XXI. "Glorified in the sight of all the people."

Leviticus, x, 3

Thirty years after Sister Theresa Margaret's death, Monsignor Incontri's successor in the Archbishopric of Florence, Monsignor Martini, gave the nuns permission to move the Servant of God's body to a drier place than the Monastery wall in which it had been entombed. On June 16, 1783, His Grace, himself, presided at the transfer of the remains. Accompanied by that most fortunate of fathers, Cavalier Ignatius Redi, by Friar Ildephonse, a few other distinguished persons, and some of the religious, the Archbishop descended into the underground burial-place and, with due formality, had the body exhumed. To the wonder of all it was found to be incorrupt. Doctor Romiti, whose testimony is confirmed by the depositions of three physicians who were eye-witnesses, inspected the remains and made an exact report of what he found. After formal acknowledgment of these findings, the blessed body was washed, reclothed, placed in a new pine coffin, and re-immured in another part of the crypt-wall.[1]

Five years later, the nuns asked permission to move the body from the common burial place to some part of the Monastery easy of access at least to the religious and within occasional sight of the pious laity. They felt that this transfer should be made in justice to the Saint herself, for the stream of petitions for her intercession and the stream of favors granted through that intercession remained constant. An appeal was made to Pope Pius VII., who was returning from France where he had taken part in Napoleon's coronation. At the request of Queen Maria Louisa of Tuscany, His Holiness visited Saint Theresa's Convent when passing through Florence on his way to Rome. The Prioress, Mother Anna Maria of St. Anthony of Padua (Piccolomini), once Sister Theresa Margaret's Sub-Mistress of Novices, humbly begged the Holy Father to permit the transfer of the Saint's body. Permission was readily and cheerfully given. The Pope had a special reason for his interest in the Order, for his own mother, widowed at the age of forty-two, had become a Discalced Carmelite, after her son, now Pius VII., had been professed in the Order of Saint Benedict as Dom Gregory Barnabas Chiaramonti. The Pope derived his noble blood from both parents; his father was a prince of the House of Chiaramonti, his mother a countess of the House of Ghini di Cesena. After a most holy life in the Carmelite Monastery of Fano as Sister Theresa, Beloved of Jesus and Mary, the Princess Chiaramonti took flight to Heaven on November 22, 1773.

Before giving final consent for the transfer of Sister Theresa Margaret's remains, the Pontiff consulted the Archbishop of Florence. It was decided, finally, to move the precious body from the crypt to the choir, where the body of Mother Agnes of Jesus (Lomellini), foundress of the Monastery, already reposed. On June 21, 1805, sacred to Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Sister Theresa Margaret's model, and that year, as it happened, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, there entered the Monastery for the official inspection of the body the following: His Grace, the Archbishop of Florence, His Lordship, the Bishop of Fiesole, the Priors of Saint Lawrence's and Saint Ambrose's Monasteries, the Vicar General of Florence, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese, the physicians, and several others officially necessary for the acts of examination and authentication. Later in the afternoon, there arrived the Queen Regent.

After the coffin had been taken from the wall and acknowledged, through recognition of the intactness of the seals, as that of the Saint, it was opened, and the body of Theresa Margaret Redi lay exposed to view. At first sight, the face appeared to be coveredby a cloth-like substance which investigation showed to be merely a coating of mold. This was carefully and lightly removed by the use of a small, soft brush in the hands of Doctor Romiti; Sister Theresa Margaret's features could then be distinctly seen.

The body was then taken from its box and carefully placed on a white-sheeted table in the Chapter-room, to be thoroughly inspected by the physicians. The following is a résumé of their findings ... the whole body of healthy flesh color, somewhat dry but, nevertheless, surprisingly elastic and pliable, even in the soft parts between the ribs and groin; the color of the hair on the head vivid and fresh, that of the eyebrows golden-blond, with the appearance of life in it; the wound made in the right foot by the surgeon that bled her still visible, but healed and of good color. During the process of inspection, His Majesty, Charles Louis, Infante of Spain and King of Tuscany, arrived, accompanied by his suite.

