SAINT CHARLES BORROMEO

(1538 – 1584)

In the history of the Church there are dark and painful pages that make Christians suffer and give reasons to those who wish to deny its divine origin.

      It’s not just about the grave historical sins of the Church’s children, for which Pope John Paul II repeatedly asked forgiveness, but also those episodes or customs where the human element abused power in an intolerable manner.

      We think, for example, of the times when the church admitted forced vocations to the clerical or religious state, of the centuries when the nepotism of the popes and the unbridled luxury of the high clergy were almost justified.

      But whoever attentively reads even these pages of ecclesiastical history cannot deny that, at times, one is left dazzled by certain unforeseen lights that shine out right from these dark happenings. 

      We’re in the middle of the 16th century: the Council of Trent has already been interrupted for more than a decade without being able to launch the longed for reform of the Church.  In Rome, the nephews of the most severe reforming Pope (Paul IV, Carafa) have stained themselves with innumerable crimes and, upon the death of this Pope, one of the longest and most contested conclaves of history (it would last around four months) drags on.  Finnaly, on Christmas evening 1559, the cardinals agree on the name of Cardinal Gian Angelo Medici, from Lombardy, about whose reforming intentions there are doubts.

      On the same day as his election, the new Pope – who has taken the name Pius IV – calls his two favourite young nephews to Rome: Frederick and Charles Borromeo.

      Frederick, 25 the first born, is nominated commander in chief of the papal army.

      Charles, the second born, is nominated Secretary of State (the first in history to receive this title); and, as well as being secretary, is also nominated Administrator of the Papal State, Referendary of the Apostolic Signatura, titular and beneficiary of numerous Abbeys, perpetual Administrator of the Archdiocese of Milan, Governor of the Papal legations to Bologna, Romagna and the Marches; Protector of Portugal, Austria and Switzerland and of numerous religious Orders.

      As well as this, on the day of the Pope’s coronation, Charles is proclaimed Cardinal.

      Well then: Charles is only 21 and not even a priest, even if – being the cadet of a noble family of Arona – he was inexorably destined for an ecclesiastical career from infancy and wore a soutane since he was seven. 

      This nephew overloaded with unheard of privileges, with boundless honours and burdens, didn’t earn much sympathy in Rome: Charles is a lanky young fellow, with an ungainly face, with an excessively pronounced nose, closed in character, awkward in speech.

      Someone starts the rumour that he’s not even that intelligent.

      The young Cardinal leads a lavish lifestyle, suitable for his rank: he has at his disposal 150 domestic staff in elegant livery of black velvet; he possesses the most beautiful carriages and the best horses in Rome; he is passionate about hunting and dogs; he is good at chess; he loves music and plays the cello.  He founded a night time Academy (“Notti Vaticane”) in which, together with intellectual friends, he takes pleasure in literary and philosophical conversations, just like every good renaissance prince.

      In a short space of time Charles is able to fix up all of his many relations and, through marriages, the Borromeo family is married into the oldest Italian families (the Colonna, the Della Rovere, the Gonzaga, the Trivulzio) as well as other noble European family lines.

      Nevertheless Charles’ habits are beyond reproach; even if he has become the richest Cardinal in Rome, he conducts an honest life and generously uses his goods to endow the city with public works (aquaducts, hospitals and suchlike). 

      Against every expectation the new Pope showed himself intent to reopen the Council of Trent and to guide it to a good conclusion, even if it was not easy to get all those governing Europe to agree, whose consent was necessary, because of the many implications and connections then existing between ecclesial life and the politics of the various nations.

      It was about getting agreement between some of the most difficult personalities such as the emperor Ferdinand of Germany, Philip II of Spain, Francis II of France, as well as the other Italians princes and dukes of Florence, Venice, Genoa, Naples...

      At that time it was unthinkable to open an Ecumenical Council without the previous assent of the various princes to whom it was up to, to grant permits and safe conduct, or without taking account iron directives that each one intended to give to the bishops of their respective zones.

      And it was not easy to sew up the ties between the Holy See and the various powers, after the fiery Paul IV had made enemies of nearly all of them.

      Germany and France were already marshalled for the defence of protestants (very numerous in their kingdoms) and they threatened obstructionism and retaliation, and Spain had decided to impose a strongly nationalised Church. 

