On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, EM. Kelly wrote:
I'm interested in the phenomenon of saints having physical contact with
lepers, to be specific, but if anyone can point me to examples or studies
of this form of behaviour in general, I would be most grateful. Thank
you.
> Regards,
> Elaine
Angela of Foligno describes visiting lepers in a hospital on
Maundy Thursday where "perhaps we will be able to find Christ there among
the poor, the suffering and the afflicted." She reports that she and her
companion washed the lepers feet and then drank the water. It was "so
sweet that, all the way home, we tasted its sweetness and it was as if we
had received Holy Communion. As a small scale of the leper's sores was
stuck in my throat, I tried to swallow it. My conscience would not let me
spit it out but simply to detach it from my throat."
_The Book of Blessed Angela (Memorial)_ ,Chapter 5. English
translation in _Angela of Foligno: Complete Works_. Translated by Paul
Lachance, O.F.M. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1993, pp. 162-163.
Lachance's footnote (n. 57, pp. 373-374) directs the reader to
similar reports by St. Francis' biographers in _The Legend of Perugia_,
_The Mirror of Perfection_, 1 and 2 Celano, and Bonaventure's _Legenda
major_. He also quotes Francis' Testament. Finally, he refers the reader
to Carolyn Walker Bynum's "The Female Body and Religious Practice in the
Later Middle Ages," in _Fragments for a History of the Human Body_, 163,
n.12. According to Lachance, Bynum notes Saints Francis, Angela,
Catherine of Siena, and Catherine of Genoa.
Nan Ellen Foley
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