The Mystery Of 'Felice di Natale' Deepens

A Wondrous Christmas Eve Gift From A Humble Roman Friar

Who is the baby playing with the friar’s beard? Who is the friar?

Here is one of my favorite stories from Living In Wonder, one that is appropriate for Christmas Eve in a way that I did not realize when I put it into the book. Nor did Stefano, the young Roman man to whom it happened understand this until this past summer. First, a recap of the story from the book, for you who haven’t read it:

Something like this happened to a young Italian who wishes to be known here only by his first name, Stefano. I first met him a few years ago, in my travels. He is a teacher with a luminous face, radiant with faith. His conversion story was astonishing. He agreed to repeat the account to me, but only if I would withhold his last name, because he wants his story to be entirely, as he put it, “for the greater glory of God.”

Stefano, who is in his early thirties now, was born in Rome to a family of atheists. In fact, his father was a dedicated member of the Communist Party. His mother was raised in the mountains by a faithful Catholic mom, but the daughter lost her faith when she went down to Rome for boarding school. Stefano’s parents baptized him out of social custom, but the only religious believer in the boy’s life was his grandmother Maria, who would come down from the mountains to stay with the family during the winter months.

From his early youth, Stefano experienced strange things, such as an inner voice directing him, and also dreams and visions.

“Every night I would dream the same dream: a dark and evil lady would come to my bed and start hitting me with a crucifix. I would wake up terrified and take refuge in my parents’ or my brother’s bed,” he recalled.

“The second phenomenon occurred during the day: I would see a lady dressed in long robes, adorned with jewels, who would appear in some situations such as when we were eating at the dining room table. I was the only one who had the angle of vision facing the living room. Or when I was waiting for the elevator and she would appear in the entrance hall of the building where I lived. I saw this lady as if she were real. She never spoke to me.”

The boy was afraid. He sensed that the lady who haunted his dreams was the same one he saw during the day. When the visions began, the inner voice ceased. Stefano went to his religion teacher at school asking for advice, but all she could do was urge him to pray. He never talked about it with his family. How could he? They were all atheists.

At age eleven, Stefano began to prepare for his first Communion. He wanted to receive the body of Christ, but a battle raged in him. On the day before his class was to receive Communion for the first time in Mass, their priest held a rehearsal with an unconsecrated Host.

“I was the last in line, and when it was my turn, he told me, ‘The body of Christ.’ I told him, ‘I don’t eat this shit,’” said Stefano. “The priest gave me a loud slap in the face and left me standing there.”

Yet he still took Communion the next day. The inner voice from his youth returned, and he found it comforting. But the dark lady of the dreams and visions came back too. By force of will, Stefano put it all out of his head and got on with his life.

In high school, Stefano threw himself into being a soccer superfan and started drinking too much and doing drugs. He ran with a bad crowd. Still, he was a good student, and wanting to imitate his father, he learned anti-religious doctrines and other parts of the Communist catechism.

“When I was around seventeen or eighteen years old, just about to enter the university stage, I had a reputation,” he remembered. “People around me appreciated me for my ideological radicalism, the violence of my words and my actions, and the continuous blasphemies that I inserted in every sentence I pronounced. I spat on crucifixes, ridiculed saints and priests, uttered tremendous words against the Virgin Mary and her Son.”

He was riding high with the cool crowd, but Stefano battled against a sense of emptiness inside. He filled the wound with even greater cynicism, pleasure, and even violence. And then three people—a girl, an Argentine friend, and a priest—came into his life at around the same time.

The girl was a classmate he admired, a faithful Catholic who stood out from the others. Though he teased her about her beliefs, Stefano accompanied her to Mass just to be with her. He met the Argentine through his cousin, a coworker, and found the foreigner to be a likable, charismatic guy who prayed naturally and spoke easily about the faith. And the priest was a cleric he met in his grandmother’s town, who talked to him about life and exhorted Stefano to keep his eyes open for signs from God.

In the middle of all of this was the bizarre experience of repeatedly crossing paths in Rome with a certain middle-aged man, who, when they met in the streets, would stare at Stefano intensely.

What was happening? Stefano couldn’t be sure. He sensed, somehow, that it would be solved only if God made himself known in a forceful way.

One day in late autumn, he was walking to a subway station when he passed a church and felt compelled to go inside. Almost trembling with fear, he came across a statue of a saint, a nun with a wound on her forehead. This was an effigy of Saint Rita of Cascia, a fourteenth-century nun and stigmatic honored in Italy as the patron saint of impossible causes, though atheist Stefano didn’t know that. Confused and desperate, he asked Saint Rita to help him.

That evening, Stefano met his cousin, with whom he had begun to talk about God. They were headed that night to a relative’s house, but Stefano said he didn’t want to go because there was always a party atmosphere there. That night, his mind was on other things. He and his cousin decided to sit in the car outside and talk instead.

“When I got out of the car, I realized that on the other side of the street there was a homeless man sitting and staring at me,” said Stefano. “His stare was intense and made me uncomfortable. After a few seconds I told my cousin to go upstairs. When I began to leave, the homeless man got up, crossed the street, came straight to me, and said: ‘Hi, Stefano, I finally found you.’”

