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 JMC : Saint Thomas Aquinas / by Raïssa Maritain

XIV The Miracles of the Roses and the Star

HE gave to the poor all that he could, keeping for himself nothing that he did not actually need, and if he knew that someone was in want, he did not even provide for himself one day ahead.

Once in his youth when he was on vacation with his father at the Castle of Belcastro he went to comfort the prisoners and to help the poor.

His father, who did not like him to be a spendthrift, even in works of mercy, surprised him one day with his arms full of packages, and suddenly all the alms that he was carrying were turned into lilies and roses.

Above the great door where the poor people were waiting for Tomaso, someone has since sculptured lilies and roses in memory of this miracle. And in a very little old chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas "one can see the Saint shown in a painting with a bouquet of roses and other flowers in his hand."

Later God performed another miracle in the same place.

Each year a star shone above the Castle of Belcastro, from the first to the second vespers of the feast of Saint Thomas -- a brilliant star which even the sun could not efface from view. Everyone in the city of Belcastro could see it. And this star was seen as long after the death of the saint as 1673.

We do not know what has become of it since.

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