Feast day: February 19

St. Conrad of Piacenza

Hermit · 1290–1354

Patron of Against hernias

A nobleman whose careless hunting fire burned the countryside; when an innocent man was condemned for it, Conrad confessed, gave away his fortune in restitution, and became a hermit.

Conrad Confalonieri was born about 1290 into one of the noblest families of Piacenza in northern Italy. As a young married nobleman he lived comfortably and was fond of hunting. One day, to drive game from a thicket, he ordered the brush set alight; the wind spread the fire, and it destroyed crops, woodland, and farms over a wide area.

An innocent poor man, found near the scene, was arrested, condemned, and on the point of execution for the blaze. Stricken in conscience, Conrad came forward, confessed that he had caused the fire, and to make restitution sold nearly everything he owned, reducing himself and his wife to poverty.

The shock changed both their lives: his wife entered the Poor Clares, and Conrad became a hermit of the Third Order of St. Francis. He made his way at length to Sicily, near Noto, where for some thirty years he lived a life of extreme penance and prayer, sought out by the people for his counsel and the cures attributed to him.

He died in his hermitage in 1351. Never formally canonized, he has been venerated from his own day, his cult confirmed by later popes, and he is invoked especially against hernias.

His hunt set a forest ablaze and nearly hanged an innocent man — so he gave away everything he owned to make it right and lived the rest of his life as a penitent.

Image: Photo:sailko; cropped, shifted, recoloured by Rabanus Flavus: (CC BY 2.5), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/04260b.htm