About the holy man Brother Honorius of Monte Granaro, priest and preacher

Brother Honorius was from a land situated in the dominion of Fermo called Montegranaro. He was born to honest and well-off parents. In his early years he attended school and became a god grammarian. When he reached sixteen years of ages he got involved in factions and serious enmities. Because of this he decided to become a Religious. He did this not so much to serve God but to avoid being killed since he was so was involved. Therefore he joined the Order of Saint Francis among the Conventual Fathers in which he led a life more like a soldier than a Religious. However when it suited him to don the cape and go away as a mercenary he did so quite openly. Just as I heard form his own mouth, he was in the war that the emperor Charles made against the Turks in Hungary. However, as it pleased the Lord, when he returned to Italy he began to reconsider his life more maturely. Commending himself to the Lord and visited by the Holy Spirit he decided to become a Capuchin and to leave the intrigues of the world completely.

Hence in order to rid himself of all familiarity with his relatives and compatriots and also because of the enmities, he left the Marches and went to Tuscany. The venerable Father Raphael of Vulterra, Vicar in the Province of Tuscany at the time, received him. It was a marvellous thing that a very ferocious lion, a courageous solder, would become a simple lamb who humbled himself so much in his novitiate that in obedience and the other good ways he appeared to be like an earthly Angel. However in humility he surpassed all the others. For enlightened by God he reconsidered the time spent badly and his wicked deeds. He was struck by God with such an immense fear that he wept continuously for many months. There was no kind of penance that we would not undergo in order to afflict his body. So at the end of the year he was perfect in the fear of God and well instructed in every kind of good behaviour by the Holy Spirit. When the Fathers saw his good mind regarding letters they gave him the office of preaching within a short time. He exercised that office with great maturity and spirit. Because he strove so much mentally at holy prayer his memory was weakened. Therefore it was a great effort him to preach. Nor did he want to preach except in lowly places. Seeing the great fruit he bore preaching in nearly all the feasts of the year, so much so that there were fews castles in Tuscany where he did not preach, organising many sodalities. He said preaching didn’t bear fruit if some sodality was not organised, leaving them some devotion in which they may be refreshed in spirit and attend to the most holy sacraments. He organised especially sodalities of Our Lady since he was very devoted to her. So much so that he fasted every Saturday all year round. He never missed this even while on strenuous journeys or during the difficult times like the great heat of summer. He also did the forty-days of Saint Michael with great devotion. While he was young he rarely ate more than once a day. However on the vigils of the Lord or Our Lady he usually fasted on bread and water.

He was very austere about dress, especially in the early years. He never wanted more than on habit. However when winter came he wore the mantle and sandals. For a long time he wore a harsh hair shirt. However when he became aware that the Friars began to know that he wore it, he began to wear a belt four fingers wide. This was full of nail turned inwards towards the skin. He wore this until his death so that he was never deprived of some way of suffering in memory of what Our Lord suffered for us. He kept vigil as much as slept. It was an amazing thing that for so long no one was ever aware of this.

He was very zealous about time, spending it in the praise of God. I saw this myself since for many years we were very good acquaintances. Even though he was exhausted from travel, he slept about four hours before the first bell. He immediately got up, said matins and continued in holy prayer until dawn. Then he said his Mass, which he hardly ever failed to do. However whenever he was in a friary, as exhausted as he may have been, he never failed to get up for Matins with the others. The servant of God had organised his life so well that he gave only what was necessary to nature and the rest of the time he spent in the praise of God, in prayer, in saying the offices of Our Lady and of the Dead, the seven psalms and other devotions. Or he stayed in his cell to write his sermons or to study. He conversed little with anyone and spoke little.

He was ugly in his eyes and face but fair and clear in his conscience. His soul was very precious to our Lord when he served him with the virtues so faithfully in the perfect observance of the Rule.

He was Provincial often, that is, six years in the Province of Tuscany and three in that of Venice. Then he was elected in the Province of Bologna. He exercised these offices with much Prudence and maturity and the best example.

Once he was in the friary at Ferrara on visitation and he left to go straight to Bologna. On the journey he developed a painful illness so that when he arrived at the friary at Bologna he deteriorated seriously in that sickness both because of his age – he was close to seventy-two years old – and because of the hardships he had suffered. He showed incredible patience. Brother Louis Beati of Bologna provided for him and it was necessary to apply some poultices in the place of the effected area as well as other medications. He became aware of the belt mentioned above that Brother Honorius wore next to his bare skin. When Brother Louis saw it he said to him, “Goodness, Father, we will need to remove this affliction. Your body is so burdened by the sickness that it is too afflicted with this. The servant of God replied, “It is not important. Let it stay.” Brother Louis said, “It may not please God that you wear it, Father.” Supporting him, he lifted it off.

