both at Community Chapters or in the course of private
conversations with the Sisters.
Two Destinies Forever Intertwined :
Sister Florida threw herself wholeheartedly into
promoting the cause for Beatification and Canonization of her predecessor, bit
unfortunately she did not live to see the beatification for herself. In actual
fact, Saint Veronica’s beatification did not occur until 1804 - almost forty
years after Sister Florida’s happy death. Sister Florida died blissfully on the
12th of June 1767. Sister Forida’s remains are held in a small container
enshrined in a side altar near the Monastic Church’s central altar. Under this
central altar is the glass case in which Saint Veronica’s incorrupt body lie
enshrined. Together in death as they were in life, the destinies of Blessed
Florida Cevoli and Saint Veronica Giuliani remain forever intertwined. For
Sister Florida had, right from the time of her religious formation, spent much
of her life as a Capuchin right from the time of her religious formation and,
indeed,, in the dazzling shadows of the famous Stigmatist, she retained her own
unique personality and, by the time of her death, she had, in her own right,
become a virgin who carried her very own lamp of burning love, as she set out
the meet Christ, her Heavenly Bridegroom.
"Iesus amor, fiat voluntas tua! (Jesus, Love, Your
Will be done!) Jesus, have me love You eternally and yearn to suffer and die
for You. Crucified Jesus, my Redeemer, imprint Your Holy Wounds in the middle
of my heart. Whoever has even a spark of this love will feel nothing as severe
as the painfulness of not being able to find You. Pray for me that I may be
able to begin to love for the little while that remains to me in life. for up
until now I have done nothing." - Blessed Florida Cevoli
✠ A Prayer for the Intercession of Bl. Florida of Cevoli, Capuchin Poor Clare
Good Father,
You raised Your Son from the dead, and has given us peace, grant that through the intercession of Blessed Florida, Your daughter and the Spouse of Your Son that we be given peace, love and unity to our family. We ask You to answer our prayers through her powerful intercession, (here mention your petition) Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Blessed Florida of Cevoli, Pray for us.
