Blessed Nicola da Forca Palena

Nicola da Forca Palena (10 September 1349 – 1 October 1449) was an Italian member of the Third Order of Saint Francis and the co-founder of the Poor Hermits of Saint Jerome, along with Pietro Gambacorta. He established the Sant'Onofrio church in Rome where he was later buried. He became a friend to both Pope Eugene IV and Pope Nicholas V. His beatification received formal approval from Pope Clement XIV on 27 August 1771. Nicola da Forca Palena was born in a modest house in Forca in Chieti on 10 September 1349 to devout and modest parents. On the previous day, 9 September 1349, a devastating earthquake had struck the region and the surrounding areas. He became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis and became noted for penitential acts and those austere methods that defined his life. At the age of 30 he moved to nearby Palena, where he took up religious life. He was deputy curate of the church of St. Anthony where he was appreciated for his goodness and where he carried out an intense pastoral activity. He undertook a pilgrimage to Rome where he visited the tombs of each of the apostles and there felt a call to lead a more austere mode of life. He decided to join a community of hermits led by Rinaldo di Piedimonte. He moved to one such place in Rome and later moved to another one in Naples. In 1419 he returned to Rome and started, on the Janiculum Hill, a hermitage dedicated to St. Onofrio. The church of Sant'Onofrio was later built on the site of the hermitage. Construction funds came from various donors including Cardinal Gabriele Condulmer, the future Pope Eugene IV. There he met Blessed Pietro Gambacorta, who with him became the founder of the congregation of poor hermits of St. Jerome, and a fraternal friendship was born between the two. He founded the Santa Maria della Grazie hermitage in Sperlonga in Naples and a hospice at the square of Sant'Agnello. Nicola attended the Jubilee in 1400 that Pope Boniface IX presided over.