Salvator of Horta

ON BLESSED SALVATOR OF HORTA, OF THE ORDER OF SAINT FRANCIS OF THE OBSERVANCE, AT CAGLIARI IN SARDINIA.

1567.

Salvator of Horta, of the Order of Saint Francis of the Observance, at Cagliari in Sardinia (Blessed).

[1] When the Templars were entirely suppressed under Clement V, Supreme Pontiff, Horta, a town of the diocese of Tortosa in Catalonia, formerly belonging to them, A church of the Blessed Virgin near Horta erected by the Templars, was transferred to the sacred Military Order of Saint John: and a more ancient chapel, in memory of the most holy Mary of the Angels, at a thousand paces from this town, on the more elevated part of a certain mountain, built by the aforesaid Templars, passed into the jurisdiction of certain secular Priests, and afterwards of the Friars Minor of the Province of Catalonia; for whom the townspeople also built a rather elegant monastery from public funds. And when this chapel and monastery, having been for a time under the Recollect Fathers, had been abandoned by them for certain reasons; through the intervention of the Emperor Charles V and King of Spain, Transferred to the Recollects, and especially at the insistence of the people of Horta, they were reassumed by the same. These things are related by Francesco Gonzaga, Bishop of Mantua, in his work On the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, part 3, Province of Catalonia, convent 15; and he adds: Of this sacred house, which twelve Recollect Brothers inhabit and most faithfully serve God Almighty day and night, there was once a resident, a man of extraordinary holiness, the blessed Father Salvator Alphonsus.

[2] The name Blessed Salvator gave him; The name Alphonsus is added here because the Provincial Minister had wanted him to have this name instead of his former name of Salvator, when he sent him away from Horta, wishing to abolish all memory of his suspected sanctity and to have Salvator thenceforth live obscure and unknown to men. But because God did not cease to manifest him by wondrous prodigies, nor did the common people cease to call him by his own name, with the surname "of Horta" added: from that place, namely, from which the fame of his virtue and sanctity first spread through all Spain, and roused from every quarter the sick and those held by whatever infirmity to the hope of health, to be obtained from the most Blessed Virgin Mary through the merits of this blessed religious. For which reason Whose body rests at Cagliari, the previously obscure town and monastery acquired great celebrity; yet not the perpetual and principal patronage of that same Saint. For this happiness was reserved for the convent of Cagliari, where he spent the last two years of his life, and having been consummated by a blessed end, awaits the resurrection of the Saints in his body, which was still incorrupt when, at the beginning of this century, it was solemnly translated into a new and proper chapel, and a canonical inquiry was begun into his life and miracles, for the purpose of inscribing him in the catalogue of Saints.

[3] With the veneration of the Blessed. Although this was not immediately obtained, the Apostolic See, from the judgment of the Cardinals presiding over the sacred Congregation of Rites, granted that proper veneration of the Blessed be rendered to him and that it be permitted to paint his image with rays and the display of miracles wrought by divine power: one of which is said to have immediately appeared at Rome, but has not come to our knowledge. Another smaller one was later engraved to be prefixed to an Italian Life reprinted at Milan in the year 1624: And engraved images with miracles, in which the same Blessed is seen amid poor people, the infirm, the lame, the blind, kneeling round about, raising his right hand to impart a blessing to them; turning the beads of a rosary with his left: above whose head, encircled with rays, the Holy Spirit seems to descend in the form of a dove; and on the right in the clouds the Virgin Mother of God appears, to whose power he was accustomed to ascribe all the benefits of healings that he conferred upon the wretched. Beneath the image itself this prayer is read, or rather a blessing to be made over the sick with the invocation of the Blessed. And its own invocation. "May the power of God the Father, the wisdom of God the Son, the virtue of God the Holy Spirit, through the merits and intercession of Blessed Salvator, free you from every fever, tertian, quartan, continuous, and from every evil. May Blessed Salvator pray for you and bless you in the name of the Father ✠ and of the Son ✠ and of the Holy Spirit ✠. Amen."

[4] The author of this life is not named in the title of the whole booklet: but is indicated in the title of chapter 5 with these words: The author, that is, The author of the life is Dimas Serpi. Fr. Dimas Serpi, Provincial of Sardinia, lest he weary the reader by relating in minute detail miracles of every sort, refers the reader to the memorial presented to the Pontiff, and passes to the more illustrious and noteworthy ones. Namely, it was not he himself, but some other person, who had made Italian the material arranged by Dimas in the Spanish language, adding from his own inclination a marginal summary and division and titles of chapters. We may suspect that this interpreter was none other than Barrezzo, for whom that life seems to have been compiled by the author, to be inserted in part 4 of the Chronicles of the Order of Friars Minor from chapter 42 of book 5 to the end thereof: which he himself published that part at Venice in the year 1608: from which the Life of Blessed Salvator, having been accepted, read again, and approved, was reprinted at Milan in the year 1628 by Giovanni Battista Cerri, and two years earlier by someone else at Naples, as far as we gather from Arthur, who cites a booklet printed there in the year 1626.

[5] Before this one, which we have translated into Latin, divided in our custom into chapters and paragraphs, The same was earlier published three times more briefly in Spanish. with the marks of the old division noted in the margin: before this Life, I say, three others were published, which are briefer and do not contain a tenth part of the miracles to be adduced from the authentic processes. The first of these appeared at Barcelona, in the same year in which the process was formed there, 1600, in the same format as the remaining Chronicles of the Saints of Sardinia compiled by the said Dimas Serpi, as a continuation to the fourth part of the same Chronicle, distinguished into four chapters, each with its own theme drawn from sacred letters, in the manner of sermons to be read to the people. This Life then, with some additions at the beginning and end, was expressed in continuous discourse by Anthony Vincent Domenech of holy memory, but made shorter by omitting most of the miracles, in a general history of the Saints of Catalonia, part 2, which treats of Saints not canonized according to the order of the Religions of which they were members. This work appeared in the second year of this century: in which same year, but before the work of Domenech was published, the aforesaid Dimas Serpi had compiled another life of the same Blessed, fuller and more distinct than the former, and had it printed in a smaller format, so that it would by itself constitute a booklet, to be distributed among the devout faithful.

[6] From these three Lives we have taken those gleanings which we have thought should be appended at the end of the fuller Life, because Whence the Gleanings are taken, besides a more accurate account of the birth of the Blessed and some miracles, they also contained the instruments of the authority given to Brother Dimas to form the processes we mentioned in Sardinia and Spain, not without an illustrious testimony of the public veneration already then paid to Blessed Salvator by the pious faithful. The same is treated under a distinguished eulogy, both in the place we cited above and in another where he describes the convent of Cagliari, by the aforementioned Gonzaga. The other authors who in any manner touched upon the praises or miracles of this Blessed His feast is on Sunday 2 after Epiphany, and among the Genoese. are laboriously enumerated by Arthur of the Monastery in his Franciscan Martyrology, and he adds: At Cagliari his feast is celebrated by permission of Pope Paul V on the second Sunday after the Epiphany: and it is publicly celebrated with the greatest devotion at Genoa, in the church of our convent of Peace, in the suburb of that city; at whose invocation frequent miracles are seen to occur, in testimony of which innumerable painted tablets are hung, displaying various benefits received from heaven through him: all of which, he says, I saw in the years 1616 and 1620, while I was staying there.

[7] With these things already prepared for the press, we are informed by Father Francesco Harold, the most worthy successor of Luke Wadding in writing the history of the Order, An image painted at Rome in the church of Saint Isidore. that at Rome, in the convent of his Order assigned to Irish Recollects and called Saint Isidore's, on the Gospel side near the high altar, a large image of this Blessed is painted, with raised hands beseeching the Mother of God for the lame, blind, etc., subjected to him. At Naples also, in the year 1651, twin images of the same, printed in rough art, are held at the head of a page, Other images printed at Naples with a Responsory, of which the smaller and simpler one has beneath it a Responsory, Antiphon, and Prayer as follows: Responsory. This man from his youth merited to heal the sick: the Lord gave him great renown, to illuminate the blind

and to put demons to flight. Behold a man without complaint, a true worshiper of God, abstaining himself from every evil work and remaining in his innocence. To illuminate the blind and to put demons to flight. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. To illuminate the blind and to put demons to flight. Antiphon. From Horta a light has risen, Antiphon, by which all Spain has shone, especially Catalonia, and likewise also Gaul; extinguished in Sardinia after innumerable miracles, he prays for us to the Lord. V. Pray for us, Blessed Salvator. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Prayer. Let us pray. O God, who wonderfully manifest your omnipotence in the humility of your Saints, and who have deigned to adorn Blessed Salvator of Horta, your servant, with admirable simplicity and the grace of wonderful healings: grant, we beseech you, that all who implore his aid may obtain the saving effect of their petition.

[8] With miracles. The same words are read beneath the larger image, which shows the most Blessed Virgin Mary, carrying the child Jesus in her arms and descending through a white cloud to the Blessed: at whose feet a crowd of the poor and sick awaits his aid, with this caption beneath: "A multitude of the ailing came to him," Luke chapter 6. And a Spanish hymn: On both sides, moreover, is read a hymn, or, as it is put in the title, a jubilus, composed in Spanish verse by a certain Observant Brother, and accustomed to be chanted daily in the chapel where the sacred body is kept, together with the aforementioned Responsory, Antiphon, and Prayer. The said hymn consists of eight strophes of eight verses each, in which his birth, virtues, miracles, death, and veneration at Cagliari are contained: and it is notably expressed that through his capuce, reverently preserved in the sanctuary of the Cagliari convent, All of which are sung daily at Cagliari at his body. many favors are obtained: and finally the Blessed is invoked as a special helper of women in childbirth. At the head and end of the aforesaid hymn, a shorter strophe is placed in nearly the same words in both places:

Since your great favor Comforts our spirits, Pray for us to the Lord, Blessed Salvator of Horta.

The last two verses may be repeated at each strophe, and the fifth and sixth verse always end in "or" and "orta": the first four, moreover, are so composed that the first verse has a common ending with the fourth and the second with the third.

LIFE

By Dimas Serpi, Provincial of Sardinia and Commissioner for seeking canonization.

BY DIMAS SERPI.

CHAPTER I.

The beginnings of his life, and first miracles at Barcelona, Tortosa, and Horta.

[1] This Blessed Brother, a Catalan by nation, had a humble and small birthplace, Born in the diocese of Gerona, named after Saint Columba of Farnesia, in the diocese of Gerona; the son of a poor man who, having charge of a hospice, provided nighttime shelter for the poor, having his wife as a companion in the pious work, and from her this fruit of their mutual charity. Their names are neither expressed in the processes nor could they be learned in the aforesaid place: only about three men of approximately ninety years came forward to testify that they had shared a common upbringing in their childhood with Blessed Salvator, As certain surviving contemporaries testify, whom they used to call "little Salvator of the Hospital": but that after his parents died, they had never heard anything about the small boy before that year when he came to stay at the convent of Horta: for then the fame had reached the inhabitants of the place where he was born, that in that convent there was a Brother who worked many miracles, and that many frequently went there: to those who came seeking to recover their health, he revealed himself, saying: I am that little Salvator, the son of your Hospice-keeper: in this way, then, he was recognized by them: and when he later stayed in the same place of Saint Columba, he was seen to work great miracles: and nothing other than what has just been said is held in memory.

[2] As far as can be known from a calculation of times drawn from the Acts of the processes, Around the year 1520, Salvator began to see this light around the twentieth year of the sixteenth century: and having entered the twentieth year of his age, he entered the Seraphic religion of Saint Father Francis in the convent of Saint Mary at Barcelona, most well known for the praises of extraordinary observance. After 20 years he takes the habit at Barcelona; There the Brother who tended the kitchen, a man of rare sanctity, received Salvator as a companion of the laborious and lowly office, to be exercised in the works of obedience: to which he applied himself with great effort, attending to the fire, washing vessels, scrubbing dishes with diligent care; and keeping his spirit always fixed on God, he was scarcely heard to say anything other than "Jesus Mary." In his whole life pure and simple, he seemed utterly estranged from this world and so removed from its concerns that he could be thought born for religion alone. Every night he raged against his own body with violent flagellation, whence his master and the other Brothers judged that he would someday illustrate his Order with extraordinary holiness.

[3] The preparation of a solemn dinner. After this, God began to honor the virtue of his novice with manifest miracles. The feast of the Circumcision of the Lord was at hand, from which this convent had received its name, and which accordingly was usually celebrated there with great solemnity: which the Chancellor of the Kingdom, a most pious and religious man, wishing to augment by his munificence, sent some rams and other provisions to the Brothers, ordering them to be prepared for a dinner which he would take together with them in the company of many persons of the first dignity and nobility. The Guardian therefore commanded the cook what was to be done: but he, feeling in the middle of the night that he was seized by a very severe fever and was unfit for carrying out his duty, summoned Salvator to him and gave him the keys, saying: Go to the Father Guardian and inform him that I, being gravely ill, send these keys, Forgotten during prayer, so that he may commit to someone else the care of preparing the dinner for the Brothers and Lords who are coming. Having received the commission, the Brother went to the church, to be present for the nighttime psalmody, and persevering the whole night in prayer, around dawn, having first carried out his customary bodily scourging, he received the sacraments of Confession and Communion, and said not a word to the Guardian; on account of the fervor of his continued prayer, utterly forgetting what had been commanded to him.

[4] Meanwhile the time of dinner was approaching, and the Guardian, anxious that everything be done properly and in order, He is scolded by the Guardian; went to the kitchen and finding it still closed, ordered the cook to be summoned to him: who through the Brother sent to him excused his illness, and reported that the keys had been sent by him through Brother Salvator in the middle of the night; moved, as it seemed to him, by just indignation, and understanding from those he had sent to find Salvator that he was in the church, quietly praying, intent solely on divine things, he went straight there and heaping many insults upon him, called him a fool: But he finds everything prepared in the kitchen. and threatening to send him far away for the injury done to himself and such Lords, he immediately snatched the keys from his hands, and opened the kitchen, expecting nothing less than to find everything properly prepared in that place where all testified that no one had entered the whole night and day; nor had it even been seen open by anyone. And this is the first sign which we could recognize God as having worked on his behalf, using the ministry of Angels or some other means unknown to us, to supply the deficiency of His servant, who was intent on most devout prayers.

[5] When the annual period of the religious novitiate had passed, Salvator was admitted to the solemn profession of the three vows, Having professed his vows, he moves to Tortosa, and having pronounced them, was led by the Provincial Minister to the convent of Saint Mary of Jesus in the city of Tortosa, where the discalced Brothers were living in great austerity of life and rigid observance of their reform. Here the Blessed began to pursue the way of life which he had begun in the novitiate and thenceforth constantly maintained; daily chastising himself with the whip, and after confession of sins refreshing himself with the Sacrament of the Lord's Body: which was the reason that he was immediately considered a Saint throughout the whole city, and anyone who could even once kiss his garments thought himself blessed. And heals an infant with kidney stones: It happened there that a certain nobleman, having a small son so burdened with the mass of calculous matter that whenever urine was to be passed, the child would collapse to the ground nearly dead, had tried all remedies in vain: who, when one day he had caught sight of Blessed Salvator passing through his gardens for the sake of seeking alms, threw himself at his feet and implored him to have pity on his little son and pour forth prayers for him to God. The pitiable sight of the suppliant moved the tender heart of Salvator to such affection, and he immediately placed his hand on the head of the sick child, and with his eyes fixed on heaven, recited the Angelic Salutation, and departed unexpectedly. When evening came, however, and the parents were about to administer the usual medicines to their little son and had stripped him of his garments, they found him sound and well: and never thereafter did the infant suffer any difficulty of urine or trouble from the stone: which the nobleman, ascribing it to a manifest miracle, immediately spread throughout the entire city.

CHAPTER II.

[6] One day when Salvator was sent out to collect alms, He stops a fleeing mule by his prayers, the Guardian had yoked a mule to carry whatever the liberality of the faithful contributed: but having found an open field, it took to flight in a gallop toward the convent, with the companion of Salvator vainly pursuing it and trying to stop it. He, seeing that nothing was accomplished by himself, turned back to call for the help of Salvator; who fixed his knees to the ground, and at that same moment the mule stood still and offered itself to be seized by the Brother: and to him, now closer, Salvator said with a smile: What a subject for laughter among the Brothers this mule would have given us, if he had returned home without us. This innocent remark moved bile in his companion, so that he hurled back some rather harsh words; to which he replied in his gentle voice, as was his custom: Forgive me, Brother: for this was entirely my fault: for am I not more senseless than if I were a beast of burden, I who trusted a mule not endowed with reason? But from now on put aside your fear, and allow him to walk freely, certain that he will not run away again: which indeed he did not. And so they came to a place named Galera, where there was a little girl long afflicted with quartan fevers; He cures a quartan fever. and she was freed from them as soon as the Blessed, having cast his Rosary around her neck, recited the Hail Mary.

[7] From that same convent so celebrated a fame of his miracles spread throughout the whole kingdom that the good Brothers, wearied by the frequency of mortals flocking to him from every quarter, asked the Provincial to consult their peace by taking Salvator elsewhere. Transferred to another convent near Horta. The Minister heard their supplication; and lest any rumor of his plan should reach the inhabitants of that city, he secretly led the Blessed away to another convent, named after the Virgin of Horta, situated in the most rugged mountains, two miles from Horta, where Brothers of most religious life permanently resided

(as is recorded in the chronicles) and Salvator, leading a harsh life with fasts, whips, and prayers, was betrayed by his own light, He warns the Consuls of the coming multitude, or rather by God, who did not wish his virtue to remain hidden: and shortly the aforesaid Consuls of Horta arrived, supplicating that he would commend that place to God through his prayers. To whom Salvator, admonished by divine inspiration, said: Let them see to it that a sufficiently large house be equipped with many beds, and that a great supply of the necessities of life — wheat, oats, oil, veal, and mutton — be at hand: for it would come to pass that in this place the divine omnipotence would magnificently display itself and, taking pity on its creatures, would most gloriously manifest the honor of its Mother.

[8] They departed upon hearing these things, divided by the fluctuation of various thoughts: He reproaches those who neglect his warning: for some thought faith should be given to his words, others denied that they could grasp their meaning: all finally neglected what they had heard. And so when Salvator later went out toward the town for the sake of alms, meeting the same men near the city, he said to them: You indeed did not wish to believe me: but I tell you that within a few days you will see that the prediction was true. When these days had passed, an immense multitude of about two thousand appeared — the hunchbacked, the contracted, the paralytic, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the feverish, the dropsical, That multitude arrives, about 2,000: and they are healed. the herniated: since the one voice of all was asking where that holy man dwelt who worked such great miracles at Tortosa. And when the monastery of the most holy Queen of heaven was pointed out to them, they directed their course straight there and sought to obtain a remedy from him for their ills. He commanded them all to go to the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, and finally, having imparted his blessing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he dismissed them: divine virtue immediately working upon them and freeing them from all the infirmities by which they were held.

[9] Among them, nevertheless, there was a certain paralytic who had no share in the common grace and joy: Except one paralytic, all the sick are healed: and when his companions were preparing to carry him away, placed on his beast of burden, in the company of the rest, the blessed man came forth to inspect that very great multitude of men, and admonished them not to forget to render due acts of thanks to God for the benefits obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To whom the paralytic said: But I, Father, why was I not healed equally with the rest? Because, the Blessed replied, you neglected the Confession prescribed for you, nor were you brought here with the same faith as the others. Then the paralytic said: I repent of having offended God, But he too, being penitent, obtains health. and firmly resolve to confess my sins. Then the Blessed said: Arise therefore and descend from the horse, and go quickly to the Confessor; then give thanks to the glorious Lady, that she may restore to you the desired health. And at that very moment, healed, he promptly performed all that had been commanded. From this time, since that multitude of the healed proclaimed everywhere the power wrought in them, and some continually drew others to the Blessed by the experience of benefits received, that influx of people coming from every quarter lasted for many years, With such a great influx lasting for many years, so that there was no day on which several thousand people did not converge; and in Holy Week the number grew to four thousand: indeed on the feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin it reached fully six thousand; so that, since the public inns could not hold the crowds, all had to spend the night scattered under trees and tents placed throughout the mountain, like soldiers led out into the field.

[10] And in this God displayed both his power and mercy; for although the multitude was so great each day, Yet food never fails the multitude, no one was found wanting in necessary food, but from everywhere throughout the whole kingdom and from the nearest regions especially, edibles of every kind were brought for sale. It was, moreover, deemed especially worthy of note, and was also recorded in the processes, that a certain man who had sold the head of one ram for a royal sum was told by him, after a sharp reproof of his avarice and cruelty, that no one of his family would enjoy the goods he had accumulated: and so it happened, his family together with his estate utterly vanishing within a short time. Seeing therefore that the prediction of Blessed Salvator had been true, the aforesaid Consuls ordered that many necessary goods be transported toward the monastery; But a great abundance is brought from everywhere. and they further affirmed that, besides what the vendors spontaneously brought from every quarter, no fewer than a hundred cart-loads of wheat made into bread were sent there daily: so that not only on working days but also on Sundays and feast days and on Easter Day itself the bakers had to work at the ovens, lest food fail the multitude.

CHAPTER II.

Many miracles wrought at the Horta convent.

CHAPTER III.

