Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/124

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110 B. BEATRICE bine cloak and white gown, as she is represented ii^ the pictures of the Immaculate Conception. As soon as ehe was released, she fled to Toledo. On the way thither she was surprised to hear herself addressed in her native language by two Franciscan monks. At flrst she supposed the queen had sent them to bring her back, but she found that one of them was St. Anthony of Padua. When they had promised that she should be the spiritual mother of many holy women, they disappeared. She shut herself up in a Dominican con- vent at Toledo for forty years, seeing no one but Queen Isabel the Catholic, wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, and daughter of the king and queen from whom Beatrice had fled in her youth. She designed a new order in honour of the Conception. The queen used her in- fluence to have it approved by the Pope, and gave her, in 1484, the palace of Galliana for a convent It took its name from the chapel of St. Faith, that belonged to the palace. Although the rule was Franciscan, the first sisters were twelve of her fellow-nuns in the Dominican house where she had lived 80 long. The institute was approved by Innocent YIII. in 1489. Cardinal Xime- nes, O.S.F., had this order united to the Clares, whose rule they adopted with certain mitigations. In loll Pope Julius II. gave the Conceptionists a par- ticular rule, leaving them still incor- porated with the Clares. Beatrice died Sept. 1, 1490, ten days before the time appointed for the solemn inauguration of her order. She is much honoured in Spain, and her Life has been written by Bivar and others. One of the peculiar nustorities of this branch of the Order of St. Francis was that after their profession, the nuns were never again allowed to speak to any secular person, even their nearest relations. There was a house of the order at Borne in 1525, and one at Milan in 1539. Bucelinus, Jtfen. Bet?., Oct. 8, claims her as a Benedictine. Henriquee places her among the Cister- cians, but she was for more than half her life a Dominican nun, and her own order was Franciscan. Heylot, Eistoiredea Ordres MonoHiques^ vii. 40. Analecta Juris Pontificiiy iii. 549. Butler, « St. Francis," note. B. Beatrice (13), Nov. 26. t.l^^^. One of the first nuns of the Dominican convent of St. Catherine of Siena, at Ferrara. When the cemetery was being made, she got into a grave and lay down straight and still as if she were dead. The other nuns asked her why she did so. She said because she was destined to be the first person buried in the new ceme- try, which proved to be true. Pio says she took the habit at an early age, led an angelic life, and was very young when she died. Razzi, Predicatori, Pio, Hist, Dam, Manoel de Lima, Agid, Dam, B. Beatrice (14) of St Francis, Nov. 15, Sept. 2. 16th century. During the life of her husband she belonged to the Third Order of Minorites. She re- fused a good offer of a second marriage. She built the Franciscan convent of Villa Longa, near Lisbon, giving it the name of Our Lady of the Powers. She was consecrated a nun by Mark of Lisbon, Bishop of Porto. She was still living in 1 566. The Bollandists promise her Life^ Nov. 1 5. She is mentioned in the Fran- ciscan Prayer-book, Sept. 2. Beatrice (15) of the Incarnation, May 5. -X irra or 1574. Carmelite nun under St. Theresa. Her name was Beatriz Ones, spelt and called in French Ognez. She was of noble birth, a native of Arroyo, near Santa Gadea, and made her profession in the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Yalladolid, on Sept. 17, 1570. The prioress and all the nuns declared that during the three years she lived with them they never saw in her anything with which fault could be found. Great outward and inward tranquillity arose from her being constantly in prayer and thanksgiving. Once when two men were condemned to be burnt for atrocious crimes, she was filled with compassion for their souls, and prayed that she might suffer their bodily penalty, and that their souls might be saved. The same night she was seized with agonizing pain, that continued as long as she lived. *'Tho criminals made a good death, which seems to prove," says Theresa, " that