Do we have the courage to publicly accept our guilt especially when someone else other than us had already been judged as the culprit? Not many of us can do that and we admit that it is truly heroic. Well, we shall hear an example today in our saint, St. Conrad of Piacenza. St. Conrad, an Italian penitent and hermit, was born Corrado Confalonieri, in 1290 from one of the noblest families of Piacenza, in the town of Calendasco, Italy. As a young man, he married an aristocratic woman and led a happy life. One day, while he was in his usual pastime of hunting within his family property, he ordered his attendants to set fire to some brushwood where the animals had hidden. The wind caused the flames to spread rapidly to the neighboring forests. A peasant who was near when the fire started was accused of having caused the fire. He was imprisoned, tortured and condemned to death. Conrad, was remorseful for what happened and admitted his guilt to the government of the city. As punishment, the city took all his assets but spared him from death due to his noble status. Conrad and his wife saw the hand of God in this event and agreed to separate in 1315. Conrad retired to a hermitage, joining a community of hermits who were Franciscan tertiaries. His wife became a nun of the Order of St. Clare in their city. Soon Conrad became famous for his holiness. Visitors came to seek his advice and prayers. In 1340, he travelled to Rome, to the Holy Land, to Malta, and to Palermo. Sicily. After a few years, he settled at Val di Noto, in a grotto named after him where he afterwards spent the rest of his life in prayer, penance, working miracles and giving prophecy. Three years later, he was inspired to serve the people directly and in 1343 went to the city of Netum to care for the sick in the Hospital of St. Martin, But he lived in a nearby hermitage. His fame for holiness was such that during a famine afflicting the island, the Bishop came to him to ask for his intercession and God answered his prayers. It is recorded that Conrad died kneeling before a crucifix, on February 19, 1351, the day he had predicted. Shortly after his death, miracles followed and the Bishop of Syracuse was asked by the people to begin the process of his beatification. Bishop Dalmazio Gabriele, O.P., who himself witnessed the “Miracle of the Bread” opened the process. As part of the process, Conrad’s body was exhumed and was found to be incorrupt. It was placed in a silver urn for public veneration. Pope Leo X beatified Conrad on July 12, 1515. He was canonized on June 2, 1625 by Pope Urban VIII. St. Conrad is invoked for the cure of hernia, a gap in the muscular wall that makes the contents in the abdomen protrude outward. But the miracle for which Conrad is best known even while he was still alive was the “Miracle of the Bread.” During the famine in Sicily which was a result of the bubonic plague in 1348-1349, people would come to Conrad to ask for food. He gave them a loaf of warm bread, which he said, he received from the angels.
Virtue: piety, humility, integrity, fidelity, charity, chastity, temperance, courage and honesty.