[11] Of the indigenous elders of the town of Horta, the following give testimony to the miracles in this way: on account of the passage of a long time, they confess that the names of many of those to whom these things were done have escaped their memory: The sworn elders of Horta testify, the more so because the greater part of those whom they remembered as having been healed beyond the powers of nature were foreigners brought from remote regions. As, however, they recall having seen with their own eyes, they narrated as follows and confirmed them to be true by an oath taken upon the holy Gospels of Christ. A young man, paralytic in his right arm, side, and leg, was brought to Blessed Salvator, who, having gone to confession as ordered A paralytic healed, and received the holy Eucharist, was signed with his blessing and favored with the imposition of hands and the rosary, and immediately arose healthy, and giving thanks to God and his most blessed Mother, departed. Michael Salimas, from a town in Aragon called Carinegna, A man with contracted limbs, contracted in the knees, needed only the blessing of the Blessed to cast aside his crutches and walk away on firm steps. John Penar d'Aranda, from the same town, paralytic for six years, had lain completely bedridden for fifteen full months, so that he could never be lifted from it: he had himself carried in a litter to the church of Saint Mary of Horta, Another paralytic, and having thus covered more than a hundred and fifty ^amiles, stood before the feet of Blessed Salvator; and having confessed his sins and been refreshed with the Body of Christ, after the latter's blessing he rose to his feet, joyful in his recovered health. ^b

[12] Peter Ales, from the town of ^cPauls, A blind girl, had brought there his little daughter named Magdalene, whom his wife had borne blind to this light, about two years before around the Christmas feasts of the Lord: and as Salvator blessed her, the infant opened her left eye. So they returned home then quite happy, although with only half the benefit: but in the following March they returned to the Blessed, asking and beseeching that he would complete his benefit and obtain also the use of the other eye for their little daughter. He heard them, and placing his hand on the darkened eye, made this one also able to see the light, and endowed the girl with the full faculty of sight. Barbara Cabelli, from the town of ^dAlcagnis, paralytic in one arm, having made confession of her sins as commanded by Blessed Salvator, Likewise two paralytic women. departed from him healthy and cheerful. Martin de Giara, from the town of Luizio in the diocese of Pamplona in Cantabria, had lost the use of one eye to blindness and the motion of his arm to paralysis; both were restored by the blessing of Blessed Salvator devoutly sought and received: which the same blessing did for a paralytic woman from the kingdom of Navarre, who left behind as a sign of her recovered health the crutches by which, attempting to walk, she had supported her body. Thus also a boy brought from Valencia to Horta was cured of a severe hernia. And one afflicted with hernia. A man from the town of ^eMonzón in Aragon, of great dignity, called Lord Escalara, suffered the same ailment; for whom to be blessed by the Blessed and for the rupture to be healed were one and the same.

[13] Before 2,000 people a mute man receives speech from the Blessed. There was a time when more than two thousand people had filled the mountain on which the monastery, then the domicile of Blessed Salvator, stood: who all confirmed under oath that they had seen with their own eyes how a man mute from birth, standing before the Blessed, was commanded by him, moved to compassion, to recite the Hail Mary. When he could not at the first or second command resolve his tongue into words at the voice of the one commanding; at the third time the Blessed inserted his fingers into his mouth, and grasping his tongue, said: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, say Hail Mary. And immediately the mute responded, Hail Mary, and ran through the rest of the Angelic Salutation in order, together with the Our Father: and thenceforth persevered endowed with the free faculty of speech. On that day Blessed Salvator performed many other miracles, the abundance of which caused their memory not to be preserved in writing.

[14] He predicts a harmless firing of a gun. A certain man called James Amargos commended to Blessed Salvator the life of his brother; against whom certain outlawed enemies were not obscurely plotting destruction; and the Saint said: They will indeed discharge their guns at him, but will inflict no wound, since the Blessed Virgin, to whom he is very devout, protects your brother. He heals various people, And so it happened shortly after, when, caught in a convenient place, he was struck by a lead ball from his enemies; but it passed through his clothes only, harmless to his body. A boy paralytic in his left arm received health from the blessing of the Blessed: similarly a certain blind man obtained sight: another girl, her whole body paralyzed, was likewise fully healed throughout her whole body and raised herself to her feet. There was a young man of twenty years, Likewise a mute man. he too mute from his birth: whom, prostrate at his feet, the Saint commanded to recite the Hail Mary, and dismissed him to speak perfectly thereafter. An old woman was crawling on the ground with her hands and feet: and after the Blessed began to pray well for her, she raised herself up before him and left behind the supports on which she had leaned to move herself from place to place.

[25] Another woman of forty-five years, having long

lost her faculty of speech, was mourning: He commands a mute woman to confess, to those pleading on her behalf the Saint replied: She committed a great sin, and on the very day she committed it she was deprived of the use of her tongue, and will not recover it until she has confessed her crime. When, moreover, they urged that he himself should draw from her the confession of the committed crime: In the name He commands her confession, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, come now, he said, tell us whether it is true that you committed some grave offense! It is true, she replied. Therefore confess it before all, said the Saint. Then she said: Driven by an excessive desire for temporal goods, I struck my father a blow. Then the Saint restored all her speech to her, and having ordered her to seek sacramental absolution from a Priest for her crime And dismisses her healed: and to beg her father's pardon as a suppliant for the injury inflicted, he dismissed her perfectly healed, having wrought a double miracle in one woman at the same time. One day Salvator saw a boy of fifteen years He raises a crawling boy to his feet. crawling on his hands and knees, and pitying him, praying well for him, he took him by the hands and stood him on his feet, and said: Go and give thanks to the most Blessed Virgin, who has freed you from so great an evil.

[26] He gives speech to 4 mute persons: At another time, four boys were brought to him who had been deaf and mute from the very hour of their birth: the Saint commanded them to say the Hail Mary: but they remained without speech. Again therefore, but with the customary invocation of the Holy Trinity through the sign of the Cross made first, Now, he said, say the Hail Mary. And immediately all four began to speak fluently. A girl recently betrothed to a man had been seized by a demon and was being grievously tormented: He frees a demoniac: her four brothers therefore brought her bound to the Saint and asked that he have pity on her. Nor were prayers needed, since he was most tender in the disposition of compassion: and so he immediately commanded the demon to leave the body it had wickedly occupied, and by a repeated command with the invocation of the most holy Trinity, he compelled it to depart. When it obeyed, the girl remained free indeed, but destitute of all her strength. The Saint therefore said: Go, and render thanks to Mary your liberator; and in doing so she also received her former bodily strength.

[28] He heals a mute man, To a mute man also, brought to him and signed with the Cross, he recited the Lord's Prayer for him to follow, and had him obediently following, to the admiration of all who were present at so sudden a cure, and praising God. At another time they brought to him an infant whom his mother had borne blind into the light, and asked that he, having pity on the tender creature, would open his eyes, Likewise a blind infant. which were so closed that not even the smallest part of them could be seen: the Blessed made a prayer for him and obtained from God what was sought, and sent the boy's parents home happy with their seeing son. Now, since the abundance of miracles could weary the reader (the summary of which can be read at the end of this chapter of the Life), henceforth it will be enough for us to set forth some of the more notable ones.

[28] He heals 20 paralytics. It happened once that twenty paralytics at the same time came to Blessed Salvator and humbly and insistently begged him for health: to whom he said: I promise that I shall entreat the most holy Virgin for you: you also, for your part, be contrite for your sins and recite the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation with me with all the affection of your heart. When they had done this with the Saint leading, he turned to them and blessed them all with a loud voice, saying: In the name of the Father, etc., and immediately all were given complete health, and leaving behind their crutches and other aids for moving the body, praising God and the Blessed Virgin, and giving thanks to the holy Brother, What a great supply of bread was needed for the pilgrims. they departed. Francisco Alos, a citizen of Horta, testifies that various men were chosen by the Consuls of that place to see to it that grain would not be lacking for making the bread necessary for the multitude coming together each day: and that he himself, when he was among their number, during six months of exercising this duty had sold to the people three thousand seven hundred rubos (a measure of which, taken four times, fills one quintal of flour), while others appointed to the same duty had sold a greater quantity of grain, besides that which was brought in from elsewhere by bread merchants and bakers from other parts.

[29] Two mute girls, A girl who had come into this world deaf and mute was brought to Salvator when she was six years old, and healed by the sign of the Cross alone, she immediately recited the Hail Mary commanded her in a clear voice and departed joyfully. Another of fourteen years labored from exactly the same defect, likewise from birth: and signed in the same manner, she required a third command and the placing of fingers upon her inert tongue before he loosed it into the prescribed words. On another day a woman was presented to the Blessed, possessed by an evil spirit: whom as soon as Salvator saw before him, In the name of the Father, he said, etc., I command you, devil, to depart from this body. I shall depart, A woman possessed by a demon, it replied, provided I am permitted to depart through the mouth or nostrils or eyes. But the Blessed said: In the name of the most holy Trinity and of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, none of these shall be allowed: but through those most filthy parts that befit you and your kind, you shall depart: and at that very hour the demon departed, with such a crash and roar that the sky seemed to thunder: and the woman, freed from her most wicked guest, striving to fulfill the feeling of gratitude by giving thanks to God and the Virgin and to Blessed Salvator himself, at last went home cheerful.

[30] Paralysis of one leg, A certain man who, in addition to paralysis of one leg, had his knee so swollen and inflated that it equaled the size of a basin: who, having undergone confession of sins as prescribed by the Blessed and been signed with his blessing, went home expeditiously without crutches. Ludovico Pilliur also, a citizen of Horta, Long-standing blindness, had lost the light of his eyes through a long illness and had lived blind for many years: until at last he went to Blessed Salvator, and having first made sacramental confession, asked him to restore his sight also for the love of God: which he also obtained, having received his blessing. On the same day a deaf and mute man brought to the Blessed, after the sign of the Cross was impressed upon him, was commanded to say the Hail Mary: he said it; A mute and deaf man are healed. and thenceforth could speak and hear without difficulty.

CHAPTER III.

Continuation of other miracles: in which two dead persons are raised.

[31] A certain Navarrese nobleman had his twelve-year-old daughter, deaf and mute from birth, A deaf and mute daughter: carried to Blessed Salvator, and asked him to heal her out of charity. The Blessed replied: Go and, having confessed and been refreshed with the holy Eucharist, remain for eight days in this church, persisting in vigils and prayers before the Virgin: and before you leave from here you will have your daughter speaking readily and hearing. The afflicted father did what was commanded: and when the eight days had passed and he saw that his daughter was no better than before, despairing of the promise made to him and sad, Alas, wretched me! he said, Brother Salvator, to whom when you promised me that I would have my daughter healed before I left this place, The father obtains health, though doubting. I have not merited to see the fulfillment of either my vow or your promise. To whom the Blessed said: And yet, as I said, so it shall be. Nevertheless the nobleman went out sadly from the convent and returned to the town, loaded his beasts of burden and vehicles to return to his home: having done which, taking his daughter by the hands, Alas, he said, again wretched me, daughter, who have not been able to obtain the grace hoped for from the man of God. But the girl, gazing fixedly at her father, replied: Do not weep, dear father, for the holy man has given me the faculty of both hearing and speaking. Hearing his daughter speak, he embraced her with joy and, crying out Miracle, miracle, he immediately pulled the shoes from his feet, and barefoot hastened with his daughter to return to the Saint, to give thanks to him: who ordered them to remain there another eight days, so that in that same church he might render due thanks to the Blessed Virgin; and when these were faithfully and piously completed, he returned joyfully to his home with his daughter, hearing and speaking. And on that same day a paralytic woman was healed by the application of the sign of the Cross.

[32] The use of the Catalan language is given to another. A similar calamity was lamented by a certain Cantabrian man and his wife regarding their daughter, now eight years old: whom when they had offered to the Saint and obtained his blessing upon her, they were ordered to remain eight days there and faithfully pray to the most blessed Mother of God for the obtaining of their daughter's health: For, he said, after this your daughter will speak. On the fourth day the girl began to speak with the natives of the town of Horta in the Catalan language, and while all were crying out Miracle, miracle, the parents alone were saddened because they neither understood their daughter speaking nor were understood by her in turn: all who were present marveling exceedingly at the strangeness of this wonder. They therefore went back to the holy man, asking that the Cantabrian, not the Catalan, language be given to their daughter: to whom By a miracle given, the Blessed said: The most Blessed Virgin willed it so, that all the natives of this place might hear her speaking in their own tongue: continue the prayer you have begun, and I shall pray with you that the grace you seek may be granted her. The remaining four days, therefore, the supplication was continued: after which, blessing the little girl, Salvator said: My friends, the most holy Virgin has willed that your daughter use only the language of the Catalans while she is within their borders; after you have left these, she shall speak the Cantabrian tongue. Those who heard this — many — accompanied them to the borders of the kingdom of Aragon, since they were only two miles away, in order to witness the new miracle in person: It is turned by another miracle into Cantabrian. and as soon as they crossed the river, the girl began to speak in the speech of her native land.

[33] The above-mentioned Francisco Alos testified under the bond of an oath that two men had chosen his father's house for their lodging, having with them a boy cruelly tormented by a monstrous rupture on both sides, The Blessed, invoked, heals a rupture. so that he never ceased wailing, constantly crying out: O Saint Salvator, when will the longed-for day dawn when I shall come before you to be healed? O holy man, hear, I pray, my laments, look upon my torments, that you may have pity on me. And while he was saying these things, he suddenly beheld the boy healed before his eyes, retaining no trace of his former illness. Joanna Escudir, also born at Horta, A gaping wound of the chest, testifies with similar faith that she came into the light with her chest split in two parts,

and so reached the tenth year of her age, subject to many grave ills and pains on account of that opening, for which no remedies were of any avail. At length her mother resolved to bring her to Blessed Salvator, who, blessing her in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ordered her to go and render thanks to the Mother of God for the health restored to her. Joanna the aforesaid swore, moreover, that from that day she felt no pain in her chest: and even today, in memory of that miracle, an image of the girlish chest is displayed, showing similar signs of the fissure. The same woman testifies that in her father's house many afflicted with various infirmities were received as guests — the hunchbacked, the paralytic, the blind, the deaf, the mute, and the contracted — upon whom the Blessed conferred health by his blessing.

[34] Bartholomew Zoig of Horta, like the others, himself swore that he saw a paralytic brought on a bed, Various infirmities, and when the Saint blessed him in the name of the Holy Trinity, that man rose up healthy and departed: that he saw likewise on the same day an infant deprived of both eyes brought in, and it received sight as soon as Salvator prayed for it. John Uquet with the same religious obligation of oath affirmed it to be true that when Blessed Salvator, standing on the steps of the church, was blessing more than two thousand people spread over the mountain and around the church, a certain woman, holding a little daughter in her bosom who was blind from birth, stood in the crowd: A blind girl: and when the daughter suddenly opened her eyes and looked at her smiling, the astonished mother fell to the ground, unable to bear the force of the sudden joy: from which it happened that from every side others ran together to witness the miracle. He also swore that it happened to his father, then living, that he went to the Saint to pray for his son, The return of a runaway son, who had fled from home: who replied that he should go to the church and there pray before the altar of the Virgin. While he was doing this, the Sacristan arrived and rang the bell. The Blessed foretells and obtains it for the father. The Blessed then said to the father: Be of good cheer, our Lady has already ordered your son to be called; and you will see him return on such and such a day: as indeed happened, and the father, having received him, brought him to Salvator: who asked where he had been and who had persuaded him to return. He replied: I was on such a day in a town of the kingdom of Valencia called ^bCabanar, and there I heard the sound of a bell similar to that which they ring in this monastery, and listening more attentively, I judged it was undoubtedly the same one; although I could not see how this could be, since I was so many miles distant from here: and at the same time I felt an immense desire inspired in me to revisit my father and to come to this holy monastery. All therefore who heard him narrating these things recognized that the thing had been done at the very time when, with the Sacristan ringing the bell, the Blessed had prophesied the boy's return.

CHAPTER V.

[35] While these things were happening, and wearied by the multitude of people flocking to him, he did not cease to debilitate his own body also by the rigor of severe penances; He falls ill: using prolonged fasts, the harshest disciplines, no bed, no shoes; he finally fell into a severe fever, on account of which the physicians judged that his vein should be opened and his blood diminished. When this was done and it became known among the people, the Brothers could not prevent the crowds from bursting into the monastery and penetrating to where the bowls containing the blood were, And the blood of the opened vein is eagerly seized: in which many dipped their cloths and linen strips, intending to carry away with them the blood collected in this manner as relics: some dipped their rosaries in it. Indeed there was a woman, gravely ill, who, seizing the dish, licked it clean with her tongue, ^cand suddenly felt herself healed. Many, having returned to their homes, brought present aid to the sick, placing upon them the rosaries or small cloths that they had consecrated by dipping them in the blood of the blessed man.

[36] Matthew Zuiz, a noble Valencian, Major-domo of the Duke of Maqueda, A boy suddenly dead, in the year ^d1539 had a son of twelve years, named after his father: who, while one day walking about through the city of Valencia, fell dead in the very street, struck by sudden death; and all the physicians who were immediately called together to examine the body brought back to his father's house testified that he was dead, declaring that the remedy of patience was the only one that could be hoped for in this case: for in their art no recourse remained. The mother, most devoted to this son, wept inconsolably, and so tormented herself at the sight of the dead boy that the household servants removed him from her sight and carried him to another room, And sewn into a burial shroud, where they prepared the funeral as was the custom of the region, wrapping the corpse in Dutch linen and sewing him into it so that no part of him could be seen. On the following day, when everything was already prepared for the funeral procession, the mother could not be restrained from breaking in where the sad corpse of her son lay: and collapsing upon it, she said: O Brother Salvator, holy man, you know how well disposed I am toward you; He is raised, and led to the Saint, you often said in this house of mine to me that you would always pray for me: now indeed the time demands that you extend help to this most afflicted mother: and I promise that I shall send him from here to visit you in your house. While she was saying this and repeating it, she felt her son, sewn into the linen, moving his arms, and immediately crying out, she said: Come, hurry quickly, and cut this shroud open for me, for my son lives. And so the boy came forth alive, and was brought by his father to the servant of God and offered to him. And when the Saint advised them to render acts of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mother for that benefit (of which they later gave ample testimony), they remained there for eight days; and finally, having taken leave with a blessing to return, the father and son set out on their way, not only freed from death but also He is cured of hernia. from the hernia which he had suffered until that time when the Saint signed him with his blessing.

[37] A certain woman named Sperantia Fontanes, a citizen of Tortosa, still has a son alive in the year 1603, named Michael; who in the year 1559, a twelve-year-old adolescent, fell into the Ebro A boy drowned in the Ebro, and was submerged. By chance, Sperantia's brother was passing that way, heading for a certain vineyard of his, and under the branches of a certain leaning tree observed something resembling a bundle of cloths. He therefore ran to find a stick curved at some point in the manner of a hook, and drawing closer to the ground what he had found; first he discovered it to be a boy full of water and swollen, then, considering the features more attentively, he recognized it to be the son of his sister. Having therefore extracted him, he placed him upon a large stone lying there by chance, and hastened to his sister; who, dissolving into tears and laments at the sight of her beloved son, His mother invoking Salvator, began to say: O holy man, Brother Salvator, hear my laments and weeping, and raise my son to life for me: and I promise that I shall come with him to you and to that church of yours in which you work so many miracles, and shall remain there for a full eight days. She had scarcely said these things when the boy, opening his mouth, began to pour out all the water He revives, he had taken in, and thus resuscitated she led him to the man of God: to whom, before she said a word herself, he was the first to speak thus: O imprudent woman, why did you so badly guard this son of yours that he was drowned in the river? Therefore confess that life has been given back to him by the Virgin, and give her thanks for the benefit. You counsel rightly, she replied, my Father: but know that since he was raised to life, he suffers such a troublesome spasm around his chest that I must embrace him tightly with both arms, And healed of a spasm, otherwise he would die. The Saint, however, placed his Rosary upon his head with the invocation of the most holy Trinity, and from then on he suffered nothing similar. The aforesaid woman then added: I have also brought here this little daughter of mine, As well as his sister from a foul ulcer. who for the past two years has had an open ulcer on her head that does not cease to send forth a great quantity of pus. To her likewise the Saint placed his Rosary upon her head, and taking from the girl the linen veil that she held in her hand, placed it upon her head with his own hands, and having tied it firmly, said: See that you do not undo it within eight days: for the Mother of God will soon heal her. And truly, after eight days had passed, the little girl was found completely healthy and freed from that foul disease.

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles performed for those invoking him in his absence: and again other miracles wrought at Horta.

[38] Brother Stephen, Vicar of the Convent of Friars Minor of the Observance in ^aAlicante, The Vicar of the Friars Minor in Alicante, had an ulcer beneath his very genitals, of such a nature that he could only pass urine by the same route, not any other. Various remedies had been tried in vain, and having finally despaired of their effect, he resolved to go to Horta, and indeed on foot, because this very infirmity prevented him from riding a horse. Each day seemed to him his last, such severe pains he was suffering; Sets out on foot to Horta, until, being only one day's journey from the monastery and despairing of being able to reach it, he threw himself under a tree, expecting death as imminent on account of the intolerable pain; and sadly began to speak thus: O Brother Salvator, since it cannot be my good fortune to come to you, at least pray now to God for me, that he may mercifully receive my soul. He spoke, and overcome by pain, fell asleep: and shortly after, waking, he was no less surprised than delighted that with his sleep all his disease had also departed, and vigorously continuing the journey he had begun, He is healed on the road from an incurable ulcer. he went to the Blessed and began to give him thanks. But the Blessed admonished him to give thanks to the most holy Virgin, who had freed him from disease and death. That Stephen himself had so affirmed under sworn testimony in the year 1559 is clear from the process.

[39] In the same process, Andrew Zecca, from the Catalan village of Trix, affirms that as a seven-year-old boy he fell from a staircase, and striking his mouth on one of its steps, A boy with teeth knocked out, lost all the teeth of his entire mouth: and seeing every day a great crowd passing toward Horta for the sake of health hoped for from the holy man, he asked his father and mother to take him also to the Saint: to whom they replied that the Saint did not free anyone from the ailment of the teeth by his miracles: nor could they ever be induced to take the boy where he wished. Indeed, when on the following day his sister also fell and broke her leg, and on that account they had set out on a journey to the man of God, carrying their daughter with them, they gave the same reply to their son who again asked them at least now to take him along. Therefore the poor little boy was left sadly at home, Forbidden to go to the Saint, and when they had departed, taking a Rosary in his hands, he began to say the prayers he knew, and to commend himself even from afar to the merits of the Saint, saying: O Brother Salvator, holy man, help me, and remove from wretched me this intolerable pain from the knocked-out teeth: and do not fail to have pity on me, because my father would not bring me to you. Having said these things, he went to bed and slept, and the next day upon waking, he felt not only no pain in his mouth but also all his teeth in it: At home he receives them back: wherefore, filled with joy, he began to cry out, Miracle, miracle. Neighbors and acquaintances rushed at his cry and recognized that he was indeed as he said. He, moreover, going out of the house, took to the road by which his father would be returning, and spotting him from afar, ran to meet him: he cheerfully asked whether the Saint had healed his sister; His sister's and when the father affirmed it, he said: Broken leg is healed. And the same Saint freed me from the ailment of my teeth, when he restored them to me this night: and he showed them to his father, and said that he had them healthy and whole to this present day of the year 1603.

