St. Bernardino of Siena

Bernardino Albizzeschi was born on September 8, 1380, in Massa Marittima, Tuscany, into a noble Sienese family. Orphaned at six, he was raised by devout relatives who instilled in him a deep faith. During the plague of 1400, the twenty-year-old Bernardino spent four months tending the sick at Siena's hospital of Santa Maria della Scala—work that nearly killed him. Recovering, he entered the Franciscan Order in 1402 and was ordained a priest in 1404. He spent years in solitary prayer before emerging as the most celebrated preacher of fifteenth-century Italy. For three decades, Bernardino traveled the length of Italy on foot, drawing crowds of 30,000 or more to open-air sermons that lasted for hours. His preaching was practical and vivid. He denounced gambling, usury, and faction violence with equal fire. He promoted devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, displaying tablets inscribed with the IHS monogram surrounded by rays of light—an image he popularized throughout Christendom. Initially accused of heresy for this practice, he was vindicated by Pope Martin V. Three times offered bishoprics, Bernardino refused them all, preferring the itinerant life of a preacher. In 1437, at the height of his fame, he accepted the role of Vicar General of the Observant Franciscans in Italy, working to restore stricter observance of the Franciscan Rule. In 1444, already gravely ill, Bernardino set out on one final preaching mission to reconcile warring factions in the Abruzzi. He reached L'Aquila but could go no further. He died there on May 20, 1444, the vigil of the Ascension, just as he had predicted. The citizens of L'Aquila, whose reconciliation he had sought, received permission from Pope Eugene IV to keep his body. They built a magnificent basilica in his honor, completed in 1472, where his relics rest in a Renaissance mausoleum crafted by Silvestro dell'Aquila. Bernardino was canonized in 1450 by Pope Nicholas V, just six years after his death—one of the fastest canonizations in history, testament to his immediate and universal veneration. **Feast Day:** May 20 **Patronage:** Advertising, communications, public relations; gambling addicts; Siena, Capri, and many Italian cities