A CONTEMPLATIVE OF THE STREETS

The story of Blessed Thomas Acerbis Da Olera

The villagers of Olera in the Val Seriana were accustomed to see young Thomas lead his flock each morning to pasture on the steep mountain slopes. The herd boy was not yet sixteen years of age when, in the summer of 1580, he left his village to ho to Venice where he planned to become a son of St. Francis. The country boy was accepted by the Franciscan in their friary of Santa Croce di Cittadella in Verona and was invested September 12, 1580. St Lawrence of Brindisi had become a Capuchin in the same friary only five years before and in time was to become the new novice's Provincial General.

Brother Thomas says of his first seventeen years: "never read a book or studied in the world…I was a shepherd, just a poor country boy."

According to Fr. Ruffini, who later published his writings, the new novice exerted every effort so that he soon attained a very high degree of religious perfection. We could truly say that he was a master, a mirror of religious perfection, and adorned with every virtue."

Thomas was later to ask for permission to learn how to read and write. He made his profession on July 5, 1584, after completing the three years of formation prescribed by the constitutions of the order.

His superiors put the questor's basket in his arms and gave him the job of walking the streets to beg daily bread and other necessities for the community. In Innsbruck, he continued his begging. He was to exercise it for the next twenty years, the rest of his life. All in all he spent almost fifty years as a questor, walking down street after street, knocking on door after door, accepting bread, and dispensing blessings, just as St Felix, the first Capuchin saint did in Rome.

THE PIOUS BEGGER

If obedience and humility characterized Tomasso, "the begging friar", it was love that made him an apostle. And he became a great one. He bore witness to the Gospel and spoke constantly of God, instructed the great and the lowly in the faith, leading all of them to the love of Christ.

For Thomas, going from house to house meant moving from soul to soul. He conversed with all. "Lay people were astounded, it seemed humanly impossible for a simple lay brother to speak as profoundly about God as he did". : All you heard from his mouth were deep discourses about God." Everywhere he spoke of God with such fervor and devotion that people were amazed".

If it meant helping souls, he was ready to admonish then with courage, tempered with gentleness. When he failed to convert a sinner with words, he had recourse to prayer, bodily mortification, fasting and vigils. He urged enemies to forgive one another and insisted that their pardon be sincere. Put of love for peace he would mediate differences and promote fraternal charity. He constantly visited the sick. He blessed, listened and consoled the poor in all their needs. With his power of reading minds he would reveal evil deeds, condemn them and thereby pave the way for conversion. With tears in his eyes, and sometimes down on his knees, he pleaded with those who had strayed from God and return to Him and those whose hearts were filled with hatred to forgive. His whole deportment was a sermon, a silent but persuasive proclamation of God's presence. As he moved among his fellowmen there were naturally bound to be snares and solicitation to evil. He cut short one temptress by telling her that "he would rather endure the pains of hell than commit sin." God gave him the grace of miracles as well. It is related that he restored freshness to wine that had spoiled and cured the sick.

Back in the friary, he continued to be of service to his fellow men by spending, the night in prayer and presenting to God their prayers, their needs, all the sad stories he had listened to during the previous day's quest. "In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament with tear-filled eyes raised to heaven and his voice broken with sighs, he prayed for his benefactors". Often late at night, he could be found in the church "with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, praying." "Just as Thomas ended his work day with a basket filled with bread and provisions, so he finished every night with his soul overflowing with prayer."

Prayer held top priority in his religious life. He faithfully attended all community exercises. His favorite topic of meditation was Christ crucified, especially His Sacred Heart... He wrote: "Day and night I breathe in the heart of Christ." He confided to a fellow religious that "he could hardly begin to say the prescribed Paternosters without feeling himself raised up to God". To another, he said that the lonely hours of the night were the best time for interior prayer. One friar testified that he heard him "intoxicated in the spirit singing and praising the Lord in the church without any human respect'.

So intense was his love of God "that for moths at a time he was not able to sleep". He said "I feel in my heart such and overpowering divine love that if I did not restrain myself my whole life would consist in an outpouring of love and tears."

THE DIRECTOR OF SOULS

His questing duties brought him into contact with many generous young souls. He held frequent meetings with them and urged them to serve God with all their hearts, whether in secular career or in religious life. "Wherever he went he inspired lay people with a great longing to of good and encouraged young women to dedicate their virginity to the Lord". When he became a Franciscan, Brother Thomas was given the job of dish washer and questor. He carried out the same tasks when he was sent to Tyrol, where he spent the last 12 years of his life. He became the spiritual guide go the poor and simple people he encountered in valley of the Inn. From him, they learned the decrees of the Council of Trent and its attempts to bring about a reform of Catholic life. An expert catechist, he instructed them in the faith, and encouraged them to remain faithful to the Holy Father in Rome and not be led astray by Lutheran errors.

