Bernardino of Siena (sometimes Bernardine) (Massa Marittima 8 September 1380 – Aquila, Italy 20 May 1444) was an Italian priest, Franciscan missionary, and Catholic saint.
Saint Bernardino is the patron saint of advertising, communications, compulsive gambling, respiratory problems, any problems involving the chest area. He is the patron saint of Carpi (Italy), the Philippine barangay Kay-Anlog, barangay Tuna in Cardona, Rizal and the diocese of San Bernardino, California. Siena College, a Franciscan Catholic liberal arts college in New York state, was named after him and under his spiritual patronage.
Bernardino was born in 1380 to the noble Albizeschi family in Massa Marittima (Tuscany), a Sienese town of which his father was then governor. Left orphaned at six, he was raised by a pious aunt. On the completion of his education he spent some years in the service of the sick in the hospitals. While he was studying civil and canon law in Siena, he worked in the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala throughout the bubonic plague outbreak of 1400 and even urged other young men to stay and help. He thus caught the plague, of which he nearly died. In 1403 he joined the Observant branch of the Order of Friars Minor, with a strict observance of Francis' Rule. He was ordained a priest in 1404 and was commissioned as a preacher in 1405.[1]
For more than 30 years, St Bernardino preached all over Italy, and played a great part in the religious revival of the early fifteenth century. His success was claimed to be remarkable. Enormous crowds came to hear him speak. It was said that feuds and factionalism were reconciled by his counsel and that miracles took place. Donations to the Holy Name of Jesus (which he preached particularly) increased dramatically. Furthermore, "bonfires of vanities" were held at his sermon sites, where people were encouraged to burn objects of temptation. In 1425, he preached every day for seven weeks in Siena.
In 1427 he was summoned to Rome to stand trial on charges of heresy, with theologians including Paulus Venetus present to give their opinions. Bernardino was found innocent of heresy, and he impressed Pope Martin V sufficiently that Martin requested he preach in Rome. He was acquitted and thereupon preached every day for 80 days. A typical sermon would last for an hour, but some lasted for more than four. Bernardino's zeal was such that he would prepare up to four drafts of a sermon before starting to speak. That same year, he was offered the bishopric of Siena, but declined in order to maintain his monastic and evangelical activities. In 1431, he toured Tuscany, Lombardy, Romagna, and Ancona before returning to Siena to prevent a war against Florence. Also in 1431, he declined the bishopric of Ferrara, and in 1435 he declined the bishopric of Urbino.
Saint John Capistran was his friend, and Saint James of the Marches was his disciple during these years. Both Pope Martin V and Pope Eugene IV were urged by their cardinals to condemn Bernardino, but both almost instantly acquitted him. A trial at the Council of Basel ended with an acquittal too. The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund sought Bernardino's counsel and intercession and the future saint accompanied him to Rome in 1433 for his coronation.
Soon thereafter, he withdrew again to Capriola to compose a series of sermons. He resumed his missionary labours in 1436, but was forced to abandon them in the following year, when he became vicar-general of the Observant branch of the Franciscans in Italy. In 1438, Bernardino was elevated to vicar-general of the Franciscan Order in Italy. This cut back his opportunities to preach, but he continued to speak to the public when he could. Having in 1442 persuaded the pope to accept his resignation as vicar-general so that he might give himself more undividedly to preaching, Bernardino again resumed his missionary labours. Despite a Papal Bull issued by Eugene IV in 1443 which charged Bernardino to preach the indulgence for the Crusade against the Turks, there is no record of his having done so. In 1444, notwithstanding his increasing infirmities, Bernardino, desirous that there should be no part of Italy which had not heard his voice, set out to the Kingdom of Naples. He died that year at L'Aquila, in the Abruzzi. According to tradition, his grave continued to leak blood until two factions of the city achieved reconciliation.
Reports of miracles attributed to Bernardino multiplied rapidly and Bernardino was canonized in 1450, only six years after his death, by Pope Nicholas V. His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is on 20 May, the day of his death.
