He was born of a royal family in the Kingdom of Naples. As a little boy he started daily reciting the rosary. Very early in his life he contracted leprosy, and was miraculously cured of it. He spent every possible moment of his life in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. His thought was that it was for men that Our Lord came to us in the Eucharist, and while the angels throng Catholic churches to worship God there, men desert Him. While kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, his face blazed with light, which everyone could see. His favorite devotion was visiting the Blessed Sacrament in unfrequented churches, where few people came. Saint Francis Caracciolo, in 1588, founded the Clerics Regular Minor, whose main work was the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. He died when only forty-four years old, on the eve of Corpus Christi, at the same age as Saint Francis of Assisi when he died. Saint Francis Caracciolo’s last words were, “Let us go, let us go to Heaven!” When his body was opened after death, these words were found imprinted on his heart: “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up.”
Saint Francis Caracciolo
