BLESSED PAUL BURALI D’AREZZO: The lives of our saints.
BLESSED PAUL BURALI D’AREZZO: The lives of our saints.
He wanted to serve the Lord in the kitchen
When he was a layman even then he did nothing but holy works. Before he entered religion he was called Scipione da Arezzo. His father was a gentleman. Ours had obtained the title of Doctor of Laws, in which he was most learned. He first practiced as a lawyer, then received the position of Royal Counselor.
At the age of 46 he left all civil offices and entered our congregation. He made his entrance into the Monastery of St. Paul in Naples on the day of the Conversion of St. Paul and considered himself worthy of nothing more than to serve the Lord in the kitchen, at the door and in similar modest offices. Father John Marinoni, who was his confessor, together with the other fathers, doubting perhaps that his physique constitution made him unfit for labors, dressed him as a cleric against his will. Eight days later, on the day of the Purification of Our Lady, he made the solemne vestment of the religious habit (with special exception to the rules of the Congregation, which required a long wait before the habit). During Lent of the same year he was administered the four Minor Orders and also the Subdiaconate (it had never happened in our Congregation that a Holy Order was given before Profession).
The following year (1558), also on the Marian feast of the Purification, he made his Religious Profession en the Lenten season he received the diaconate and the Priesthood. He celebrated his first Mass on one of the three Feasts of Easter.
(The life of a Blessed written by a Saint: St. Andrew Avellino, first biographer of Blessed Paul Burali).
Prayer
O God who manifested in Blessed Paul Burali the multiform and admirable ways of your call to Christian perfection, grant us the comfort of his heavenly protection to follow you wholeheartedly. Through Christ our Lord. Amén
(Let us make a silencio asking for the grace that each one needs)
Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be
Thought of Blessed Paul Burali:
“We do not do a good thing that is,
rather we sully the good works that the Lord through us to his glory wishes to work.”
Q. P. R. D.