BLESSED PAUL BURALI: Bishop of Piacenza, Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal – VIII
S. Andrew Avellino, first biographer of Blessed Paul Burali
He patched his clothes with his own hands
Entered that he was in the convent came to him a large library stocked with works of theologians, scholastics, moralists, Greeks and Latins, of which few he kept in his own cell. He wanted with him only a part of the Summa of St. Thomas, the Capreolus with the Disputed Questions and very few other books. When he finished one volume, he would put it back in the library and take the other. With his own hands he would patch up not only his stockings, gipponi and other clothes, but also his shoes and slippers. And he delighted in wearing old clothes. When he returned from the ambassadorship of Spain, he took off the new clothing, which the city had bought for him, and returned it to the wardrobe, taking back the frayed clothes, which he had left behind and found intact, because being too worn, no one had wanted to use them.
Being unhealthy and of a delicate stomach, he could not eat of every victual that was brought on the common table, but he never wanted to be given a couple of eggs or other special food. He was content with his saucer, if there was one, or ate dry bread. This is what he did when he was a subject, and he did not change his tenor of life when he became Superior.
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. Amen.
(there is a small silence to ask for the grace that each person carries in his heart)
Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be
Thought of Blessed Paul Burali:
“In religious life one detaches himself from the love of parents, children and all relatives to understand more deeply and more freely God alone, so that by understanding God he may love him, and God be with him and in him, denying himself to adhere to God. For him to die is to gain and be with Christ.”
QPRD