GoodCatholics atPrayer 355
day. The young saint, much to her biographer’s edification, counted it a
serious sin for her to omit her lay office, just as it was a sin for the priest to
neglect saying his clerical office.^78 Women’s adaptions revealed the same
devotional creativity that had given the lay office birth. Margherita of Cor-
tona invented special devotions for the Church year. On the vigil of the
Purification, one of her favorite feasts, she recited the Pater, the Ave, and a
Gloria Patri forty times, once for each of the days since Jesus’ birth at Christ-
mas. She recited sets of one hundred Paters for various incidents in the life
of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints.^79 But no one equaled Benvenuta Bojani
in her elaboration of the lay office. From the age of seven to the age of
twelve, she said a hundred Paters and Aves daily, doing a hundred prostra-
tions in honor of the Lord’s Nativity and a second hundred prostrations in
honor of his Resurrection. To this she later added a thousand Aves in honor
of the Blessed Virgin, except on Saturdays, Our Lady’s special day, when
she doubled the number. Benvenuta also had special offices for her favorite
feasts. On the Annunciation, she celebrated by saying three thousand Aves
and doing five hundred prostrations, something that even she had to admit
wore her out. After entering religious life, she kept up the same lay regimen.
She said a hundred Paters and Aves daily to honor the angels and then
recited the same number for the apostles, the patriarchs, the martyrs, the
confessors, and the holy virgins. No wonder the place in the garden where
she liked to pray was denuded of vegetation, becoming like a blasted heath
or a heavily trodden path.^80
Saint Benvenuta recommended such practices to others. To a nun who
came to her suffering some unknown illness, she prescribed a thousand Aves
and a thousand prostrations—a prescription to be repeated daily until she
was cured. One ailing but learned nun who hoped for healing vowed to
imitate Benvenuta’s simple form of prayer by reciting an Ave after each
psalm when she read the Divine Office.^81 One suspects that the first sister
had the more rapid cure. Benvenuta’s daily Paters and Aves approached
something like perpetual prayer, though her practice was not quite as pecu-
liar as it sounds. Inspirational tales of pious individuals who recited Aves
throughout the day were preachers’ stock-in-trade. One preacher told of a
man devoted to the Blessed Virgin who visited churches and shrines and
tried to sanctify each hour by recitation of the Ave. When he died, a tree
grew on his grave. It had the word ‘‘ave’’ imprinted on each of its leaves.^82
Such stories and practices have an air of the fantastic, but they captured the
popular imagination. When Saint Benvenuta Bojani died in 1292 , the laity
78. Tomasso of Bossolasco,Vita [B. Sibyllinae], 1. 2 ,p. 68.
79. Giunta Bevegnati,Legenda... Margaritae de Cortona, 6. 3 and 6. 12 – 14 , pp. 288 – 89 , 296 – 300.
80. Corrado of Cividale,Vita Devotissimae Benevenutae, 1. 2 – 3 , pp. 152 – 53.
81. Ibid., 15 : 118 ,p. 182 ; on the learned nun, see ibid., 15 : 119 ,p. 182.
82. Pisa, Biblioteca Cateriniana del Seminario Arcivescovile,ms 139, fols. 140 v– 141 r.