Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts in the Second Through Nineteenth Centuries, Part 4: From the 13th to the 18th Centuries

 

Vincent Ferrer

At a slightly later period, Vincent Ferrer (A.D. 1350-1419), a Dominican preacher, became known for the miracles that accompanied his ministry. Particularly between 1401 and 1403, whenever he went to preach, crowds flocked to hear him and “everywhere innumerable conversions and remarkable miracles were reported.”⁷⁷ When he was in the Netherlands in 1405, an hour was set apart every day for the healing of the sick, who would come from many places seeking healing. Alban Butler wrote in Lives of the Saints as follows about his gift of tongues:

Although we know from the saint himself that beyond his native language he had learnt only some Latin and a little Hebrew, yet he would seem to have possessed the gift of tongues, for we have it on the authority of reliable writers that all his hearers, French, Germans, Italians and the rest, understood every word he spoke, and that his voice carried so well that it could be clearly heard at enormous distances. … He pursued no definite order, but visited and revisited places as the spirit moved him or as he was requested.⁷⁸

Vincent’s gift of languages was such that, wherever he went, although he preached in the Valencian idiom, he was perfectly heard and understood. In conversation, he spoke French, Italian, English, and German, according to the country in which he was located, “with the ease and fluency of his mother-tongue.”⁷⁹ One of his early biographers, Ranzano, wondered how the Bretons could understand his language so easily when their language bore no affinity to the Latin.⁸⁰

Vincent Ferrer had many gifts of revelation. At Barcelona, a man named Louis Cataldo came to him seeking healing from severe head pains, but he answered, “I am neither God, nor a doctor, to cure you.” At this, Cataldo recognized that Vincent Ferrer had known what was in his heart. After Vincent laid his hands upon him and prayed, he was cured.⁸¹ Another individual, Gaja, who had desired to become part of his company, was told by Vincent that he should first sell all that he had and distribute the money to the poor. He did so, but he kept back half the money and returned to inform Vincent that he had done as he had been requested. Vincent replied that he should go, that he had only given half the money to the poor, and that he was not welcome as a member of his company. The man repented and finally allowed to join.⁸² When Vincent heard confessions of sinners he was able to discover faults that had escaped their memory.⁸³ While preaching, Vincent would sometimes fix his eyes upon those whom he had never seen and would begin talking about the very things that they knew they were guilty of having done.⁸⁴

 

Tags: 13th, 18th, centuries, gifts, miraculous, nineteenth, part, tongues

Category: Church History, Summer 1999