THE DAWN OF A FIERY SUNSET

One of the main arteries of Arezzo is the Corso Vittorio Emanuele which traverses the town from one of the main gates to the Piazza of the Duomo. In the eighteenth century the property belonging to the Redi family comprised a number of edifices, the principal one of which formed the angle of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the street named after the family: Via dei Redi.

Anna Mary Redi was born in one of these houses on the 15th of July, 1747. Her father, Ignatius, was a Cavalier of Arezzo, nephew of the poet and naturalist, Francis. Her mother, Camille, was a lady of Siena of the Ballato family and of high lineage. She always lived in the fear of God and in true Christian charity. The day after her birth, Anna Mary was regenerated by the waters of Baptism to the life of grace. Her father has left us a document recording the fact thus; "I had her receive the Holy Sacrament of Baptism July 16, 1747, in the Cathedral of St. Peter of Arezzo. It was administered to her by the Very Rev. Canon John Baptist, my brother, and her Godfather was the most Eminent Cardinal Henry Enriquez, of saintly memory, then Legate of Ravenna. She was held up to the font by Monsignor Bali and Gregory Redi, my father".

Besides Anna Mary, who was the second child, Ignatius Redi had twelve more children, five of whom died in their infancy. From her childhood Anna Mary appeared to be abundantly supplied with Divine grace, not seeking anything from the very start but the Will of God.

Later, interrogated by Father Ildephonsus of St. Louis Gonzaga, a discalced Carmelite friar, if she had begun from earliest childhood to render to God the homage of her heart, she, persuaded that every man as soon as he comes to know of this Supreme Goodness must necessarily follow the dictates of love towards Him, replied ingenuously: "But everyone does that".

"With this phrase," says her father, "she used to reply to other similar questions, thinking in her simplicity that it was the usual and universal way for all Christians to behave. I saw clearly this conversion of her own loving will to God when she was but five years old. I saw too, that she never admitted any other love into her heart — she applied all the energies of her soul to know and to love Him."

What wonder then, that upon hearing stories of the Saints and tales of the sufferings and efforts of the martyrs, or perchance about the Sacred Passion of Our Lord, she would weep in sympathy.

St. Thomas Aquinas, at the age of five, used to tire his instructors, the monks of Montecassino, with the solemn and insisting question: "Who is God?" They had spoken to him many a time of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, but the child was not satisfied. He thirsted to know the immutable Eternal Being and His glorious attributes, to be able later to recount them in immortal words to all men.

"Tell me, then, who is God?" Anna Mary asked her mother, throwing herself into her mother's arms and keeping her eyes fixed on her while anxiously awaiting the reply. Her mother would picture to the child the vision of fields ablaze with flowers, or the heavens lit with stars and sometimes a chain of mountains scintillating in the rays of the sun. "God, my child, is the Creator of everything", she answered with feeling. Anna Mary would cast up her eyes and, looking at the heavens, would exclaim "How big God must be!"

But if the mind of the child was satisfied, not so her heart, and, after a pause, she would repeat, still in wonderment: "Mother, tell me, who then is God?"

"God is love", replied the good lady. "God has created man for love and has been pleased to live with man, to be loved by him in return." At such words the eyes of the child would sparkle with joy, and she would throw herself with abandonment into the arms of her mother. Had you seen her, you might have mistaken her for one of those angels idealized by Beato Angelico in his mystic conceptions. She would then query, half embarrassed: "I, who am so small, what can I do to please Him?"

These were the first vibrations of a heart that was yearning to find that Supreme Goodness in Whom alone she could find peace and rest. It was the flush of dawn that was to lead to a full and inflamed sunset. It was the light, soft murmur of a canticle that later, the child then become Spouse of the King, would send up sublime, to the altar of the Celestial Spouse, and the notes of which would reecho throughout the world. The babe, from her infancy, modulated the canticle of love.

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