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Thomas of Cori (1655-1729), priest, O.F.M. Born in Cori (Latina)
on June 4, 1655, Thomas knew a childhood marked by the premature
loss first of his mother and then of his father, thus being left
alone at the age of 14 to look after his younger sister.
Shepherding sheep, he learned wisdom from the simplest things.
Once his sister was married, the youth was free to follow the
inspiration that for some years he had kept in the silence of
his heart: to belong completely to God in the Religious Life of
a Franciscan. He had been able to get to know the Friars Minor
in his own village at St. Francis convent. Once his two sisters
were settled in good marriages and he was rendered free of all
other preoccupations, he was received into the Order and sent to
Orvieto (PG) to fulfill his novitiate year. After professing his
vows according to the Rule of St. Francis and completing his
theological studies, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1683.
He was immediately nominated vice master of novices at Holy
Trinity convent in Orvieto, since his superior recognized at
once his gifts.
After a short time, Fr. Thomas heard of the hermitages that were
beginning to bloom in the Order and the intention of the
superiors of the Roman Province to inaugurate one at the convent
at Civitella (today Bellegra). His request was accepted, and the
young friar thus knocked at the door of the poor convent in
1684, saying, "I am Fr. Thomas of Cori, and I come here to
become holy!" In speech perhaps distant from ours, he expressed
his anxiousness to live the Gospel radically, after the spirit
of Saint Francis.
From then, Fr. Thomas lived at Bellegra until death, with the
exception of six years in which he was Guardian at the convent
of Palombara, where he initiated the Hermitage modeled after the
one at Bellegra. He wrote the Rule first for one and then for
the other, observing it scrupulously aid consolidating by word
and example the new institution of the two Hermitages.
St. Thomas did not close himself up in the Hermitage, forgetting
the good of his brothers and sisters, and the heart of the
Franciscan vocation, which is apostolic. He was called with good
reason the Apostle of Sublacense (the Subiaco region), having
crossed the territory and its villages with the indefatigable
proclamation of the Gospel, in the administration of the
sacraments and the flowering of miracles at his passage, a sign
of the presence and nearness of the Kingdom. His preaching was
clear and simple, convincing and strong. He did not climb the
most illustrious pulpits of his time; his personality was able
to give its best in an ambit restricted to our territory, living
his Franciscan vocation in littleness and in the concrete choice
of the poorest.
Exquisite charity. St. Thomas of Cori was to his brothers a very
gentle father. In face of the resistance of some brothers before
his will to reform and his radicality in living the Franciscan
ideal, the Saint knew how to respond with patience and humility,
even finding himself alone to mind the convent. He had
understood well that every true reform initiates itself. The
considerable correspondence that is here annexed demonstrates
St. Thomas' attention to the smallest expectations and needs of
his Friars, and of numerous friends, penitents and Friars who
turned to him for his counsel. In the convent, he demonstrated
his spirit of charity in his availability for every necessity,
even the most humble.
Rich in merits, he fell asleep in the Lord on January 11, 1729.
St. Thomas of Cori shines among us and in Rome, of which he is
the co-patron, above all in his thirst for a Christian and
Franciscan ideal that is pure and lived in its essentials. A
provocation for all of us not to take lightly the Gospel and its
all-encompassing exigencies.
(Source: Vatican) |
