TO the Right Rev. JOSEPH ROSATI, first bishop of St. Louis, we are principally indebted for the following life of his venerated Superior, the Very Rev. Felix De Andreis, C. M. And no one else was as well qualified as Bishop Rosati, to describe the life and heroic virtues of that truly remarkable priest.
When in the early years of the 19th century, Professor De Andreis was lecturing on theology in Rome, before the students of his own Congregation and those of the Propaganda, among his most attentive and enthusiastic auditors was the brilliant young cleric, Joseph Rosati. Master and pupil were even then attracted towards each other—the former admiring the brightness of intellect and purity of heart of his disciple; the latter carried away by the learning and eloquence and sanctity of his professor. “When Father De Andreis took the chair,” writes the Bishop, “to give us lectures in theology, his disciples were astonished, I may almost say thunderstruck, by the richness, ease, solidity and perspicuity of his arguments. I enjoyed the great privilege of studying under him, in the house of Monte Citorio, the entire course of dogmatic theology. What I prized even more than his learning was, that while he enlightened our minds, he inflamed our hearts, his words being as so many fiery darts which pierced the inmost depths of the soul; so that when we left the school we could repeat with the two disciples who accompanied our Saviour to Emmaus: Nonne cor nostrum ardens erat in nobis, dum loqueretur nobis in via?”
After Father Rosati’s ordination to the priesthood their relations became still more intimate, their mutual affection still stronger. They left their native land together, crossed the ocean and half the continent of America to the frontier-town of St. Louis, which they reached on the i7th of October, 1817. Three years later, Father De Andreis passed to the reward of his labors. Just before his holy death he appointed Father Rosati his successor, as Superior of the Congregation of the Mission in the New World. Father Rosati was consecrated bishop, in 1824, and amid the great labors of his immense diocese, he found time to collect and put in order the data for the following life. In 1840 Bishop Rosati went to Rome and brought his manuscript, which he intrusted to the Rev. J. B. Samaria, an Oratorian priest of Turin, who agreed to collect some further information about the early life of Father De Andreis, and prepare the work for the printer. The death of the bishop in 1843, was probably the cause why the Italian life was never published.
The Rev. Francis Burlando, C. M., director of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, translated Bishop Rosati’s manuscript into English and had it published in Baltimore in 1861. The present publication is Father Burlando’s translation, with some corrections and additions. It appears quite opportunely at the present time, when the work of collecting evidence intended to prove the heroic sanctity of Father De Andreis is about to begin in this country. Already the process, which it is hoped will result in his canonization, has been set on foot in the dioceses of Rome and Placentia in Italy, and a similar proceeding will soon be inaugurated in the diocese of St. Louis, where the holy priest spent the closing years of his life, and where took place his edifying death.
Father De Andreis was a man endowed with eminent intellectual ability and a most amiable disposition; but he was principally remarkable for his great supernatural gifts. He was a poet, a linguist, a theologian and an apostle. Had he devoted his attention to literature, instead of to the salvation of the poor and the spread of the gospel of Christ, he would, no doubt, have attained to no mean eminence among men of letters.
The study of this biography will be of interest and of great benefit to all classes of Catholics. The clergy will see herein depicted an ideal priest, learned, zealous, self-denying and pious. He was highly esteemed in Rome by Pope and Cardinals and clergy, and in all probability he would have risen to eminence, had he remained there. But the voice of Bishop Dubourg of Louisiana, pleading for apostolic missionaries to evangelize the unclaimed wilderness of his immense diocese had stronger attraction for the heart of the young and brilliant priest than all the honors of the Roman Court, and the charms of his native land. The true missionary spirit which is ready to suffer all kinds of trials and difficulties in the work of the holy ministry is, mutatis mutandis, as necessary in many parts of this country today as it was in the days of De Audreis and Rosati. Priests working in poor and difficult missions will derive much consolation and encouragement from the perusal of thcse pages.
The indefatigable zeal of the servant of God, and his all to all spirit, are striking features of his life. Wherever he went and no matter how short his stay in a place, both clergy and laity, Catholics and Protestants, seemed to feel the influence of his presence. He had but one object in view and that was the glory of God. To promote this he never lost the slightest opportunity. While waiting in Bordeaux for a vessel to bring him to America, he evangelized the prisons of that city, and wrought great good among the prisoners confined in them. The Sisters of Charity rejoiced in the privilege of having him for a confessor, even for the short time of his stay. They consulted him as an oracle, and revered him as a father. The Archbishop of Bordeaux, his Vicar-General, the Canons of the Cathedral and the entire clergy, seemed to be impressed by the brief visit among them of this humble follower of St. Vincent de Paul. Similar results were produced by him in Baltimore, Pittsburg and Bardstown, where he tarried on his way from the Atlantic seaboard to St. Louis.
Religious communities, both men and women, will find much .to admire in the exactness with which the servant of God observed, and caused others to observe, the details of community-life, even in the most difficult circumstances. The vessel on which he sailed from Bordeaux to Baltimore resembled a religious house, so perfect was the order and so fervent the piety of the little baud of missionaries of whom Father De Andreis was Superior. Long journeys by stage-coach over the mountains and through the valleys of Pennsylvania, in all kinds of stormy weather, were not favorable conditions for the observance of religious rules or the recollection of community-life. Yet Bishop Rosati assures us, that during their journey by stage, from Baltimore to Pittsburg, all their exercises were strictly observed, under the magic of Father De Andreis’ direction.
For six weeks the servant of God and his companions floated down the Ohio, from Pittsburg to Louisville, in a flatboat, through the roof and sides of which snow and rain found easy entrance. Sometimes the passengers were soaked with water, and very frequently shivered with cold, as they sat, huddled together in their rude craft. Yet study, prayer, silence, recreation came in their regular order in that little community, and were strictly observed. The holy Mass was said every morning, and the Sundays and festivals were celebrated with religious solemnity. On All Souls’ Day the office of the dead was solemnly chanted on that rough flatboat, and Requiem-Mass was sung.
The laity will find in this life of a holy priest, much that will move them to a greater love for the priesthood in general and to a wider sympathy with the priest, who gives up home and family and friends, to consecrate his life to the service of God and the salvation of souls. Moreover, Father De Andreis was the pioneer of Catholic Education west of the Mississippi. One of the principal objects of his coining to this country was the opening of a seminary for the education of priests. This aim he accomplished when he founded St. Mary’s Seminary at The Barrens, in Perry County, Mo., in 1818. St. Mary’s still flourishes as the Mother-house of the Vincentian Fathers for the western province of the United States. There the body of the servant of God reposes, beside the altar of St. Vincent de Paul in St. Mary’s Church, and there his spirit keeps watch over the training of the young ecclesiastics, who are to continue in the twentieth century the work which he started in the early part of the nineteenth.
Father De Andreis spent less than three years in St. Louis, yet so high was his reputation among the people for sanctity, that the appearance of a luminous star over his body, during his funeral service, to which occurrence both Bishop Dubourg and Bishop Rosati bear witness, was looked on as a very fitting manifestation of God’s approval of so holy a life as his had been. All the people of the town esteemed him as a saint, and even to-day, eighty years after his death, the descendants of the old St. Louis’ families, —the great grandchildren of those who knew him, hold fast to the traditions and belief of their ancestors, that some day his heroic virtues will be publicly recognized by the Church, whose devoted son he was. The devout prayers of those who read this book, may do much to bring about this long cherished desire.
† JOHN J. KAIN,
Archbishop of St. Louis.