Today, April 5, we celebrate Vincenzo Ferreri (in Catalan Vicent Ferrer; Valencia, January 23, 1350 – Vannes, April 5, 1419), a Spanish presbyter of the Order of Friars Preachers who worked particularly hard for the settlement of the Western Schism.

The life of San Vincenzo Ferreri finds its right dimension of exceptionality and prodigiousness if inserted into the particular era in which he lived. He found himself operating in the years between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of humanism. A troubled period due to the rivalries between the empire and the papacy, shaken by the division of Catholics, which caused the great Western schism with the Church divided between pope and anti-pope.
The intense work of preaching and reconciliation carried out by Saint Vincent and culminating in 1416 with a great contribution to the solution of the serious problem of schism fits precisely into this context.

At eighteen he decided to embrace religious life and chose the order of Dominicans, known as preacher friars, to best realize his apostolic ideal: preaching the word of God in every corner of the earth. He spent his life preaching in the squares, in the churches and in the fields before plebeians, simple people, nobles and scientists and using miracles to convert sinners, save from danger, resurrect the dead, command nature and heal the sick.

While the hierarchies fought each other, he maintained unity among the faithful. He walked and preached like this for most of his life, and death couldn’t help but take him along the way. In fact, he died at the age of seventy, on 5 April 1419, in Vannes, Brittany (France), in whose Cathedral some relics are preserved. Pope Callixtus III proclaimed him a saint in 1455.

The cult of San Vincenzo Ferreri is very widespread and the Chapel of San Vicenzo Ferreri in Padula (Salerno) is dedicated to him.

The statue present in the Padula Chapel respects the traditional iconography: it is represented in Dominican clothes (beige tunic and black cloak), has a tonsure and a raised arm pointing upwards. With a flame standing out on his head, a pair of wings behind him, the Saint carries the book with the motto “timete Deum et date Illi honorem, quia venit hora judicii eum” (“Fear God and give honor to Him , for the hour of His judgment is coming”) and volumes representing heresies symbolically appear under his feet.

What does this rich symbolism refer to? The Dominican habit obviously belongs to the religious order to which one belongs, the sons of San Domenico. The arm raised and the finger pointing upwards points to the sky, as if to remind us that there is one True Life and how all the graces bestowed come from above and not from him.

The flame, in addition to indicating the Holy Spirit that illuminated it, recalls the miracle of tongues: Vincent, in fact, was a fervent preacher, but even if he spoke in Spanish everyone understood him very well (just like the Apostles on the day of Pentecost).

The pair of wings always recalls Vicenzo’s fervent sermons, which made him seem almost like the Angel of the Apocalypse, and his immense goodness, like a seraph.

The book is the Gospel with which the Saint invites us to conversion and follow Christ.

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