Our Lord God wanted to reveal to this servant of his the end of his life so that well prepared he might fly to heaven with greater facility. It happened like this. One morning he was very ill alone in his cell. Like a good shepherd he began to think about the needs of his sheep and was very sad that he could not visit them personally just like our Lord who is so much agony nonetheless did not fail to visit his Holy Apostles. Therefore while he was in this affliction he clearly heard a very loud bang, like a hand, on the table that was in his cell. Likewise he heard a voice that spoke from the air to him, “Brother Honorius!” Dumbfounded by this voice, although he was very ill, the man of God lifted his head from his pillow. He looked around the cell to see whom it was that had called him so beautifully by name. He could not see anyone. However he heard a voice within his heart say that might have been our Lord or an Angel sent by Him. He replied, “My Lord!” the voice immediately said to him, “Do not worry about the visitation to the Friars but attend to preparing yourself, because you are to die from this sickness.” Hearing this the servant of God thanked His Majesty with many tears for having deigned to warn him and visiting him so beautifully in this last hour of his life.

From then on he was completely recollected within himself and continuously offered himself to the Lord so that His Majesty do what him what He pleased. He asked him forgiveness and begged that He pardon his sins and He deign through the merits of Christ to count him among His elect. Hence with a great examination of conscience and much preparation he received all the most holy sacraments.

Awaiting the last hour with the Friars standing round him, the servant of God began to speak with great tenderness. Giving to his sons last memories he exhorted them to the true observance of the Rule. He added, “Know brothers that there are many holy men in this Congregation but who are not recognised. Our Lord knows them well. He will give to each according to what he will have merited. Therefore I beg you to be zealous about your profession. All of you will have to come this hour as I have now.”

With these and similar beautiful words that happy soul passed away to its creator. His body was buried in that friary.

God wanted to show how pleasing this servant of his was. For when the Friars knew that he had had a revelation about his death, this great miracle came about. For the Friars were talking later with the doctor. They told him about the revelation. The doctor was call Gabriello Beati, the brother of previously mention Brother Louis. He was very fond of the Congregation and when he heard about this he treasured having known the holiness of Brother Honorius. For his wife had been ill already for six months so that she lost the use of half her body. From head to toe she was paralysed down one side. It was as if her flesh was dead because when she was pricked with pins in the affected area she felt nothing, as if it were dead. She was totally blind on the eye on the paralysed side. To top it off, when this happened to her she was pregnant. Because her husband is one of the best doctors in Bologna and one of the most excellent in the college, and because he was anxious about the health of his wife, he sought the advice of many other excellent doctors. They had given her all the remedies possible. Nothing had helped her. He believed her sick was completely incurable and held no hope of her being able to recover with medications. However, as it pleased the Lord God, that doctor was telling his wife of the patience that servant of God had in his illness. With this example he wanted to exhort he to patience. He also told her how God had revealed his death to him. Consequently this woman grew in such devotion that before this servant of God died, with great devotion she begged her husband to commend her to him so that he would pray for her to God. She hoped that if he prayed for her she would receive perfect health from God without doubt. Wanting to please his wife, the doctor promised to carry out that duty. He returned to that Friary as soon as possible to visit the holy man and seek the advice of Brother Louis, his brother, if he should ask him to pray for his wife. Brother Louis exhorted him to make the recommendation. Thus together they went to Father Honorius who was in extremis though well disposed and still able to speak, though with great effort. Brother Louis spoke to him and said, “Father, the doctor has come to visit you. He begs that you would give him you blessing before you depart from us. With you he wants to ask if you would pray to God for his wife – she has an incurable sickness – that His Majesty, if He pleases, may wish to give her health if it is for the best. When the holy man heard this he turned with a very joyful face, for he had been facing the wall. With a few words he thanked the doctor for the charity he had received from him in his sickness. With great tenderness he gave him his blessing, and said to him also, “I wish to pray for your wife, if God through His mercy makes me worthy of it.” That very evening he died.

