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Saint of the day: 16th October

Colin

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{ From ICN }
Saint Gerard Majella

Lay brother. Born in 1725, in Basilica, Italy, Gerard trained and worked in his father's trade as a tailor before joining the Redemptorist noviciate at Deliceto in 1749. St Alphonsus Liguori recognised his extraordinary spirituality and ordered that he be professed early. Although he worked in ordinary jobs, as a porter and a gardener, his life was marked by a series of extraordinary phenomena, including ecstasies, bilocation, prophesies, healings and the ability to read people's hearts. He was exceptionally caring to the poor and those with troubles. Though he never became a priest, clergy and communities of nuns came to seek his advice and spiritual direction.

Gerard died of TB in 1755, when he was just 29. He was beatified in 1893 and canonised in 1904. Pope Pius X praised him as the patron and model of lay brothers in their humble hidden lives. Paradoxically, he was acclaimed the 'most famous wonder worker of the 18th century.'

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