He was one of the greatest saints of the Dominican Order. He was a Spaniard and was born at Valencia. He was one of the main forces that ended the Great Western Schism, a hardship of the Catholic Church, which lasted from 1378 to 1417, when two, and eventually three, cardinals, one at Rome, one at Avignon and one at Pisa, were all claiming to be Pope. Saint Vincent Ferrer had the gift of tongues. Speaking in his own language, all who listened to him could understand him in theirs. Saint Vincent Ferrer raised forty persons from the dead. He cured thousands of the blind, the lame, the deaf and the dumb. He extinguished a fire with one blow of his breath. A laborer at Valencia, who had fallen from a staging, was suspended by Saint Vincent Ferrer in mid-air until he brought him safely and slowly to the ground. A swarm of butterflies flew into Saint Vincent Ferrer’s room as he was dying. A great number of angels assembled there to take his soul to God. He was in his sixty-third year when he died.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, by Juan de Juanes (credits/details)
