 Pope Nicholas IV at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi |
Pope Nicholas IV at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi |
Conrad de' Miliani was born of an aristocratic family in Ascoli Piceno in the Marche region of Italy. He joined the Franciscans as a young man and studied at the university of Perugia, gaining a doctorate in theology.
BD CONRAD OF ASCOLI great a devotion to the Sacred Passion that he was sometimes allowed to behold our Lord crowned with thorns and to take part in His sufferings.
THE power of foreseeing the future is a gift which is seldom bestowed upon the young, but Conrad Miliani of Ascoli was a mere boy when, as we are told, he knelt before a peasant lad called Jerome Masci and greeted him, whether in jest or earnest, as destined to become pope. The prophecy was fulfilled in time, for Jerome in due course occupied the chair of St Peter as Nicholas IV (1288-94). Although Conrad was of noble birth, there sprang up between the two youths a close friendship which was to prove lifelong. Together they entered the Franciscan Order, together they were professed, together they studied, and they received their doctor’s degree at Perugia on the same day.
Conrad began his public career as a preacher in Rome but, called to the mission-field, he obtained leave of Jerome, by this time minister general of the order, to attempt to evangelize Libya. His success in northern Africa was great: many thousands are said to have been converted by his teaching and miracles. His external activities were the outcome of a life of extreme austerity: always going barefoot, wearing a very rough habit and fasting on bread and water four days a week.
So great was his devotion to the Sacred Passion that he was sometimes allowed to behold our Lord crowned with thorns and to take part in His sufferings. One of his special devotions was to the Trinity, and he is reported to have worked several healing miracles and even to have raised two people form the dead in its name.
Recalled to Italy, probably for reasons of health, he was selected to
accompany Jerome, who was proceeding to France as papal legate; then the envoys
returned to Rome, where Conrad spent a couple of years till he was sent to Paris
to deliver lectures in theology. Besides attending to his professorial duties he
found time to preach in the churches and to visit the sick poor in the
hospitals. In 1289 Jerome, now pope, sent for his friend, whom he wished to have
in the college of cardinals, but Conrad fell ill before he could reach Rome and
died in his native town of Ascoli. His cultus was approved by Pope Pius VI.