Friday 21 July 2023

21 JULY – SAINT LAURENCE OF BRINDISI (Confessor)

Laurence (baptised Cesare after Julius Caesar) was born at Brindisi in southern Italy in 1559 to Christian parents, Guglielmo de Rossi and Elisabetta Masella. Cesare was educated by the Friars Conventuals of Brindisi and in 1575 and was received into the Order of the Capuchins under the name of Brother Lorenzo. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Padua and mastered not only European languages, but also most of the Semitic languages, and came to know the entire text of the Bible from memory. Laurence became a famous preacher and converted many people to Christianity. He founded many convents in central Europe and in 1602 was elected Vicar-General of his Order. Later he served as chaplain of the imperial army which fought the Turks after the Battle of Lepanto. In 1605 he went to Germany to strengthen Catholicism and attract Protestants back to the Church of Rome. Laurence also became a papal nuncio and ambassador and commissary-general of his Order for the provinces of Tyrol and Bavaria. He died in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1619 from exhaustion after carrying out a mission to inform King Philip III of Spain of the misconduct of the Spanish viceroy Ossuna in Naples. Laurence was buried in the cemetery of the Poor Clares of Villafranca. He was beatified by Pope Pius VI in 1783 and was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in 1881.