Arthur P. Finan, C.SS.R.

[Editor’s note: Father Finan, of the Baltimore Province, wrote this article for the monthly periodical, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, II (1939): 439-443.]

In the town of Muro lying twenty miles south of Naples, in the year 1726, on April 6, according to the infinite plans of an all-wise God, who very definitely suits men to the times, was born Gerard Majella. He was destined never to grow old, for he lived but twenty-nine years. Any picture of him will show a young, almost boyish, face, thin to the point of emaciation; too pale for very vigorous youth, with searching, sunken eyes that burn steadily with a fire kindled by some deep love.

Contrasting his life with his century, we might too easily lose sight of him. And it would be our loss. Economically he added nothing to his age. It was the age of the great promises of Adam Smith, the father of political economy, and Gerard was a tailor's clumsy apprentice with such unbalanced impracticality that he saw in the clenched hand of his foreman, who delighted in furiously beating him, "the hand of God." Philosophically he was blissfully unaware of his age. For the eighteenth century was sick from almost fatal congestion. It had inhaled too deeply of the dust of materialism and its avowed physicians, the dishonest, discontented, d e m e n t e d Rousseau, and the vitriolic, acid-minded, sarcastic Voltaire stood by in bitter professional helplessness.

Historically he was lost in the company of the great. Isaac Newton was formulating his universal law of gravitation; Louis XV was loosening the joints that held the divine right of kings together; Frederick the Great was busy with the glorification of Prussia. Such was the eighteenth century of Gerard if you will. And such a century would hardly notice a sickly tailor's helper whose mind was cutting patterns of crosses and crowns of thorns, whose feverish ambition was to be lost in some unlocated corner of a religious community.

In 1749, when he was twenty-three-years-old, Gerard wrote a short note of sudden farewell to his mother, and then left home. "I am going to become a saint. Think no more of me."

It was the challenge of a simple heart to itself - unhesitant, direct of purpose, fierce in its desire. And then, in the clear ways of God, Gerard met a band of Redemptorist missionaries, working for the salvation of souls. It was the cue for which he was seeking. He would like to help them - not as a missionary, he was essentially an apprentice, a helper; he would be a lay brother. He begged, pleaded, argued, claimed good health and won a trial.

And thus it happened that on a beautiful May morning of 1749, with a note from Father Cafaro, the leader of the missionaries, clutched tightly in his hand, Gerard knocked at the door of the Redemptorist house at Iliceto. He must see the superior. He had a vocation from God, but he also had a recommendation from man. And the first words of Father Cafaro's message were: "I am sending you a useless lay brother."

Life has a certain unique grimness in sifting its conclusions into the clear. Louis XV lived to be cursed by his subjects. Frederick the Great's eternal kingdom of earth crumbled. Rousseau and Voltaire have become as dusty as their materialism. Father Cafaro is a stranger even in his own order. And the "useless lay brother"? He has fulfilled his own boast to the last letter. He has become a saint. Saint Gerard Majella of Muro to the south of Naples. Saint Gerard Majella of the historic eighteenth century. Saint Gerard Majella of God.

Saint Gerard Majella was a lay brother in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. In all religious orders, a lay brother's life is patterned after the same unworldly ideals: complete self-abnegation, the generous spending of one's self in a divine service, bearing the burdens of temporalities in a spiritual organization, consuming a life in a fierce flame of love by prayer, devotion, and work. Even when charged with a hideous crime, Saint Gerard offered no defense, so self-effacing was he.

In such a life Gerard proved himself of heroic caliber. He had one driving force that propelled his whole existence to a definite goal - the love of God. He worked as a servant in the household of God. And if God is the perfect Master - then . . . and Gerard's actions were the inescapable conclusions of his premise. Whether in the garden or in the kitchen it made no difference. The act was all important - it was for God. He lived by sanctity. It was his stock and trade.

Is he brother sacristan? Then he waits hand and foot on the Tabernacle King. Is he brother refectorian? Then he washes and wipes the dishes with a rhythm of poetical gaiety, for he is washing and wiping his way into heaven. Is he just brother of odds and ends? Then he sweeps and sews and even putters a direct path to the Heart of God. He swung around his orbit with the surety of a planet. Visions, rare moments of intimate ecstasy, a piercing knowledge that flashed like a beam of light on the sins of souls, wonderful powers of healing - he had them all, had them often. But to himself these "trappings of sanctity" were unworthy of note. They did not guarantee him perfection.

