Blessed Isnard de Chiampo,
Feast day: March 22
Born in Chiampo near Vicenza, Italy;
Died 1244;
Cultus confirmed in 1919.
From the springtime of the Dominicans in Bologna, Italy, comes the story of Blessed Isnard. He was born into a wealthy family but little else is known of his boyhood. In 1219, as a student at the University of Bologna, he met Saint Dominic and decided to join his new order. Soon after completing his novitiate in Bologna, Isnard distinguished himself as a preacher. His first assignment was in Pavia, where his work of founding and ruling the priory was complicated by the war between the pope and the emperor.
Blessed Isnard plunged courageously into the work. He knew that he was risking death in doing so, and a less stout-hearted man might have found some excuse for going to a more peaceful place. Blessed Isnard insisted on meeting the situation head-on.
One of his first encounters was with the forces of evil, quite undisguised. A possessed man had become the mouthpiece of the devil and was being used by heretics to discredit the preaching of the friar who had so recently come to Pavia to preach the faith. The devil, speaking through the lips of the possessed man, issued a challenge to the friar: "If you are from God, cast me out and cure this man."
Isnard realized that one does not lightly take up open battle with the powers of wickedness. The condition of the poor man, whose name was Martin, was enough to strike terror into any heart. The challenge came when Isnard was in the pulpit preaching. The possessed man was brought into the church, screaming, and in convulsions. The preacher realized that he must cure him or lose the interest of his audience in the cause of Christ.
Stepping down from the pulpit, he approached the possessed man, put his arms around him and, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, demanded that the evil spirits depart. Martin was freed from his tormentor, and he ended his days, according to legend, as a lay brother in the local monastery.
At another time when Isnard was preaching, a hardened heretic refused to listen to him and called out loudly, "I shall believe in the sanctity of this man only if he makes that barrel on the corner of the square come loose and strike me." Immediately, the barrel jumped from its place and struck the scoffer, breaking his leg.
Isnard spent his life preaching and working in Pavia, regardless of the fact that in spite of his life of self-mortification "he was excessively fat and people used to ridicule him about it when he was preaching." At his death, it presented a quite different appearance from the godless and strife-ridden city it was when he had arrived
Feast day: March 22
Born in Chiampo near Vicenza, Italy;
Died 1244;
Cultus confirmed in 1919.
From the springtime of the Dominicans in Bologna, Italy, comes the story of Blessed Isnard. He was born into a wealthy family but little else is known of his boyhood. In 1219, as a student at the University of Bologna, he met Saint Dominic and decided to join his new order. Soon after completing his novitiate in Bologna, Isnard distinguished himself as a preacher. His first assignment was in Pavia, where his work of founding and ruling the priory was complicated by the war between the pope and the emperor.
Blessed Isnard plunged courageously into the work. He knew that he was risking death in doing so, and a less stout-hearted man might have found some excuse for going to a more peaceful place. Blessed Isnard insisted on meeting the situation head-on.
One of his first encounters was with the forces of evil, quite undisguised. A possessed man had become the mouthpiece of the devil and was being used by heretics to discredit the preaching of the friar who had so recently come to Pavia to preach the faith. The devil, speaking through the lips of the possessed man, issued a challenge to the friar: "If you are from God, cast me out and cure this man."
Isnard realized that one does not lightly take up open battle with the powers of wickedness. The condition of the poor man, whose name was Martin, was enough to strike terror into any heart. The challenge came when Isnard was in the pulpit preaching. The possessed man was brought into the church, screaming, and in convulsions. The preacher realized that he must cure him or lose the interest of his audience in the cause of Christ.
Stepping down from the pulpit, he approached the possessed man, put his arms around him and, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, demanded that the evil spirits depart. Martin was freed from his tormentor, and he ended his days, according to legend, as a lay brother in the local monastery.
At another time when Isnard was preaching, a hardened heretic refused to listen to him and called out loudly, "I shall believe in the sanctity of this man only if he makes that barrel on the corner of the square come loose and strike me." Immediately, the barrel jumped from its place and struck the scoffer, breaking his leg.
Isnard spent his life preaching and working in Pavia, regardless of the fact that in spite of his life of self-mortification "he was excessively fat and people used to ridicule him about it when he was preaching." At his death, it presented a quite different appearance from the godless and strife-ridden city it was when he had arrived
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