      Charles Borromeo, who had only studied Law, but not courses of philosophy or theology, certainly could not offer his doctrinal competence to the Council, but puts at its disposal an extraordinary ability as a mediator and conciliator, between the will of the Pope and that of the many and litigious parties: it was about getting agreement between sovereigns, apostolic nuncios, ambassadors, legates of the Council and Council fathers.

      During the two years that were necessary for the preparation of the third phase of the Council of Trent, and during the two years of its celebration, every negotiation, every letter literally passed through the hands of the young Cardinal Secretary.

      Every day couriers departed from Rome and reached Trent with a dispatch box of correspondence, so much so that the Archbishop of France sourly grumbled about the fact that “the Holy Spirit(who should have been guiding the Council) was constrained to travel from Rome to Trent every day in a dispatch box”.

      But even these ironic remarks tell of the incredible dedication and service to the Church that Cardinal Borromeo was able to guarantee for many years. 

      At that time the most burning questions were those about the reform of the clergy and bishops.  Someone, amongst the Council fathers, turned up his nose upon hearing talk of reform even for the Pope and the cardinals, until one holy Bishop present, a friend of Borromeo, exploded with anger in the hall to say that “indeed the most illustrious cardinals are in need of a most illustrious reform”.

      Charles was too intelligent not to realise that many of the questions stirred up at Trent touched him personally.  His conscience burned not so much about the lavish lifestyle that he lead, but more about the perception of the grave damage done to the Church by bishops who had not resided in their dioceses for years, leaving there instead some administrator without true pastoral authority, and he – while residing in Rome and working as Cardinal secretary – was really Archbishop of one of the vastest and most important dioceses: Milan! 

      He knew he must choose, the Council would hardly be closed, and he was sincerely

However, for a more total and radical conversion, God served him with a very hard suffering, by which he spoke not just to his intelligence, but also to his heart.

      Just in those months of whirling activity and infinite discussions, his brother Frederick, commander of the papal armies, head of the Borromeo family, also honoured with innumerable titles and goods, fell sick with a fever of an unknown nature.  It didn’t seem a serious illness, but after a week – on the very day on which Philip II of Spain was to nominate him as a prince – he died in the arms of Charles, leaving him his inheritance as well as his rich patrimony, in goods and noble titles.

      To the consternation of the Pope and dignitaries, the custom followed that now it fell to the second born to take in hand the destinies of the Borromeo family: for the rest Charles had not yet been ordained priest; it was enough that he would renounce the strictly ecclesiastical titles and he would inherit the honours and responsibilities of his deceased brother.

      The Pope himself was favourable to such a solution.

      But at that very moment Charles decided to delay no longer: he had himself ordained priest immediately and celebrated his first mass on 15th August 1563, on the tomb of the apostle Peter.

      So he became the reformer Cardinal. 

      He started to reduce his lavish entourage: more than eighty domestic staff were laid off, but each one received as a gift between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand ducats (an enormous figure for that time).  He renounced all splendour in clothing, carriages, food, social relations.

      He kept only what was absolutely necessary for the decorum due to his office (for sure, compatibly with the mentality of that lavish century).

      Calumnies and false faces were not lacking: some said that Borromeo had unforeseeably become mean; some whispered that he suffered from rigorist obsessions.

      A famous literary figure of the time, Annibal Caro, wrote contemptuously to a realtion: “I don’t know what news to give you from Rome, if not that that low level sacristan has started to reform it entirely; and Rome isn’t enough for his zeal: he wants to do likewise for the whole world!”.

      The ambassador of Venice – with more subtle and elegant malice –  also wrote to a friend who had solicited him to obtain a well paid job in Rome: “You don’t come here to eat now, but to pray...”.

      But he also honestly knew to recognise that “Only Cardinal Borromeo is the most efficient in the city of Rome, otherwise all the decrees of the Council wouldn’t be put together”. 

      The truth was that Cardinal Borromeo had by now definitively chosen his “Cathedra”.

      In ecclesiastical usage the “cathedra” is the elevated place, from which Popes and Bishops govern and teach.

      For Borromeo the chosen “cathedra” – the more honourable – was for him the Cross of Christ: if Jesus had chosen to instruct and govern us form the disturbing height of the Cross, his ministers must behave themselves in like manner.

