It is a great grace and a great glory to be Capuchins and true sons of Saint Francis. But it is necessary to know and always carry round with us five precious gems: austerity, simplicity, exact observance of the Constitutions and the Seraphic Rule, innocence of life and inexhaustible charity.” – Blessed Angelus of Acri.
Feast Day is October 30
“Knock Three Times” is the title of a lively American pop song from the 1970s but the title also seems to sum up the crisis that 20 year old Luke Anthony Falcone experienced in the early years of his Capuchin vocation in the late 17th century. Attracted by a charismatic Capuchin preacher, and unshaken by his mother’s tears and other relatives’ pleas to think again, this country boy from Acri in southern Italy made up his mind to join the Capuchins. He knocked on the door of the Dipignano Novitiate for the first time on the 8th of November 1689 and, having been welcomed by the Brothers, was clothed in the Capuchin habit and given a new name Brother Angelus – meaning Angel.
For a while life in the Capuchin fraternity was the closest thing to the angelic life he ever experienced – eyes on the ground, hands on the Rosary beads and heart in Heaven! But it was not just good Angels that young Brother Angelus encountered in the Friary, he also encountered the cunning seductions of the fallen angel – Lucifer! Tempted severely, he threw off his habit and returned home. Life at home, however, left him feeling empty and soon he humbly but courageously went back to the Capuchin Novitiate to knock a second time. And surprisingly, thanks to a special dispensation from the Minister Provincial, the Novitiate Friary door was opened to him once more and, for the second time, he was clothed in the habit of a Capuchin novice. But there is a proverb which says “the habit does not make the monk” and putting on the Capuchin habit once more did nothing to smother Brother Angelus’s old temptations. So soon he was on his way home once more. But hardly he had left the Order this second time, than he began to regret his hasty decision, and returned to the Capuchin Friars once more to knock a third time. So often had he come to the Friary and gone home shortly after that some of the wittier Brothers began to refer to him as the ‘commuting novice’. Imagine their surprise when, against all precedents, the General Minister gave Luke Anthony special permission to begin his novitiate all over again on the 12th of November 1690 and this time he was destined to remain a Capuchin until his death in 1739.
From the Appletree Press title: A Little Book of Celtic Saints.