Saint Nunzio Sulprizio

Saint Nunzio Sulprizio was a young layman from Abruzzo, an orphan whom his uncle forced into hard labor in a forge. He bore a painful disease of the leg with patience and cheerfulness, comforting other sick people. He died at the age of nineteen. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on May 5, the day of his death.

He was born on April 13, 1817, in Pescosansonesco, a mountain village in Abruzzo, into the poor family of a shoemaker. He was baptized on the day of his birth and, out of devotion to the Annunciation, was given the name Nunzio. He lost his father early and his mother in 1823. His grandmother took care of him and taught him to pray and to love the Eucharist, but she too died, in 1826.

The nine-year-old boy was then taken in by his uncle, Domenico Luciani, a blacksmith. He would not let him go to school, put him to the heaviest work in the forge, beat him, and stinted him on food. Nunzio carried heavy loads of iron along mountain paths, even in winter. A festering wound opened on his left foot, and the disease began to destroy the bone. In the evenings he washed the wound in a stream and prayed to Mary. He did not complain; he only repeated “Madonna mia, aiutami,” that is, “My Mother, help me.”

In 1831 he spent a month in the hospital in L’Aquila, from which he was discharged as incurable. A paternal uncle who served in the army in Naples told his commanding officer, Colonel Felice Wochinger, about him. The colonel took the boy under his protection and placed him in the hospital for incurables in Naples. There Nunzio received his First Holy Communion. Though gravely ill himself, he comforted others, taught sick children the truths of the faith, and gave the food the colonel sent him to those poorer than himself.

In 1834 the colonel took him into his own quarters in Castel Nuovo, where a garrison was stationed. When Nunzio’s condition improved for a while, he wished to become a priest and began to study Latin. Father Gaetano Errico, later a saint, promised to receive him into the congregation he intended to found. But the illness returned, dropsy set in as well, and Nunzio was by then too weak for his leg to be amputated.

He died in Naples on May 5, 1836. According to the accounts, before his death he asked for the crucifix and received the sacraments, and two hours later he exclaimed “La Madonna! Vedete come è bella!” that is, “Our Lady! See how beautiful she is!” His remains rest in the church of San Domenico Soriano in Naples.

In 1891 Leo XIII recognized his heroic virtues and held him up to the young as a model, comparing him with Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Paul VI beatified him on December 1, 1963, and presented him as an example for the young and for workers. Pope Francis canonized him on October 14, 2018, together with Paul VI and Archbishop Óscar Romero, during the Synod of Bishops on young people.