Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/75

63 B. MARY OP THE ANGELS 63 instead of herself, Christ crowned with thorns and blood dropping from His wounds. She exclaimed, '*0h, Virgin Mary, how could you let me lire to be 6o nngratefol to my Lord?" She had a book on the Passion, on which snbject she meditated deeply. She was much afifected by reading that the Lord was stmck on the face in the house of Caiaphas. She prayed that she might partake this suffering, and her prayer was granted in a singular manner. One eyening, soon after this, she went with her sister and others to benediction at the parish church and found a mad man kneeling next her. She felt a shudder of disgust, but said to herself that his soul might be more precious in the sight of G^ than her own. After benediction, when the priest turned to the altar and the people began to move, the man gave Mananna such a blow on the face that it resoimded through the whole church. A great hubbub ensued ; the maniac ran off; all the men flew after him with drawn swords, while the women flocked round Marianna, shocked and sympathis- ing. One said, " I am sure her jaw is broken;" another, ^'I am sure all her teeth are knocked out." '*As for me," said another, *' 1 thought she was killed." Her sister wept and sobbed, but the young saint knew Who had sent her the blow, and rejoiced that the poor lunatic was suffered to escape. One of her sisters took the veil in the Cistercian conyent of Eifreddo at Saluzzo. Marianna and her mother went to wit- ness her profession. Marianna was per- mitted to go inside the convent during the^bryice, and to sing a verse or two with the nuns. When the ceremony was oyer, the Countess Baldissero went to take leave of the nuns and of one daughter and called the other to accompany her home; but Marianna refused to return, saying she had gone with the intention of staying and serving God in that house. The signora was very angry and tried to insist. The nuns persuaded her to give in, and Marianna was allowed to remain for a year amongst other young girls who were being educated. At the end of that time her fftther died, and her mother felt the necessity of attending to her own soul and could no longer bear the whole burden entailed on the mis- tress of the establishment, so her son Giambatista took Marianna home and made her his housekeeper, an office in which she acquitted herself very well and gave proof of great humility and patience. £y-and-bye she renewed her request to be allowed to take the veil, but the widowed Countess could not bear the idea of such complete separation from her youngest and favourite child. Already five of her daughters were nuns, the other was married into the family of the Counts of Lodi da Capriglio, and Marianna was her treasure, so obedient, so cheerful, so gentle. Her mother's dearest wish was to have her happily married and living with her or close by. She found an alli- ance suitable in every way, and one day when they were alone in their vineyard, she took Marianna for a longer walk than usual and tried to induce her to accept this apparently happy destiny, but her wisest reasoning and her tenderest persuasions failed to carry her point, and seeing her daughter entirely bent on a religious life, she gave up the argument, exclaiming, ** Then may God make you a great saint!" and she never more troubled her on the subject. After a short time she offered her daughter to the Cistercians of Saluzzo, with whom she had lived. They wore charmed at the proposal, but she felt called to a life of greater austerity. It happened that the holy midonc, i.e. the linen cloth in which our Saviour was wrapped for burial, was to be exhibited from a balcony at the Palazzo Madama, and Marianna's mother sent her to see it from a balcony oppo- site. Two Carmelite friars were there, one of whom was a great servant of God — Father Francesco Antonio di Sant' Andrea. He sheltered her with his capo during a little shower of rain, and dis- cerning in her a beautiful soul, he asked whether she had a vocation to be a nun. "It is rather soon to decide," she answered ; but he continued the conver- sation and she admitted that she had been accepted by the Cistercian nuns at Saluzzo but was not quite satisfied, and in spite of having intended to be very reserved, she felt compelled to confide