St. Charles of Sezze

St. Charles of Sezze was born Giovanni Carlo Marchionni on 22 October 1613 at Sezze near Rome, of a poor farming family. Unlettered and intended for the land, he felt drawn to God and, after recovering from illness, entered the Franciscans of the Strict Observance as a lay brother about 1635. For the rest of his life he served in various friaries in and around Rome in the humblest offices, as cook, porter, gardener, and beggar for alms.

Beneath this hidden life of manual labor lay a soul of profound prayer and mystical grace; he was granted deep experiences of God and, on one occasion, received a wound of divine love in his heart. Though of little schooling, he wrote, at the bidding of his superiors, an autobiography and spiritual treatises of remarkable insight, which have taken their place among the classics of Franciscan mysticism. Humble, cheerful, and full of charity, he was sought out for counsel even by the great, and attended a dying pope. He died in Rome on 6 January 1670 and was canonized in 1959. His memory is kept on 6 January.