[40] Sebastiana de Mestram, from the Catalan village of Vil-alba, affirms that upon completing the fourteenth year of her age, with a kidney stone impeding her, she suffered such difficulty in passing urine that each time it had to be done, Another likewise forbidden to go to him, she would collapse to the ground as if dead. She, moreover, asking her father to take her to the Saint, could not persuade him to do so: because he said that the Saint did not cure such ailments. Saddened and overly afflicted by this reply, she began every day to pray to God and His most holy Mother, reciting the Rosary: Difficulty of urination is removed. and having finished it, she would say: Ah! Blessed Brother Salvator, pray for me to the Mother of God, that I may be freed from this grave infirmity. And having done this often, on a certain occasion, pressed by the need to urinate, she did so without difficulty: just as she does even now, having passed the sixty-fourth year of her life: and from that moment onward she has suffered no difficulty in this matter.

[41] A certain woman from Horta, named Martina Arti, The Blessed removes a cancer from the nostrils, had her nostrils eaten away by cancer, dripping with much pus: she sought a remedy for this ailment from Blessed Salvator and received the command to confess and communicate, and to pray to the most holy Virgin; thus it would come to pass that she would send a physician to her house, by whom she would be healed. She did as she was ordered, and having returned home and on the following night lying in bed, she suddenly saw her room filled with splendor, Appearing at night to the sick woman. and in it Blessed Salvator, who, forming the sign of the Cross, said: In the name of the Father, etc. She wished to spring from her bed and to run to kiss his hands: but soon the vision vanished from her eyes; she herself, however, remained entirely well. In the morning, moreover, she went to him, and he said: See that you tell no one of the vision, and give thanks to the glorious Virgin Mother of God: for she herself healed you.

[42] A certain man from Castile, a paralytic, had himself carried to the holy man, and when he had arrived at the town of Fuentes in Aragon, he was told that the servant of God had been sent away from Horta, He heals a paralytic when invoked. and would not be found there anymore. Saddened therefore by that news, he ordered himself to be carried to the church of the said town, and there, bemoaning his hard fate, said: O holy man, Brother Salvator, have pity on me, and wherever you now dwell, hear my prayer; praying for me to the Virgin Mother of God, that I may be restored to full health. Without delay, he fell asleep in the same place, and when released from sleep, he felt his sinews, which had been loosened, had been made firm, and fully healed, he returned home cheerful.

[43] Lady Eleanor of Saint Angelo of Saragossa from the kingdom of Aragon had a three-year-old son, Likewise a herniated boy who was being carried to Horta. Don Francisco by name, suffering from a most severe hernia: by which ailment of his the most illustrious lady was exceedingly afflicted, and she herself set out for Horta together with her little son. When, however, she had arrived at the town of Alcañiz and her son was doing worse than usual, she began to say in prayer: O Blessed Brother Salvator, grant me at least this much grace, that I may arrive at the place where you dwell with this son alive, and I trust that the benefit of full health is to be obtained for him through you. But she obtained more than she had asked: for from that hour the little boy was healed. When, however, she came to him, before she spoke any word herself, she heard him voluntarily saying: Since you have obtained what you desired, do not fail to receive the Sacraments you had come to receive, and to give thanks to our Lady, through whom that health was obtained: obeying which command with the most ready will, and glorifying God and the most glorious Virgin, she returned home joyful.

[44] Finally, all testify that from whatever direction Horta was approached, Many signs of cures conferred on the road: everywhere hung from the trees signs of diseases driven away — crosses, staffs, bandages, and bindings: by which all who traveled those same roads were both reminded and moved to hope that they too would obtain from Blessed Salvator a remedy for similar ailments for themselves and others. It is established, moreover, that from the very temple of the Mother of God, near which the Blessed was residing, six full carts were removed of such instruments, supports, or bandages which those who had recovered their health had left there, as well as many stretchers and litters on which paralytics and bedridden people, otherwise desperate, had arrived. Frequency of votive offerings: And so even during his lifetime, certain verses composed in the Catalan language were circulated throughout that entire region and were commonly sung by the mouth of the people: which it seemed good to translate into the Latin language, to prove that the fame of his holiness and miracles was very well known in those places.

[45] The Virgin Mother of God at Horta Shines forth, to be celebrated with mighty signs, Whenever Salvator, asked, sends Prayers to heaven.

By the merit of him praying, the faculty Of seeing is restored to closed eyes: If true repentance release the bonds Of grievous sins,

Nor faith be lacking in the prayers, each one Receives the favors sought. Bodies are raised up From whatever disease at last holds them Weak and ailing.

The Hymn circulated during his lifetime. The feeble, the lame, and the crowd Crippled in various limbs, and burning fevers— Each day this place sees them bear away The longed-for cure.

Therefore no people remains in the Spanish lands That does not direct its steps to the Blessed, Aptly named for giving health To the wretched.

CHAPTER VI.

[46] While the servant of God remained in this convent of the divine Virgin of Horta, Blessed Salvator converses familiarly with Christ, he gave himself almost entirely to constant prayer, so that he did not cease from it even at night: and on one occasion he was heard by the Brothers speaking with Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Chapter Room, and saying: My Lord, you promised to grant me such and such a thing: but I beg that you not repent of your promise. What the Lord replied to him, however, they could not understand. Then, rising to his feet, he said: How, my Lord? You will not now grant what you promised? Your promises cannot be void: do it therefore, I beseech you, for the love of your most holy Mother. And again, being silent for some time (as one who was listening to the Lord responding, but in a voice that no one else could perceive), he seemed to approach nearer to the venerable icon and to say to it: You promised, Lord, and you must do it. With the Mother of God and Saint Paul. After which he was caught up in ecstasy. In a similar manner he was very often heard conversing with the most blessed Mother of God, whose most devoted servant he always lived, and also with the blessed Apostle Paul, as is found in the processes.

[47] A foot useless from a fracture. Eulalia Bassa of Barcelona, when she was only in her eighth year of age, fell from a staircase and broke one foot: which, foully swollen, with the inventions of surgeons and physicians availing nothing, remained useless, the sinews having contracted; so that the greater evil was paralysis, and the girl could not stand on her feet; having meanwhile suffered more than seven times the burning and cutting of red-hot iron, by which several fragments of the shattered bone were extracted. She was being tormented into her tenth year, when Brother Salvator came to Barcelona: and when it was heard that he worked many miracles, this girl was brought to him, and having obtained his blessing, was carried back home. A good many days had passed, and yet the wretched girl had not obtained the hoped-for health: wherefore she went again to Brother Salvator, having first made Confession and received Communion, and said to him: I beg you, Brother Salvator, to pray to our Lady, that she may restore to me the full soundness of my utterly ruined foot. Now indeed, the Saint replied, you begin to pray rightly: for the reason you were lately disappointed in your desire He heals the foot and bone through the intercession of the Mother of God. was that you believed it was I who worked miracles: but now that you recognize the true source of divine benefits and turn yourself where you ought, I shall pray for you that you may be healed. To whom she said: I beseech you, Father, to deign at least to touch my foot. But he said: Go, daughter, and trust: for I shall also pray to Saint Paul for you, who today in this very place healed two broken ribs of a certain man. She departed therefore, encouraged by such words, and doubting nothing gave herself to sleep, from which the next day she rose healed: and although many fragments of bone had been removed from her foot, she was nevertheless able to walk with a free and straight step, and did walk thenceforth, never ceasing to give thanks to God and the most holy Virgin for so signal a benefit.

[48] Likewise feet hideously distorted. A ten-year-old girl, deformed from her mother's womb with distorted feet and deprived of the faculty of walking, her parents had decided to carry her, now ten years old, to the man of God: but on the way, seeing a cobbler's shop, she said to her mother: Come, buy me a pair of shoes here, so that when I have been healed by this holy man, I may put them on. The daughter's so firm confidence moved the mother to comply with her request: and when she came to Blessed Salvator and he, having invoked the most Holy Trinity, prayed well for her,

Put your daughter's shoes on, he said to them; for she is already healed. The mother was astonished at this command, and turning her eyes to her daughter's feet, she saw them straight and sound, and returning home, she glorified God and proclaimed the great charity of his servant to all her acquaintances.

CHAPTER V.

Other miracles wrought by Blessed Salvator at Horta.

[49] When the fame of the miracles of Blessed Salvator was spreading throughout all Spain, a certain knight named John, treasurer of the Duke of Medinaceli, had a daughter named Beatrice, whose face, enormously twisted toward her back, offered a pitiable spectacle to all, A head enormously twisted, and this for the twelfth year of her life: he, moreover, hearing of this fame, ordered his daughter to be brought to Horta to the Saint (for so Salvator was called by everyone), and arriving there, he asked him to cure her. He said: Trust, and having confessed, take the sacred food of the Eucharist with your daughter, and pray likewise to the most holy Virgin, and then return to me. The man did what the Saint had prescribed in that same place, and having returned to him, fell on his knees before him. Then the Blessed raised his hands and eyes to heaven and said: O Queen of heaven, hear these devout servants of yours: and turning to those standing around, All of you, he said, say the Our Father and Hail Mary for this monstrously disfigured girl: then pronouncing In the name of the Father, etc., He bends it like wax to its proper position. he took the girl's head in his hands, and twisting it, as if it had been made of soft wax, he restored it to its proper position, no trace of the former deformity remaining.

[50] A certain Inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon, passing through the town of Alcañiz, and seeing the mute, the deaf, the lame, the paralytic pass by, An Inquisitor of Aragon comes to inspect his miracles, and shortly after return cured, ordered them to be brought before him and, having put them under the obligation of an oath, wished them to declare by what means this Brother performed so many miracles. When they said that he had prescribed for them that they should confess their sins and communicate with the Lord's Body, and having done so he had given them all his blessing and immediately dismissed them healed, he himself resolved to investigate the matter with his own eyes; and to remain hidden under a foreign guise, he put on the clothes of a poor Priest, likewise changing the garments of his servants, and proceeded to the monastery where the Saint was staying. He saw moreover the whole mountain filled with a great multitude of people, whose number he believed to be about two thousand, and withdrawing himself to a certain corner of the church, Even in changed clothing he is recognized, he waited for the Saint to come forth to perform the miracles. When he appeared, all immediately fell on their knees, believing that he had come out to bless them. But he (with God and the Virgin Mother of God, by whom he was uniquely beloved, revealing the whole matter to him) ordered them to rise and give way to one passing through; and went straight to the Inquisitor and, having kissed his hand, knelt and said: Your Lordship has come here to see the stupendous works and mighty miracles that God performs through his most holy Mother? To whom he said: You are mistaken, Father, for I am a poor little Priest and do not merit this honor from you. Not at all, replied Salvator, but you are the Inquisitor of Aragon, And becomes an eyewitness of them. who asked those whom our Lady had cured here how the miracles were done here, and you have come here to know the matter more certainly. Come therefore with me; and taking him by the hand and leading him to the rails of the high altar, he turned to the people and said: Repent of your sins, all of you, and ask God for their remission. In the name of the Father, etc. And at that very moment all who were present were healed — the hunchbacked, the paralytic, the herniated, the mute. Astonished beyond measure by this, the Inquisitor humbly begged pardon for his presumption, and remained many days in the company of the man of God.

[51] A paralytic, Michael Gariera by name, a knight of the first rank, was carried from the city of Gariera to the Saint in a litter, to be healed by his prayers. A paralytic miraculously saved from the waters. When he was crossing the river in the boat of ^bSaint Andrew near Barcelona, the mules carrying the litter began to kick, so that the rear one fell into the river, while the other remained in the boat with the litter hanging over the extreme edge; and no one doubted that the overturned boat would hurl the paralytic and all who were aboard into the river, and they would be suffocated by the waters. All therefore began to cry out with a loud voice: O Blessed Salvator, extend the hand of your help to your devout servants: for we have set out on our way for the sake of visiting you and honoring our Lady at your side. And suddenly they found themselves freed from that peril, and the boat unharmed applied to the bank. When therefore they had reached the place, the paralytic, having duly received the Sacraments, ordered himself to be placed near the principal altar, and Brother Salvator, coming to him, said: How many years have you lain paralytic in bed? Sixteen, said the other. Then the Saint said: In the name of the Father, etc., arise, for your health is restored to you by the Virgin Mother of God. Health is restored, Doubtful whether he could rise, the Saint voluntarily took him by the hand, and leading him to the altar said: Here give thanks to God and His Mother, who has restored your perfect health: and so he continued healthy, having returned home with great joy. And a contracted arm is healed. Don Abdon Masderi, a Priest of the Cathedral Church of Gerona, testifies that he brought into the world at his birth a left arm so contracted that thereafter he could neither raise it nor bring it to his mouth or place it upon his head. When, however, hearing of the wonderful works of God through His servant, he wished, upon reaching his twelfth year, to be carried to him, and was healed by his blessing alone and was present at the aforesaid miracles of the boat and the paralytic.

[52] Likewise a breast eaten by cancer: Eleanor de Garbina, a noble woman of Gerona, having one breast infected with cancer, had ordered surgeons to be summoned from France: and when they had continued their treatments for twelve years without accomplishing anything, she had herself transported to Barcelona to the convent called Our Lady of Jesus, where in those days Brother Salvator had arrived; and there she found more than twenty thousand people, partly citizens, partly foreigners, who had flocked there either to recover their health or to see the Saint: and when she too had arrived in his presence, falling to her knees she began to entreat him to heal her also: to whom he said: Fast for three days, daughter, and having confessed and been refreshed by the sacred banquet, pray to the Virgin for the obtaining of health, and after three days return to me. She went, did as she was told, and returned, as she had been commanded: and he, taking hold of her breast, pressed out all the pus from it, and making the sign of the Cross, said: Go, daughter, you are now entirely well: and she discovered to her amazement that this was so.

[53] A merchant of the same city of Gerona, surnamed Campollerus, But not the injured leg of a certain avaricious and unbelieving man. was lame in one leg, and when all advised him to go to Horta, certain to be healed, he mocked the miracles which he heard the holy man was performing. Finally, when the aforesaid paralytic Knight returned healed, and he could no longer resist the importunate urgings of his friends, who kept pressing him to seek the same medicine, he said: I shall go, but if I return without my leg being fully healed, you will heal my purse for me, restoring the money which I shall have spent in vain on the journey for your sake. He went therefore and with many others placed himself before the Blessed, who was blessing each one, saying: In the name of the Father, etc. When he came to this man, however, he said: Your leg indeed shall not be healed: but soon you shall be healed of the disease of the purse. Hearing this, the man rose up indignant, saying: This little Brother undoubtedly has some devil who reported my words to him, which I spoke a hundred and ^ctwenty miles from here: and so he returned home, exploding with mockery and ridicule at the miracles that were said to happen: but extinguished by a swift death, which the ruin of his whole family followed, he proved the truth of the prediction about the end of his purse.

CHAPTER VI.

The gift of prophecy in Blessed Salvator declared by various examples.

CHAPTER VII.

[54] A certain man blind from birth, named John, came to Blessed Salvator; and when he had arrived at the village of ^aArenes near Horta, A blind man cast down from his hope by an impious Priest, he met Andrew Calaps, who asked where he was going. To the devil, replied the blind man. God forbid, said Andrew, do not say that. Then the blind man said: Does it not seem to you that I have sufficient cause for despair, I who have completed a journey of more than two hundred miles for the sake of visiting a certain man whom they said was a Saint; and now a certain Priest from the village of Calaceite told me that he is by no means a Saint, but an impostor, and a worker of false miracles; so that there was no need for me to make the journey to him:

I therefore am not far from closing off my throat with a noose. Can I, said Andrew, know the name of that Priest? You can, replied the blind man, and gave the name; which, on account of what will shortly be said, is here omitted lest infamy be created for his relatives. He then said to the blind man: Go, He returns to the same at another's persuasion, dearest brother, and with great faith visit the Saint of God, for whose sake you have come here, not doubting that you shall obtain the hoped-for light of your eyes. For I affirm to you under oath that in my presence he gave sight to many blind persons, and to the deaf and mute, hearing and speech. I saw the possessed healed by him; I saw many, while I was there, miraculously healed by him daily. When, moreover, you yourself have been healed and returned, come back this way and lodge with me: and he also told the blind man his own name, so that he might remember it. He went, now better encouraged, and arriving there was ordered to confess and communicate, and to place certain faith in God, And receives his sight: that he was going to be illuminated through His Mother. Having done these things, he returned to the Saint, who bestowing his blessing upon him, said: Open your eyes, and look at me. He opened his eyes: to whom the Saint said: Do you see me? I see, replied the one who had been blind: and having been told to give thanks to the Mother of God, he did not delay to return joyfully to Andrew, and to announce to him gratefully the happy outcome of his counsel. Nor did many months afterwards pass The heretical Priest is detected. before that Priest was discovered to be a heretic, and having been reported to the Inquisitors, would certainly have been captured, had he not forestalled those who were to seize him by flight to France; from where, whatever became of him, was never afterwards heard.

[55] John Charles and his wife Susanna, from the village of Bezet, seeing that none of the children born to them remained alive, The Blessed predicts offspring to childless spouses, decided to go together to the Saint, and coming before him they said: Holy Brother, intercede with God for us unhappy sinners: for all the children we have begotten so far have died around the sixth month from birth. To whom Salvator said: Go and receive the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist, and in the name of the Mother of God, who works miracles, I foretell to you that you will beget two sons, whom you will see brought to mature age. Then turning to the wife, I further predict to you, And other future things: he said, that they will serve your old age, and you yourself will receive great joy from them; tacitly implying that her husband would die before her: the rest, however, as he had predicted, so they came to pass. For both sons are alive to this present day, that is, the year 1603, and they serve their mother with great obedience and respect, and show her every honor and love.

[56] The Lady Helena of Cardona, a most noble matron of the city of Cagliari in Sardinia, A matron desirous of offspring: many times asked this holy Brother to obtain a son for her from God: to which petition he never replied with a word. And so on a certain day, becoming somewhat annoyed, she said: What, Brother Salvator, do you not reply to my petition? Because, said Salvator, you ask for a thing that will cost you dearly. Whatever it costs me, she replied, I care not, provided I may have a son. Then the Saint said: Come, I agree: Destined to die in childbirth, you will have a son: but see that your accounts with the Lord are well settled: for this son will cost you dearly. And so this most devout matron of the Mother of God conceived a son, bore him alive, and the name of Joachim was given to him at baptism, and on the very day of the birth, toward evening, she died.

[57] The Catholic King of Spain, Philip II, residing with his court at Monzón, The Admiral of Naples, had ordered to be summoned to him the Lord Admiral of Naples, Raymond Folch of Cardona. He was in his village called Belpuig, when this news brought to him not a little dismayed his spirit, knowing that the King had been moved to some indignation against him and fearing that the summons boded ill for his honor and advantage. Since, therefore, the Blessed Brother was at that time serving as cook of the monastery in that very place, and although not famous for miracles was nevertheless held in great esteem for holiness by everyone, the Admiral had him summoned, and taking him aside said: Brother Salvator, the King has ordered me to come to him: Fearing ill for himself at court, and I greatly fear that because of affairs conducted at Naples, His Majesty at Monzón may show himself somewhat offended with me: but I beseech you, pray to the Lord for me, that He may render him propitious and peaceable toward me. Trust, he replied, in the Lord and His Mother, because not only will nothing adverse happen to you there; but great honor will be bestowed upon you. And when the Admiral pressed further, begging him to indicate for what reason the King had ordered him to come, the Saint replied: Your affairs will seem to be in a difficult place until that point of time when you enter to the King: and at that same hour all things will be turned for you into full joy and no less honor: and remember that this has been told you by me.

[68] Beyond expectation he will be honored there: Excellently encouraged by these words of Salvator, the hero hastened undaunted to the court: where there were not lacking those who, as is wont to happen among the great, being ill-disposed toward him, openly boasted — and one even said to his face — that nothing other than his head was sought by the King, and that he had been summoned for that reason. He nevertheless persisted with an undaunted spirit, trusting in the promise of Salvator, and fearlessly entered to kiss the royal hands, with the noble retinue anxiously awaiting the outcome of the conversation in the atrium: whose beginning was made by the King as follows: You arrive here at an opportune time indeed: for only two hours have elapsed since I received certain news by couriers about the siege of Perpignan begun by the French: wherefore, with all delay set aside, and with as many soldiers as can be suddenly collected from the provinces of our kingdom gathered from every quarter, hasten thither, and what we trust of your valor, carry out vigorously and promptly. The Admiral, joyful at such honorable commands, having kissed the King's hand, while his friends rejoiced and congratulated him, came out into the courtyard of the palace; and having called the royal trumpeters to himself, ordered them to proclaim that for whoever wished to come to raise the siege of Perpignan, pay was ready from the Admiral of Naples out of his own funds, according to each man's rank. And having mounted his horses, he departed hastily to his village of Bellpuig, and there, having summoned Brother Salvator to himself, commended him to all as a Saint, who had predicted all things that were to happen to him.

[69] The perpetual blindness of an obstinate sinner. A certain old man of Cagliari was once presented to the Saint, that he might receive the sight of his eyes: but to those praying for him, Salvator replied: This man will never obtain the desired grace, because he will never give up a grave sin, which has been habitual to him for a long time. Which indeed proved true: for however much a certain relative of his pressed him to be willing to expiate whatever it was by a spontaneous confession, he could never persuade him to anything for the benefit of his soul, and so he also remained blind in body as long as he lived. The Lady Hieronyma of Cardona, Abbess of the most devout monastery of Petra-alba at Barcelona, testifies that she saw with her other nuns how Brother Salvator restored sight to a blind man: and added that she, moved by that success, had spoken to him and asked that he would be an intercessor with God for two of her kinsmen who had set out for the Gerbis expedition. He knows the outcome of the Gerbis expedition: He replied: The one of them, Frederick, holds his reward with the Lord; the other, John, is being held captive at Constantinople; and shortly (that this care may not trouble you), he will be ransomed, and will be held in as great honor by King Philip as any other of his men. Therefore, she continued, my kinsman is dead? To whom the Saint said: Do not call him dead: for those who, laying down their life in the service of the faith, already possess their reward with the Lord, are not to be called dead. And having said this, he turned and departed. After a month, however, a messenger arrived bearing news of the defeat of our army, in which Frederick was slain and John captured: and he was thereafter so dear to King Philip that to this day he governs Navarre with the title and authority of Viceroy.

