Saint Vincent Ferrer

Saint Vincent Ferrer was born at Valencia on January 23, 1350 AD, to William Ferrer and Constantia Miguel, who had married in the city ten years before. Butler's Lives records that his parents gave away in alms whatever they saved each year from the household's necessary expenses. The 1855 AD life by Bayle holds that the priest at the font, wearied by a long dispute over the name, settled it himself.

He entered the clerical state at seven, began philosophy at twelve and theology at fourteen. At seventeen his father offered him a religious, an ecclesiastical or a secular life, and he asked at once for the Order of Saint Dominic. His parents made over a third of their goods to him, and he gave the whole of it to the poor within four days.

He made his profession at Valencia in February 1368 AD, into the hands of the prior, Father Matthew Benincasa. His superiors sent him to Lérida in 1370 AD to teach philosophy, and to Barcelona two years later to study Scripture. According to longstanding Catholic tradition he told a famine procession in a Barcelona square that relief would come that day, and two wheat ships entered the port by evening.

The provincial chapter assigned him to Toulouse in 1376 AD and he passed on to Paris, where he taught the young friars and preached to the city. He was ordained priest about 1378 AD, and from 1385 AD held the cathedral chair of theology at Valencia for five years. In February 1389 AD at Valencia he handed down his sentence as arbiter between the secular clergy and the mendicant orders.

Benedict XIII, whom he had served as Cardinal Pedro de Luna, called him to Avignon and made him Master of the Sacred Palace, confessor and Apostolic Penitentiary. He refused the bishoprics and the cardinal's hat pressed on him, and withdrew from the court to a convent of his Order. He was cited before the Inquisition for preaching that Judas had done penance, and Benedict XIII called the case to his own tribunal and burned the papers.

On October 3, 1396 AD a crisis in his illness convinced those around his bed that he was dying. According to longstanding Catholic tradition, Our Lord appeared to him with Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, cured him and sent him out to preach penance. Writing to Benedict XIII in 1412 AD, he set down the same revelation in the third person, as made to a religious of the Order of Preachers who was healed and told to preach.

He entered Aix in October 1400 AD, preached at Marseille through that December, and crossed the Alps into Lombardy in June 1402 AD. He wrote to his master general from Geneva in 1403 AD and preached the Lent of 1404 AD at Lausanne. He ate no meat, and drank water reddened with a few drops of wine.

A company of a hundred to two hundred penitents travelled with him and scourged themselves as they entered a town. Jean Gerson, with a word added by Pierre d'Ailly, wrote begging his dear master to take care and not compromise himself. The councillors of Orihuela wrote in March 1411 AD to thank God for his visit, counting a hundred and twenty-three reconciliations.

King Martin of Aragon died in May 1410 AD and left the crown without an heir. In February 1412 AD the Cortes of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia agreed to leave the succession to nine judges meeting at the castle of Caspe on the Ebro. St. Vincent Ferrer was one of the nine, and voted first although he stood eighth on the list.

On June 24, 1412 AD the judges declared Ferdinand of Castile elected king of Aragon. Five days later he preached before the judges and the assembled people and published the decision from the pulpit. The chronicler Zurita wrote that among the nine he shone like the sun by reason of his sanctity.

King Ferdinand fell dangerously ill in May 1415 AD and asked him to go in his place to Perpignan. He arrived in August and set himself to make Benedict XIII resign the papacy. The Emperor Sigismund came in September and left with his whole retinue in early November, the talks having failed.

He then fell so ill in his cell at the convent of the Preachers that his life was despaired of. On the Epiphany, January 6, 1416 AD, he sang Mass, preached to some ten thousand people, and read the act withdrawing Aragon from the obedience of Benedict XIII. In the same sermon St. Vincent Ferrer declared that Benedict XIII was the legitimate pope, but would not resign to give the Church peace.

He crossed into Brittany in March 1417 AD and preached at Vannes from the fourth Sunday of Lent until Easter Tuesday. The devotional tradition of both saints' Lives holds that at Besançon that June he conferred with Saint Colette of Corbie on the schism and the affairs of France. According to longstanding Catholic tradition, St. Colette told him afterwards that God would call him within two years, and that he would die in France.

Henry V of England invited him to preach in Normandy, and he went to Caen where the king held his court. He came back to Vannes spent and weary at the beginning of 1419 AD, and illness turned back an attempt to carry him home to Spain by sea. He died in the house the Duchess of Brittany had found him, on the Wednesday of Passion Week, April 5, 1419 AD, at the hour of vespers.

The Bishop of Vannes buried him in the choir of his cathedral on April 7, 1419 AD. Pope Nicholas V opened the inquiry into his life and miracles on October 18, 1451 AD, and it closed in April 1454 AD. Pope Calixtus III canonized him at the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome on June 29, 1455 AD.

The same pope fixed his feast on April 5, the anniversary of his death. Valencia asked for the body more than once, and two popes ruled that the relics were to stay at Vannes. Naples decreed him patron of the city in 1836 AD, after the cholera ceased.