After the inspection, the nuns washed the blessed body and reclothed it in the holy habit. It was then enclosed in a double coffin, which was sealed by the archdiocesan officials, and forthwith immured behind the choir-stalls. Since then, whenever the rapidly changing policies of the ruling powers have forced the nuns to abandon one monastery and come together in another, Theresa Margaret Redi's marvelously incorrupt body has always reposed behind the choir-stalls of that Monastery housing her community.

On April 14, 1839, Pope Gregory XVI., declared Theresa Margaret Redi "Venerable." In our day, by Pope Pius XI., she has been pronounced "Blessed" and canonized a "Saint."

The two miracles that were presented to and approved by the Holy See as fulfilling one of the requisites for her Beatification are, to say the least, worthy of brief mention. The first was the instantaneous and absolute cure of "quick consumption" in the case of Sister Maria Ducci, religious of the Calasanctian convent near Ardenza in Livorno. All physicians had pronounced Maria Ducci incurable; no earthly remedies could make her well but might make her early death easier. One night, during a novena to Venerable Theresa Margaret, Sister Maria, in the stupor of pain and drowsiness, suddenly felt the sensation of something extremely heavy being lifted from her chest. The sensation was so new and strange that the awakened religious thought she was breathing her last and screamed, "I am dying!" She then heard a soft and caressing voice whisper near her ear, "Little sleepy-head, you are not dying; on the contrary, you are cured!" Cured she was! A thorough medical examination showed that even the scars had faded from her lungs!

The second miracle was the cure, in 1923, of Henrietta Giorgi, of Siena. This young woman had suffered from all sorts of diseases of the bones and muscles; finally something having the symptoms of Pott's Disease encompassed them all. Shortly after the physicians had pronounced her incurable, paralysis set in. After she had made a novena of prayer to Venerable Theresa Margaret, Henrietta Giorgi was suddenly cured not only of paralysis but also of that disease that had been the source and cause of all her other illnesses and afflictions, and cured so definitely and in so striking a manner that, as the medical records show, the fact can be the result of only supernatural causes. The radiograph made by Professor Bordoni three and one half years after the miracle shows the cure to have been complete and perfect.

Pope Pius XI., now gloriously reigning, in the desire that this young Carmelite, Theresa Margaret Redi, be a model and guide to us in these socially awry days "when the world quite evidently is bewildered and distracted by earthly greed, while so many souls are losing or already seem to have lost the sense of spiritual values and wander hither and thither in vain search of joy, of power, of the pride of life, while so many souls, too, once spotless, suffer themselves to be dragged down so low as to seem to have lost the sweet perfume and chaste beauty of modesty, reverence, and purity"[2] on June 9, 1929, decreed to her the honors of the Blessed ... made her a "Beata."

The moment the Decree of Beatification had been published favors and miracles through Blessed Theresa Margaret's intercession became both numerous and widespread; so constant was the stream of these divine manifestations that, on December 10, 1930, Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XI., signed with his own hand the "Commission" to institute the Cause of Canonization. The next year there were inaugurated in Florence the apostolic processes to examine, discuss, and determine two outstanding miracles, that had taken place since Theresa Margaret Redi's Beatification.

The first was the cure of a baby boy of four who, in May, 1930, had been taken with acute appendicitis that had rapidly developed into peritonitis. The child's name is Renzo Garbagni. His father is a medical doctor and professor at the State University, Florence. The child's life was despaired of, and mother and father, in deepest grief, were awaiting his death. In realization that the child was beyond human aid, the mother sewed a relic of Blessed Theresa Margaret to the child's night-dress. The child fell asleep, and the mother left the room for a few moments. On her return, she found that the child had no temperature. When she had left him, he was hot with fever, so, mistaking the coolness of his hands for the chill of death, she cried out to the father that the child was dead. The father discovered at once that the freshly cool hands belonged to a little boy that had been instantly and absolutely cured of a disease that had traveled far beyond the field of earthly endeavors and remedies.