One event in his life did prove his worth. A woman, goaded on by some unbalanced motive, accused him of improper intimacy. Gerard stood accused and answered nothing. He was believed guilty, rebuffed, penanced. He saw the finger of religious scorn pointed derisively at his life. He felt the scarlet sign of moral loathsomeness burning about his neck.

The cedar of Lebanon had fallen with a tremendous crash! The untouched snow was tainted after all! Some there must have been who shook complacent heads and carried about smug smiles - they had known all along such shining perfection would prove hollow and worm-eaten! It must have been a strange sight in the Redemptorist community. Here is a man who boasted openly that he would be a saint, who professed publicly that he would hang on the cross until death - and men could point to him as a sinner.

Gerard's superior, a saint with remarkable human reasoning powers, thought the evidence demanded strict punishment. And Gerard, as a subject, saw in his superior, saint or no, the representative of his God. And to every charge he answered nothing. To face such an accusation and tear its shabbiness to pieces with cold logic's knife, to prove brilliantly that it was but a sham, to laugh cleverly at it - that would be the magnetic thing to do. But to stand pale-faced and hear and to be silent, to be hit and not to defend, to bare your life as a target and not to return the fire - that is part of the essence of Christianity. It showed the trueness of the steel that ribbed his life. He had the God-required gift that men should speak ill of him.

The woman, of course, recanted. Gerard's superior admitted: "I have been persecuting a saint." Gerard's reason for silence? The Redemptorist Rule forbids self-defense! It is almost a parenthetical rule that could very conveniently have been swallowed in a contextual interpretation.

At last Gerard was sure that he had something in common with Christ. They were both falsely accused. And both had withstood the attack with silence.

After Gerard's death heaven itself came to his defense. Wonders, miracles, cures, protections began to shower the earth at the mere mention of his name. He, spotless in his chastity, became the protector of unbaptized infants. A man who knew not woman, he occupied his eternal moments by blessing women at the precarious moment of childbirth. Untouched by the pleasures of life, he listened graciously to the prayers of those who wanted the joys of motherhood. Heaven was speaking. It was the long awaited reply to the falsest and meanest slur that can be hinted of a heart given over to immaculate whiteness.

Of course, the crowning point of his life, was his death. It was perfectly dramatic, perfectly staged. A young man of twenty-nine years, burning with the fever of consumption, consumed with the fire of God's love. With every drop of blood that hemorrhaged from his lips came the words of a man, whose heart was in another spot, "God-love, Mary-love, confreres-love." His physical frame could not withstand such ravages. He died October 16, 1775.

The hills of his Italy have hidden him long enough. This is the hour for his reentrance into the world's history. . . parentage or no parentage, motherhood or no motherhood, family or no family. . . it is without doubt the moral issue of the Church, the State, and modern civilization. Some people have proclaimed themselves as the prophets of a new order." Scientifically depopulate the country," is their message. What they mean to say is, "Plow under every third child."

In their minds poverty, health, economic conditions, physical make-up warrant a scrapping of the Christian moral law. And statistics coldly and brutally attest to the advance they have made. They have challenged the life of the home, which is the life of the Church, which is the life of heaven. And Gerard, young Gerard, Gerard the lay brother, has come forward to answer the challenge as the special patron of women at the hour of childbirth. Poverty? He is rich with God's graces. Physical weakness? He is strong with God's health. Fear? He is brave with God's courage. There is a prayer to Saint Gerard that has the approbation and indulgence of the Church. It is simple, short; a beautiful compliment to the saint. If it were said on October 16th, his feast day, by every mother in America, the presence of God would be felt in our midst.

O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God and wonder-worker of our day, I call upon you and seek your aid. You, who on earth always fulfilled God's designs, help me to do the holy Will of God. Ask the Master of life, from whom all paternity proceeds, to render me fruitful in offspring, that I may raise up children to God in this life and heirs to the Kingdom of his glory in the world to come. Amen.

The answer to that prayer must be the Kingdom of God. Suffer the little children to live, for of such is that kingdom where Christ rules supreme and Gerard stands in glorious attendance - an eternal apprentice, an eternal lay brother, waiting on the love of his God.