Not many days after his death, the sick woman was thinking about the promises to pray for her that Brother Honorius had made. With great faith she hoped that God would return her health if she could go to his tomb. With great insistence she began to beg her husband so that he would have he taken to the house of the Friars. She affirmed that when she would arrive at the tomb of the holy man, “I will be freed by his merits.” When the doctor heard this he replied, “This seems vain to me and impossible because of the great difficulty to be able to take you the place, both because of your serious infirmity and likewise because you put yourself in danger by the hard journey/ It is difficult to go there even by carriage.” All her relatives said the same thing and did so for months when they came to see her. Finally conquered by the great insistence of his wife, one morning – it was the fourth Sunday of Lent – he ordered a carriage and had her placed inside other women relatives of hers and sent her to the house of the Friars. They arrived near the place half way up the mountain on a very narrow, steep and dangerous road. Above them on one side of the road stood a great hillside. On the other was a very dangerous precipice. The horses were well trained and quiet. Without anyone alarming them they took fright. Bolting, they overturned the carriage down towards the precipice. Because of this not only would the sick woman die but also all those who were with her. Nonetheless, through the merits of this holy man God preserved them so that neither the infirm, pregnant woman nor any of the other women was injured. The coach however was completely smashed. Everyone regarded this as a miracle of God and whatever frightened the horses was done by demons. When the husband arrived at the accident with the other gentlemen they considered it a bad omen. They all said, “The should go back. It is not the will of God that we go any further.” However, with many tears the sick woman began to say, “That is not so. This is the work of the devil to prevent this good thing. Let us go on with certainty.” Her insistence was such that they decided that in order not to upset her, and since the coach was a wreck, to carry her the rest of the way in their arms.

By the favour of God they arrived at the friary. First of all they all heard Mass. With great devotion the woman received Holy Communion. It was necessary that when she received that two women held her up since she could not control herself on her knees. When Mass at the high altar was over the woman was carried to the tomb of the holy man. This was in the chapel. Brother Louis, her brother-in-law, had the woman sit in a chair and had a footstool put beneath her feet on her paralysed side. Leaving her alone they all went away so that she could have the opportunity, according to her devotion, to commend herself to God and to the prayers of the holy man Brother Honorius so that he would pray for her. Having gone outside, Brother Louis locked the chancel with the key. The woman’s husband left the church with the other relatives. The woman remained completely alone. Within a little while, while the Friars were talking with the seculars about whether or not this woman would receive her health, a youth who was their relative returned to the church to see what had become of the woman. He found her outside the chapel. She was kneeling before the high altar. With many tears she was thanking God who through the merits of the holy man, had deigned to restore her health. When the youth saw this, without saying anything to the woman, he left the church full of amazement, crying, “Miracle! Miracle! Lady Laura is cured!” At his cries they all ran and found the woman perfectly healed, genuflecting with great devotion before the Blessed Sacrament. Everyone, both Friars and seculars, sith great devotion and tears thanked God for the benefit received. Full of wonder and joy they turned to one another and said, “This is a miracle of God who wanted to show how pleased he is with this servant of His.”

Then Brother Louis called her aside in the chapel so that he could be well informed about the miracle and the way that God used to heal her. The woman replied, “Know that as soon as you left the chapel, while I was commending myself to God, I was lifted up in a dream like ecstasy. Shortly after I saw Capuchin Friar in a vision.” She depicted exactly the stature and appearance of Brother Honorius even though she had never met him. She said, “As he came near he kicked away the footstool that you had put under my foot and took it away from beneath me. He said to me, “Woman, get up, for because of your faith you are cured. Go and thank God. And in a flash he disappeared. Returning to myself, I found I was perfectly healed. Immediately prostrate upon the tomb I poured out many tears just as you can see. Brother Louis looked and saw the wet stone. The woman said, “Opening the chapel I went before the Blessed Sacrament where you found me giving thanks to God.”

When everyone heard this they thanked God again. When they were going home, Brother Louis and the doctor wanted to send to the city for another carriage. However she didn’t want it. So that the miracle would be more obvious, she returned on foot as if she had never had any sickness. She then lived healed not only of that infirmity but was perfectly healed of all the others. The eye that was completely blind now saw better than the other. When her time came she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Recognising him as from God through the merits of Brother Honorius, she gave him the name Honorius. He grew up and is still alive today. This was a great miracle because of the incurable sickness. But his birth was miracle not only because of the long sickness but also because of the fall of the coach God preserved without any lesion that baby in the womb of his mother.

Therefore this shows how Brother Honorius was with God through the holy and good life of this servant of God Bother Honorius through his fasts, his patience, the struggles he endured in the Order, his ardent and holy prayers and many other virtues, and his many merits. With these and other miracles that He worked with this servant of his, God makes us sure that his soul is blessed in heaven and that he does not cease praying for us. Amen.