St. Vincent Ferrer - Angel of the Apocalypse
Saint Vincent Ferrer is one of the greatest saints of the Holy Catholic Church. Few saints have been more gifted in speech and none have performed as many miracles. In fact, it was often said that it was 'a miracle' if St. Vincent Ferrer did not perform a miracle!
Miracles from Infancy
Like many great saints – including John the Baptist, St. Nicholas, St. Dominic, and Our Lady herself – our patron's destined holiness was evident even before his birth.
St. Vincent was born in Valencia, Spain on January 23, 1350. However, he was already performing miracles in utero. His mother visited a blind woman she often helped. When the lady learned her head on the mother's womb to hear the infant heart beat, she was instantly cured of her blindness.
The entire city was quite animated at his birth and their town square argument over his name had to be settled by the local bishop. He recommended they baptize him with the name of the city's patron: St. Vincent of Zaragosa. This third century martyr is one of the three most celebrated deacond of the early Church, along with St. Stephen, proto-martyr and St. Lawrence of Rome.
Before Vincent was three months old, Valencia was struck by a terrible famine. The infant spoke [!] in a perfectly intelligible manner to his mother. He informed her that to end the calamity all the all the townspeople should carry a venerated statue in procession about the city. No sooner had the procession begun than rain began to fall. The famine was broken.
Trouble in Christendom
From his tenderest years, it was clear that God was calling St. Vincent to serve Him at His Altar. The boy was gifted with great intelligence and even more profound piety. He joined the Dominican Order and was soon teaching and preaching all over Spain. His fame spread far and wide on account of his erudition, preaching, and holiness.
At this time, Christendom was split between two rival popes (the Great Western Schism). It was difficult for Christians to know who was the real pope. This sad division caused great problems in the Church as families, cities and kingdoms were split in their varying allegiance to St. Peter's successor(s). [Anti] Pope Benedict XIII in turn called him to Avignon where he became the confessor for the papal court.
Moreover, the Muslim threat was growing, heresy was on the rise, morals in the hierarchy and laity were lax, and a spirit of worldliness all gripped the Church in a death-like vice. God's wrath then fell upon Europe in the form of the Black Plague. It is estimated that 75-200 million people died in just two years at the peak of the plague (from 1348-1350). This is a real pandemic.
St. Vincent knew the only way out of these terrible troubles was for the people to return to God. In his great solicitude for the Church, he exerted every effort to end the schism of two heads. Although St. Vincent believed Benedict XIII to be the rightful pope, he never stopped pleading with him to resign and give up his claims to the tiara in order to restore unity and stability in the Church.
It is also noteworthy that while God granted Vincent many extraordinary powers, including the gift of prophecy, He did not grant Vincent a supernatural grace of clarity regarding the true pontiff.
His True Mission Begins
At the age of forty, sorrow over the disastrous division in Holy Mother Church led the great Dominican to the brink of death. Yet as he lay sick in bed, entrusting his final breaths to God, he received a heavenly vision. Our Lord appeared to him with St. Francis and St. Dominic at His side. Our Lord told St. Vincent that he was entrusting him with a great mission - to save His Bride from the imminent destruction of the world. St. Vincent recovered his full health and requested his leave from Pope Benedict XIII, who did not grant it for two more years. Yet Vincent prevailed upon the Pope to give him full papal legate powers to preach all over Europe. He received a similar authority from the Pope in Rome. Thus began the final and greatest period of St. Vincent's life.
For twenty years, St. Vincent Ferrer carried out the apostolate of a itinerant missionary preacher. He crisscrossed Europe a dozen times, followed by a train of priests, brothers, nuns, penitents and pilgrims, that at times numbered over ten-thousand strong. Upon arriving in a village, the great procession would set up their camp and St. Vincent would begin to preach in the open squares. Only thus could all the hearers be accommodated. Daily Mass, hours of confession, preaching, and daily prayer consumed his days. Twice a day the "Bell of Miracles" was rung, once in the morning and once in the evening. Each time all the sick and infirm were brought to him and he would cure them all. It was not all unusual for St. Vincent to perform more than one hundred bona-fide miracles in a day.
St. Vincent also had great success in preaching to the Moors and Jews. The entire synagogue of Salamanca converted and their baptized rabbi eventually become a saintly bishop. The Sultan of Granada event invited him to the Alhambra. He wanted to convert but succumbed out of human respect and fear of his courtiers. Yet the local populace listen to his wonderful preaching and many turned to Christ.
Countless converts came into the Church and on one single day he converted more than five thousand Jews. His spiritual success was even more fruitful among Catholics. Hatreds, envies, wars and other divisions were all brought to an abrupt end under his guidance. Once he raised a woman from the dead so that she could testify to all present that he was indeed the Angel of the Apocalypse (cf. Apco 14:6), sent by God to call a world seeped in sin to repentance.