      Therefore he started to read the gospel while kneeling and to lose himself in very loving contemplation, to live in a frugal manner and even to give himself over to exaggerated penances.

      But by now nothing seemed exaggerated to the love he felt inside for his Lord and Master: even the most austere penances, what more were they if not the humble possibility to experience something of what He suffered for our salvation?  What more were they, if not the means to be able to learn, to be able to speak about them with a minimum of experience? 

      In the meantime he pressed upon his uncle the Pope in order to obtain permission to abandon Rome, to be able to reach his Diocese.

      He prepared himself intensely for Episcopal Ordination and received it on 7th December 1563, the feast of St Ambrose.

      But he could only definitively leave in 1566, such were the urgencies of service, that kept him riveted to the roman curia.

      He set out, travelling through all northern Italy, in his capacity as Papal Legate, that is equipped with full powers, which he exercised in order to improve the Christian life of those reasons, at least within the limits granted by a brief visit, but shunning lavish welcomes and refusing to live in the castles or sumptuous dwellings of his countless relatives. 

      He entered Milan with every solemnity, mounted on a white horse, and accompanied by an uncontainably festive mass of people: it was deliberately done in such a way that the cavalcade of the Spanish governor would be among the retinue.

      The city had waited more than 70 years to have a Bishop who would finally decide to reside in the Diocese, and in all those years the only authority present in the city – that of the said Governor – had swaggered all over the place.

      In his first sermon in the Duomo he commented on the words spoken by Jesus to the disciples at the start of the last supper: “I have longed to eat this Passover with you”, and the people understood that this young Archbishop who was not yet 27 years old – already laden with ecclesiastical experience, amongst other things – had decided to spend his whole life for them, as a true servant of the Church.

      In the archiepiscopal house, he called around 100 people to share his life and his work: all exclusively belonging to the clergy, binding them unto a form of community and quasi regular life (in prayer, food, timetable).

      He prepared the archiepiscopal palace in such a way that the official apartments and rooms would maintain the decorum and luxury needed by an Archbishop (for sure paintings, tapestries and luxurious furnishings were not lacking!), but to access the private apartment of the Cardinal, he needed to go up a steep little staircase that went to the attics: there, in two little cold rooms, he could retreat, pray, study, prepare the interventions required by his high ministry. 

      When he would die, the inventory of furnishings would include: a walnut trunk, a straw mattress covered in canvas, two cushions, two footstools, a sideboard, a clock, a walnut table with little columns; and the paintings were all representations of episodes form the Passion: a Jesus in agony, the ascent to Calvary, the crowning with the thorns...  Only one painting outside this theme: a portrait of Thomas More, the noble English chancellor who had humbly known how to follow the footsteps begun by Jesus to martyrdom. 

      In public Charles Borromeo always appeared in cardinalatial robes (they said of him that “he’s never not a cardinal”); in private he wore a simple black tunic in the manner of the Jesuits.

      And the apparent contrast between public appearances and private style wisely guaranteed that his personal humility of life and heart would not serve as a pretext for whoever would have wanted to belittle the authoritative task which had been assigned to him.

      In this regard his secretary has passed onto us a touching episode that comes from the last years of his life:

      “It happened one time in Caprino in Bergamasco, I being with the Cardinal on a visit, that one night while turning over on the pallet where he was sleeping, his tunic fell on the lamp, so that the whole thing was stained.  In the morning, having called me as usual for study, when study was over I asked him why there should be such a smell of oil of the tunic.  In a most human manner he recounted to me how it had happened.  I responded to him that it would have been better to send that tunic to Milan and have them take out the stain, and have them bring another tunic for the use of his Most Illustrious Lordship.  The Lord Cardinal responded smiling at me: and what other tunic, if I don’t have another one?  I did not have another, but I’ve worn this for 14 years or more, and I have given it for the love of God.  This tunic has to do me until I die, because I consider that this should be my proper garment, that those other red and blackish gowns which I wear, are not my robes, but belong to the dignity of the cardinalate...”.

      So he began – with all the force of his dignity and with all the humility of his person – to be the watchful and untiring shepherd of his vast Diocese that took in the whole of Lombardy and extended into the Swiss valleys, in which there were at least 56 parishes.

      The entire population did not quite reach 600,000 inhabitants, and Milan accounted for around 180,000.  There were around 753 parishes in the diocese and about 2000 members of the clergy.