Stefano froze. The homeless man said to him, “The Lord Jesus told me to tell you that from now on you will have nothing to fear.”

Stefano began to cry. His cousin, standing next to him, also heard the man say to Stefano, “From today, you will live for him.”

The mysterious stranger continued his discourse. “He knew everything about my life,” recalled Stefano. He told the astonished college student that the dreams and visions he had as a child were not of God, and that God had allowed him to be tempted for a greater good.

“The homeless man was also excited, and he cried with happiness for having found me,” said Stefano. “When he finished his speech, he knelt down and began to pray an Our Father. After each sentence, he added praise to God for his mercy and for having been able to fulfill his mission. We could not follow his prayer, it was so powerful.”

As the stranger turned to leave, Stefano asked, “Are you an angel?”

He smiled back but did not answer.

“What’s your name, then?”

“Felice di Natale,” said the stranger. In other words, Merry Christmas [Note: This is a slight mistranslation by me; it literally means “happy at Christmas” — RD] ; the encounter happened shortly before the Nativity that year. Felice di Natale blessed the weeping young man in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then walked away, never to be seen again.

“From that day on my life changed,” said Stefano. “The next morning, when I woke up, I went to the kitchen and greeted my mother, who was making coffee, with a kiss. My mother jumped back and said, ‘You look different, what did you do last night?’ I felt I had a new heart.”

That same morning, a friend who had been praying for him phoned and asked Stefano to come see his new car. When he arrived, his friend let Stefano sit in the car, fresh from the dealership, and excused himself to run to the bank.

“When I opened the ashtray, I found a medal with a familiar face,” he recalled. “The words on it said, ‘Saint Rita, pray for us.’ It was the same woman I had prayed to the day before!”

And then he looked up to see a man standing in front of the car, arguing with someone standing behind it. On that man’s T-shirt was a single word: Angel.

The priest had advised Stefano to watch for signs. And here they were. God had showed up with force and claimed Stefano’s heart.

“Since that day, my life changed, and after almost twenty years I can say that my conversion was a miracle, and that my life is Christ,” he said. “I radically changed my life. I left the life of sin and opened my heart to Jesus.”

It took a miracle that dramatic to break through the defenses of a young man raised to be a Communist. In that sense, Stefano’s conversion was not so different from the conversion of a young pagan in that same city, Rome, in the first century. Through his witness, Stefano’s entire family subsequently converted to Christianity—even his lifelong Communist father, who accepted Christ on his deathbed. With God, there are no impossible causes.

When I arrived in Rome on Sunday, I thought about Felice di Natale, thinking he was an angel. I asked God for the gift of sending him to me while in Rome this Christmas, just to say hello. Then I sent Stefano an e-mail greeting. He lives in another country now, but I was kind of hoping that he might be in the city for Christmas, so we could meet again. He’s not, but he sent me an amazing update, which I share with you with his permission. I’ve edited it slightly to protect privacy:

I wanted to write to you because this summer, I gained a new perspective on what happened almost 20 years ago. At my daughter’s confirmation, I met a young Roman priest who had come as a godfather for another girl being confirmed.

This summer, I went to visit him, and we attended Mass with him, exploring Saint Peter’s Basilica. Then we invited him to our family countryside home in the Apennines and spent the day together.

Long story short: I told him the story about Felice di Natale, and without hesitation, he directly asked me, “Do you know Saint Felix of Cantalice (San Felice di Cantalice), a [16th century] saint from this area?” I had never heard of this name before. The conversation ended there. That same night, he told me he had a “hunch” that it might have been him. It seemed very strange to me, but I searched Google for this saint’s name.

A quick side note: the neighborhood where I encountered Felice twice (the first time as a beggar, the second as a Franciscan friar) is called “Centocelle.” When I googled “Saint Felix of C...” I saw the suggestion in the browser: “Saint Felix of Cantalice from Centoncelle.” I thought Google was spying on me... but when I clicked on the suggestion, the main church of the Centocelle neighborhood dedicated to Saint Felix of Cantalice appeared. I opened the image on Google Maps, and this is what I saw:

I’m startled. I zoom in on the friar depicted in the painting:

It’s exactly the same person I met 20 years ago! The parish is just a few hundred meters from where I encountered him twice. I can’t forget his face, even dressed as a Franciscan friar, just like the second time I saw him, when he hurriedly told me he had already spoken to me.

[Note to readers: Stefano hadn’t told me about the second meeting. — RD]

I still didn’t understand the meaning of “di Natale,” as only the name matched.
By studying his story, I discovered that Saint Felix was a great saint of the 16th century who begged in the city of Rome and performed many miraculous healings. But above all, he is remembered for a miracle he received directly from the Virgin Mary, which is often depicted in artistic representations of the saint.

On the night of December 24th, the Holy Night of Christmas (Natale), Saint Felix received the Infant Jesus from the Virgin Mary. That’s why he is "Felice di Natale!!

