After repeated insistence, he
was taken into the cloistral walls where he found God entirely and in God
the peace for a perfect spirit.
His parents, becoming aware of
his absence, felt their hearts broken and quickly set out to find their
missing son. After diligently asking and searching everywhere, they learned
that he took refuge in Saint Mary’s of Cadossa. Without delay, Cono’s parents
went to the Monastery and with tears in their eyes asked the Father Abbott
for the restitution of their son.
Cono was in his cell praying and
studying when he found out of his parents arrival and intentions. In order
to escape their tears and request, he left the cell and went to search
for a hiding place. Not finding a more suitable and secure place, he hid
in a burning oven readying in that moment, for the bread of the monastery.
The flames did not touch him but instead sweetly caressed his face to splendor
his renewed beauty. The Abbott, touched by the tears and insistence of
Igniva and her husband decided to give up their son to them.
Brother Cono was acutely searched
for in the chapel; in his cell, in the refectory and everywhere else, He
was searched for in every place hidden and obscure, not one angle was left
unexplored, but every search was in vain.
While the Abbott was dismissing
the poor parents, who could not resign themselves to the fact that they
should return to Diano without their son, they accidently turned their
heads towards the oven and glanced at Cono unhurt in the midst of the crackling
flames. They ordered him, in the virtue of holy obedience to come out of
his hiding place. Igniva and her husband stood in front of that scene of
marvel, that clearly manifested the will of God and blessed the boy in
the name of God. They permitted him to stay at Saint Mary’s of Cadossa
to carry out the divine plan.
Cono’s parents completed the supreme
holocaust of the heart and knew with sweet generosity the Will of God:
to restore to him the gift that they received. They left Saint Mary’s of
Cadossa with very different sentiments from those which accompanied them
there and they returned to Diano with a satisfied conscience of fulfilling
their duty.
Relatives, friends, acquaintances
and neighbors competed to
find out the results of their findings. Cono’s parents did not know what to say to everyone except for the words their Christian resignation “God has given him to us. God has taken him from us. May his holy will be done.”