Saint Bernardino Realino

Bernardino Realino was born in Carpi on December 1, 1530. He graduated in law from Bologna in 1556 and began the career that degree promised: podestà, or chief magistrate, of Felizzano and Cassine, judge at Castelleone, then in the service of the Marquis d’Avalos, viceroy of Sicily, who took him along to Naples. In Naples, in 1564, he decided to leave everything and enter the Society of Jesus. He was thirty-four and had an established career. In 1574 he was sent to Lecce to found a college there. He was supposed to stay a short time; he stayed forty-two years, until his death. He preached, heard confessions, and looked after prisoners, the slaves who passed through that port, the sick. He had become so much a part of the city that, as he lay dying, the magistrates of Lecce came to his bedside to ask him to agree to be its patron saint. He said yes. It is the only known case of a patron saint named while still alive. He died in Lecce on July 2, 1616, at eighty-six. His relics are in the Church of the Gesù. There is also something people in Lecce still talk about. In 1711, during an examination of the body, the tissues kept in a jar inside the coffin were found intact, with liquid blood beneath them; the man who had carried the coffin was suddenly cured of an illness he had long suffered from. An inquiry followed, which in 1713 declared the event authentic. Pius XII proclaimed him a saint in 1947. If your name is Bernardino, today is your name day.