348 BuoniCattolici
never castigated the ordinary lay faithful for failing to kneel or for using
fraudulent postures. The sick and aged properly sat down to pray, but for
others to refuse to kneel or prostrate was to ‘‘pray badly.’’ ‘‘Bodily gesture is
aid and proof of interior devotion.’’^34 During long periods of prayer, it was
best to change postures occasionally, to reflect different needs in prayer and
to avoid tedium.^35 Pietro of Foligno took this strategy to heart. His prayer
was vigorous; he used many different gestures and genuflected every time he
heard or invoked the name of Jesus. Even a moderate session at prayer left
him bathed in sweat.^36
Prayer placed the Christian in an interior sacred space, in contact with
Christ and the saints. Bodily gesture reflected interior disposition, and so the
body claimed a space for prayer. Prayer could make any place a chapel.
Umiliana dei Cerchi kept an image of Mary in the corner of her bedroom.
She was accustomed, in the darkness of night, to recite there with careful
devotion the words of the Pater Noster. She pondered each syllable with
such care that one recitation seemed sufficient to last an entire night. The
Holy Spirit rewarded her piety, appearing in the form of a white dove, hold-
ing a rosebud in its beak and hovering over the image of the Virgin.^37 Lack-
ing visits of the Holy Spirit, the laity sanctified their oratories with holy
water, a practice commended and encouraged by the Church hierarchy.
Before Mass each Sunday and feast day, the priest sprinkled the people with
a mixture of holy water and blessed salt or—even better—during Easter
season, with water from the very font of the baptistery. Such a blessed mix-
ture of salt and water went back, tradition had it, to the times of the prophet
Elisha ( 2 Kings 2 : 20 – 21 ).^38 After Mass, the clergy filled vessels for the laity so
they could take the water with them for use at home. One early-fourteenth-
century Italian wrote out the virtues of holy water into his collection of
private prayers. It cleansed venial sin, increased goodness, loosed the snares
of the Devil, and protected against impure thoughts.^39 Miracles confirmed its
power. In Franciscan legend, a crippled novice used to sprinkle the convent’s
dormitory with holy water. One night, in a dream, he saw the Devil prowling
about the convent but unable to enter the sleeping areas. When the novice
asked him why he could not enter, the Devil said it was because of the holy
water.^40 The penitent Giovanni Buono of Mantua furnished his hermitage
with a crucifix, an image of Our Lady, and a vessel of holy water. At his
canonization, his private oratory and its embellishments evidenced his ortho-
- Ibid., 208 : ‘‘Gestus vero corporis est argumentum et probatio mentalis devotionis’’; see Trexler,
Christian at Prayer, 47. - Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 218.
- Giovanni Gorini,[Legenda de Vita et Obitu Beati Petri de Fulgineo], 2. 9 ,AS 31 (Jul.iv), 667.
- Vito of Cortona,Vita [B. Humilianae], 2. 14 ,p. 389.
38 .Ordo Senensis, 2. 18 ,p. 419 ; for a rite to bless water and salt for use by the laity, see Pont. Rom.
(xii), 46 ,p. 264. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158(xivcent.), fol. 45 v.
40 .ChronicaxxivGeneralium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, 381.