The second miracle was the instantaneous and absolute cure of an old woman of seventy-seven, Fulvia Razzi-Farsetti, of Florence, who, seven years before had been knocked down and injured by a bicycle. Her left thigh-bone had been fractured; one consequence was that her joints stiffened to such an extent that she could never kneel and could walk only with the aid of a crutch on one side, while being held up on the other by a friend or relative. On November 13, 192, she was taken to Saint Paulinus' Church where solemn services were being held in honor of the new Beata, Theresa Margaret Redi. Her aged husband was, with the greatest difficulty, helping her limp nearer and nearer the urn in which reposed Blessed Theresa Margaret's body when, in pity, a young policeman guarding the tomb stepped forward, took the elderly woman in his arms, and deposited her at the very side of the urn. Fulvia Razzi, in almost automatic obedience to an impulse which she had not been able to follow for over seven years, knelt in prayer before the urn. After a few minutes of silent prayer, she obeyed another impulse ... stood up, threw her crutch aside, and, to the astonishment of the multitude in the church, walked with vigorous step, a healed woman! Subsequent physical examination and X-ray photographs revealed a complete cure!

These are the two miracles wrought through the intercession of Theresa Margaret Redi after her Beatification which were proposed to the Holy See as fulfilling one of the necessary conditions for her Canonization. The Sovereign Pontiff, to whom is reserved this august and formal act of the Church, proceeded, just as he had with her Beatification, freely and gladly, yet most majestically, to raise Theresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the altars, numbering her forever with the recognized Saints of God. The gleaming lily of Florence's Carmel, now the "lily" of Italy just as that other youthful Carmelite, Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, is the "rose" of France, was canonized on the feast-day of her beloved Protector, Saint Joseph, March 19, 1934, in the splendor and glory of the solemn rites of that Church whose mysticism she has enhanced by her life of complete union with God while still a member of the earthly portion of the Mystical Body of His Christ.

* * * * * * * *

Carmel has now a new Angel! A fleeting vision from Heaven, she dwelt with us on this poor earth a little while, and now has passed from our midst and is hidden in God's infinity whence shines down upon us, whose exile in this vale of tears must still endure, her vital, pure, and brilliant radiance, eternal testimony to her goodness and greatness.

Today all Carmel exults! Those dear Sisters of hers, in deep emotion, kiss the Briefs of Beatification and Canonization so long awaited, and kneel in reverence and worship before those sacred remains which, by the favor of God, are still marvelously incorrupt.[3] That sacred body which was immured in an obscure tomb for so many years today seems to speak anew, seems to invite all to climb the steep and narrow path of that grandeur which has conquered so many generations of silence.

Carmel, in truth, has now one more Angel, an Angel in Heaven watching and praying, praying that the sacred flame she left as a legacy to her Sisters may never be extinguished in her beloved Monastery, praying that those dear nuns may live and die following her example in the exact observance of all rules and customs of their Holy Order, hidden from the sight of men, known only to God, praying, too, for her Carmelite brothers, that in their hearts may more strongly burn the fire of Divine Love that shall enable them to immolate themselves and to suffer for truth and virtue!

She is praying for the whole Carmelite Order that, in these days of decadent spirituality, zeal for the discipline of regular life falter not, and that the spirit of the "Desert," the spirit of self-effacement and penance on the mount of contemplation, ever flourish. She is praying for her two dear cities, Arezzo and Florence. She is praying for the Church and for the Sovereign Pontiff, ... yes, especially for the Pontiff whose heart, as Bougaud[4] says, "resembles That of Jesus Christ, for it is crowned with thorns, it is bruised, it sheds blood, yet, thanks be to God, it sends forth fire, too, for within it is that holy flame that illumes and consumes." May, therefore, this Angel obtain from the Sacred Heart "that this flame increase and that from the Sovereign Pontiff it surge forth and spread over the hearts of the Bishops and set them on fire, and from the hearts of the Bishops spread over those of all the faithful, that all together may be consumed and buried in the Heart of Jesus Christ!"

[1] It was on this occasion that Cavalier Redi, in testimony of his love and reverence, left tied to his daughter's finger a beautiful and costly diamond ring that had belonged to his deceased wife. At the time of Sister Theresa Margaret's Beatification, the nuns who clothed the sacred body in a new habit were easily able, because of the hand's flexibility, to slip this ring upon the finger it now adorns.

[2] Excerpt from the Papal Discourse of March 3, 1928, on the occasion of the reading of the Decree of Approbation of the two miracles offered in fulfilment of one of the prerequisites for Beatification.

[3] The incorrupt state of the Saint's body is remarkable. The eyes are open. In certain lights one can see the blue of the iris, which is so clear and true that it gives the impression of life.

[4] From "Panegyric on Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque."

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