      He started by re-establishing his own proper authority in front of the over-whelming power of the civil authorities.

      This over-whelming power had become so strong over the years that the derisory memory was still current in Milan (from a century beforehand) of when duke Gian Maria Visconti, with the intent of sustaining his warlike enterprises, had prohibited the word “peace” from being spoken in his territories, to such an extent that even the priests during Mass had to abolish it and not say: “Lord, grant us peace”, but “Grant us , Lord, tranquillity”.

      Milan had lost its independence in 1535: upon the death of Francesco II Sforza, the duchy had become a province of the empire of Charles V and , lacking a resident Bishop, the Spanish governor was used to laying down the law for everyone.

      The first serious conflict broke out when the new Archbishop demanded that a break be put on the city carnival that by then started at Christmas and culminated in the first Sunday of Lent, which had become the most chaotic and vulgar day, sweeping away every liturgical tradition and all modesty.

      Charles was accused of being a moralist, of wanting to take away the people’s legitimate fun.  Sure one can be cheerful at the thought of people in masks, between merry-go-rounds, dances, fairs and tournaments, for eight to ten weeks a year, but it also causes much sadness when we realise that it was (and also today, in more diffuse and sophisticated forms) a vulgar way to keep the people slaves and foreigners to themselves and to their true interests.

      In reality the issue of the carnival dragged behind it a thousand other claims that the civil authorities boasted over patronages and benefits, convents and monasteries, and even over pastoral matters.

      During Cardinal Borromeo’s time in Milan there were 4 Spanish governors and, with the first 3, there was non-stop war: the most pig-headed of these governors reached the point of having posters displayed on the doors of churches which described the Archbishop as “an ignorant and scandalous man, untrustworthy, suspected by the sovereign, unjust, reckless, lacking common sense, and unworthy of his homeland (i.e. Spain!).

      Charles felt constrained to excommunicate him.  But when the haughty Spaniard was on his deathbed he only wished to be assisted by that stubborn and holy Archbishop.

      An even more serious battle was the one where Charles opposed the decision of Philip II to set up a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition at Milan, notoriously the most ferocious inquisition and directly dependant on the monarch.  It didn’t just serve to defend the faith, but for political ends, excessively extending those powers which were tightly controlled in the ecclesiastical (Roman) inquisition.

      The Roman inquisition could not occupy itself with non-believers (Jews or Infidels), it never accepted anonymous accusations, it did not allow summary trials, it was mild in punishments and easy to grant pardon.  All limits that the Spanish inquisition, with direct dependence on the sovereign, swept away in a cruel and frightful manner.

      Charles was already opposed to the attempts of Philip II to found a tribunal of his inquisition at Milan while he was still in Rome.  He continued to oppose it in the years to come, even resisting weaknesses of the Pope who at times seemed ready to bow to Spanish requests (others say that the Pope only bowed because he was sure that Charles would be opposed...).

      In the end even Philip II would come to bow before the famous sanctity of Borromeo, sending a new governor from Madrid instructing him to act as “minister” to the Archbishop and even affirming that “the king of Spain would be very happy if all the cities of his kingdom would have bishops like the one in Milan”.

      Equally epic were the battles that Charles had to carry on with some powerful religious institutions in the city which were particularly corrupt, such as the collegiate of canons of the Scala and the religious order of the Umiliati, who reached the point of ordering an assassination attempt: they paid a hit man, a certain Donato Farina, who got into the chapel of the Archbishop and shot him between the shoulders while he was kneeling in prayer in front of the altar. 

      No-one was able to understand how Charles was could remain unharmed, given that the shot was fired from point blank range and the cardinalatial robes on the Archbishop’s shoulders appeared to be completely burned, this also contributed to the growth of his fame. 

      Certainly Charles proved himself to be unusually severe, decided as he was to uproot every abuse: he intervened about the style of life of clergy and religious; he intervened on issues of family and social morals; he laid down prescriptions in regard to the sacramental and spiritual life of single people.

      They say that if he had been able to he would have transformed his Diocese into an immense abbey, in which life would have been totally lived out in rhythms of prayer and work, sobriety and charity.

      Above all Sundays would have been entirely directed towards prayer and spiritual formation.