[70] Angela Taragona of Barcelona affirms that from childbirth a paralysis had been left to her, The future services of a newborn son toward his mother, from which, having herself carried to be healed, she was brought to the Saint, who said to her as she pleaded: Be of equal mind, for God wills that you persevere in this disease: but this son whom you have borne will make you live a happy old age, your husband dying before you. And it happened exactly as Salvator predicted: and to this day she is honorably served by her son. It has been more than forty years since this happened, namely up to the day on which she declared this in the process formed before the Bishop of Barcelona. In the monastery of Saint Clare of the city of Gerona, Sister Hieronyma Camps, contracted in her hands, summoned the Blessed, who, grasping her hands, made the fingers straight and sound. Death imminent for another. To a certain old woman suffering a severe headache and asking to be freed from it, he said: O sack of earth: go, for soon you shall be free from this pain — dead, as the outcome taught. Another woman, subject to more than one punishment and torment, when she similarly sought health, he replied to her: Since you are of so irascible and difficult a disposition toward all your household, it is much better for you to remain as you are: for if you recovered, no one could live with you. Therefore bear your pains for a little while, and you will be blessed for eternity.

CHAPTER VIII.

[71] There came once to the man of God Stephen Pasqualis, a Priest of Gerona, having a sore full of pus on his face, and he had been laboring with that ailment for ten years: The hidden excommunication of a Priest. and taking him aside privately into the monastery, he secretly warned him that he was living outside the communion of the Church, and therefore was suffering this deforming disease; from which he would be freed as soon as he had sought to have the bond of excommunication loosed: and having exhorted him to request this benefit from his Bishop, he persuaded the man to comply with the right admonition, and thus he obtained the desired health. There was less delay in healing a certain woman, He heals a great abscess, whose name was Joanna, from a large abscess that had occupied her face: for hearing in the village of Aulot where she lived of the wonderful works of the man of God, she set out on her journey to him and departed healed by his blessing alone. With equal promptness in the city of Gerona he healed the tongue of a certain man, which was so large that it could neither be contained within his mouth nor was suitable for forming speech: And a tongue unfit for speech. for having formed the sign of the Cross over it, he grasped it and so compressed it that, reduced within its proper measure, it thenceforth served all its purposes, and especially the rendering of thanks to God for the benefit received through His servant.

[72] Salvator had at some point withdrawn to Lérida, there to perform the duties of cook,

Blessing a certain young man, when a young man of Gerona was staying there, called John Ornos: who, having completed his studies at that university and been honored with the Doctoral laurel in Law, before returning to his homeland, went to the Saint to commend himself to his prayers. He, praying well for the young man, added: Go happily, my son, and be always devout to the Virgin Mother, for you shall experience her favor: but carry one thing hence with a mindful spirit; namely, that when you return to Gerona and pass through the public square of that city, carefully observe the windows of the houses, in one of which you will see a girl dressed in gray, who is to be your wife. The young man Doctor departed with thanks and, having entered his city, began to carefully observe the windows, especially in the marketplace, and found them all closed, because a very strong wind was blowing that day: He indicates who will be his future wife. and so while he began to doubt within himself about the prediction of Blessed Salvator, he heard the sound of an opened window and, turning toward it, saw a girl dressed in gray, the daughter of a noble merchant, Nicholas Terra: from which sight, agitated by the waves of various thoughts, he never again wished to pass by that way, although he had himself greeted the maiden he had seen and had received from her a like service of courtesy: but he resolved within himself to do nothing, and rather to wait to see in what manner that marriage might at length be concluded. After some time, therefore, certain noblemen came to him and explained that, having considered his virtues, they had chosen a wife for him, both wealthy and beautiful, the daughter of the Nicholas we mentioned, with whom and with the girl's mother the matter of those nuptials had already been discussed, unless he should refuse. When the young man recognized that these things proceeded from the prediction of Blessed Salvator, he gratefully replied that the proposal pleased him and that he wished to accept and ratify whatever had been done by those in whose benevolence and prudence he had the greatest trust. And so the matter was brought to a conclusion, and the bridegroom remained most devoted to the Saint, being accustomed to cheerfully narrate the sequence of this prediction to his friends.

CHAPTER VII.

Various diseases miraculously healed by Blessed Salvator.

[73] He heals elephantiasis: Catherine Oliveri of Gerona was suffering from elephantiasis, and when she was brought to him, and having been prepared by confession and holy communion, he healed her with his customary blessing. Peter Sabatir, a Priest of the village of Zivissa, testifies about himself that in his boyhood he suffered a serious ailment from scrofulas growing around his neck: for the removal of which, when the applied medicines availed nothing, he was led by his father to the Saint: who, having fortified him with the customary formula of blessing in the name of the most holy Trinity, said to the father: Take this son of yours to a Confessor, for he is twelve years old; and order him to go through the rosary three times; so he will be healed. Scrofulas of a stubborn boy. But the boy, indignant that health had not been conferred on him immediately as on the others, would do nothing of what had been commanded, and returned home full of anger. But after two months, encountering the boy in a street of Barcelona, Salvator said: Because your faith was small, you were not healed. The boy replied: Now I am going to France to the King, Father, to obtain my health through him. Neither will you see the King, He predicts that he will be healed not by the King of France but by himself: the Saint replied, nor will you be healed by him, but you will return to me to be healed. The boy went nevertheless to Paris, and approaching the city, met a body of soldiers dispatched to prevent disturbances throughout the kingdom, from whom he heard that the King was dead, from whom therefore he had vainly hoped to be healed. Recognizing therefore the truth of the prediction made to him, he returned to Blessed Salvator, who healed him perfectly with his blessing.

[74] He heals an arm contracted by paralysis; Lazarus Bruels, a Priest of Gerona, deprived of the use of his right arm from the third year of his age, so that he could not raise it above his belt, in his twentieth year went to the man of God; who, grasping the arm with his hands, raised it up to his head (which he had never before been able to do), and saying In the name of the Father, etc., and extending the arm that had been contracted until then, said: See how long you have it, and designate with it the sign of the Cross: which he immediately did, and used it freely thereafter, and was even ordained a Priest, on account of the love of this Saint and the affection of gratitude toward God. And scrofulas. Hieronyma, a nun of the Vicariate of Gerona, while she was still twelve years old, had a neck full of sores and foully swollen with the disease of scrofulas, until she was brought to the Saint, and freed by his blessing from all ailment, she thenceforth gave thanks to God for the gift.

[75] A paralytic woman while being carried to the Blessed, Elizabeth Ribera, born of a noble family of Tarragona, having entered about her eighth year, fell into paralysis, and thenceforward lay fixed to her bed, tormented by the most intense pains throughout her whole body, so that she never ceased to wail. When her father had for a long time spent a great amount of money on her, having finally despaired of any remedy of human art, he turned to divine aid, and sent her with her mother and the necessary retinue to the servant of God, crying along the way and saying: O Blessed Salvator, help me. It was necessary to ascend a steep and excessively precipitous ridge of a mountain: and while the mules were laboring up it, the litter slipped backward from them; When the litter slips, and neither the mother nor the other son who was there with the servants doubted that they would carry back the sick girl dead from such a heavy fall. They therefore turned to weeping and wailing: and she, seeing them thus afflicted, raised her eyes to heaven and said: O Blessed Salvator, help me now in this peril, that we may all together reach you. Ah, holy man! how can it be that we climb the summit of so steep a mountain unless you bring help? And having said this, the girl, who for many years had not been able to bring her hand to her mouth, leapt out of the litter and ran to embrace her mother, saying: Come, mother, take courage: for you see that I am already healed by Blessed Salvator. She rises to her feet: Come, let us likewise climb this mountain on foot: give me your hand as I go up. All who were present stood astonished, especially the most grieving mother: then, with sorrow converted into joy, they completed the rest of the way cheerfully, and only sought the blessing of the holy man. Who said to the girl: Go and give thanks to the most holy Mother, who healed you on the road when the litter fell; which she, joyful and healthy, did before she returned home. When, however, they returned home, Her head is also restored to its proper position. the husband rebuked his wife for not having also presented the girl's head to him for straightening, which had been bent for a long time toward the right shoulder, while she was with the Saint. And so when some months later Salvator happened to pass that way, they again presented Elizabeth to him: upon whom, invoking the holy Trinity, without any feeling of pain, he raised her head, as was proper.

[76] As he was passing through the same city, a girl was presented to him, named Joanna, to whose throat a peach pit had so adhered The Blessed frees one about to be suffocated, that she could neither swallow it by any means nor bring it out, whatever measures were applied: and since it was now the fifth day, her life was rightly thought to be over. But the Saint gently smiling said: O how greedy you are: and adding In the name of the Father, etc., he lightly slapped her cheek and said: Come now, spit it out into my hand: which she did immediately without any labor at all, and escaped death. John Mistre testifies about himself that he was born with his whole body contracted, He heals a contracted man. so that with his hands placed upon his knees he barely learned to walk: he says he was five years old when he was carried by his father to where he was to be healed by the blessing of the servant of God: in recognition of which benefit he wished to be initiated in sacred Orders, and was duly ordained a Priest.

[77] Equal graces were conferred through the Saint upon the citizens of Tortosa. He calms pains of the bowels. Among these was Francisco Cristóbal, exercised for many continuous years by pains of the bowels for which no remedy was found; until, namely, he went to Horta, where after commanding Confession and Communion, the Saint imparted his blessing to him, and sent him away suddenly restored to health. Peter also, a poor man there, crawled on hands and knees

on the ground: and yet managed by this means to crawl to Horta and reach the Saint. Who, moved by the pitiable sight of the boy, He confers the faculty of walking: gave him his blessing and raised him to his feet, which he then always used properly. To these let us add Monferranda Pasqual, from the village of ^bXerta in the diocese of Tortosa, whom her husband, Antonio Armengot of Tortosa, suffering for five years from incurable dropsy, had brought to Horta to Brother Salvator. He removes dropsy, Who, after the customary remedies of Confession and Communion, gave her the sign of his blessing and at the same time perfect health.

CHAPTER IX.

[78] God willed to declare the holiness of His servant also through other wonderful signs, as is evident from the process formed before the Bishop of Tortosa. The descent of three torches from heaven. For on a certain day, one hour before noon, when before the door of the church of Saint Mary of Horta he was bestowing his blessing upon more than two thousand people, three torches appeared above the three crosses placed on Mount Calvary: and the multitude, moved by this and crying out Miracle, miracle, part ran to the Saint, tearing bits from his habit to preserve as relics; part to the crosses themselves, likewise taking pieces from them: and many healings divinely obtained followed that apparition. A cloud carrying the Blessed from the mountain: On another occasion, when an equal number of people were present, having come either to be healed themselves or to bring or carry others to be healed, and the Blessed was not found in the monastery — being accustomed to come out twice to sign the assembled crowd with his blessing — but was occupied in prayer on a very high mountain that adjoins the Horta monastery: with all crying out in a loud voice, O Lady and our patroness Mary, cause your servant to be found; a very white cloud was seen in the sight of all to descend from the mountain: and when it touched the ground, it indeed disappeared, but left Blessed Salvator there visible to all: who, blessing all, performed many miracles on that same day. This is recorded from the aforesaid process, and is confirmed from many sources, that intent on contemplating divine things he was often caught up beyond the use of his senses: Frequent rapture. to the extent that on one occasion, with all watching, kneeling before the altar of Blessed Mary of Horta, he was raised from the ground more than two cubits.

[79] John de Rosis of Tortosa, paralytic from early boyhood, He heals a paralytic, was brought to Blessed Salvator and, having been ordered to say the Our Father and Hail Mary three times and then signed with his blessing, received the unimpeded use of his limbs. Born in the same place, Candida Sessa had been unable to see with one eye, and when she came to him and obtained his blessing, the film that had covered that eye disappeared, A woman blind in one eye, and she thenceforth used both eyes clearly. A girl possessed by a demon was also brought to him, for whom he first prayed, then making the sign of the Cross said: A woman possessed by a demon: I command you, malicious spirit, to depart from this creature of God and afflict her no more: and the demon obeyed the one commanding, without any hesitation. On that very high mountain which we mentioned above, finishing a prayer to which he had been devoted, he summoned a boy equipped with a mallet to himself and ordered him to strike the rock which he pointed out; He draws a spring from a rock: promising that water would be divinely given from the rock: and at the blow of the mallet it immediately gushed forth, and does not cease to flow to this day, for the comfort of many sick people, who, devoutly drawing it, are freed from their infirmities. When the Marchioness Armagetta of Tortosa was a fifteen-year-old girl, her arm was so enormously dislocated He heals a dislocated arm: that the physicians, unable to devise any method of restoring it, judged that it should be cut off: but it seemed better to have recourse to Blessed Salvator, who, having ordered her to confess and communicate, soon healed her with his blessing.

[80] He calms a storm raised by the devil, About two thousand people had gathered on the Horta mountain, the town not being able to contain such a great multitude: and when the devil was plotting to drive them, terrified, into flight, the Saint, stationed in prayer, recognized what was being plotted, and going forth, he saw the crowd above measure dismayed, because with the sky dark beyond measure, thunders roared around with a dreadful noise and very frequent lightnings flashed: to whom he said: Fall on your knees with me, all together, and having recited the Our Father and Hail Mary, put to flight the enemy who is trying to strike fear into you by his arts. When this was done, the sky was immediately cleared, and the longed-for light shone upon all, and there was no one who doubted that the holy man had seen the demons mixed in with the storm. Violante Falcona, born at Xerta, A growth of flesh on the face, had a monstrous hanging piece of flesh from her forehead down to her mouth that disfigured her whole face, and being brought to the Saint by her mother, she was freed from that troublesome appendage by the sign of the Cross alone. John Sche of Tortosa, in the tenth year of his age, was so swollen with internal water that he looked like a small barrel, and receiving his blessing, he heard from him: Go now, And he removes dropsy, give thanks to the Virgin, because henceforth you will live healthy: and at that same hour, with the swelling receding, he appeared perfectly healthy to all.

CHAPTER VIII.

Miracles wrought at Maella.

[81] In the town of ^aMaella in the diocese of Saragossa, there was a girl of twelve years, The Blessed heals scabs of the head, whose whole head a foul scabies had covered, Elizabeth Comas by name: and having despaired of curing the ailment, her father brought his daughter to the Saint, and by the mere imposition of hands and sign of the Cross, brought her back entirely cleansed and perfectly healed, together with a small son, whose hernia the same Saint healed with his blessing. In the same town, Michael Catalanus, a twenty-year-old adolescent, with leprosy covering his entire body, incurable despite long and futile attempts at remedies, Leprosy of the entire body: sought healing from the Blessed. Who said to him: You should have thought first about spiritual leprosy rather than bodily: go therefore and wash away the filth of your sins by confessing them, then refreshed by the sacred banquet, return to me: and when he had done so, and the Saint had signed him with the sign of the Cross and ordered him to trust in the Virgin Mother of God, all the scales and crusts of dried pus fell from his body, and fully cleansed, he returned to his home. The same Michael, moreover, affirmed juridically in the same process A contracted hand, that when he was being cleansed of leprosy, there stood beside him a little girl whose one hand was foully contracted and whose fingers were entirely consumed: whom the Saint, taking her, restored to her proper straightness and complete health, with all who were present watching.

[82] Pain of teeth, These women also, whose cures we append, lived in the same town: the first indeed was called Susanna Matthei, who, afflicted with a huge torment of the teeth, brought her foully swollen face to the Saint, and having received the blessing with the sign of the Cross, she spat out the putrefied tooth without injury and departed freed from all pain. Then Elizabeth Costa: to whom, brought by her father, the Saint healed the right eye by imposition of his hand and his blessing from a fistula innate since the eighth year of her age. Two blind from birth: While this was happening, the same woman remembers that a girl blind from birth was brought: and when Salvator blessed her in a similar manner and placed his hand upon her eyes, Now, he said, open them and look at the Lady who is on this altar. The girl immediately opened her eyes, and when asked what she saw, she said: I see the most holy Lady, embracing her little son in her arms. Go therefore, the Saint added, and render the thanks due to her: for it was not I, but she who healed you. Similarly another man born blind was brought before Catherine Miravelle, a native of the aforesaid town, to Blessed Salvator; who, when she begged him for the obtaining of sight, said: You believe, my son, that I can heal you, and you are deceived: rather you must pray to God with firm faith, that through the intercession of his most kind Mother he may grant you the light of your eyes. I believe this also, replied the blind man. Therefore, let all recite the Our Father and Hail Mary, said the Saint: and when the prayer was finished he continued to say: In the name of the Father, etc., and immediately the blind man was given to see the light which he had never used with his own eyes.

CHAPTER X.

[83] Certain pilgrims from Navarre had also come to Maella, Likewise a blind girl healed on her very way to the Blessed. and with them they carried a ten-year-old girl, she too blind from her birth, but otherwise very beautiful: and when all the people were present there, they saw the girl's father and mother bend their knees in prayer before the image of the most Blessed Virgin, which was then placed above a certain old gate, now transferred to the marketplace of that town: and they said to their daughter: Bend your knees here, daughter, where the image of the glorious Mother of God is adored, and let us pray to her to make us come to the Saint of Horta, who will give you the light of your eyes. Scarcely had the beautiful little girl inclined herself when she began to say to her father: Ah, father, how beautiful is the little child that our Lady holds on her arm! To whom her mother, astonished with joy, said: Do you then behold him? I behold him indeed, she replied: and as they cried out Miracle, miracle, all the natives of that place ran together to see the girl thus recently and suddenly illuminated. Her parents, however, did not on that account omit going to the Saint, who admonished them to render devout thanks to the most holy Virgin, which they did.

[84] Gabriel Tolquerius, a Priest of the aforesaid town, lay ill unto death, A dying Priest, when Salvator passed through his house collecting alms; wherefore, being earnestly asked by the relatives of the dying man to enter and bestow the final blessing upon one passing to the other life, he complied with their request, and approaching the bed, he formed the sign of the Cross over him, then said: Give me your hand, Gabriel. And when he extended it, he added: Come now, give thanks to the Virgin of Horta, that she has freed you from the present danger of death: for tomorrow morning you will rise from here: and immediately the fever left him, and on the following day he went in the company of Brother Salvator himself to the convent of Horta, where the Saint lived. Scarcely, however, had he arrived there when he saw a boy blind from birth presented, A blind boy. and soon, the sign of the Cross having been made, given his sight and departing.

[85] By the contemplation of a pomegranate. On the very preceding day, when Salvator was begging alms at Maella, he was invited to lunch by Antonio Vughet. He placidly assented that he would come when his begging was finished: and there, among other dishes, a platter full of pomegranates was brought in, and taking one and dividing it with a knife, he said: O God, if you have arranged all the parts of this your creature in such beautiful order, how well ordered will be the sight of your heavenly palace, where

Angels and blessed spirits will burn more ardently contemplating your face than these grains glow, arranged in a most beautiful series. Having said these things, he extended his arms in the form of a cross, The Blessed is carried into ecstasy. and caught up in ecstasy, was raised high from the ground: which when the aforesaid Antonio saw, he leapt from the table and summoned many to be spectators of so great a wonder.

[86] A swollen knee is healed. Dominic Mirauet, an inhabitant of the same place, affirms in the above-mentioned process that when he was a boy, a thorn entered the joint of his right knee, which he, disregarding it, went to the river to wash. But soon his knee swelled up like a pot, and for a period of three years no surgeon or physician could apply any useful medicine to it: indeed the tumor grew, and the flesh growing over it was dead and without feeling. For when the same man was splitting a piece of wood upon that same knee so swollen, And a deadened knee, the axe entered into the flesh to the depth of one finger, and yet no blood flowed out at all. Meanwhile Brother Salvator came to Maella to beg alms, and the sick boy's mother asked him to heal her son. He therefore made the sign of the Cross over the swollen knee and said: I wish to see how quickly you can run. And immediately the boy rose up healthy and began to run through the streets. Then the Brother said to the mother: Go and give thanks to the Virgin of Horta: for she herself has made your son well.

[87] A purulent wound of the side, John Andrea, also a citizen there, had a son whose open side discharged much pus, and the remedies applied by surgeons and physicians, even the use of red-hot iron, had availed nothing. The boy was therefore brought to Horta to the holy Brother: and when they arrived, they found the Saint blessing an infinite multitude of people. Then the mother, seizing the boy and wishing to show the wound to Salvator, and uncovering the boy for that purpose, saw that the linens had adhered to the wound: and pulling them off, she also removed at the same time a piece of putrefied bone adhering to them; which, at the general blessing given to all, had come out of the body and left the boy entirely healthy: and as they came to him and wished to give thanks, Salvator sent them to the most holy Virgin. About 30 sick persons; Michael Fustor, also a native of Maella, testifies that his father, in a town called Caritas in the diocese of Tortosa, saw more than twenty blind, deaf, mute, lame, contracted persons, etc., all going to Horta at the same time, and shortly after returning thence whole and healthy after receiving the blessing. Elizabeth Abas, likewise born there, affirmed A deaf and mute girl. that in her presence a little girl was brought to the Saint, both deaf and mute: for whom the Saint ordered all who were present to recite the Our Father and Hail Mary once, and making the sign of the Cross, he ordered the little girl to pronounce the Hail Mary: which she did and remained healed.

