Saint Nicholas of Tolentino

Nicholas was born in 1245 in Sant’Angelo in Pontano, in the Macerata area, to Compagnone and Amata, devout people of modest means. The story of his life — painted by an unknown Giottesque artist in the chapel that bears his name in Tolentino — says that his parents, elderly by then and childless, went on pilgrimage to Bari, to the tomb of Saint Nicholas, to ask for the grace of a child. Back home they had the boy, and they gave him that name. He joined the Augustinians very young and from 1275 lived in Tolentino, where he stayed thirty years without ever moving again. What he did was very simple: he heard confessions, preached in the streets, and went through the alleys looking for the sick and the poor. People stopped him, and he stopped. There’s a story told about him and the little loaves: he handed out small blessed breads to the sick, and that custom has never been interrupted — the “Saint Nicholas breads” are still blessed in Tolentino today on September 10 and sent all over the world. He is considered the protector of the souls in purgatory, because of the Masses he said for the dead. He died in Tolentino on September 10, 1305. Canonization came only in 1446, under Eugene IV, after a very long process: the testimonies gathered then are a precious record of daily life in a town in the Marche in the 1300s. If your name is Nicholas, today is your name day — even though many wait for December 6.