Ludovico da Casoria, Caterina Volpicelli,
Giuseppe Moscati
and the church of the Sacramental nuns in Naples - II
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Ludovico da Casoria, Caterina Volpicelli, |
Alfredo Marranzini s.j. |
Giuseppe Moscati forswears “impure earthly fondnesses” in the Church of the Sacramental nuns
While on the 28th March 1885 Lodovico was dying up on Posillipo hills, Peppino Moscati was younger than 5 and only few months earlier his father Francesco, promoted to the Superior Court in Naples, moved therein with his family coming from Ancona. Maybe the young boy hadn’t been able to meet the Charity Apostle, but surely heard about him from his parents or among the Sacred Heart Maidservants Institute, founded by Caterina Volpicelli, whom the Moscati’s were really attached by religious feeling and missionary spirit kinship. In the Sacred Heart Sanctuary, on 8th December 1888 receives First Communion by Don Enrico Marano, who was one of the most intimate diocesan monks to Lodovico, insomuch as he declares he “quite entirely devoted himself” to his works and to have fondness and esteem with him”. (20).
When Caterina Volpicelli died on the 28th December 1894, Moscati was 14 and had the possibility to meet her because the Moscati’s, who lived at 83, S.Teresa al Museo street during their first period in Naples, were often in the habit to bring their children to pray in the near S. Cuore alla Salute Sanctuary and to stay with the Maidservants Founder. During these visits Peppino not only plays sprightly inside the Institute wide garden, but also welcomes faith feelings suggested by Volpicelli, who tries to make him attracted to Christ’s Heart. He learns much about Lodovico da Casoria, who prompt him love toward the poorest ones, and meets Bartolo Longo, Pompei Rosary Holy Virgin apostle, who had lived in the Maidservants Institute for a while from 1872 and where he was in the habit to come back many times after having come and seen Countess Marianna Farnarano de Fusco at Passero Palace in Salvator Rosa square.
These “seeds” will develop according to the grace, some inaudible pushes moving this little boy towards love for Eucaristic Christ and will shape his “Holy Doctor” figure, friendships will deeply influence his soul. When on the 25th November 1914 Rosa De Luca Moscati “flies to Heaven passing away as a saint, as she’s always been during her lifetime (21). Prof. Moscati wants the funeral and the thirtieth to celebrated in the Sacro Cuore alla Salute Sanctuary. After the renowned clinician unexpected death an unsigned note is published on the magazine La carità e l'Orfanello del Ven. P. Lodovico da Casoria In this review it is stated Prof. G. Moscati “was one of our venerable Lodovico’s works benefactors, one of his most faithful, and his departure was weeped as the one of a good father and saint by our children…His life has been a never-ending sacrifice, spent on the fellowship and God’s Love Altar. He started his day with the sacramental Communion, he ended it by Holy Virgin Rosary and every moment in daytime was spent in charity, mercy and social mission”.
Hence the Church of Sacramental nuns also linked San Giuseppe Moscati to Saint Lodovico and Venerable Volpicelli [Caterina Volpicelli was Canonized by Pope Giovanni Paolo II on the 25th April 2001] By an undated autograph passage, Moscati himself informs us: “In order to avoid distractions or to pray l'Hail Mary, with more ardour and passion, I want to remind an image or better, this Holy Virgin image meaning, while spelling the prayer verses… [to the words] "Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus", I have a tenderness impulse to the “Virgin Mother under the title of Buon Consiglio”, who smiles at me as she’s portraited in the Church of Sacramental Nuns.. Before this icon of Her and in this Church I forswore of earthly impure feelings: "benedicta tu in mulieribus". And if I stand in front of the sacred Monstrance I turn to the Holy Sacrament: "benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus" (22).
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(1839 - 1894) |
This statements are a further evidence of Moscati’s devotion for the Virgin Mother and Eucharist, from whom he draws on strenght and light, so much as to be able to reply to Miss Emilia Pavese, stunned and worried about his regular and really heavy work: “I can Everything by Him who supports me (23). When Moscati often cheers up at the Virgin Mother during the day he goes back to think of Madonna del Buon Consiglio exposed in the left-side first Chapel in the church of San Giuseppe dei Ruffi, where he goes not only when ill nuns need his skills, which he always offers for free, but everytime he passes by so that he can stay there for an Eucharist therin exposed deep worship.
Just like for Lodovico and Caterina, inside that temple a decisive happening occurred to him. His brother Eugenio witnessed during the ordinary trial: “My brother Peppino didn’t marry because after graduating he vowed chastity just in the Church of Sacramental Nuns in Naples before Buon Consiglio Icon worshipped therein. What I remember now is that in one of the diaries he left we can read:: Before this icon I denied all my earthly passions!” Considering many events in my brother’s life related to saint purity virtues, I state and I’m deeply earnest these God’s Servant words do have value to be considered as a vow.”(24).
The period during which the Saint expressed such vow, according to textual evidences, swings between adolescence and adulthood. Infact according to Emma Picchillo he should have vowed “since childhood”(25), according to Prof. Guido Piccinino, “since adolescence” (26); according to Alberto Sorrentino, High Court President, “when he was 24” (27)according to Dr. Giovanni Ponsigliore, “when he was about 25 or 26” (28); according to Dr. Enrico Sica “a little after thirtieth birthday or when he was 34” (29); according to Prof. Gaetano Quagliarello “in 1914” (30), date accepted by his first biographer Ercolano Marini” (31). While at first in the Trial he states he heard from his sister Nina Peppino “spontaneously vowed chastity when he was 17” (32), his brother Eugenio tells in second instance he could have vowed after graduating. (33).
