Blessed Anthony Bonfadini

Blessed Anthony Bonfadini

Feast Day - November 30

Blessed Anthony Bonfadini was a member of a noble family of Ferrara, Italy, and spent the early part of his life enjoying the leisure of amusements of court life. At the age of thirty-nine, he abandoned his comfortable existence to join the Franciscan Order and, having obtained his doctorate in theology, was ordained a priest.

Blessed Anthony Bonfadini became a renowned preacher throughout Italy and a zealous missionary in the Holy Land, his labors being crowned with innumerable conversions and miracles.

On his return from the Holy Land, Blessed Anthony stopped at Cotignola to preach, took violently ill, and died at a pilgrims’ inn. Many miracles were attributed to him after his death, and Cotignola, spared from calamities in 1630, 1688, and 1696, credits these favors to his intercession.

Blessed Anthony Bonfadini

In 1495 his body was transferred to the Church of the Observant Friary founded by Bl. Angelo Carletti de Chivasso, where a special chapel was erected for him in 1666. Pope Leo XIII confirmed his cult in 1901, and in the following year the recognition of his incorrupt body took place.

The sacred relic was last officially examined in 1945, and the body is still well preserved, even though the glass case that contained it was destroyed during the aerial bombardments of World War II. The body of the Beatus is exposed for the veneration of his clients at Cotignola during the week following Easter.

*from the book, The Incorruptibles, by Joan Carroll Cruz, TAN books

The incorruptible bodies of saints are a consoling sign of Christ's victory over death, a confirmation of the dogma of the Resurrection of the Body, a sign that the Saints are still with us in the Mystical Body of Christ, and proof of the truth of the Catholic Faith—for only in the Catholic Church do we find this phenomenon. Impr. 342 pgs 33 Illus, PB.

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