B. LUCY DE PREITAS 478 Ridolfo eitber pined for the oomforts of seonlar life or found some of the rules and reforms puerile and inexpedient for a grown man. In seyen months he re- turned to the world. Meanwhile, Camilla had taken the Third Order of St. Domi- nic, and spent her whole time in pious exercises. Bidolfo wanted her to come back to him, but she would not. He was angry, and dying soon after, he left her noUiing but her dowry, without the furniture and other things that a man usually left to his wife. In 1500 she wished to be more perfect. She changed her name to Lucy and, with the help of three sisters of the name of Bosellia, built a monastery of the third Order, near that of St. Mark, and subject to its prior. Her community soon num- bered more than a hundred. They unanimously elected Lucy prioress. She declined, saying she was unworthy. Her refusal was not accepted, and prioress she had to be. At first they had no rule of enclosure nor monastic vows. They lived by their work and by alms ; but as the sisters of penance in other places were assimilating themselves to the cloistered nuns, these desired the same greater perfection and, in 1510, the Creneral of the Order gave them the three vows. Lucy gave the habit with her own hands to seventy nuns. From the day of her death she was accounted a saint. The nuns of her convent soon obtained permission to invoke and honour her as such. AA.S8. Broccbi. Bazzi. Pio. B. Lucy (20) de Valcadare, Jan. 12, 3rd O.S.P., + 1530. Migne. Stadler. Mas Latrie. B. Lucy (21) of Nami, Nov. 15, 16, + 1545, O.S.D. Founder of the Dominican convent of St. Catherine of Siena, at Forrara. She solemnly affirmed at Viterbo, April 17, 1490, that Catherine OF Siena had obtained for her, from God, the favour of being marked with the wounds of Christ, in February of that year. This happened at the time that an amendment was contemplated of the bull of Pope Sixtus IV., forbidding all representations of women saints marked with the wounds of Christ The amend- ment was made soon after. Lucy founded the convent at Ferrara in 1501 and governed it for two years. She was succeeded by Veronica, disciple of Antonia Guaineri. She lived for forty years a nun in her own convent, a model of all virtues and of great huinility and asceticism. A.BM», Nov. 16. AA,SS.t
- < Christina of Stumbela " and *' Antonia
Guaineri." B. Lucy (22) de Freitas, Sept. lo, 12, 8rd O.S.F. M. in Japan in 1622. She married Philip de Freitas, a Portu- guese Christian. (The name is spelt Fleites in some accounts.) Towards the end of the 16th century a band of European missionaries made an ejQfort to revive the faith of the Christians in Japan and to make new converts. The rulers of the country at first encouraged them, but after a time persecutions arose. The attendant cir- cumstances make them in many ways very like the persecutions of Christians in the early Church, under the Boman empire: the hideous ingenuity of the tortures; the barbarity of the ordinary punishment of oJQfenders against the laws ; the crowding of the prisons; the occa- sional willingness of the rulers to let the condemned escape punishment on the least sign of submission; the con- sideration shown to oiSenders of high rank, women being imprisoned in their own houses and sometimes put to death there, to avoid the disgrace of a public execution; and on the other hand, the eagerness for martyrdom of some of the converts ; the courage and patience under suffering of women and children; the impunity with which many Christians attended the martyrdom of others, openly encouraging them and claiming their bodies as sacred relics ; the crowds who begged the blessing of those about to be put to a death of disgrace. A distinctive feature of the Japanese persecution was the use of the natural hot springs and sulphurous craters as a means of torture for their victims. Before the executions, in some cases, smiling children from amongst the company of confessors ran about distributing to the Christians, pieces of paper which were afterwards kept as relica Thousands suffered for their faith. Conspicuous amongst the women
