Christ touches a dying friar, and he gets up cured

AVIGNON, October 3, 1396 AD — Saint Vincent Ferrer had had a fever for twelve days. On the night of October 3, 1396 AD, he got so much worse that the people around his bed didn’t expect him to live. He was a Dominican friar, and he lay ill in a Dominican convent in Avignon. It was the night before the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.

St. Vincent Ferrer was ill with grief, because the Church had split in two. In 1378 AD the cardinals had said that the election of the Pope in Rome didn’t count. Then they chose a second man who claimed to be Pope, and that man moved his court to Avignon. St. Vincent Ferrer believed the Avignon side was the true one.

In 1394 AD the cardinals at Avignon chose Benedict XIII, who also claimed to be Pope. He called St. Vincent Ferrer to Avignon and gave him jobs in his palace. Every day St. Vincent Ferrer asked Benedict XIII to give up his claim. He wanted the Church to have one Pope again. Benedict XIII answered him kindly and kept away from any talks that could have ended the split. St. Vincent Ferrer couldn’t leave the court to go preaching unless Benedict XIII allowed it.

St. Vincent Ferrer found living at the palace hard to bear. He was allowed to move to the convent. There he fell ill with the fever, and nothing anyone tried brought it down.

One on either side

Years later, St. Vincent Ferrer described what happened in that room in a letter to Benedict XIII. Catholic Tradition holds that the cure in the letter took place that same night, in the convent at Avignon.

The sick friar was praying to God to get better, because he wanted to preach again. While he prayed, Saint Dominic and St. Francis appeared to him “as in a dream,” at the feet of Christ. The two saints prayed for a long while.

Then, St. Vincent Ferrer wrote, “Christ rose and, with one on either side, came down to this same religious lying on his bed.” Christ touched the sick friar “with the finger of His most holy hand.” With that touch, Christ made the friar understand clearly that he must go through the world preaching. He was to preach as the Apostles had done.

“At once, at the touch of Christ’s fingers,” St. Vincent Ferrer wrote, the sick friar “rose up entirely cured of his sickness.”

Two more years at the palace

The next morning, St. Vincent Ferrer went to Benedict XIII. He asked permission to leave Avignon and preach through the kingdoms of Europe. Benedict XIII said no, because people liked the friar so much that he was useful to the Avignon side. St. Vincent Ferrer obeyed and stayed at court two more years.

To keep him loyal, Benedict XIII offered to make him bishop of Lérida and a cardinal. St. Vincent Ferrer turned both down. He said: “It behoves me to execute the order which I have received from God, for God has commanded me to preach the judgment to all nations.” Then Benedict XIII let him go, and gave him permission to preach all over Europe.

In the letter about that night, St. Vincent Ferrer never gave his own name. He called the friar who was cured “a religious of the Dominican Order.” “Since then,” St. Vincent Ferrer wrote in 1412 AD, the friar “has been traveling for thirteen years over the world, and is still journeying, preaching every day and in many labors.”