St. Thomas of Cora

St Tommaso was born in Cori (Latina) on 4 June 1655.   He knew a childhood marked by the premature loss first of his mother and then of his father, thus being left alone at the age of 14 to look after his younger sister.   Shepherding sheep, he learned wisdom from the simplest things.   Once his sister was married, the youth was free to follow the inspiration that for some years he had kept in the silence of his heart – to belong completely to God in the Religious Life of a Franciscan.   He had been able to get to know the Friars Minor in his own village at the St Francis convent.   Once his two sisters were settled in good marriages and he was rendered free of all other preoccupations, he was received into the Order and sent to Orvieto (PG) to fulfill his novitiate year.   After professing his vows according to the Rule of St Francis and completing his theological studies, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1683.   He was immediately nominated vice master of novices at Holy Trinity convent in Orvieto, since his superior recognised at once his gifts. After a short time, Fr Tommaso heard of the hermitages that were beginning to bloom in the Order and the intention of the superiors of the Roman Province to inaugurate one at the convent at Civitella (today Bellegra).   His request was accepted and the young friar thus knocked at the door of the poor convent in 1684, saying, “I am Fr Tommaso of Cori and I come here to become holy!”   In speech perhaps distant from ours, he expressed his anxiousness to live the Gospel radically, after the spirit of Saint Francis. From then, Fr Tommaso lived at Bellegra until death, with the exception of six years in which he was Guardian at the convent of Palombara, where he initiated the Hermitage modelled after the one at Bellegra.   He wrote the Rule first for one and then for the other, observing it scrupulously and consolidating by word and example the new institution of the two Hermitages. The considerable correspondence left by him, demonstrates St Tommaso’ attention to the smallest expectations and needs of his Friars and of numerous friends, penitents and Friars who turned to him for his counsel.   In the convent, he demonstrated his spirit of charity in his availability for every necessity, even the most humble. Rich in merits, he fell asleep in the Lord on 11 January 1729.   St Tommaso of Cori shines among us and in Rome, of which he is the co-patron, above all in his thirst for a Christian and Franciscan ideal that is pure and lived in its essentials.   An inspiration for all of us, not to take lightly the Gospel and its all-encompassing exigencies. His feast is celebrated on January 11.