        But how he had twist their arms, when they read the recommendations that he was constrained to make explaining to the faithful that in Church they must “avoid mocking talk, laughter, fatuous or obscene speech...”, or when set himself to describe the humanly unsupportable vulgarly theatrical rough behaviour of many preachers, or when he bitterly observed that “the honky-tonks and bars are always fuller and the churches always emptier”?

      Charles immediately realised that the people had the faith and that it was well rooted for centuries, but the pedagogical results, even the most basic, were absent because of the long negligence of pastors, the absence of bishops and the sloppiness of priests and religious.

      There were inveterate abuses to correct in parishes, convents and various ecclesiastical institutions; there were outdated or corrupt liturgical usages to be reformed; preaching and catechising, ignored for a long time, had to be recommenced.

      One after another he started to celebrate Diocesan Synods and Provincial Councils, legislating on all that would have regard to the dignity of worship due to God and the Christian life of the people.

      From time immemorial churches were abandoned: temples were neglected and inhospitable; presbyteries falling down and badly kept; sacred furnishing old and insufficient; tabernacles dirty and poorly adorned; the sacred rites slovenly and rough; preaching rare and vulgar; monasteries and convents relaxed and at times, even corrupt.

      Priests were neglecting their ministry and many dedicated themselves to other goods and immoral occupations.  It seems that a crude saying when around Lombardy: “If you want to go to hell, be a priest”.

      Borromeo wanted to reform everything, systematically, inexorably.  He laid down prescriptions about the beauty of liturgical vestments, the sparkle of sacred vessels, the preciousness of marbles, the harmony of music, the decorum of drawings, the updating of archives, the exactness of registers, even indicating the shape and number of candlesticks which had to adorn the altars.

      What did it matter if some contemptuously called him “the sacristan Cardinal”?  Charles had sharply perceived that a true Christian people doesn’t just believe with the head, but also with its body, eyes, hands... 

      Little by little he reorganised his Diocese in a capillary manner, creating a dense network of managers and educators who answered only to him.

      In the first place he constructed seminaries that had to guarantee a renewed clergy according to the decrees of the Council of Trent and he called in the Jesuits, the most “intellectual” Order of the time, to direct them.

      He wished that “common libraries” would be set up in all the collegiate churches, to benefit the permanent formation of the clergy.  And he went as far as furnishing his seminary with a printing house, something almost unthinkable at the time, in order that priests could arrange for spiritual texts at a good price.

      He had colleges built for the education of young nobles, colleges to give lodging and board to worthy university students who didn’t have adequate means (the famous almo collegio Borromeo of Pavia will remain).  At his own expense he had a seat at the University of Bologna constructed; he asked the Jesuits to open a University in Milan, and he also endowed it with an adequate university college.  He had another college built in Ascona on the Swiss border.

      At that time instruction was only provided for nobles: society provided nothing for the children of the general populace.  So Charles decided to supply, within the limits possible, some sort of instruction in place of the inexistent public system: he desired that every parish would have its own “school of Christian doctrine”, where they would begin by learning reading, writing and arithmetic, so much so that the first pages of the catechism were dedicated to the alphabet and to the basics of mathematics.

      Upon Charles’ death there will be around 540 of these schools with 40,098 scholars.

      The pedagogical principle that Charles gave to parents and teachers is splendid: “Recta filiorum educatio, eorum ad Christum adductio” (“Proper education of children, leads them to Christ”).

      He also placed a magister scholasticus at every collegiate, a priest who enjoyed a benefice but who had the job of teaching all the children of the area gratis et amore Dei.

      Then he looked after the institution and the diffusion of the “Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament”, which gave back “dignity and heart”  to the liturgical life of parishes and gave substantial nourishment to the devotion of the faithful. 

      Certainly the Archbishop was not loved for his severity and his reprimands, but he was intensely loved for his charity: and it was precisely for this reason that the people perceived the goodness that his prescriptions must also have had.

      On his initiative a network of charitable works were founded in the city: houses for orphans, houses for beggars, houses for children without social protection, houses for widows or abandoned women, houses for convalescents, houses for the mentally ill, houses for the homeless, pilgrims and foreigners.

      And to every house he gave magnanimous rules.  So at the hospital for beggars he prescribed: “Every sort of poor person will lodge here, be they Milanese or foreigners, men, women and children, because charity does not make differences between nations and we are all brothers in the Lord.  Foreigners and those from other dioceses were to be sent to their homeland with whatever help which will be possible, not violating them however, because they are brothers and members of the Lord”.