[88] A prolapse of the womb is healed, Catherine Squaneglia, also of Maella, testified that in her thirtieth year of age, after childbirth, her womb was so loosened that, falling downward, it hung to her knees; and in that state she persevered for three full years, not without the most intense torments and a great expenditure of money on doctors and medicines: which, however, availed nothing toward recovering her health. And so she resolved to go to Horta with two little sons afflicted with hernia, and arriving there with them, she fell before the feet of Blessed Salvator, asking health for herself and her sons. Then the Saint commanded that after Confession and Communion she should return to him and place great trust in the Blessed Virgin, the effectrix of miracles. When she had done this and returned to the Blessed, she wished, as she says, to declare her affliction in his ear. To whom Salvator replied that the nature of the ailment was already known to him, and having placed his hand upon her head and said In the name of the Father, etc., A boy's hernia. From now on, he said, both you and this son of yours are healed; go and give thanks to the Virgin. Then she said: My other son also labors with the same ailment: and heal him too, I beseech you. To whom the Saint said: The Lord healed the one whom it pleased Him to heal: acquiesce in His will, and bear patiently what remains. The aforesaid Catherine affirms, moreover, that at that very hour she felt her womb restored to its place, and thenceforward bore no discomfort in that part: and that her son was also perfectly cured of hernia, who now was present and assisting as a witness at this her deposition, vigorous and healthy.

[89] Michael Carbonellus, from the town of ^bMassaleone in the diocese of Saragossa, A swelling of the neck, testified that at the age of eight his neck was swollen like a dish: with the ailment long eluding the efforts of physicians and the hope of his family; and that at last he was brought to Blessed Salvator, and signed by him with the sign of the Cross, he felt the swelling gradually resolve and finally entirely vanish. To the same man, John Galcerbri was carried in a litter from the village of ^cFatorella, a paralytic: to whom, after commanding him to communicate and confess, the Saint said after the sign of the Cross: Come now, arise: Paralysis, for you are healed. He, moreover, feeling himself confirmed, suddenly leapt up, and as he was ordered, ascribing the miracle to the Virgin Mother of God, he rendered thanks to her and to God. In a similar manner, to a fourteen-year-old girl brought to him, Lameness, who limped badly because one leg was contracted and therefore one was much shorter than the other, he bestowed his blessing and said: Now extend your leg, for you are healed: and she, immediately standing equally on both feet, experienced that the length of both legs had been made equal through the prayers of the holy man.

CHAPTER IX.

Power over demons, prediction of the future, other miracles.

CHAPTER XI.

[90] The presence of Blessed Salvator was exceedingly grievous to the demons, Demons hostile to Blessed Salvator, nor were the troubles that he in turn suffered from them any lighter: whence at a certain time, when at Horta, performing the office of gardener, he had asked a certain farmer named Michael Gueram to come the next day in the morning with his mules to lend him a hand in sowing legumes for the use of the Brothers, and the man came as agreed and wanted to yoke the mules to the plow, they turned against their master, repelled him with their hooves, and as if seized by the devil, fled up the mountain. And the mules brought to cultivate the garden, Salvator came, and having understood the whole matter from the farmer, turned around; and saw demons sitting on the yoke that the mules had fled from: turning to them he said: Is it here that I find you, malicious ones? Then to the farmer: We have good merchandise indeed here in the garden. And again to the demons: I command you that from this hour henceforth you never return to this garden. And to the farmer: Go and bring back your mules: They are ordered to leave. for those wicked ones wanted to prevent you from carrying out the work of charity promised to the Brothers. Then he formed the sign of the Cross, at which the demons disappeared, and he said again: Bring your mules here; you will find them in such and such a place (which he indicated): but fear nothing; for the devil whom I have expelled from here is gone. The man went and found his mules gentle as lambs, and brought them back to the work that he had undertaken in favor of the Brothers, marveling at the extraordinary virtue of Salvator.

[91] Bernard Calez, from the village of ^aAroyns in the diocese of Tortosa, [The same demons troublesome to the daughter of the knight who hosted the Brothers,] whose ancestors for a hundred and fifty years had always been hosts of the Friars Minor who came there, affirms of his father-in-law, whose name was John Mestre, that his only little daughter, whom this witness later had as his wife, whenever the Brothers entered the house, would hide her face and weep profusely, and sometimes be stunned as if struck to death. This matter moved the parents, otherwise excellent people and most devoted to the Brothers, to ask to be excused for a time from the duty of receiving the Brothers in their house, in order to look after the health of their daughter. John therefore went to the monastery, where he would find Salvator digging the garden (for out of reverence he did not dare announce to the Guardian himself what he had come to say), and asked him to excuse him before the Guardian, that, compelled by the love of his only daughter, he wished the Brothers to be absent from his house for a while: since their presence seemed about to bring death to her. At the promise of Blessed Salvator, Salvator was astonished at this, and raising his eyes to heaven for some time said nothing; then at last, turning to the knight, he said: The devil gravely persecutes this Order, and has now entered your house, to rob us of hospitality and you of the merit of exercised charity: and therefore at the entrance of our Brothers he presents himself to your daughter in so horrible a form that, breaking out in laments, she is compelled to testify to her dread and dismay. But from now on be of good cheer, and leave the whole matter to me: I know all the snares of that most wicked beast. So expect me at your house tomorrow, and see that your daughter is not absent. Stupefied at these words, and no less persuaded of the truth of his words, John returned home: and the next day, as he had promised, Salvator came, and having first made the sign of the Cross, I command, he said, malicious spirit, not to enter this house any more, which belongs to Saint Francis and his sons. They are driven out by him: Then he ordered the little girl to be brought to him, though her mother resisted and feared things similar to the past: yet she brought her, compelled by her husband's repeated command. Salvator, however, calling the child by her own name, that is, Susanna, offered her a double apple: which she, smiling sweetly at the Brother, accepted. The Blessed further forbade them to fear that the demon would enter there, and all recognized with what absolute authority against those most wicked ones the Saint was endowed.

[92] Joanna Arnens, from the village in Castile called ^bEspinosa-de-los-Monteros, suffering from epilepsy, When invoked, he heals epilepsy, wished to be carried to the Saint, although he was more than three hundred miles distant, continually invoking his name along the way, and in the meantime never suffering the usual infirmity: and when she arrived there, and went to the Sacraments of Confession and Communion, presenting herself to Salvator to be blessed, she heard from him these words: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Mother of God has already made you well, on account of the faith that drew you all the way here. Barbara Pastor, from the village of ^cCaretes, had a breast so inflated and hardened that the physicians had concluded that fire should be applied to it: Swelling and hardness of the breast. but on the very day when the wretched woman was to undergo the torment, Salvator arrived seeking alms; and although his sanctity was not yet known there, he was nevertheless asked to go up to the sick woman, still bedridden from her first childbirth. He did what was asked, and casting his Rosary around the neck of the sick woman,

he recited the Our Father and Hail Mary once; then turning to the woman in childbed, he said: Do not despair, daughter, but trust in the most holy Mother of God: for this night you will sleep well, and on the morrow you will be freed from all evil: and exactly as he said, so it came to pass.

[93] He recognizes a woman possessed by a demon. When Blessed Salvator was once in the church of Saint Columba of Farnesia, his birthplace, he said that a demon had occupied the body of a certain woman present there: which matter, being new to all who did not know which of them was indicated by the Saint, proved true when, after the Saint left, one of them manifestly showed herself to be possessed. Brother Anthony of Saint Salvator, of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor of Saint Francis, He gives the faculty of walking: testifies in the process formed before the Bishop of Barcelona that while at Saragossa he had known a poor man who, dragging his wretched body along the ground, used to move about: but that after some years he had seen the same man walking on his own feet soundly and cheerfully; and had asked whether he was the same man he had previously seen crawling on the ground. The man affirmed that he was the same: and when asked by what means he had received the faculty of walking, he replied thus: Having gone to the Saint of Horta, I was ordered by him to confess and communicate: then when he bestowed his blessing upon me and said In the name of the Father, etc., I felt myself healed, such as you see me at this very hour, to the greater glory of God.

[94] Salvator was also staying at Horta when the wife of a certain public Professor of Laws at the University of ^dLérida, named Rubios, came to him, He promises offspring to a matron who would abstain from gambling, seeking by the suffrage of his prayers to obtain some offspring from God: to whom Salvator said: You are so addicted to gambling that unless you give it up, you will never have your wish fulfilled. She promised not to gamble any more and not even to take playing cards in her hands. Then, having confessed her sins and been refreshed with the sacred Body of Christ and equipped with his blessing, he sent her home, saying: Come now, go assured that you will bear a daughter: He predicts a daughter will be born, but remember what you have promised: for she will not live longer than you abstain from gambling. She returned home joyfully: and having conceived immediately, in due time she gave birth to a daughter, which she had announced to the Saint, and in turn received from him a repeated command to avoid gambling if she wished to keep her daughter alive. Then, three years after this, the aforesaid matron brought her daughter herself to Horta, and the Saint said to her: Know, daughter, that the same limit of life has been divinely appointed for you which will be the beginning of your mother's resumption of gambling. To which the little girl replied: Do not fear, Father, my mother will never resume gambling, dreading for my life, which she dearly loves. So two more years passed, after which, invited to play in the company of other matrons, the mother But when she breaks faith, the daughter will die. cast from her mind the salutary warnings she had once received: but she did not long enjoy that game. For her daughter, coming upon her and seeing her mother occupied with gambling, began to cry out that she was utterly dead and lost: and that very evening she was seized by fever, and not long after was extinguished by a premature death. The bereaved mother therefore sent a messenger to the servant of God, who would pray that he obtain for her a son or another daughter by divine power: but before he said a single word, Salvator said: I already know that your mistress's daughter is dead; for the rest, announce that nothing will be obtained henceforth; and so he sent him back without consolation.

[95] A notable but hidden deed of a religious woman. In the monastery of Saint Mary of Petralba in the city of Barcelona, the Lady Magdalena of Torrelea was living, a religious woman of extraordinary virtue and great age, being eighty years old: who, when one day she was commending herself to the prayers of Blessed Salvator, he said to her: Be certain that great favors have been prepared for you by God on account of a certain notable merit of yours, by which you have singularly obliged His divine majesty to you. To whom she said: Indeed I recognize myself to be a useless sinner, and utterly unworthy for God to grant me any favor except from the pure indulgence of His grace. But Salvator, on the contrary, said: Remember, He makes it public, he said, how in this very place your father, speaking with you secretly, showed you a Pontifical Brief by which he was granted the power to take you out of the monastery, and you, having torn the Brief into pieces, gave them to the flames, answering your father in these words: May God and Saint Clare forbid that I, abandoning this monastery, should retract the vows I have duly made to God. You added moreover that you would see to it that no knowledge of such a Brief would reach any mortal. The most religious woman was astonished at these words, as were all her companions who were present, And he predicts that she will be rewarded with a singular favor: struck by the novelty of a thing never before heard, and all the more so because Magdalena herself confessed that the matter had indeed happened so, but much earlier than Salvator had come into the world by being born: and thenceforth she persevered with great spirit in the pursuit of the religious life she had begun, understanding that her act had been pleasing to God: on account of which also the same Blessed asserted that Saint Clare daily stood as an intercessor before God for her: and so finally she happily completed the course of her mortal life in the aforesaid monastery.

[96] The Lady Isabella Pugados of Saint Clement, of Barcelona, in her childhood years lay sick unto death; Likewise a girl given up by physicians, with the physicians despairing of prolonging her life beyond that night: at whose sad announcement the parents of the sick girl asked Blessed Salvator to come and sign her with his blessing. But he replied to them: Tell the physicians that since they have not spoken with God, they were too bold to pronounce with certainty that the girl will die this night: and to the mother and relatives announce that it will come to pass that they will see her joined in marriage, He predicts life and posterity: and children born from that union: let them therefore give thanks to our Lady, who has so quickly restored health to the sick girl. And immediately the fever left the girl; who thenceforth lived healthy, and having grown up, bore children from a lawful marriage, and in this year ^e1604 still lives. Andrew Fabius of Saint Columba ^fof Queralt in Catalonia, tormented by an incurable asthma and seeing no remedy left in human means, sought it from Blessed Salvator, He heals asthma, and through his blessing, with confession and communion preceding, obtained it. Brother John Oliva, from the convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance at Barcelona which is under the name of Jesus, was suffering a troublesome abscess in his right ear; and having likewise found it incurable by any remedies of human art, And an abscess. he also turned to Blessed Salvator: who by his touch and blessing alone perfectly healed the affected ear.

CHAPTER X.

The secrets of hearts and the future declared by Blessed Salvator on various occasions.

CHAPTER XII.

[97] On a certain day, when the blessed man stood in the courtyard of the Valencia convent of Saint Mary of Jesus, more than ten thousand people came to him, Despised by his own Provincial, citizens of that city, together with the Viceroy, the Duke of Segovia, the Duchess, and all the nobility, for the sake of visiting him and receiving his blessing: to all of whom, having knelt together, Salvator blessed them, In the name of the Father, etc. Meanwhile the Provincial Minister of the Order, Francisco Zamorra, came up and, his spirit moved, said: How frivolous are these Valencians, who pay such great honor to a single lay brother! These were his words: but God, who glorifies His servants, took care to glorify Salvator, despised by his own Superior, He is honored by all the people as a Saint: even more: for when, four days later at the election of a new Provincial, a truly holy and religious man, the Brothers proceeded together to the cathedral to give thanks to God, and an enormous crowd of both sexes surrounded them in the courtyard, Blessed Salvator was violently dragged out from their midst, and with the people vying to tear a piece from his tunic, he was left nearly naked in his undergarment alone, so that it was necessary to lead him aside into some nearby building for the sake of modesty, even then the popular fervor not ceasing, but with continual cries demanding that the Saint be brought forth, who would drive away all their diseases: and indeed many were the miracles wrought through him on that day, as can be seen in the processes.

[98] In the city of Gandia in the diocese of Valencia, there was a most devout convent of nuns of Saint Clare, The convent of the Poor Clares at Gandia, whose spiritual progress the devil, envying them, began to be troublesome to them in every way, daily presenting himself in horrible forms to the timid sex, and making a tremendous noise throughout the whole house: and when the customary exorcisms of the Church availed nothing to ward off these molestations, the Most Excellent Duke ^aFrancis, who later became General of the Society of Jesus, and who had heard much of the extraordinary sanctity of Blessed Salvator, having obtained permission from the General, wished to bring him there. While he was doing this, however, the demons, driven to fury, seemed about to turn everything upside down, so horribly were they creating a disturbance everywhere with their noise: and it was not far from the nuns, driven to despair, leaving the place in which they could have no peace. But when Salvator arrived and consecrated all the places of the monastery by forming the sign of the Cross on the walls, everything ceased, He frees them from the infestation of demons: and he, turning to the nuns, said: Be secure, and be anxious only about this, that you serve God perfectly: for I promise you in His name that you shall never again be troubled, nor shall you hear Gorrosita^b (for so the demon was called there), whose only purpose in presenting such hideous spectres and causing such discordant noise was to disturb the religious discipline and divine worship of this house. Now remain in peace, and pray to the Lord for me. As he was departing, moreover, he was asked to bless certain sick Sisters, who were immediately restored to health.

[99] Anthony Massipus testifies about himself, while still a layman, that he had visited Blessed Salvator for the sake of kissing his habit: He predicts the priesthood who said to him: You will be a Priest. And he had indeed laughed at those words, since, having been enlisted among the nobles of the Duke of Segovia and Cardona, he had thought of nothing less up to that hour than of the Priesthood. Nevertheless, after a few months, the impulse of God inviting him to that state was so strongly impressed upon his mind that he could take no part of rest night and day: and so he gave in and surrendered, the more easily because he remembered this had been predicted to him by the Saint: and to this day, in which he testifies these things and we count the year 1600, he lives as a Priest, and remembers that he had replied to the Saint, who was foretelling what we have said, To an unlettered young man. with a smile: I do not believe it, Father; for I am not sufficiently instructed in the knowledge of letters. To which the Saint had replied: In the house of the Lord a pure conscience is worth more than much knowledge, without which you will obtain the Priesthood: and when this has happened, remember to pray for me also.

[100] John Ximenus, a Priest of the town of Fulset in the diocese of Tarragona, A herniated Priest's was suffering from hernia and a severe rupture on one side; but when his fellow Priests urged him to go to the holy man to be healed, he refused, saying that he could not believe in his miracles. Overcome nevertheless by the importunity of those urging him, he promised to go, since they so wished. But he added: If it helps, let it help; if it does not help, let it not help. When he came to Blessed Salvator He reproaches his small faith: and knelt before him awaiting his blessing, the Blessed said to him: O you of little faith, of little faith: if it helps you, let it help; if it does not help, let it not help. The Priest rose and departed indignant, and to those inquiring about the outcome of the journey, he said: This Brother is either a Saint or has a devil: for when he was blessing the others, turning to me he uttered the same words that I spoke here: from which all recognized the Priest's small faith and the gift of prophecy communicated to the Saint.

[101] A girl possessed by a demon, on account of the excessive ferocity of the demons inhabiting her, bound with ropes and chains, A woman possessed by a demon, was brought to Horta by force: but no violence was sufficient to compel her to enter the church. Salvator was therefore asked to go out to her himself. Meanwhile the demons broke all the bonds, and leaving the torn garments in the hands of the men who had seized her, they snatched the unfortunate woman from their sight and view, so that she could not be found by those searching, until the Saint, coming upon the scene, showed them where they would find her hidden He recalls by his command one who had escaped in flight, under a pile of very large timbers. They could scarcely persuade themselves that she could have been hidden under so many great beams, and that they should undertake to remove such a mass with so much labor: yet they obeyed, and found her naked between two beams, and as they had been commanded, they said: Brother Salvator commands you to come to him, and indeed in the name of the most Blessed Virgin he commands. And so they led her back, obedient and dressed. At her sight the Blessed expressed the sign of the Cross and said: Depart from this creature, unclean spirits: I so command you in the name of the most Holy Trinity, And frees the liberated woman and warns her of a hidden sin. of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. They replied they would not obey: but constrained by a repeated command, they departed, causing an immense crash in the air. The girl herself, free indeed but incredibly weakened, and more like a dead than a living person, remained: but having received the Saint's blessing, she rose: and he ordered food to be given to her, and said: Now, daughter, attend to how you serve God henceforth: and never again commit such a thing, if you do not wish the malicious invaders to return: and so he dismissed her from him healed.

[102] He predicts his own departure to Sardinia, A certain nobleman named Master Garcias, Secretary of the Holy Inquisition, was speaking with Blessed Salvator in the monastery of Barcelona, Saint Mary of Jesus, and among other things said to him that the courtyard of the monastery seemed to him to be beautifully adorned, on account of the image of the most Blessed Virgin placed above the doors of the church. To whom the Saint said: It is beautiful indeed, and within a short time it will carry me across the sea, to another convent bearing the same name as this one, where a similar image of hers is seen above the door. Which matter, seeming incredible at first, was shown by the event itself to be most true, when Salvator was transferred to Cagliari in Sardinia. While, however, he was still staying at Horta, he devoted many nights to prayer on the mountain which is the highest there; And at Horta, and going there through the small garden, which is situated after the larger garden, he found some Brothers there engaged in rather merry activity, of whom one said: Is it true what I heard, that you are going to sail, Brother Salvator? It is true, he replied. But where? To a region, he replied, whose chief city, girded by the most beautiful walls and notably fortified by bronze cannon, stands on a hill: there God is going to do great things for me.^c Many Brothers were being sent at that time to the Indies for the sake of preaching the faith; those who were present therefore supposed that this most beloved servant of God was also being sent there, and so they further asked him whether his journey would be toward the East or the West. He shows it by the sign of a star. Then he said: Look to the sky. They looked, and saw a star of extraordinary brilliance moving with great and swift motion toward the East, but they could not note where it came to rest. He himself said: I must hold a similar course. And not long after the truth of the prediction was made clear: when a man of rare sanctity, Brother Vincent Ferri, came to lead the Brothers away to Sardinia, according to the exchange that had been decreed between the Transmontane and Cismontane families, and asked Salvator whether he too wished to accompany him. He replied: Indeed: for this is what God wills, and there He has a great good destined for me.^d

CHAPTER XIII.

[103] Moreover, in whatever place the Blessed was staying, he daily received the Sacraments of Confession and Communion, Though ignorant of letters, he shows the place sought in the Missal, with singular pious devotion, and this at the first morning Mass. It happened, however, on one occasion that the marker, which indicated the Epistle to be read that day, had been moved from its place, and the Priest, who himself affirmed this, was no little disturbed at being occupied for some time in vainly searching for it: and Blessed Salvator, who was about to serve at the Mass, observed this, rose from the place where he had been kneeling, took the Missal and opened it and pointed with his finger to the place that was to be read, and without uttering a word, returned to the place whence he had risen. The same Priest, moreover, confessed that, marveling not a little at the unusual nature of the deed, since he knew that Salvator had learned no letters at all, he was also relieved of the doubt that had been troubling him not slightly concerning his miracles: so that thenceforth he held him in greater honor and reverence. James Villala, a citizen of Barcelona, He cures hernia, testifies that he had a ten-year-old son whom the Saint healed of hernia and rupture with his blessing. Raphaela Pazi, a noble woman of Gerona, He predicts offspring. commended her sister, who was beyond measure desirous of obtaining offspring, to the prayers of Blessed Salvator, and he replied: Be of good cheer, for your sister will bear twin offspring: which came to pass; and both are alive in this year 1603, one male, the other female.

[104] Sister Hieronyma Campos, a novice in the monastery of Saint Clare at Gerona, The persons of two paralytic women lay paralytic in her entire body: and Blessed Salvator was asked, having come there, to visit and heal her. He went therefore to the church, and standing before the iron grating, ordered the sick woman to be brought to him: but instead of her, the nuns brought another who was similarly paralytic. Whom when he saw, he said: It was not this one I requested, nor does she have the faith necessary for receiving health: bring here the other one, And faith he discerns. on whose account I have come. The sisters therefore brought Hieronyma: and the Saint, opening the small window through which holy Communion is customarily given to the nuns, inserted his arm with the Rosary, and placing it upon the sick woman and saying In the name of the Father, etc., he immediately added: Arise and give thanks to our Lady, and transfer yourself to the service of this sister who could not be healed on account of her defect of faith: which she performed constantly and lovingly until her very death. Among the other nuns, moreover, there was thenceforth such great reverence for the Saint that, fearing lest he perhaps reveal the interior state of their souls, they were afraid to come under his gaze. In the same monastery there was another Religious who had long endured a hidden hernia, not daring out of modesty to reveal her ailment to any physician: He heals hernia: whence, since she was suffering the most severe and daily increasing pains, she revealed it to the servant of God conversing secretly with her, and immediately received health through the impression of the Cross.

