Oil Dedicated to St Francis of Rome

Description

Oil Dedicated to St Francis of Rome, Obl.S.B.(Italian: Santa Francesca Romana. Latin: Sāncta Francisca Rōmāna) (1384 – March 9, 1440). Is an Italian saint who was a wife, mother, mystic. Organizer of charitable services and a Benedictine oblate who founded a religious community of oblates. Who share a common life without religious vows.

Frances was born in 1384 in Rome to a wealthy and aristocratic couple, Paolo Bussa and Iacobella dei Roffredeschi, in the up-and-coming district of Parione and christened in the nearby Church of St. Agnes on the famed Piazza Navona.[1] When she was eleven years old, she wanted to be a nun, but, at about the age of twelve, her parents forced her to marry Lorenzo Ponziani, commander of the papal troops of Rome and member of an extremely wealthy family. Although the marriage had been arranged, it was a happy one, lasting for forty years.

During a period of forced exile, much of Lorenzo’s property and possessions destroyed. In the course of one occupation of Rome by Neapolitan forces in the early part of the century, he wounded so severely that he never fully recovered. Frances nursed him throughout the rest of his life.

Frances experienced other sorrows during her marriage to Lorenzo. They lost two children to the plague. Chaos ruled the city in that period of neglect by the pope and the ongoing warfare between him and the various forces competing for power on the Italian peninsula devastated the city. The city of Rome largely in ruins, and wolves known to enter the streets. Frances again opened her home as a hospital and drove her wagon through the countryside to collect wood for fire and herbs for medicine. It said she had the gift of healing, and over 60 cases attested to during the canonization proceedings.