Читать книгу A Golden Treatise of Mental Prayer - St. Peter de Alcántara - Страница 15

BLESSED ALCANTARA.

ance, he cast his eyes to heaven, and with great anxiety lamented this unhappy hinderance. Behold ! upon the sudden (as he himself related,)* he was miraculously transported on the other side of the river, without any notable motion, that he could perceive.

This miracle was not unlike to that, when the river Jordan stood still for the children of Israel to pass ; or when St. Peter walked upon the waves of the sea ; and, indeed, it was no small beginning of Almighty God's many favors, exhibited to this blessed saint.

This obstacle being removed, he passed the other part of his way (the Holy Ghost being his guide) without any difficulty, and at length arrived to his desired harbor, this solitary monastery, situated amongst great rocks, which they commonly call Los Manxeredes, where he came to the fathers, and asked the habit of St. Francis of them, who did grant it to him with as much charity, as he begged it with humility.

But, when this blessed Saint considered his poor habitation, sequestered from the company of men, and abstracted from all worldly tumults; and when he saw himself vested in his penitential weed, we may well imagine with what meditations he spurred himself forward in Almighty God's service. He spake to his own soul these or the like words: behold,

* Marianus in ejus vita cap. 1.