[105] He predicts a future tribulation for one, The same man, speaking with another nun there, Sister Isabella Pingi, said to her: See that all things between you and the Lord are right, daughter, and do not fall in spirit: for He Himself will help you in the tribulation that most gravely threatens you. And that forewarning availed many years later, when what the Saint had predicted happened to her. Finally, another Sister of the same monastery, named Mariana, He predicts another's liberation from scruples. led a life troubled by scruples: which she once explained to Blessed Salvator, asking him that she might merit to be freed from them by the Lord through his prayers. He, however, promised that she would soon be freed, and that all the anxieties of her conscience would be driven away by a certain devout Confessor, in whose hands also she would happily consummate the course of this mortal life. And this soon came to pass upon the arrival of a new Confessor, by whom she professed to the other Sisters that she was thoroughly relieved: nor did many days pass thereafter before she departed, called by the Lord, as we piously believe, to the joys of eternal life and perpetual peace.

doves, which after flying away through the wall of the church, he afterwards asked the one who had celebrated whether he had seen those two doves, by which he himself had been admonished about the journey across the sea.

CHAPTER XI.

Ignominiously sent from Horta to Reus, Salvator becomes known through great miracles.

CHAPTER XIV.

[106] But let us finally leave aside the miracles which the processes formed before the Archbishops and Bishops exhibit in countless number, The Brothers seeking their peace to be disturbed, and which are in part enumerated in the catalogue appended at the end of this little work: let it suffice for us to say with our chronicles that God gave him the grace of wonderful healings. When therefore he was being glorified by God in this manner at the monastery of Saint Mary of Horta (which name thenceforth permanently adhered to him), the Provincial Minister came there for a religious visitation, and the great multitude of sick people of every kind around that monastery was not at all pleasing to him, which had also long been burdensome to the Brothers staying there: and so they had asked the Provincial to remove this din of promiscuous crowds along with the Blessed himself. Indeed the Minister himself had a certain dread lest perhaps this humble Brother was not so much a Saint that God would wish to work such great and manifold miracles through him. Salvator is sharply rebuked by the Provincial, Therefore he resolved to test his virtue at the touchstone of patience; and having convoked the Brothers in Chapter, he summoned Salvator, and when the latter was on his knees before him, said: I had thought I would find this convent in complete peace, which on the contrary I find most disturbed and disquieted, because in it there lives a certain wicked and restless man, and the cause of the greatest turmoil. It is you, you I address, Brother Salvator, and I ask, by what plan have you begun this way of life that you follow? Are you not ashamed to hear everyone saying: Let us go to the Saint of Horta, when it would be better to say: Let us go to the devil who disturbs the Brothers at Horta? But you, Fathers, do you not see what a mark of infamy he brands upon you all, when he alone presumes to work miracles, as if you were not equally Saints as he? I shall see to it indeed, Brother, that your name is heard no more, and that when these miracles of yours cease, the concourse of peoples flowing here from all Spain shall cease also: and I now order that a discipline be given to you, And changing his name, and that henceforth you be called not Salvator but Brother Alphonsus; and that having received these letters, you depart from here in the middle of the night with no one seeing, and go to the monastery of the town of Reus.

[107] Having said these things with much anger, he gave him the letters and changed his name: for which reason in the Chronicles of our Order he is called Brother Alphonsus, as was proved in the process formed before the Bishops of Barcelona, He departs secretly from Horta in the middle of the night, Gerona, and Tortosa. He himself, however, hearing such grave insults with an utterly undisturbed mind, made his sanctity most evident to all: and departing thence to the church, he prostrated himself in prayer before the altar of the most Blessed Virgin, dedicating and consecrating himself to her as her most faithful servant, until around midnight a lay Brother came, who was to be his companion on the commanded journey (with whom the author of this Life later personally spoke), and advising him that it was time to depart, he immediately had him as an obedient companion. For having first made reverence to the most holy Sacrament, then to the most Blessed Virgin and to the Suffragant Father, both went out of the monastery and passed through the midst of the ranks of an infinite multitude, He is salutary to many even when absent, which had occupied the mountain, waiting for the dawn, around which time it would receive his blessing and health at the same time: which he indeed, keeping silence, imparted to all tacitly in passing: but in the morning, having been waited for in vain, when he was nowhere to be found, it is incredible to say with what emotions of spirit that absence was received: with various people being healed at his invocation just as if he were present, while others despaired of their health. Nor was it a slight miracle, in my judgment, that the Provincial and the Brothers of the convent, after his departure, entirely forgot about the decree by which they had resolved that all the insignia of miracles performed there, left by the healed sick people, should be removed from the church; with God taking care that what they were doing might not cause the memory of Blessed Salvator to be endangered among posterity or fall into oblivion.

[108] Along the road, moreover, walking barefoot over the rough rocks of these mountains, He prays and suffers ecstasy on the road, he finally reached a clear spring of living water: whose pleasantness, when it had invited his companion to take some rest there, he himself, as if affected by no fatigue, withdrew to one side and, with knees bent upon the rocks and hands stretched toward heaven, set about praying: where he was immediately caught up in ecstasy, until his companion reminded him about resuming the journey. Who, marveling at such great cheerfulness of countenance in him, Nor does he show any disturbance of spirit. said: Surely, Brother Alphonsus, you seem to me stolid and senseless, whom so sharp a reprimand from the Father Provincial does not move. But he said: I would have been dealt with in a truly wretched manner if the severity of his reprimand had equaled the measure of my crimes: now, bearing a punishment much lighter than the crimes themselves, why should I be sad? Do you not know that the heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord, and He inclines it wherever He wills? Do you not know that not a single leaf falls from a tree without God willing it? And the sworn companion affirmed that on the whole of that journey he had been intent on perpetual prayer, and unless he himself had interrupted, no words came from his mouth other than the sweetest names of Jesus and Mary.

[109] At last, before nightfall on the second day, both arrived at the designated monastery; where the Guardian, He is received contemptuously at Reus, having received and read the Provincial's letter, ordered all the Brothers to assemble in Chapter: and having ordered Salvator to kneel in their midst, he spoke before all as follows: My Fathers, the Father Provincial has sent here this restless Brother and disturber of the convent of Horta through his miracles: and he commands us all henceforth to address him by no other name than Alphonsus, so that those seeking him may more easily be eluded. And you, he said, turning to the Blessed, I shall hide in a place where you can cause no disturbances among the people: now, however, before everything else, I order you He is shut up in the kitchen: not to speak to any lay person. On the next morning, before dawn, the Guardian rising sought out Brother Alphonsus and found him in the church, where he had spent the whole night in prayer. From there he led him to the kitchen, and locking him in, bolting the door behind him, said: Here you will remain to cook food for the Brothers, and, if you wish, to work miracles among the pots and pans.

[110] The Saint remained in the kitchen joyful at this command: meanwhile, as the day dawned, the whole populace of that town began to hasten to the monastery, and especially the sick, But sought out by the people, divinely informed, crying out with great clamor, beseeching God to have mercy on them; and pitifully begging the Brothers to allow the servant of God, brought from Horta by the favor of Heaven, to come out to them, so that by his blessing all might be made whole. These were about two thousand people. And so the astonished Brothers, not understanding by what means the knowledge of the new guest's arrival had reached them, ran to the Guardian and tremblingly reported to him what a great multitude of people had occupied the church, threatening to break down the doors and burst into the convent unless Brother Salvator was brought out to them. And as if the author of disturbances, he is rebuked by the Guardian, The Guardian, indignant at this, rushed immediately to the kitchen and expostulated with him in insulting words, charging that not content with the disturbances he had stirred up at Horta, he was plotting new ones here, making his arrival known to the people. Now at last it appeared what spirit he was of, and how turbulent and restless, since he who was utterly wicked and evil had dared to contravene so recent a command of his Superior so quickly. Salvator humbly threw himself on his knees, neither excusing nor pleading anything, until the Guardian left, once again firmly locking the door. But this was in vain: for the crowd, breaking through the wooden gratings, opened the monastery gate by force and rushed into the convent: He is brought forth, and when the Brothers could no longer keep them out, the Guardian came running and promised to bring out the one they sought, on condition that they would all quietly withdraw into the church.

CHAPTER XV.

[111] When they had returned to the church, he himself went again to the kitchen and ordered Salvator to come out: at whose presence, like that of a heavenly Angel, the exulting people heard Salvator himself speak as follows: And he heals very many sick people, having admonished them about penance, Little children, that God may hear your prayers and free you from your infirmities, do penance for your sins, and seal it with true contrition of heart, with the firm resolution of duly manifesting them in the sacred tribunal of Confession: and I, on His behalf and on that of our most holy Lady, bless you, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Having said these things, he turned his back on them and, as the Guardian had commanded, returned to the kitchen. Of the crippled and other sick who were then in the church, many were healed; as was evident from the multitude of crutches, staffs, and bandages left there. At the sight of which the indignant Guardian said: Do you see with what filth this Brother has filled this church and turned it into a stable for beasts: and he immediately wrote to the Provincial how much turmoil the man, sent to him from Horta, had stirred up there on his very first arrival. Thenceforth he remained unknown at Reus for a long time. On the next Friday he summoned Brother Salvator to Chapter and ordered him not to speak to any lay person without his permission: and so the Saint remained unknown there for a not inconsiderable space of time, until it pleased God to bring him again into the public light, in the following manner.

[112] There was in the monastery at Reus a certain religious named John Serra, A Brother there at the point of death: who had demoted himself from the Priesthood to the order of lay Brothers: and he was then so gravely ill that the physicians said he would die that same night. The Preacher of his Convent, Brother Ferdinand Soler, remained with him to administer the last rites to the dying man. When around midnight he saw the sick man in his death agony, he went to seek Blessed Salvator, and finding him praying in the choir of the church, asked him to please come with him and bestow a final blessing on the sick man. Salvator replied that the other should go ahead, and he too would soon be there: and he was, and having formed the sign of the Cross over the sick man, he asked him what ailment he was suffering. But when the sick man said nothing in reply, he returned to the choir and there beat himself with a harsh whip, and prolonged his prayer for one hour: and while these things were happening, the sick man, freed from fever, began to speak and said: I am well, by the grace of God. He heals him suddenly by his prayers, Some Brothers were keeping vigil with the man who, as they believed, was about to die: and hearing the voice of one speaking, they hastened to call the Guardian and the others to come, to be witnesses of so unexpected a matter: these, however, thinking it to be some final delirium of one in his death agony, hesitated in uncertainty; wherefore

he who a little before had lost all his strength seized a chair that was near the bed and lifted it with his hand, saying: Do not doubt, my Fathers, that I have been truly healed by the grace of God and the prayers of Brother Salvator: who a short time after came, and said to the sick man: Brother John, give thanks to the Virgin Mother of God, who has restored you to health: And he admonishes him about doing penance: then strive to lead a better life in the future than you have led until now, since you had merited that God would now wish to cut it short: but use the time granted for penance, and be of good cheer. Moreover, the physician arrived early in the morning and asked the porter at what hour Brother John had died. Died? replied the porter: on the contrary, he is healthy and vigorous. That what the porter had said was most true, the physician learned with the greatest amazement in person, hurrying to the room of John.

[113] In those same days a certain little boy had been brought to the point of death in the same town; A similarly dying boy, and the physician said to the afflicted father: My lord, very little now stands between your son and death: and I know of no remedy left to help him, unless you go to the monastery of the Brothers and try, through one of them, to gain entrance to the garden, where you will find a Brother picking vegetables or legumes for the use of the kitchen: pray to him for the health of your son. The man obeyed, and finding Salvator, said to him: Father, great necessity compels me to have recourse to you. Salvator did not allow him to say more, He keeps him alive, but said: Go, your little son is well, for which you owe thanks to the Mother of God. And exactly as he said, so the man found it when he returned home: the boy not only well but also cheerful. From these miracles the fame of his sanctity, having spread, And thus made known, he helps very many. soon aroused such a great crowd of people returning to Salvator that their number could in no way be counted: and from among them, many blind, leprous, and paralytic people were healed, as is clear from the Processes. Especially, however, there should be named here a little boy, named Paul Serra: to whom, as the Saint was blessing him and holding his hand above his head, he said to those standing around: This child will be one of ours. And at that time indeed no one paid much attention to those words: but afterwards, when the boy himself at a fuller age put on the habit of the Seraphic Order, they understood that they had been spoken in a prophetic spirit.

CHAPTER XII.

He migrates to Barcelona, thence to Cagliari: various predictions of his there.

[114] Migrating from Reus, After some time it seemed good to the Provincial to send Brother Salvator to Barcelona, and going there he passed through Tarragona, where it is proved in the Process that he worked many miracles. Then when he was at Villafranca, two blind men were brought to him, to whom he said: Little sons, go to the Virgin of Montserrat, since you are so near to that place: and trust, because she will heal you: and I shall shortly be there with you. When both had departed thither, Salvator said to the people: Of those two blind men, one will be healed on account of the merit of extraordinary faith; He sends 2 blind men to Montserrat, the other will remain blind for the defect of the same. On the road, however, the one said to the other: That Brother was indeed foolish, who if he could give us sight, had no need to send us so great a distance through these rough mountains. I believe indeed that we who have not been healed here will not be healed there either. To whom his companion said: But I believe that everything he told us is true, and I trust that I shall receive my sight: and this happened to him after confession, as he was about to communicate, when it was said, "Lord, I am not worthy": Of whom one is given sight: the other, who had neglected to go to the sacraments and had no confidence of recovering his sight, persisting in his blindness. After Salvator arrived at Montserrat, he said to the sick who came to him: We are in the church of the Mother of mercy: go to her and you will obtain your health: and many of them were healed, There he was not praying in vain for many. with Salvator praying to the Mother of God for them.

[115] It would be impossible to narrate the miracles, how many and how great, that he worked upon arriving at Barcelona, in the name of God with the application of the sign of the holy Cross; He shines with miracles at Barcelona. since daily an immense multitude of people came to him: from whose number many were healed, and some of them have been mentioned above, while others will be mentioned here. First of all there was a boy, mute from birth, to whom the said sign of the Cross gave speech: then Eulalia Palau, who having used for many years the fruitless efforts of physicians to be freed from a great headache, went to him, and he voluntarily placing his hand on her head, said: Your head aches: and from that time she affirms she has felt no pain. Finally a certain deaf and mute young man, at his command after the sign of the Cross had been made, recited the Our Father, and thenceforth used his tongue freely.

CHAPTER XVI.

[116] Sailing to Sardinia, Around this time there arrived at Barcelona a Commissioner destined for Sardinia by the General of the Order, who asked the man of God to come with him, as Bishop Gonzaga describes at length in the chronicles, treating of the convent of Cagliari, in which this Blessed was adorned with many miracles, after his extraordinary sanctity became known in the following manner. While he was sailing, a foul storm fell upon the sea, so that all believed their lives were over: but the Saint, recognizing whence these things proceeded, He calms the storm. making the sign of the Cross, commanded the demons to take themselves at once to the infernal regions and no longer molest their ship: and immediately, to the amazement of all, the storm ceased, and they happily reached a place called Pula, thirty miles from the city: in which he was received with the greatest joy of all, and shortly, when a concourse of inhabitants from all parts of the island coming to him was made, he was glorified by the following miracles, some of which we shall relate here.

[117] He predicts many more illnesses for a dying woman healed by him, Isabella Morana, placed at the point of death after a long and severe illness, was visited by Blessed Salvator at the urging of her relatives, and freed from danger and from the disease itself by the sign of the Cross: turning, however, to the Blessed, she said: Dear Father, I feel so weak that I seem about to die shortly. To whom Salvator said: You will not die, believe me, before you have been ill twenty-nine times: but be of good cheer, for a happier life awaits you in heaven. She gave thanks to her healer, for she immediately felt herself confirmed in strength, as she swore in the process, after having endured the twenty-eighth illness since the time of the prediction: now weary of this life and cheerfully expecting by the next illness, which she knew for certain would be the last. He predicts a happy delivery for another. When Salvator happened to be passing that way collecting alms where a woman was being pressed by the pains of childbirth but could not give birth despite whatever remedies were applied, he said to the maidservant who was giving him alms: Go, tell your mistress that she will shortly bear a son, who will be a member of my Order: let her therefore give him my name: all of which things were fulfilled in order.

[118] At another time, passing through the marketplace, he stopped before a place where certain soldiers were gambling, and began to cry out in a loud voice: Likewise he predicts the collapse of a house because of blasphemies. Out, out: quickly, quickly. While some attributed this shouting to madness and others to an unusual fervor of spirit, and he did not desist from it, the soldiers finally also came out, to learn why he was so crying out: to whom he said: Penance, penance. And when they laughed, he said again: I say to you again, do penance for the blasphemy you have just uttered, and even irrational creatures feel it. And as he said this, the room in which they had been playing collapsed, by which, as the Saint said, they would certainly have been crushed to death in their impiety, if they had not come out: and the portent availed to cause all, struck by holy horror, to throw themselves at his feet and promise a serious amendment of their past life.

[119] He summons little birds to be fed, Performing the duty of porter there, he saw a great number of little birds sitting around the courtyard, and by their mournful song lamenting, as it were, the continuous rain of those days: pitying them, he ran to the refectory and brought bread, and expressing the sign of the Cross, he said: Come, creatures of the Lord, whom I see hungry: accept the alms which I bring you wretched ones. They, equally obedient, flew onto his head, onto his shoulders, onto his arms, and received bread from him; which he also broke with his teeth and held out to those whose beaks he knew to be weaker. While he did this, he saw two crows flying past: whom he also invited to share the alms; And among these two crows. and that they perched upon his arms, those who saw it swore. And when they wanted to snatch at the crumbs that he had broken for the more tender ones, he said: Be quiet; for to you, who have stronger beaks, I shall give larger pieces: and having received these, they were ordered to go and flew away; with all who were present marveling and recognizing his rare holiness from such a sign.

[120] He foresees the impenitence of a certain blind man; Asked by certain pious persons to restore the sight of a certain blind man: Go, he said, and tell your friend to confess his sins and expiate them with a three-day fast, then let him come to me. But when they had departed, he said to the rest: This man will neither wish to confess nor to fast: and therefore he will remain blind:^f and so it happened, with the Saint warning the others with these words: God does not wish to confer special benefits upon His enemies: wherefore if you wish to obtain such a thing, it is necessary to do penance, and then your prayer will be heard. A certain woman, He indicates to a mother her lost son, most eager to see Brother Salvator, about whom such prodigious things were being told, came to the church, which then happened to contain two thousand people, with her little son; and seeking him lost in such a multitude, she went to the Blessed, and before she said any word, she was told by him to put aside her worry; for the boy whom he pointed out and whom she herself was seeking was present: which, understanding with a mixed sense of joy and admiration, and seeing it was true, the mother gave thanks to him and cheerfully brought her little son home.

[121] He promises help to the Guardian anxiously worried about the next day. In the same church Salvator was engaged in prayer together with other Brothers, and hearing the Guardian sighing, he said: Neither the present place nor time requires that food be given to the body, but to the soul. The Guardian, marveling at these words, said: He promises him help, Truly God has revealed my thought to him, for I was anxiously turning over in my mind what I should set before you to eat tomorrow, the pantry being completely exhausted.

Tomorrow, replied Salvator, the Lord will send you an ample alms, my Father: and such as he had said, the Porter himself brought the next day, and it could not be discovered from where or from whom: and the Guardian and Brothers he told: Serve the Lord and He Himself will nourish you. In the same place the aforesaid Guardian was asking God He resolves another of his worries: to deign to indicate to him His will concerning the office of Commissioner of the Inquisition, which was about to be conferred upon him: and when the prayer was finished, Brother Salvator came to him and said: Father, attend to saving your soul: but the office, which is ill-suited to you, do not accept. And the Guardian recognized that his mind had been divinely revealed to him, and so he resolved to follow the answer directed to him by divine goodness: and on the next day, taking him as his companion, he went to a certain noble matron, He treads upon burning coals without harm: and was speaking with her privately about the great sanctity of his companion. She, listening with no small wonder, summoned her maidservants and ordered a brazier with coals to be brought to warm his feet, which in that cold season he had bare. But he placed both feet upon the burning coals: and to the matron, who upon seeing this was dismayed and crying out loudly forbidding him to burn himself, Salvator replied: Since you praise mortal creatures, full of many imperfections, it is right that the immortal Creator be praised by me in these shining creatures. But this fire of your praises will not burn me, by the grace of God: and they saw that neither his feet nor his garments had been harmed by the fire placed beneath them.^h

[122] He predicts to a mother the imminent arrival of her son. Another noble matron, having her son in the war at Malta, Don William Serbelloni, was extremely fearful lest he had been killed, and so went to the Saint and asked him to pray to God for his soul; to whom Salvator said: Go and prepare supper, and expect him this very night. She went, and not doubting that the prediction was true, she told it to everyone she met: who, although they did not believe credence should be given to it, she nevertheless continued to prepare the supper; and her servants ran to the walls of the city to see whether they might catch sight of some ship arriving. Around the hour of Compline, however, they saw one coming from afar with the most favorable course: and when it had put into port, they both recognized their master in it and brought joyful news of his arrival to their mistress. He silences a gluttonous companion by a miracle: Another woman of equal nobility had given Brother Salvator a fresh wheat bread by way of alms; and when he had hidden it in his sleeve, his companion said to him: My Father, give me this bread: for I know that you yourself are not going to eat it. He then, extending his arm, said: Take it. But upon putting his hand into the sleeve, instead of bread the companion found a rose and flowers. To whom, utterly astonished, Salvator said: Thus are gluttons deceived: but upon returning home, he found a famished poor man at the door, and to him, begging for alms, the Blessed drew the same bread from his sleeve, saying to his companion: Because this man had need of it, you could not find it. He foresees the approaching death of a newborn child; Also seeking alms at a certain house where a noblewoman had recently given birth, he said: Let me see my compatriot. And having been led into the bedroom and taking the infant in his arms, kissing it tenderly, he said: O happy soldier of my Lord: this one is among those who will obtain one of the heavenly seats. And when the infant died within a few days, all recognized the truth of the prediction that had been made. He tells one bidding farewell that he will see him in the same place,

[123] At the high altar of the church of Cagliari, Salvator was serving a Priest celebrating Mass, when a certain Religious came to him and said: My Father, bless me for the last time as I depart: for I am now sailing to Naples, since you did not wish to heal the ruptured vein in my chest. To whom the Saint said: But I told you that God willed you to bear it patiently, and that it was quite beneficial for you to tolerate this infirmity; afterwards, however, you will be healed. Thereupon the Religious said: Please do not cease praying to God for me, whom you will never see again henceforth: for as soon as I am healed, I must leave for Spain. Remember, the Saint replied, that in this very place, As indeed when he dies shortly after, where you now see me, you shall see me again. He went, and in the same [i]year, on the eighteenth day of March, Salvator died. When that Religious learned this, he said: Now all the faith I used to give to Brother Salvator has failed me: for behold, upon my departure, as I was saying farewell, he predicted that I would see him again in the same place: but how can that come to pass, since he is now dead and buried? Twelve years passed after this: then that Religious needed to travel to Genoa, and boarded a ship making sail for Spain, which, forced by an adverse storm to enter the port of Cagliari, set down the aforesaid Religious there. It happens to him after 12 years when the body is exhumed. He, moreover, entering the church of the monastery before anything else for the sake of prayer, saw the sepulchre opened, and the body of a Brother placed upon a bench, the rest having gone away to take their meal. Somewhat frightened by this spectacle, he went to the Guardian in the Refectory, to offer him his obedience as was customary: and when dinner was finished, he saw an innumerable multitude of people, running together to see the body, uncorrupted after twelve years underground and in its bricks, in the same habit in which it had first been buried, nowhere decayed, and he marveled at the prophetic spirit of Salvator.

i. Namely, 1567.

