Nicholas Gurrutti was born in the village of Sant'Angelo in Pontano, Italy in 1245. At an early age Nicholas was greatly moved by the preaching of the Augustinian, Father Reginaldo do Monterubbiano, prior of the monastery of Sant'Angelo, and requested admission to the community.
His religious formation was greatly influenced by the spirituality of the hermits of Brettino, one of the congregations which came to form part of the "Grand Union" of Augustinians in 1256. whose communities were located in the region of the March where Nicholas was born and raised.
At times, Nicholas devoted himself to prayer and works of penance with such intensity that it was necessary for his superiors to impose limitations on him. At one point he was so weakened though fasting that he was encouraged in a vision of Mary and the child Jesus to eat a piece of bread signed with the cross and soaked in water to regain his strength. Thereafter he followed this practice in ministering to the sick himself. In his honor the custom of blessing and distributing the "Bread of Saint Nicholas" in continued by the Augustinians in many places today.
Nicholas was ordained to the priesthood in 1271. He lived in several difference monasteries of the Augustinian Order, engaged principally in the ministry of preaching. In 1275 he was sent to Tolentino and remained there for the rest of his life. Nicholas worked to counteract the decline of morality and religion which came with the development of city life in the late thirteenth century. He ministered to the sick and the poor, and actively sought out those who had become estranged from the Church.
He was declared a saint in 1446, the first member of the Augustinian Order to be canonized. Saint Nicholas' body is venerated in the basilica in Tolentino which bears his name.
Taken from here: http://www.osa-west.org/saintnicholasoftolentine.html
Posted by Carlos J. Medina
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