Faith General Promoter, Raffaele Pérez, due to all these nonconforming testimonies, considers more likely to him God’s Servant having vowed during adulthood” (34).
Who considers Saint’s so weighted character realizes he would have never acted so hardly if he hadn’t felt mature enough to do it. Besides, we know by Moscati himself a particular matter occurred during his job: “I had to stare at a lady’s sculpturesque profile, which had filled my dreams during my adolescence; and she did’t know anything. Who would have ever known one day she could need me? An ever-impressive beauty! And I made my own humanitarian duty easily, gently, without my heart being in a flat spin. She asked me to compare her current status with her ancient blooming health, if I had ever seen her before. I said no. I told the truth. The one of the earlier years was another lady, disappeard with neither regret nor sorrow, heart is pure”(35).
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with two Sacramental Nuns |
Besides, during the Apostolic Process Emilia Picchillo witnessed Moscati’s sister Nina had revealed her “before being 30 Peppino proposed to a beautiful and pious young maid. But as she replied she was promised to God, the God’s Servant was so humiliated and asked the maid forgiveness for disturbing her” (36). Also prof. Raffaele Piazza mentions about Moscati’s marriage project with Senatore Calabria’s daughter, Supreme Court of Appeal President” (37).
Surely Moscati caught a glimpse the meaning of an hypothetical family of his own and maybe he also had to struggle in order to resist “earthly passions”, without either allowing or giving into them. In the passage about the way of praying Hail Mary, undated but bearing his “10, Cisterna dell’Olio, assistant lecturer” heading, it is clearly showed that, during his maturity and before 15th July 1911 – date when he achieved universitary teacher’s qualification – on the 1st January 1971 he lived a “particular moment” in the church of the Sacramental Nuns. According to what S. Congregazione dei Riti lawyers – Giulio and Enrico Dante – wrote about it, in that event Moscati made clear “his Christian bind decisively and with much more will” and by a vow he opted out a marriage to keep staying pure energically and strongly fighting against temptations as to offer God plenty of purity in his mind, his will and his spirit”(38).
Going today to Sacramental Nuns’ we can admire also works of art therein kept, but bowing down before Sacrament together with the nuns disappearing behind the framings and worshipping Buon Consiglio Virgin Mother, we remember the events determining the way of perfection for Lodovico, St. Giuseppe Moscati and Caterina Volpicelli. But let’s raise consciousness too about the commitment we assumed by “baptismal purification” trying to make an afford to follow their examples.
Notes
20. Neapolitana... Posino super introductione causae p. 23. Mons. Marano accompagnò P. Lodovico during the grat mission led at Calopezzati (Cs) in 1880, Cf. Capecelatro op. cif., p. 455-457. Di Marano is mentioned in the Epistolario Letters nn. 66, 67. He had been gratly estimated by Bartolo Longo, who often invited him to preach in Pompeii: he cooperated in theOpera della Conservazione della fede in Naples with Moscati’s sister, Nina and after her death in 1931 he made a really eulogistic profile, stating above all: "her strong and burning and intense mission spreaded by many shapes of goodness granted her joys and satisfactions thanks to conquests and victories she achieved day by day: but in the end…a cruel martyrdom was waiting for her, as a sanctifying chrism for her uncommon virtues, and in the unthinkable sufferings standend in a Christian way, her spirit was purified, hoping she managed to achieve the Glory Price", in 11 (1931) 217.
21. In A. Marranzini, Giuseppe Moscati un esponente della Scuola Medica Napoletana, Rome 1980. p. 27.
22. The original one is stored at Archivio Moscati in the Gesù Nuovo di Napoli.
23. In E. Marini, Il Prof. Giuseppe Moscati della regia Università di Napoli, Napoli 1929, p. 181; cf. Fil. 4, 13.
24. Neapolitana canonizationis servi Dei Josephi Moscati viri laici: positio super viriutibus, Summarium, p. 78 par. 14.
25. Ib. Summarium, p. 147, par. 445.
26. Ib. Summarium, p. 39, par. 116.
27. Processo ordinario, f. 383 v.
28. Processo ordinario, f. 480 v.
29. Positio... Summarium, p. 185, par. 632.
30. Ib., p. 388, par. 1330.
31. Marini, G. Moscati, op. cit., p 80.
32. Positio... Summarium, p. 4, par. 9.
33. Ib., p. 67, par. 14.
34. Neapolitana... canonzzationis servi Dei. J. Moscati viri laici: Animadversiones Promotoris Generalis Fidei, n. 40, p. 43.
35. In Marranzini, G. Moscati modello del laico cristiano di oggi, Roma 1989, p. 348. 36.
36. Processo apostolico, f. 207; cf. anche f. 187; citati in Animadversiones n. 42, p. 45.
37. Processo ordinario, f. 531, citato in Animadversiones, n. 42, p. 45.
38. Neapolitana canonizationis servi Dei Josephi Moscati viri laici: Responsio ad animadversiones Promotoris Generalis Fidei, n. 64, p. 86.
Part I |
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