November 26 Saint Sylvester Gozzolini: Abbott and Founder of the Sylvestrines.

November 26 Saint Sylvester Gozzolini: Abbott and Founder of the Sylvestrines.
177-1267
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Born of a noble family at Osimo in Picenum, St. Sylvester was remarkable even as a boy for his scholarship and his good character. He first began the study of civil law in Bologna and Padua in Italy in 1197. Renouncing civil law, he studied theology and was ordained in 1217 in the diocese of Osimo, Italy.
His father was so upset with the change that he refused to speak to his son for ten years. Canon in Osimo, Italy; he benefited the people by his example and his preaching, and his ministry was so successful that his local bishop became jealous.
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When, at the funeral of a certain dead nobleman, he saw the decaying corpse of the handsome man who had been his neighbor, he said, “I am what this man was; what he is, I shall be”; and soon, from a desire for greater perfection, he withdrew into solitude and there devoted himself to vigils, prayers and fasting, living on herbs and water, sleeping on the ground, and spending his time in study and prayer. That he might hide more completely from men’s eyes, he changed his location several times.
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His reputation for learning and holiness attracted many students. He received a vision of Saint Benedict of Nursia in 1231 and understood that he should form his spiritual students into a formal community.He went to Monte Fano; a place deserted at that time, where he built a church in honor of St. Benedict and laid the foundation of the Congregation of the Sylvestrines, a house devoted to strict adherence to the Benedictine Rule, and built on the site of an old pagan temple that Sylvester destroyed.The Order, known as a the Sylvestrines or Blue Benedictines, was approved by Pope Innocent IV in 1247. There his monks saw in him a wonderful model of holiness.In the Thirteenth Century, when many Benedictine monasteries in Italy had lost much of their former holiness and learning, St. Sylvester succeeded in infusing new vitality into the ancient Order, by founding a monastic family which by the blessing of God transformed several Religious houses, and was distinguished by the sanctity of its members. His Order numbered twenty-five houses in Italy when its founder died in 1267 at the age of ninety. He was famous for the spirit of prophecy, for power over demons and for other gifts, which in his deep humility he always kept hidden.
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The feast of Saint Sylvester was introduced into the universal Church Calendar by Pope Leo XIII, who in doing so paid him the honor rendered by the Church to the founders of Religious Orders.
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Eternal Father, I wish to honor St. Sylvester Gozzolini, and I give Thee thanks for all the graces Thou hast bestowed upon him. I ask Thee to please increase grace in my soul through the merits of this saint, and I commit the end of my life to him by this special prayer, so that by virtue of Thy goodness and promise, St. Sylvester Gozzolini might be my advocate and provide whatever is needed at that hour. Amen.