>Today, 5 May, is the feast of ...
>
>* Angelo, martyr (1220) - Paul Chandler we need your sage insights once
>again to enlighten us about this Carmelite saint. (If you are in
>Kalamazoo, we will patiently await your return for your learned reply!)
>
>Carolyn Muessig
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As my confrere Paul seems out-of-contact at the moment, perhaps a reply
from another Carmelite might be acceptable.
Saint Angelo of Sicily is a Carmelite saint who achieved great
popularity in Sicily and throughout the Carmelite Order during the Middle
Ages. His fame rested largely on a legendary life written by a certain
"Enoc, Carmelite patriarch of Jerusalem" supposedly in the early 1300's.
Fr. Ludovico Saggi, a one-time member of the Carmelite Institute here in
Rome, exposed this work by Enoc as a forgery some years ago, attributing it
to an unknown Sicilian author writing in the first half of the 15th cent
and commented that it "... is not worthy of any trust, in spite of certain
elements which are confirmed from other sources."
The basic details for which there is independent evidence would
seem to be that Angelo was one of the first Carmelites to come to Sicily
from Mount Carmel c.1235, and was killed in Licata by an "impious infidel"
so meriting the title of martyr.
One episode from the legendary account is that Angelo is supposed
to have visited Rome where he met St. Francis and St. Dominic in the
Lateran Basilica. St. Francis prophesied that Angelo would be martyred
and, in return, Angelo predicted that Francis would receive the stigmata.
This meeting has been well represented in Carmelite iconography.
The essential reference work on all this is L. Saggi, "S. Angelo di
Sicilia; studio sulla vita, devozione, folklore" Rome: 1962. (After which
it was rumoured that Fr. Saggi never dared go back to Sicily!)
John Bale records a poem which he saw in front of the statue of St. Albert
in the Carmelite house in London (c1525) which may be translated as:
I am holy Albert, second to none in piety
To me came virtue early in life
To me come all who are sick, feeble or in pain,
Whatever the fault, of body or of soul
Hence my repute and great honour for the Creator
And through me, the greatest love in the world.
Richard Copsey
Richard Copsey, O.Carm.
Institutum Carmelitanum,
Via Sforza Pallavicini 10
00193 Roma
Italy
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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