      And every Bishop of the metropolitan dioceses was invited to set up a Monte di Pietà to combat the scourge of usury. 

      In 1570 when a tragic famine broke out, crowds of hungry country people poured into Milan to contend with the city dwellers for what little food remained.  A crowd of tramps stayed in the centre of the city.  Everyone knew that the porticos of the Archbishop’s house had been transformed into field kitchens, where it was always possible to have a plate of hot rice and vegetables.  And every day not less than three thousand starving poor came.

      Meanwhile the site of the major seminary which was being constructed was kept open by Charles in such a way as to be able to give work to the always growing number of derelicts.

      He even interested himself in favouring new cultivations of maize, a plant not long arrived in Europe that carried notable benefits, so much so that to remember its name the people called the plant “carlone” in his honour. 

      Six years later terrible and recurrent plagues occurred.  Deaths were counted in hundreds per day and reached a figure that was placed between 13,000 and 17,000.

      The leper hospital of the Eastern Gate filled with mercy and horror and, when it was full, hovels of sick and moribund started to proliferate outside the city gates.

      As usual the civil authorities and nobles fled; doctors travelled around cautiously, distributing medicine and advice from a distance; the healthy barricaded themselves in their houses, avoiding going outside at all costs; and the city found itself abandoned into the hands of the corpse collectors who gathered up the cadavers and dedicated themselves to their base trade.

      Or at least it would have been like this if the Archbishop would not have exposed himself first, demanding a generosity without measure from his priests, and also constraining the few civil authorities remaining to do their duty.

      Every day he travelled through the streets of the city, visiting the sick and the moribund.  The doors of houses only opened for him and some trickle of charity came out, in alms or means of support, destined for the most derelict. 

      The Archbishop certainly had no more knowledge than the scientists of his time would have had: at that time no one knew anything precise either about the cause of the disease or the remedies to overcome it.

      But in the meanwhile he gave the people what he knew best: he explained to them that there was a certain relationship between the plague that destroyed bodies and the one that destroyed souls and that the same mercy of God that saves souls could also save bodies.

      Therefore he asked for conversion of heart, he suggested prayers and liturgical celebrations, he organised processions and rites of expiation...

      Already then he received criticism from those who reproached him for favouring the spread of the plague by organising these public gatherings, and maybe there was some truth in this, but Charles knew that it was not enough to avoid the spread of the plague when reasons to live were fewer and fewer and the most bestial instincts and ferocious selfishness were exploding amongst the superstitious.

      It wasn’t much use inculcating fear and prevention of contagion when family members abandoned their own loved ones at the first sign of illness, and everyone barricaded themselves into their houses, uprooting from their hearts every instinct of human solidarity.

      For the rest the wisdom with which the Archbishop sought to make the most of all the scientific knowledge which he could arrange at that time is surprising, even to our eyes.  He repeatedly engaged himself on the issue with the most famous clinicians of the university of Pavia and personally studied the best medical texts that he was able to procure.

      The hygiene guidelines which he gave to his collaborators are some of the wisest that could have been expected at that time: he demanded that all would wash themselves and change their clothes after every encounter with the sick, and even when money was distributed the coins were placed in a container of vinegar.

      He even came to the point of hurling excommunications against those who traded in clothes taken from plague victims.

      He was spiritually prepared making his will and leaving his inheritance to the Major Hospital.

      He had already donated all the fabrics, even the precious ones, kept in the cupboards of the archiepiscopal palace, which comprised red, green and violet vestments, so that they could be used as clothes and covering for the sick.  He had all the silverware sold and he even sent his own poor bed to the leper hospital.

      When the plague ended around 20,000 people were dead, but not one collaborator of the Archbishop had been infected.

      Whoever does not wish to admit a miracle must at least admit the wisdom of the hygienic norms severely inculcated by him.  They say that it was due to his prescriptions that the number of victims was less than half than in Venice in similar circumstances. 

After being worn out helping the plague victims, Charles continued to wear himself out with his never-ending pastoral visits: visits to the whole Diocese which at that time went into Veneto, Piedmont, Switzerland: there isn’t an out of the way area which he doesn’t visit at least twice.  To this was added his responsibility as metropolitan of an ecclesiastical province taking in 15 dioceses, which he also had to visit.

