May 18: Saint Felix of Cantalice, Capuchin Friar Minor

The “Friar Deo gratias” 

He was called the “Friar Deo gratias”, because that was how he greeted people he met. For forty years, in fact, he wandered the streets of Rome asking for alms, taking advantage of the opportunity to give spiritual advice to commoners and aristocrats. He is Felice Porro, known as Saint Felix of Cantalice, for the name of the place where he was born in the province of Rieti in 1515. As a child he moved to Cittaducale to serve a family as a shepherd and farmer. He devoted himself to reading the Lives of the Fathers and the desire to lead an austere existence grew in him. 

In the early months of 1544, he chose to enter the Capuchin Friars Minor. After completing his novitiate year in the town of Fiuggi, in May 1545, he made his religious profession in the convent of San Giovanni Campano. He remained for almost two years in the convents of Tivoli and Viterbo-Palanzana. Towards the beginning of 1548, he moved to Rome, to the convent of Saint Bonaventure, now Santa Croce and San Bonaventura dei Lucchesi.

He led a life of prayer and penance, sleeping only two or three hours, to spend the rest of the night in church. On Sundays he would visit the Seven Churches and visited the sick in the various hospitals. He had several mystical experiences including the apparition to him of the Virgin Mary.

It is said that he used to recommend: "If you do not know the way to go to Heaven, go with a sorry face to Mary, who is clement and pious: she will teach you the way to go to Heaven".

He became friends with Saint Philip Neri and with Felice Peretti, of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, to whom he predicted the election as Pope. His prediction came about in 1585 with the election of Peretti, who adopted the name of Sixtus V. Felix was canonized by Pope Clement XI on May 22, 1712.

His body rests in the church of the Immaculate Conception on Via Veneto in Rome.