Christian

Canonization of Blessed Camilla Battista Varano

UPCOMING CANONIZATION OF BL. CAMILLA BATTISTA VARANO
 
During the Public Consistory on Feb. 19, the Holy Father Benedict XVI numbered our Poor Clare sister Bl. Camilla Battista Varano among the book of saints.

Biographical Profile
 
Blessed Camilla Battista Varano was born in Camerino on April 9, 1458, of both Prince Julius Caesar da Varano and Lady Cecchina di Maestro Giacomo.
 
Her life was deeply tied with the Order of Friars Minor, especially to the figures of Br. Domenico of Leonisa, Br. Pacifico, and Br. Francesco da Urbino.
 
Around the age of 8 or 10, she made a vow to meditate every Friday on the Passion of the Lord and to shed at least one tear, a vow she was able to keep with extraordinary fidelity.  From ages 18 to 21, she went through a three-year period of inner spiritual battles, allured by the things of the world, but without, however, giving up on her suffering Lord for whose love she began to lead a more ascetic way of life.  In fact, regarding this time of her interior life, she wrote with conviction that, “Blessed is the creature who, despite any temptation, never gives up the good she set out to do.”
 
During the Lent of 1479, on the vigil of the Feast of the Annunciation, she received the interior light to understand the invaluable gift of consecrated virginity.  On November 14, 1481, she was admitted into the monastery of the Poor Clares of Urbino and by the end of 1483, she made her religious profession.  During the first days of January of 1484, she returned to Camerino with 8 of her companions and on Jan. 4 she started the new community of Poor Sisters of St. Clare in the monastery her father had purchased from the Olivetan monks.  Among her many gifts was the unquenchable desire to share in the interior pains of her Redeemer during his Passion.
 
On Jan. 28, 1505, Pope Julius II, her admirer, sent her to found a new community of Clares in the city of Fermo, where she stayed for two years; she also founded another community of Clares at San Severino in the Marches during the years 1521-22.  Among her writings, worthy of notice is the section on “Purity of the Heart”.  She suffered much over the division in the Church instigated by Martin Luther.
 
She died on May 31, 1524, at the age of 66, after having lived 43 years in the intimacy of the cloister.  Her mortal remains rest in the Monastery of the Clares of Camerino.  On October 17, 2010, she will be canonized in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
 
All to the praise of Christ!  Amen!