In 1617, Br Thomas the friend and spiritual advisor of Ippolito Guarini, the court physician at Innsbruck, a man well versed in the natural sciences and a prolific writer of his day. The brother supported him in his varied professional undertakings and counseled him in family problems by means of conferences and letters. Guarini in turn put him in contact with the young ladies' academy at Hall where the daughters of nobility were educated. He counseled two archduchesses. His conversations and letters always centered on pure, unselfish love. He taught them that "loving wisdom" "one learns from the open wounds of Christ". He exhorted them to rejoice in sufferings" because "love is proved by suffering". This is the royal road that leads to Christ "your spouse of blood and sorrows". He insisted: "There is no broader road to heaven than that of the Cross on which the Son of God hung." His favorite proverb was "May love transfix your hearts so that infatuated with love, so no other affection may find rest in your hearts but sincere and filial love".

THE UNLETTERED SCHOLAR

Blessed Thomas made several trips in and around Venice spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. He went from house to house to explain Catholic teachings to ignorant people and to defend them against the attacks of the Lutherans. Ippolito Guarini who was fluent in German and Italian, helped him prepare his talks-a scholar and an uneducated peasant collaborating in the work of catechizing Italy. Thomas had the gift of being able to explain the Faith to both simple Tyrolean villagers and to the nobility, in an endeavor to forge a revitalized Catholic society. He went through great pains to keep the working people loyal to the Catholic faith.

The catechetical conversations which he conducted house to house bolstered the faith of the wavering and gave second thoughts to those Catholics who had fallen from the Lutheran agenda. His superiors asked him to write down those talks in defense of the Catholic faith. So it came about that the quasi-illiterate friar, on his return to Vienna in 1620 composed his "Concetti Morali Contra gli Hereticii" which was revised and enlarged in 1629 and 1630. The work was divided in to forty three chapters and published as the first of "Fucco d'amore" which appeared in Augsburg in 1682.

Thomas wrote "If my work would result in the conversion of only one heretic, I feel it would all be worth it". He was prepared to give his all for the Church. "I would lay down a hundred thousand lives in her defense." He upheld the primacy and infallibility of the Pope, assuring one and all that "the Holy Spirit dwells in the Vicar of Christ." His devotion to the successor of St. Peter led him to undertake a pilgrimage to Rome in 1616 and in 1622, when he had an audience with Pope Gregory XV and received an indulgence. He was back again in 1625 for the Holy Year and win the respect of all for his charitable services to the pilgrims.

In many of his writing's he also expressed deep love for our Blessed Lady, calling her the Immaculate Conception, the mediatrix of All Graces, the Mother of Sorrows, and the Mother of God assumed into heaven, the Queen and Mother of the entire church. Thomas' whole life was one of love. He asked others to pray that God "might grant me the grace to be a fool of love." Nothing else mattered for him. "All is smoke and vanity. There is no good but to love God, to love Him well, serve Him well out of love." He would wish his friends: "May love pierce your heart, may you love unto folly."

DYING OF LOVE

Anticipating St Margaret Mary Alacoque by half a century, he wrote glowing pages about the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose love and sufferings he contemplated, and whom he served, and led others to serve, in a live of love. His letters and little tracts teach a pure, filial, transforming, and generous love. He relates that "for months he was not able to sleep because of the love of God." In his sleepless nights he was heard to pray: "O gentle, loving, desirable and only joy, depart a little from me. I am dying of your love. I cannot control it. You know that I cannot live without sleep. Leave me, O Lord that I may live for you. But if it be your will that I die, I will die for you." In a letter on October 25, 1622 he wrote "I wish to die because of my ardent desire to be united with Christ."

His seraphic union with Jesus, for which he longed throughout his religious life, took place at two o'clock on Friday, 3 May, 1631. He died in his little cell at Innsbruck in the presence of his confreres and Archduke Leopold V. Of his sixty eight years, he had spent fifty one as a Franciscan brother. During his last agony he clutched the crucifix in his hands and kissed and embraced it continually. He cried out "O my God, I cannot take more. I cannot endure these transports of love. O beloved spouse let me rest a little. Your love is killing me ahead of time. Your sweetness is too much. My heart cannot bear it." He literally died of love.