      Every visit lasted around 3 months, and the saint also reached the most distant parishes.  One of the most exhausting visits was in 1580 to the diocese of Brescia where he was welcomed – according to the reporter – “with manifestations of infinite and splendid joy”, amongst which were the sensational conversion of notorious heretics, the pacification of inveterate hatreds, the repentance of brigands and bandits.  One night he was constrained by bad weather to spend the night at an inn in Martinengo, the usual meeting place of a group of bandits; such was the charm of his severe sweetness that they decided to change their way of life and to confess to the holy Archbishop.  They only had difficulty in overcoming human respect, for this reason they established that the one who would have to confess first would be the one who lost a game of mora.  And on loosing, with the relative penance, was rightly their head.  We still have a letter with which Charles recommended them to the provost of Crema so that he would help them to keep faith with the proposition of changing their way of life.

      Everywhere he arrived he needed hours and hours to be able to distribute communion to all those who wished to receive it from his hands.  And when he reached  Castiglione delle Stiviere he was also able to give first communion to the little Luigi Gonzaga. 

      “It was as if an Apostle of Jesus Christ had returned to earth”, said witnesses to explain the enormous influx of people and the enthusiasm of conversions.  Even entire lands that had for a long time been in rebellion against their own bishop came to bow before him, as happened in the locality of Valcamonica. 

      He typically travelled by horse, at times at night, covering the distances in the briefest time possible.  He only took rest in presbyteries and convents, avoiding noble palaces.  At times, traversing mountain valleys, he had to prove himself talented at mountaineering, which is still celebrated in certain popular songs.  There were also worrying misadventures on the journeys or true and proper accidents from which he emerged miraculously unharmed.

      All told the fame of Charles was such that even today there is hardly a church in northern Italy and in the Swiss part of Italy that does not have an oratory or a chapel or an altar or a painting or a statue dedicated to him.  And yet at the end on his cardinalatial coat of arms he left only one word: “Humilitas” (“Hunility”)! 

      Meanwhile Charles had become poorer and penitent, supposing that such could have been possible.

      He prayed long and intensely, he slept on straw, he ate little, he wore threadbare clothes and worked uninterruptedly.  At times, when they called him for dinner, he said: “Too soon!”, indicating that he still had work to attend to.  They left him for an hour or so, then called him again.  “Now it’s too late!”, he said with a humble and a little mischievous smile, and he was prepared to take what little bit of rest that he granted himself.  He never wished that they would heat up his bed and he said that “there is an easy way to find a warm bed: that is to come in the long vigil when our body is colder than the bed”.  It was not masochism: Charles was simply remembering the long years passed amongst comforts and riches (when he delighted in hunting, societal games and the cello), and it never seemed to him that he had appreciated enough the art of being like his Crucified Lord.  He went to confession every day and always found some sin over which to cry.

      One day when he was distributing communion a particle fell on the ground, he punished himself for this negligence with a week of fasting and staying four days without celebrating.

      Certainly it seems to us an exaggerated scruple, but how would it have seemed to one who lived only for the love of the Crucified one and the Eucharist.

      To those who reproached him for excessive penances he responded: “To give light to others the candle must consume itself...  This is what we must do”.

      The fame of his penances was so widely spread that invitations to moderation reached him from every part.  Even the Pope sent him a Brief (really an official document) obliging him to take care of his health.  But it arrived to late.

      When he breathed his last – after a brief agony passed by contemplating with extreme emotion the paintings of the passion of Christ which he had in his room and which he had placed around his bed – Charles Borromeo was only 46.

      They say that his last words were: “Behold, Lord, I am arriving...”.

      When, late in the evening of 3rd November 1584 the funeral bells tolled from the height of the Duomo, a river of people poured into the square of the archbishop’s house: men, women, children, priests and religious sought to invade the archiepiscopal house to reach their father and shepherd.  They all wanted “to see the saint”. 

      No Bishop had ever stirred up such affection and veneration in the people, as did Charles Borromeo, notwithstanding his inflexibility (which however was known to be sweet).  They called him “Father of the poor”.

      Even the civil authorities felt constrained to write to Rome, sending condolences to the Pope and declaring that Charles had known how to gain himself in Milan (these are their exact words) “an incredible love”.