How many praises and thanks we owe to our good God! A big hug and enjoy your walks around Rome!

I wrote back to Stefano to ask his permission to share this publicly, provided I protect his identity. He gave it, emphasizing as he had the first time that all the glory in this story goes to God. I also asked him about the second time he met Felice. It wasn’t in the written testimony he gave me for the book. He responded:

I went back to review the testimony and noticed I hadn’t shared this part! Here’s what happened: after meeting him, I spent several weeks trying to encounter him again in the Centocelle neighborhood. After about three months, I saw him walking near a public park. I parked the car, ran out, and approached him. He was dressed as a Franciscan friar, wearing a brown habit with a white rope belt tied at the waist, with three knots hanging down his leg. I called him by name, “Felice!”

He turned to me, looked at me intensely, and said, “I’ve already spoken to you. I have nothing more to say.” Then he walked away briefly. It was a short meeting, and he was rather abrupt in telling me this, as if he didn’t want me to seek him out again. That’s why, when I saw him again in the painting outside the church as a Franciscan friar, it was instant recognition. Even now, when I think back to that moment, I can vividly see his face and recognize it as the person in the painting.

Fascinating. Felice was a messenger. He delivered his message. Stefano acted on it, and accepted Christ. Felice didn’t want to participate in an ongoing woo relationship. Interesting, that. He probably knew that Stefano, like any of us, would be caught up in that mystical friendship, and take his eyes off Christ.

The poor friar was illiterate, and walked the city barefoot, even in winter, his feet blistered. He performed many healings and worked other wonders. He taught everybody to say “Deo gratias!” — “Thanks be to God!” — so fervently that he became known as “Friar Deo Gratias.” Wikipedia says:

In Rome, Brother Felix became a familiar sight, wandering barefoot through the streets, with a sack slung over his shoulders, knocking on doors to seek donations. He received permission from his superiors to help the needy, especially widows with many children. It is said that his begging sack was as bottomless as his heart.

Funny, but yesterday, I passed an old woman begging, and gave her a gift, thinking that she might be the angel Felice di Natale in disguise. I gave it as if she were him. I did not know then what Stefano later told me — that his Felice was no angel, but a saint, and indeed was a beggar who walked the city streets seeking alms for the poor. He’s still doing it, at least with this American in Rome!

It turns out that St. Felice’s remains are interred in the Capuchin church here in Rome, the city where he lived and served as a beggar for alms for the friars. The Capuchin church, at Via Vittorio Veneto 27, is only a 16-minute walk from my hotel. I resolved last night to get up early and get there for the opening of the church and its crypt. I went to thank St. Felice for what he did for Stefano, and to ask him to pray for certain intentions — on the eve of Natale!

So, off I went this morning, entered the Capuchin church, and there, in a side altar on the left of the nave, was the tomb of St. Felix, Felice di Natale.

Onto my knees I fell. I said the Orthodox morning prayer cycle, then spent a long time offering the intentions of so many family, friends, and even all of you, to God, through the intercession of St. Felice. I paid special attention to those I know who are sick, as St. Felice was known for being a healing wonderworker. Remembering that he is a Capuchin, I offered a prayer for Archbishop Charles Chapur. I learned from a slim book I bought in the entrance of the church that in life, Felice was known not only for his boundless compassion, but also for his gruff peasant manners. Hence his rough response to Stefano on their second meeting.

The image in the painting above his tomb is of him receiving the baby Jesus in a mystical … event. Some say it was a vision, but the book says it was Felice’s fellow Capuchin, Friar Lupo, who saw him on the night of Christmas with the Christ Child in his arms. Friar Lupo hid behind the pulpit in the monastery church one night to see what Friar Felice was getting up to when he stayed there praying for so late. He reported seeing a woman in white appear before Felice, who was kneeling in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. She handed a baby to the friar, which he held in his arms while it played with his beard. He prayed the Our Father, and a Hail Mary, then handed the baby back to his mother, who disappeared. (Felice was known to all for his special devotion to Nativity scenes; I guess now we know why.)

That’s what happened on that Christmas Eve in Rome, around 500 years ago, and that is also what happened this Christmas Eve in Rome. The day is not yet done. There might be miracles. (If you’ve read Living In Wonder, you know I’m something of a magnet for the mystical.)

As for me, I think the Lord did grant me my request to “meet” Felice di Natale. And in any case, I have been given — we all have been given — the greatest gift of all, Who came into this world on this night, in a cave in Bethlehem, as a little child. The gift that Felice received mystically, in a vision — the Christ Child — is ours for the taking. Through that holy, illiterate, impoverished man of God, poor lost Stefano received the same gift, just before Christmas almost twenty years ago. That gift is still there, for those humble enough to receive.

I’m happy this Christmas! I hope you are too. I might not post tomorrow, because it’s Christmas Day. So let me give you the Orthodox Christmas greeting now: Christ is born! Glorify Him!

(I’ve made this newsletter free to all, so by all means share it, so that God may be glorified, especially in his saints.)