CHAPTER XIII.

Miracles wrought after the death of Blessed Salvator.

[124] Foreknowing his own death. Having glorified His servant in so many ways, God, wishing to repay the reward of his labors, revealed his death to him a few days before he underwent it; as is known from the process made before the Archbishop of Cagliari and the Apostolic Legate over the causes of all religious of that kingdom: after which revelation, from the certain hope of a nearer blessedness, he was of a more pleasant and cheerful spirit and countenance, and was observed to rage more harshly in his daily scourgings of himself, and to receive the sacred Mysteries of Confession and Communion more fervently, and was entirely fixed in the care and thought of preparing for death. Asked by a certain woman piously devoted to him what she should do to render a pleasing service to God, he said: Frequent the Sacraments, and keep the senses of the body clean from every stain: He predicts it as if invited to a wedding, for God rewards such works with a generous hand: and remember to pray for me, one invited to most splendid and most joyful nuptials. The woman understood the words but not the meaning of the speaker: she asked, therefore, in what place these were to be celebrated. In the house, he himself said, of a certain great Lord, exceedingly wealthy and powerful and magnificent. Which reply she grasped no more, and continued to ask curiously about the time of the nuptials he spoke of. On the vigil, said Salvator, of that feast which the church celebrates for the great spouse of the great Virgin. And being asked again whether he would go alone: Alone, he replied; but after me seven others will follow.

[125] So the woman departed, thinking that Brother Salvator had spoken of the nuptials of some Count or distinguished Knight: And he dies most religiously. but on the tenth day after, having received all the Sacraments of the Church, in the presence of all the Brothers standing by and aiding his passing from this life with their well-wishing, with his arms composed in the form of a cross before his breast, and his hand clasping the image of the Crucified, after sweet conversations with Christ and Mary, the dying man uttered these last words:

Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit, and soon he fell asleep most peacefully, on the eighteenth day of March of the year from the Lord's birth one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven. After his death a horrible storm arose in the sky above the city, On account of the storm that was stirred up, so that the entire aerial region could seem full of unclean spirits: and by this means the citizens were prevented from immediately converging to pay the fitting honors to his holy body, as soon as the report of his holy death was spread. The Archbishop, however, considering these to be the machinations of the demons, forbade the body to be buried until he had declared his own wishes concerning it.

[126] The burial is delayed for a full three days: For a full three days, therefore, the body was left in the church, guarded by a faithful guard of armed men; and whoever came, detained by whatever infirmity, to kiss his hands or feet or garments, returned home healed. After three days, the Archbishop with the Canons and all the Clergy, the Viceroy with the Magnates, Counts, and Knights of the whole kingdom, and an innumerable people were present, and in their presence the funeral rites were performed; Which is performed splendidly, in which a certain Father of the Society of Jesus, surnamed Pagna, spoke to a packed audience of both orders. And at last the body was buried, illustrious for the many miracles that through the negligence of the Brothers were not recorded in writing, until Brother Dimas Serpi of Cagliari, holding the Provincial Ministry of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance, and seeing the mighty miracles that were happening daily, persuaded the Archbishop of Cagliari And he shines with miracles. to decree that processes should be formed concerning him. And the body, first inspected by physicians and surgeons, was found to be prodigiously incorrupt, with the intestines also, as the sworn witnesses affirmed, free of all putrefaction.

[127] He had scarcely been buried when a paralytic woman was brought from a nearby castle to the tomb, A paralytic woman is healed, and she rose from the sepulchre as healthy as if she had never suffered any ailment. To a noble matron, after three days of labor in the effort of giving birth, the fetus died in the womb: and when no skill could extract it, Two women in childbirth by the capuce, the mother, fortified with the last Sacraments, herself also died together with it. Afterwards, however, when everything was prepared for the funeral rites, the capuce of the Blessed was brought and placed upon the belly of the deceased woman, and immediately it caused the putrid corpse of the abortive child to come forth, and restored the mother herself to life, in which she perseveres to this day. Another woman, having been in a similar crisis for two days, whom blood drawn from her arms according to the advice of physicians had disappointed in the hope of facilitating the delivery, as soon as she felt the same capuce placed upon her belly, gave birth to a living and handsome son. Also to one girl, A mute girl by the touch of the cord, who had lost her speech and was despairing of her life, the cord of the Blessed, honored with a devout kiss, restored both speech and health.

[128] Dropsy had brought Isabella Manzana to the point of despair for her life: And a woman with dropsy: but the announcement of the translation of the blessed body raised from its sepulchre encouraged her: to the casket, at which she prayed for nine days imploring the Saint's prayers, and having placed her belly upon the casket, she found her health. Don John Columna, the son of the Viceroy, the Count of Elda, Two dying men are raised up, having lost the faculty of speech, was striding rapidly toward death: but he was called back from it and miraculously freed from all fever and ailment at the very moment when the casket containing the holy body was brought into the house of the sick man. The same happened to the Marquis of Sorris, Don Hilarion of Alagon Requesens and Cardona, given up by the physicians; when, at the request of the Marchioness, the sacred casket was similarly brought to him.

[129] Michael Fornellus went from the city of Urgell all the way to Horta, where praying in the church he said: O Saint Salvator, Hernia is healed, even today when you dwell in heaven, remember that in this place you freed my brother from hernia: I also beseech you to free me from the same: and he swore that he had been immediately healed. The habit of the Blessed, moreover, placed upon the face of Margaret of Fonte, of Barcelona, removed from her all the swelling together with an intolerable pain of the head and teeth. Swelling of the face, Brother Peter Martyr, of the Order of Saint Francis, had been kept in bed for eight months by an inflated shin, the same having been treated in vain with exquisite remedies, cauterized six times with fire, and pierced through from one side to the other. Of the shin, When on a certain evening he placed upon it a piece of the habit worn by Blessed Salvator with an invocation of the same, on the next morning he found himself fully healed and rose from his bed without difficulty. Brother Joseph Homs also, suffering from an incurable ailment of the neck, was suddenly made well when the same habit was placed around his neck. Of the neck.

[130] The matron Bonaguerra of Barcelona, a woman possessed by a demon, was brought bound to the church of Saint Francis by her people: Similarly a demoniac is freed by the touch of the garment, and when various relics of the Saints, the spirit not being moved at their presence or touch, had been applied in vain, Brother Dimas Serpi, Commissioner for the Canonization of the Saint, came and placed upon the head of the sick woman the Relic of the Blessed that he had with him, and commanded the spirit, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and of Blessed Salvator, to depart: and it immediately left the woman perfectly free. The same woman was also freed from a dangerous swelling of the breast and a severe fever as soon as a portion of the habit of Blessed Salvator was placed upon her. Cyprian Flaquer, a Catalan, seeing that his ship, of which he was Captain, Fever is healed, those in peril from pirates are helped; would certainly be captured by two English ships pursuing it, drew from his bosom a piece from the habit of the Saint and, bending his knees, said to his fellow sailors: It is now impossible for us to escape the enemy's ships: therefore let us all pray together to Blessed Salvator, that he may deliver us from this danger. They obeyed; and while they recited one Our Father and Hail Mary, they saw the enemies driven back farther by an adverse wind, and ascribing their freedom to Blessed Salvator, they rendered him due thanks.

[131] A certain Sardinian, setting out for Rome, carried with him a piece from the habit of Blessed Salvator: A demon is expelled. passing along the road, he heard a great tumult in a nearby house; and entering it, he found a Brother of his Order laboring with other Priests to expel a demon by the sacred exorcisms. Since therefore other Relics had been applied by them in vain, and he himself, wishing to test the power of his Saint, applied the said piece to the demoniac: through whose mouth the demon immediately began to cry out that they should take away, take away that cloth, which was causing him enormous torments. The Brother asked who was the cause of those torments: Salvator, said the demon, Salvator. Then the Brother said: Therefore in the name of God and of this Salvator who torments you, I command you to depart from this body, malicious spirit. Without delay the spirit departed and the woman remained free from her affliction.

[132] Peter Tessifone of Gerona, An eye is restored; in the twelfth year of his age, having one eye completely ruined, received it sound upon the application of a piece from the ribs of the Blessed. Also a boy born at Gerona a year and a half before, named Peter Vignes, ruptured in the third month from his birth: A boy with hernia, but carried by his mother to the sacred chapel dedicated to this Blessed, after prayers were poured forth there for his health, he was found healthy and whole. Margaret Unies, from the same place, having given her son born to her the name of Salvator in honor of the Blessed: he, however, at four weeks of age, was abstaining from suckling milk for the fourth day: And another dying child are healed. for which reason the mother, despairing of his life, had ordered everything to be prepared for the funeral. Meanwhile she came to hope that he could be saved through the merits of the blessed Patron, and with great trust said: Hear my prayers, O Blessed Salvator, out of love for whom I gave this name to my son: now I humbly beg that he may continue to live. And as she herself said these things, the infant, his eyes already nearly closed in death, opened them; sucked the breast, and lives healthy to this day.

[133] Anna Eulalia, a native of the same city, twelve years old, Multiply injured from a severe fall, having fallen from a roof onto a street paved with large stones, broke both arms — one in one place, the other in two — and was severely injured in the chest, forehead, and head, vomiting a great quantity of blood: and when all the remedies that could be devised had been applied, the physicians said to the afflicted father of the poor girl that she would certainly die within a few hours: for a little body, broken and bruised in so many places, could not be healed. She persisted, however, in that state the whole night and the morning part of the following day, She is kept alive by the touch of the garment, when two Brothers, entering the house to commend her soul to God, one of them carrying a piece of the habit of the Blessed, devoutly placed it, having first said the Our Father and Hail Mary, upon the dying girl. Who was soon seen by all, to their wonder, to extend both arms, the three fractures having been healed; her forehead also, which had been terribly pushed back into her head, was raised and restored to its proper form. Then, when she began to speak, those who stood by said: Say, daughter, Blessed Salvator, help me. Which words, as she was told, she readily repeated, and thenceforth remained entirely and completely healthy. By the same means, James Gottardus of Barcelona, Likewise another dying man, given up by the physicians and close to death, was kept alive. John Comas also, from the diocese of Gerona, rose to his feet from the bed Paralysis is healed, where he had been lying paralytic, as soon as he received from his brother a piece from the same habit and said: Blessed Salvator, I beg you to deign to help me: and he rendered many thanks to the same.

[134] Susanna Violalis, from the town of Horta, having for three months a swollen breast, hard as a rock, And a swelling of the breast. and finding no help in the art of physicians, ordered a bowl full of water to be brought, and having dipped a small cloth in it, she placed it on the affected part, saying: O Blessed Salvator, I pray you to extend help to me in this my affliction, from which, if I do not die, I vow to visit your monastery nine times, in which one of your ribs is preserved. After which, going to bed, she fell asleep; and waking in the morning and looking at her breast, she saw on it a tiny blister the size of a chickpea, and found it doubled in size on the second day, and finally opened on the third: and when a great quantity of putrefied blood and pus was expressed through it, she rejoiced that she was completely healed. Magdalena Comas of Casetas in the kingdom of Aragon had a little daughter of eighteen months, on whose head and around whose neck spreading crusts, And a purulent infection of the head. excessively large, oozed with much pus. And so she went to the Virgin of Horta, where she understood by report that a rib of the Blessed was preserved: which she faithfully kissed, and asked that it be placed in a basin, and catching the water with which it had been soaked in cloths, she placed them on the neck and head of her daughter, asking help from Blessed Salvator: and on the very next morning she affirmed that she could find not even a trace of the former disease in her daughter.

[135] From the same place, Joanna Sellent had a son named Augustine, who, having fallen from a tree, broke both his hips.

Hips likewise broken from a fall, Thus debilitated, she brought him to Horta to the church, beginning to pray thus: O Blessed Salvator, wherever in the world you now dwell, I beseech you to hear my prayers and make my beloved son well. Salvator had already died at Cagliari: yet her prayers were heard, and the boy was restored to perfect health. John Pelliciarius was from Horta, and was gravely ill from an acute fever: Acute fever, but he rose from his bed healthy, invoking Blessed Salvator, and came to honor his Relic in the monastery with acts of thanksgiving. Joanna Gonora, also of Horta, with her neck enormously swollen, was enduring severe pains: Swelling of the neck, but after reverently kissing the sacred rib and pouring forth prayers for her health, she did not desire the same beyond the following day. Colic pain, Kissing the same Relic, Don Dionysius of Loris and Graudesa escaped free from a colic attack that was thought likely to bring death. John of Genoa, also of Horta, paralytic now in one arm, now in one foot, Various paralysis. now in one shoulder, after making his prayer to the Blessed, took up a piece from his habit to wear, and quickly found himself healed. A certain Brother had a similar piece from the capuce of the Blessed, and being asked to enter the house of John Alis to make a prayer over the sick man, he placed it upon him; and called upon the prayers of Blessed Salvator for the same: and at that very moment the intestines that had been dangerously hanging outside the body were drawn back in, And hernia is healed. and John recognized the efficacy of the invoked aid.

[136] In this year 1607, when Brother John of Caprerola was at Rome in the convent of the ^eAra Coeli, President of the Penitentiary at Saint John Lateran by the command of Pope Paul V, he fell so ill there that he lost all use of his senses: Two dying Brothers are healed by the touch of the capuce, and lest the physicians leave anything untried for his healing, they also applied a cautery to his head: and when the said Father appeared not to have felt its impression by any means, the physicians judged that his health and life should be considered among the desperate. At the same time the Provincial of Sardinia, Brother Dimas Serpi, was staying in the same place, having with him the capuce of Blessed Salvator; and devoutly having recourse to him through prayers, when he had commended the sick man to God, to the Blessed Virgin, and to Salvator himself, he went to him and placed the said capuce upon his head: and immediately the sick man, having come to himself, began to speak, felt the pain from the cautery, and appearing to be continuously better, soon recovered fully.

[137] In the same convent Brother Thomas of Massa, formerly Provincial of the ^fMarches, began to fall ill, At Rome in the Ara Coeli. and was brought by the violence of the disease and the most intense pains to a state where nothing seemed to remain but death. But the health despaired of by the physicians was granted by divine goodness, propitiated by the prayers of the Blessed Virgin and her servant Salvator, at the application of the aforesaid capuce, placed upon the sick man by the same Father Dimas: for immediately, with the pains removed, the sick man recovered and rendered the thanks that were fitting.

CHAPTER XIV.

On the veneration of Blessed Salvator and the acts for his Canonization.

[138] The miracles that God works daily at Cagliari, where the Blessed died, through the invocation of him and the most holy Virgin, The body illustrious with miracles, it is impossible to enumerate by writing; since scarcely a day passes without his garment or capuce being carried to various places for the dangerously ill or women in childbirth; to all of whom present help is likewise brought. He has there in the church of Saint Mary of Jesus a chapel dedicated to him, In his own chapel, in which his sacred body rests in a casket, inwardly lined with red damask cloth, upon a mattress made of cloth of the same color, and stuffed with cotton. The casket is outwardly covered with black silk, distinguished by gilded nails, Kept in a fine casket, and secured by a double lock; of which the Archbishop keeps one key and the Guardian the other. The same casket is furthermore enclosed in another iron one, to be opened with three keys; of which two are in the hands of the Consuls of the city and the third in the power of the Guardian. His feast is on Sunday 2 after Epiphany. This Saint is venerated with a solemn feast on every second Sunday after the Epiphany in the aforesaid church; when a sermon about his miracles is delivered to the people during the Mass that is sung of All Saints: at which the Clergy and all the people converge, to honor their physician and common Patron, for whom many devout persons adapt the customary Responsory for Confessors with its prayer: in the manner in which the same are read above in the preliminary commentary. Where the same things are said to be customarily chanted daily at the tomb of the Blessed.

[139] For the Canonization of the same, processes formed by the command of our Most Holy Lord, Pope Paul V, have been presented to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, The letter of the Catholic King to the Pope, together with a letter of the Catholic King of Spain, Philip III, and a brief memorial concerning the Life and miracles of the said Blessed: the tenor of the letter is as follows. Most Holy Father, I have written to the Duke of Escalona, my Counselor and Ambassador, to speak with your Holiness about the Canonization which the Franciscan Brothers and the natural ministers of the Crown of Aragon say is owed to Brother Salvator of Horta, a lay Brother of the same Religion, from my Principality of Catalonia: whose body is found today in the church of the monastery of Jesus, in the city of Cagliari, in my kingdom of Sardinia. I beseech your Holiness to give full credence to everything to be reported to you in my name by the aforesaid Duke about this matter, and to grant him every necessary favor and grace opportune for this purpose. For besides the fact that this matter tends to the service and glory of God and of our Lord and of His Saints, I too shall derive a singular fruit of joy from it, and shall acknowledge the grace done to me by your Beatitude, whose most holy person may our Lord guard, and make prosperous for the governance of his universal Church. Given on the 17th day of January in the year 1604.

Your Holiness's most humble and most devoted son, Don Philip, by the grace of God King of Castile, Aragon, León, both Sicilies, Jerusalem, Portugal, the Indies, Navarre, etc. I kiss your holy feet and hands.

[140] There were two parts of the memorial: the first of which concerning his Life comprised these points. Every night he chastised himself with a harsh whip even to blood. A summary of the virtues is offered to the Roman Curia, Every morning he confessed and communicated at the first Mass. He never had a room or bed, but remained the whole night in the church. Throughout his whole life, whatever the season of the year, he walked barefoot. He was a man of continual prayer: for whether he was employed in the service of the kitchen or garden, or wandering about seeking alms, no voices were ever heard from him in receiving the commands of obedience other than Jesus and Mary. He performed the greatest penance, fasted frequently, and was of singular charity toward the sick. He was sometimes seen during prayer raised two cubits above the ground, and was often caught up in ecstasy. He conversed with Christ, the most holy Virgin, and Saint Paul, to whom he was singularly devoted. He was endowed with a prophetic spirit concerning past, present, and future things. When he was once blessing more than two thousand people, three lighted torches appeared above his head at full midday. One night he appeared to a woman who had a breast eaten by cancer and was imploring his help, and healed her with the sign of the holy Cross. He was seen descending from a very high mountain in a white cloud. The same, impressing the sign of the Cross on a certain rock, drew water from it, which, flowing to this day, is salutary to many sick people. His body, incorrupt and breathing a sweet fragrance, survives at Cagliari to this day. Tossed by great persecutions, he bore them all with singular patience, and was never on their account seen with a sadder countenance. He always showed himself affable and easy to all, and compassionate toward the afflictions of the sick. Often when he was speaking with someone, he would say: My son, confess such and such a sin. He ordered all who came to him for the sake of obtaining health to confess and communicate: and if anyone had not made his confession rightly, he would say: Go, my son, and state this sin also. Most chaste in all his life, always a virgin, and of the greatest simplicity. In the convent of Cagliari a most beautiful chapel is seen, in which the body of this Blessed rests, to whose veneration an immense multitude of people converges, marveling at the frequency of the very many and very great miracles, And of the miracles of Blessed Salvator after death, by which the divine majesty amplifies his glory more and more each day.

[141] The second part of the memorial exhibited a summary of the principal miracles performed by the same Blessed Salvator, comprehended in the following points. He raised two dead persons, of whom one had already been placed in the coffin, the other drowned in a river. Likewise a woman killed when the fetus died in her womb: whom the touch of the capuce of the same Blessed, having expelled the putrid corpse of the abortive child, recalled to life. He freed and frees daily from the danger of imminent death very many who reverently kiss his habit: and by name he preserved Don Hilarion of Alagon Requesens and Cardona, Marquis of Sorris, in his death agony; and Don John, son of the Count of Elda, And in life, who recovered when the casket of the blessed body was brought to him. Similarly the Viscount of Sellari, placed at the point of death, received health when the habit of the Blessed was placed upon him. By the sign of the Cross he healed one hundred and twenty-three paralytics. He gave the use of their ears and tongue to thirty-five people deaf and mute from birth.

