Historic Oddities and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Historic Oddities and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History; Mysticism; Patarines
The cure of souls he desired was not given him, no chaplaincy was
offered him. His prospect of escape seemed no better than before. He
became very impatient, and made himself troublesome in his convent. As
might have been suspected, he became restive under the priestly
obligations, as he had been under the monastic rule. It is curious that,
late in life, when Fessler wrote his memoirs, he showed himself blind to
the unworthiness of his conduct in taking on him the most sacred
responsibilities to God and the Church, when he disbelieved in both. He
is, however, careful to assure us that though without faith in his
functions, he executed them punctually, hearing confessions, preaching
and saying mass. But his conduct is so odious, his after callousness so
conspicuous, that it is difficult to feel the smallest conviction of his
conscientiousness at any time of his life.
As he made himself disagreeable to his superiors at Neustadt, he was
transferred to Mödling. There he made acquaintance with a Herr Von
Molinari and was much at his house, where he met a young Countess
Louise. "I cannot describe her stately form, her arching brows, the
expression of her large blue eyes, the delicacy of her mouth, the music
of her tones, the exquisite harmony that exists in all her movements,
and what affects me more than all--she speaks Latin easily, and only
reads serious books." So wrote Fessler in a letter at the time. He read
Ovid's Metamorphoses with her in the morning, and walked with her in the
evening. When, at the end of October, the family went to Vienna, "the
absence of that noble soul," he wrote, "filled me with the most poignant
grief." The Molinari family were bitten with Jansenism, and hoped to
bring the young Capuchin to their views. Next year, in the spring of
1781, they returned to Mödling.
"This year passed like the former; in the convent I was a model of
obedience, in the school a master of scholastic theology: in Molinari's
family a humble disciple of Jansen, in the morning a worshipper of the
muse of Louise, in the evening an agreeable social companion,"--in
heart--an unbeliever in Christianity.
A letter written to an uncle on March 12th, 1782, must be quoted
verbatim, containing as it does a startling discovery, which gave him
the opportunity so long desired, of breaking with the Order:--
"Since the 23rd February, I sing without intermission after David, in my
inmost heart, 'Praise and Glory be to God, who has delivered my enemies
into my hand!' Listen to the wonderful way in which this has happened.
On the night of the 23rd to 24th of February, after eleven o'clock, I
was roused from sleep by a lay-brother. 'Take your crucifix,' said he
'and follow me.'
"'Whither?' I asked, panic struck.
"'Whither I am about to lead you.'
"'What am I to do?'
"'I will tell you, when you are on the spot.'
"'Without knowing whither I go, and for what purpose, go I will not.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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