A Great Reconciler
Under King St. Ferdinand III(✠ 1252), Spain had reconquered most of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moslems. Marching beneath the banner of the Holy Face, St. Ferdinand never lost a battle and is the most successful military general in history. However, subsequent Spanish kings were less heroic and zealous, so the Reconquista stalled. It might have all been undone by the infighting of nobles over the crown of Aragon. The prudence of St. Vincent prevented civil war and all the Spaniards followed his counsel regarding the rightful heir. Thus, St. Vincent helped lay the ground work for the future marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile. These great monarchs would complete the Reconquista in 1492. That same year Christopher Columbus planted their colors and the Holy Cross in the recently discovered Western Hemisphere.
His greatest accomplishment, however, was ending the Great Western Schism. Under pressure from St. Vincent, the great university theologians and bishops, the two Popes agreed to resign and have the cardinals elect a new pontiff. However, the Pope in Avingon renegaded. Twice he promised Vincent he would freely abdicate and twice he failed to keep his word. This convinced St. Vincent Ferrer that even if he were the rightfully elected Pope, he was clearly not seeking the good of the Church and was therefore unfit for the office.
Following that second betrayal, St. Vincent began to preach all across Europe that the Pope in Avignon no longer deserved support. His judgment swayed the Spanish monarchs. The kingdoms of Portugal, Naples and Scotland likewise followed his counsel. France alone remained in full support of the Avignon Pope. By then the problem had worsened for a third man had claimed the papacy following a council at Pisa (1409).
The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund convened a Council at Constance (1414-1418) in present day Germany. St. Vincent was the most celebrated cleric in attendance. The Pisan Pope was deposed (and later arrested). The Roman Pope abdicated. The claims of the Avignon Pope were ignored. In 1417, Martin V was elected Vicar of Christ and the schism ended. Interestingly, papal successors at Avignon maintaned their claim for twenty more years. Yet no one paid them any more heed. St. Vincent's preaching had taken effect upon all Christendom. The papal throne at Avignon was left vacant following the death of anti-pope Benedict XV in 1437.
In gratitude, Martin V granted St. Vincent any reward he desired, up to half his kingdom. Our humble saint merely requested the Apostolic Pardon upon his death, for he had a holy fear of offending God and suffering hell fire.
Canonization, Miracles and Relics
St. Vincent Ferrer continued his itinerant preaching. Nobles from all over Europe requested his presence. He was preaching in northwest France when he once again fell deathly sick. This time, however, he knew his time in the vale of tears was at end and he would not be able to return to his Spanish homeland. He died in Vannes, Brittany on April 5, 1419. (Some 250 years later, St. Louis de Montfort would be born around 100 km to the northeast of Vannes in Montfort-sur-Meu.)
Countless miracles were credited to the relics of St. Vincent Ferrer. The most compelling posthumous miracle was when the cloak of Ferrer's habit was placed upon a corpse and the dead man came back to life! Perhaps these are the kinds of spectacular displays of God's power in His saints that we should expect today so as to incontrovertibly validate canonizations!
St. Vincent Ferrer was canonized by Pope Calixtus III in 1455. In the formal bull of canonization the Pope decreed he was indeed the Angel of the Apocalypse.
The Church officially recognizes 892 miracles as part of his canonization, but the total number is estimated to be in hundreds of thousands. Twenty-eight of these miracles were raising the dead to life. He calmed storms and stopped floods. He healed the lame and cast out demons with but a word. Miracles would frequently occur at the crucifixes he left rooted in towns. In imitation of the Master, he once fed 4,000 men, not counting women and children, with seven loaves of bread and a few fishes.
The relic of his skull remains at the Cathedral at Vannes. And by God's gracious and divine providence a first class relic of St. Vincent Ferrer was given to this Foundation. We take this as confirmation that he has honored our request to be our patron. This relic resides upon the altar where Fr. Michael Rodríguez offers his daily Mass.
St. Vincent Ferrer, ora pro nobis!
Download a lengthier biography of his life, a timeline of his life, his sermon on the Last Judgement, and/or a prayer to St. Vincent Ferrer.
Note: If you wish to read a well-written biography on St. Vincent Ferrer, we recommend St. Vincent Ferrer, Angel of the Apocalypse by Fr. Andrew Pradel, available through TAN books. You can also download a free pdf copy of that same text HERE (from the public domain). We also recommend the books on this saint by Fr. Stanislaus Hogan O.P. and Henri Ghéon.
This same product is available in a 3-Audio CD set. To order a copy please contact our Foundation at info@svfonline.org.
* CD #1 - St. Vincent Ferrer, Angel of the Judgment: "His Life and Times"
* CD#2 - St. Vincent Ferrer, Glory of the Dominicans: "His Divine and Apostolic Mission"
* CD#3 - St. Vincent Ferrer, Angel of the Apocalypse: "His Spirituality and Wisdom"
- You can view the explanation for the CD / MP3 set or download it in booklet format (print double-sided and fold down the middle).