He freed innumerable demoniacs: but only eleven are named in the proven processes. It is established from the processes that he gave sight to thirty-one persons blind from birth, although he did the same for many others. To a twelve-year-old girl whose face was twisted toward her back, he restored it to its proper state by first making the sign of the Cross: and by the same sign he removed a monstrous appendage from another girl's forehead that hung down to her mouth. It is certain from the processes that more than twelve thousand reported that rupture or hernia had been cured through his merits. The number of those whom he freed from the ailments and diseases of arthritis, scabies, scrofulas, cancer, and other incurable maladies is also infinite. Nor were those with dropsy fewer, although only fifteen are named in the processes. He healed burned arms, legs, or other members of at least three thousand. By the sign of the Cross he healed a girl who was blind and also mute and deaf from her very birth. Likewise a leprous little boy, and innumerable others. Likewise another whose side gaped with a large wound. Furthermore, a woman whose womb had been hanging outside her body for three years. He also extracted a dagger from the wounded chest of a certain man and made him well by the sign of the Cross. Finally, he has mercy and every day succors the needs of those who, afflicted by fever or other pains or infirmities, commend their health to him. He is inscribed in the catalogue of the Blessed.

[142] When the aforesaid letters and memorial of King Philip had been duly offered and accepted, and the processes had been examined in due form at the Roman Curia, permission was granted to print the image of Salvator with the title of Blessed and with miracles displayed around it; as was done for the honor and glory of God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Franciscan Order: and we are confident that the Church will refer him to the catalogue of the Saints itself by canonizing him. Meanwhile, reader, rejoice in the reading of his holy and admirable Life, and venerate him devoutly: mindful above all of this counsel, which he used to employ familiarly: that the soul must first be cleansed, and then whatever is asked will easily be obtained.

GLEANINGS

From Vincent Domenech

and the Lives published by Dimas Serpi

In the years 1600 and 1602.

[143] The Blessed Father, Brother Salvator of Horta, was a Catalan by origin, The parents of Blessed Salvator, from comfortable fortune, and his parents were prosperous farmers, tenants of the parish of Bruñola in the diocese of Gerona, and possessors of a certain tower or estate called Masdauall, which today is seen destroyed and desolate upon a small hill, and has entirely reverted to woodland. These servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, by divine disposition, fell into extreme poverty and grave illnesses, to be tested like the just Job. Which calamity brought them the necessity of resorting, for the sake of treatment, to the Hospital of Saint Columba of Farnesia; Reduced to the hospital: where, having recovered from their illnesses, they so commended themselves to the Bailiff and the officials of that place that they asked them to remain there and undertake the care of the Hospital and the poor who came there. Which condition, compelled by poverty, they cheerfully undertook, exercising themselves in that duty after the likeness of the great Abraham, with a charity so great that God seems to have approved it, bestowing upon them the fruit of blessing — this Blessed Salvator, that is — whom they raised in a Christian and careful manner.

[144] The local tradition about him holds that around the sixth year of his age, tending a flock like David, when he wished to water it, He himself is rescued from the waters by a miracle, he slipped into the very bed of the brook, and by the force of the water rushing to turn the nearest mill, was swept along to its very channel. Through which they supposed he would be dragged under the mill wheel, those who had seen him falling from a distance: but running up, they found him splashing the waters with his palms and playing innocently in them, and they drew him out, having no doubt that he had been preserved by a miracle. When older, he was taken with a little sister of his to Barcelona, He is taken to Barcelona with his sister, and both were placed in the service of a certain master. There his sister, named Blasia, married an honest man called Master Antonio Trauer, who sold copper and iron wares in the market that the Catalans call "del Blat." She was, moreover, as the process records, a woman of honest life and reputation, and lived and died without children.

[145] Salvator, however, having been put to the cobbler's trade, after he had learned his craft, Where he takes the habit of Saint Francis, at God's inspiration he sought and obtained the habit of the Seraphic Order, admitted as a lay Brother on account of the gift of rare simplicity, which gave all great hope of future sanctity. And this appeared far from vain, even during the period of his novitiate, when, while he was praying in the church, everything in the locked kitchen was found ready for a dinner lavish beyond the ordinary, which Salvator had forgotten on account of the fervor of his prayer: and he was furthermore by no means suited to prepare the same, since he was little skilled in that ministry, even when the customary meals were to be prepared. When the year of his novitiate was completed, however, and his vows pronounced, having been inserted into the Religious life, he added to his other exercises of virtue a great charity toward the poor: And is appointed porter, wherefore, having been appointed to the office of porter, he distributed the most ample alms he could to them. Observing this, the Guardian, fearing lest he empty the entire pantry, ordered the storerooms to be locked and took from him the power of entering them. And so he tried from other sources to provide for the needs of the poor, He is most generous toward the poor: for which he had a great facility: since, being lovable to all on account of the example of his most innocent life, friends and pious people sent him baskets full of bread. Whence it happened that the Guardian, seeing him proceed thus loaded to the poor, said to him: Consider, Brother, that we too are poor, and it is fitting first to provide for those at home rather than strangers. But he replied: It is not given to me for this purpose, Father, that I should give to those who have; but to the poor, who do not have: God already takes care of the Brothers, and I have never seen anyone die of hunger.

[146] Let this be an example of singular meekness. Salvator was once sitting by the fire, Doused with boiling water, he is not harmed: and the cook, stirring it up to burn more brightly by piling on logs, overturned a cauldron full of boiling water upon the feet of the one sitting by. He, not at all disturbed, said with a modest laugh: Now, Brother, you will have to work again to boil fresh water: why do you not pay more attention? Those who were present, however, ran to see how seriously the water had burned him. To whom he replied: Nothing bad has happened: indeed, since it has been a long time since I washed my feet, it was convenient to have them washed at least this way: may God reward the charity. God, moreover, honored His servant with more evident miracles of healings. A certain woman, contracted from childbirth, had not been able to move from her place for eight full years, He shines with the grace of healings: when Salvator, collecting alms, passed by her house: and invited inside to cure her, he said: Confess first of all, daughter; then I shall return, and trust in God that He Himself will heal you. On the same day, having summoned a Confessor, the woman, having been absolved, received the Sacrament of the Eucharist: and immediately all saw Salvator enter the room, admonished by no one, and he said: Daughter, because you have commended yourself to God, He Himself heals you from this infirmity: and he formed the sign of the Cross over the sick woman: who immediately rose from her bed and went out of the house to give thanks to God for the health conferred through the merit of His servant.

Another time a man was brought to him who had a dagger stuck in his chest, which the physicians forbade to be extracted, lest he die before having confessed his sins: Salvator, however, extracted it by hand and dismissed him free of danger; and the wound itself was soon healed.

[147] One day, observing his own Guardian downcast because the Brothers lacked bread, Salvator said: Father, you have little faith: trust in God: for soon what is lacking will be brought to us most abundantly. He provides the Brothers with bread, He had spoken, and behold there was a knock at the door, and the Saint, going out, returned and called the Guardian to come and see four baskets full of excellent bread. To whom Salvator said: Do you see, Father, how God provides for us? But from where this bread had been brought could never be discovered: for no one ever appeared who would reclaim the baskets. And he also shone with the spirit of prophecy: for I remember (says Brother Dimas Serpi) that my father once brought me to him and said: He foreknows the future, Pray to God, Father, that he may make this boy His servant. He, moreover, blessing me, said to my father: See that this boy studies; take care not to withdraw him from his studies. And indeed, after having attended rhetoric, I had abandoned my literary studies, for in Cagliari neither Philosophy nor Theology was taught: but my father, complying with the counsel of Salvator, sent me away to Valencia, where, having completed the course of studies, I put on the habit of the Seraphic Order, and then, having been made Provincial of Sardinia, I devoted my efforts to bringing his wonderful works to light; and now I have come to Spain as Apostolic Commissioner, attending to the process for his Canonization, all of which I believe he foresaw at that time.

[148] In the year from the Virgin Birth 1559, when the fame of his sanctity was spreading from the small monastery of Horta through all Spain, He works miracles at Horta, which God wished to be attested by many miracles, when very many gathered to him to obtain their health, the parents of a certain girl named Beatrice, who had contracted a monstrosity from her mother's womb (for as she walked, she bent her head toward her back to the wonder and pity of all), came among the rest, praying that he would free her from such a deformity: which they also obtained: for by the merits of so great a man the girl was miraculously freed from the aforesaid deformity. Also to a certain son of Alfonso of Mena, a Baeotian, mute and deaf from birth, speech and hearing were restored. James Pallares, through the intercession of this Saint, recovered his lost sight: and four or five men were freed from paralysis. Concerning which and other things, when he had once and again reported to Sixtus V, the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Francesco Gonzaga, Archbishop of Mantua, Approved by Sixtus V. the Pontiff held that report ratified and approved through a Brief that begins: "Since, as you recently set forth to us," etc. Given at Rome at Saint Mark's, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 3rd day of September, in the year 1586, the second year of his Pontificate.

[149] Amid all this, Salvator preserved such humility of spirit that when a certain nobleman once said to him: He does not fear vainglory, Brother Salvator, watch yourself, lest some thought of vanity creep in from the fact that the world pays you such great honor, and people, when the sign of the Cross has been made by you, depart freed from their infirmities; he replied: Bless God who created you: but know this, that I am like a sack of straw, which feels itself equally honored whether it is placed in the highest or lowest parts of the house, or even in a stable. In a similar manner, having been summoned to Madrid for an audience with His Majesty and Queen Isabella, at his first address he said to them: May God your creator bless you. Jesus, Mary, why did you have me come here? Who would labor to see a poor cook

of the holy Father Francis? He humbly replies to the King and Queen of Spain. The King, however, said: I have heard of the admirable works that God performs through you: and I desired to see you, that you may remember to commend us to the divine majesty, that we and our kingdoms may be preserved in the purity of the holy faith and its service. Then the Blessed said: God is so good that He will fulfill desires so pleasing to Himself through the intercession of the Queen of heaven; for through her hands we ought to expect whatever graces: but in me there exists no merit, by reason of which, when I pray for such things, He should hear me. This, however, He does through this vile instrument, just as you too, who often use a bad servant for the benefit of your kingdoms.

[150] Meanwhile a cushion was brought for him to sit on, upon which the simple Brother, with his feet muddy as they were, stood, He frees the Queen from a fever: and left dirty marks upon it. The Queen, moreover, as is narrated by ancient tradition, was struck by a violent fever, and finding no swift remedy, wished that same cushion to be reverently placed upon her body, and invoking Blessed Salvator, she remained free from the troublesome fever. The memory of this visit to the court survives in a certain reply letter to Don Yvon Hornos, given before he departed from Barcelona, in this tenor: Jesus, Mary, etc. If it shall please the Lord that I go to Castile, I shall take account of you. For the rest, place your trust in God, that He may sustain you with His hand and bestow His blessing upon you. From Jesus, Barcelona, on the feast of the Holy Cross. Brother Salvator, unworthy.

[151] Such was the fame of his name throughout all the kingdoms of Spain, which the persecutions stirred up against him could not extinguish but rather made more illustrious, Brought before the Inquisition, whether at Horta, where he predicted that someday they would rejoice to have possessed him whom they were then casting out; or at Reus. To these a much graver persecution succeeded at Barcelona, where he was ordered to appear before the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition: and to that court, as it seems to have been divinely given the ability to distinguish good from bad, so it was not difficult to prove the innocence and sanctity of the blessed man: and when this was recognized, the Inquisitors themselves, dismissing him, said: Father Salvator, pray to God for us. Returning from there, moreover, he performed two illustrious miracles, restoring sight to a blind man and hearing to a deaf man. It happened, however, that the very same man He is made illustrious by miracles. who as Guardian at Reus had so notably exercised the holy man's patience with his harshness, was placed in charge of the Barcelona convent, and being established in greater authority, provided his subject with a greater occasion for endurance. God nevertheless continued to render him famous and conspicuous to all by so many miracles that it was impossible to reckon their number, and the more deeply his Superiors strove to bury this treasure, the more evident was the light in which divine goodness placed him.

[152] Finally, in the year 1565, to avoid popular acclaim, he crossed over to the same island with a certain Commissioner of Sardinia, Brother Vincent Ferri, Transferred to Cagliari, he falls ill, and having found a dwelling in the convent of Cagliari, there also he became known and renowned in a short time through many wonders, until he fell into the last illness that he had foreseen and foretold: in which the extraordinary veneration of all toward him manifested itself. For neither the Viceroy nor the Archbishop nor anyone established in a higher rank of dignity or nobility thought it should be left undone to commend themselves to the prayers of one whose soul they held for certain would be received into eternal blessedness immediately upon its departure from the body. They say, moreover, that, bearing an angelic cheerfulness over his whole face, he replied to all with these words alone: Jesus, Mary, what shall I do? And when his illness pressed him more closely, about to exact the final debt of mortality, And amid pious sighs he dies, clasping the Crucifix most tightly and pressing his lips to the wounded feet, he was dissolved in the affections of love and said: O my Spouse! O my Lord! O all my good! I am entirely yours; receive me among the ministers of your house: forgive me, merciful one, that I have not served you as I should have, and have responded poorly to such great benefits as you have conferred upon this vile creature of yours. Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. In these words speech left him; yet he moved his lips again and again. Some therefore, bringing their ears closer to his mouth, heard him, with his voice entirely failing, pronouncing those names so dear to him as they were familiar: Jesus, Mary. And thus he returned his soul to his Creator, on the eve of Saint Joseph in the year 1567.

[153] After three days, his body was committed to burial; in the meantime, however, and afterwards, many miracles were performed at his invocation: A woman placed on the tomb receives the ability to walk: among which notable is the healing of a certain rustic woman, who, deprived of the faculty of walking, was brought by her husband in a cart, thinking that he would find the Saint still alive: but hearing that he was dead, with great indignation he lifted his wife from the vehicle and, carrying her to the church, placed her upon the sepulchre of the Blessed, and went off to care for his oxen. She, however, so insistently and with such tears commended herself to the Saint that she merited to rise from there healed and to return home on her own feet. Indeed his garments also were a protection to many in various needs. I myself was present, says Dimas Serpi, A dying man is helped by a piece of his garment, when a certain Religious, agitated for eight days by a most dangerous hiccup, so that he could neither eat nor even breathe comfortably, was freed from that ailment, about whose remedy the physicians had despaired, as soon as a piece from his garment was placed upon his mouth.

[154] Against a demon occupying the body of a certain woman, the sacred exorcisms had availed nothing: but when the capuce of Blessed Salvator was obtained from the monastery, The capuce frees a demoniac, and the Religious entered the house with it, the demon began to cry out that they should throw out those who were entering. When the same had come closer to where the demoniac was held bound, it said to them: Go, run, Brothers: because at this very point in time your Sacristan has fallen from a ladder while hanging certain cloths in the church. But the Religious, having imposed silence on the demon, unfolded the capuce and placed it on the demoniac woman, who, immediately free from the demon, said: Jesus, Mary: loose me. And having been loosed, she came to where the venerable body was and offered acts of thanksgiving. But since during those days she was as if dazed, she returned another time and asked that the sacred body be shown to her: and she placed her head inside the casket: and reverently kissing the arm (for the hands and feet had been carried away by the pious theft of the faithful) — the arm, I say — she rose as healthy as she had appeared on that day when she testified to this, and lives much devoted to Blessed Salvator.

[155] On another occasion, in the presence of many (says the same as above), I was present with a demoniac woman who was furious beyond measure, Another one freed by another relic of Blessed Salvator. and I placed the small rib of the Blessed in her mouth, not without great labor, on account of the incredible force with which she resisted me, saying: Take this one away from me: for on account of him I did not wish to enter here: and she repeated this quite often, meanwhile raging with such fury that the wretched woman did not even recognize her own husband. I, however, in the name of God and of Blessed Salvator, adjured the demon to tell me whether there was one or more occupying the woman. And when they responded that they were three in all, I commanded in the name of the most Holy Trinity and of Blessed Salvator of Horta that they depart from there; and I placed the Relic on the mouth of the sick woman: upon which the unseen guests departed, and the woman said: O Blessed Salvator of Horta, help me. I asked, moreover, whether she was free. She herself said: I am free, Father, but they are waiting for me until the Relic is removed from me. I therefore left her a piece from the habit and also a little flesh torn from the rib, and the demons, disappearing, left the woman entirely free. On the following day I returned to visit her, and she herself told me that the demons had again appeared to her and had said: Cast those pieces far away, and we shall do what we wish. But she had pressed the Relics all the more closely to her breast and had said: O Blessed Salvator of Horta, help me. And immediately the enemies had disappeared, and were thereafter seen no more.

OTHER MATTERS

On the preliminaries to the Canonization.

From the same sources.

[156] The miracles already related clearly appear to have been done after that time After 12 years, the sepulchre is opened, when the body, dug up from the ground, began to be held in public veneration: and this occasion was given for that exhumation. After the sacred pledge had lain hidden underground for some years, a certain Judge of the Rota died, exceedingly devoted to the Blessed; who provided in his testament that he should be buried next to Blessed Salvator. ^aAnd when they opened his sepulchre, they found the body of the Blessed so close to the very floor of the pavement The body is found at the surface of the ground. that it was scarcely covered by a small amount of earth in between: which was a cause of no small wonder to all, with those who had buried him testifying that they had buried him quite deeply, as is the custom for burying others. Which cannot be believed to have happened for any other reason than that men might recognize in how great veneration God wished the body to be held, which for the love of Him had been so greatly mortified and afflicted. Having therefore been removed from the ground, it was placed inside one of the more precious chapels of that most beautiful church, And is transferred to the chapel of Saint Peter. which had been built not far from the walls of Cagliari in the year 1508 with public and private alms. The chapel, moreover, was consecrated under the invocation of Saint Peter, in whose wall is enclosed the casket, the guardian of the precious deposit, at which God continued to work many miracles: moved by which, the above-mentioned Archbishop of Mantua twice reported on them to the Supreme Pontiff, Sixtus V, who through the Brief, as we said, given in the year 1586, wished account to be taken of the information received: yet no further progress was made in that matter.

[157] Meanwhile, with the miracles increasing and the devotion of the people toward Salvator growing, there came to Sardinia Apostolic Visitors, sent by Pope Clement VIII in the cause of all the Religious; Apostolic Visitors in Sardinia, who, having reverently venerated this treasure in the church of the Brothers, judged by Apostolic authority that a Commissioner should be appointed to take charge of gathering the information to be collected in preparation for the processes preliminary to the Canonization, in the tenor of the following letters. Since in the visitation of the aforesaid kingdom, in the city and castle of Cagliari, in the church of Saint Mary of Jesus, of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance, in the chapel under the invocation of Saint Peter, near the high altar, we found a casket elevated above the ground, in which the body of the Venerable Father, Brother Salvator of Horta,

lay incorrupt: They appoint a Commissioner to prepare the processes: which venerable Father, honored by the prayers of all the faithful of Christ of both sexes of this city, Almighty God caused to shine with many miracles both in life and after death. We therefore, that we may praise glorious men and that God may be glorified through them, have committed and by the tenor of these presents do commit to the aforesaid Father Dimas Serpi (formerly Provincial Minister of this Province), an honest and pious man, the investigation of the religious life, integrity of morals, penance, holiness, pious conduct among the people, and also of all the miracles, both in life and after death, wrought by the same venerable Father, both in the present city and castle of Cagliari and also in the kingdom of Catalonia... so that we may present the same to the Roman Pontiff and supplicate for the beatification and declaration of sanctification of so great and venerable a man: that he may pray for us in heaven, whose memory of miracles we seek on earth.

[158] The aforesaid Dimas Serpi immediately set his hand to the work committed to him, and at the same time God moved the spirit of the Most Illustrious Count of Elda, A new chapel is built, Viceroy of Sardinia, to have a new chapel built for him in which his body would be preserved, enclosed in a casket lined inwardly with red damask, but outwardly with black silk, distinguished by gilded nails and fringes of the purest gold. When these were duly prepared, the Archbishop of Cagliari instituted the inspection of this sacred body, in the chapel of the high altar upon a damask carpet, before the more illustrious inhabitants of the city of Cagliari; and he saw and felt that body after thirty-four years to be incorrupt, The body is inspected by the Archbishop, and so flexible in its neck, arms, and knees as if it were alive. Which also appeared when, set upright on its feet, its head fell forward upon its chest as that of a living person: and what is even greater than these things, I explored by touch, says Dimas, that it was entirely free of corruption, feeling and examining all the intestines and all the viscera one by one: all of which the sworn physicians affirmed could not have been preserved intact without an evident miracle. After the sacred pledge was placed in its new casket, everything was prepared for the solemn translation to its own chapel: And is transferred; the day of which the Archbishop then magnificently celebrated at his own expense; and after the sacred rites performed pontifically, he transferred the sacred body into the aforesaid casket: which stood conspicuous on a handsome platform adorned with golden cloth, in the middle of the church, for that entire day. In the evening, moreover, the Archbishop, the Viceroy, the city magistrates, and the entire city again converged for a procession, by which the Relics were solemnly carried about and brought into the new chapel; where God does not cease to render aid, often miraculous beyond the powers of nature, to those who piously invoke Blessed Salvator.

[159] It remained, after all things that could be done in Sardinia had been diligently performed, either for honoring the relics of the Saint In the year 1600 by the same Archbishop, or for proving the sanctity of Salvator to the Roman Curia, that the Commissioner should cross over to Spain: and for this purpose the Archbishop equipped him with these patent letters: We, Don Alfonso Lasso Sedeño, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Archbishop of Cagliari, Bishop of the Unions, Primate of Sardinia and Corsica, Standard-bearer of the holy Roman Church, Prior of Saint Saturninus, Lord of the Baronies of Suelli and Saint Pantaleon, and of the island of Saint Antioch, of the Council of the Royal Majesty, etc. To all and each who shall inspect these present letters, we certify that we personally attended in the church of Saint Mary of Jesus, of the Order of Saint Francis of the Observance, to review and inspect the body of the venerable Father Salvator of Horta, which we found incorrupt: and having assembled for this purpose Doctors of Medicine and Surgeons, they affirmed with one voice that the aforesaid body could not be preserved, On the incorruption of the body, as it now is, except miraculously. Therefore, at the petition of illustrious men and the people (who affirmed that they had been freed from the dangers of death, infirmities, and ills by the prayers of the same venerable Father Salvator of Horta, to whom they had commended themselves), that the memory of so great a religious and holy man may not perish, to the praise of Almighty God, we chose pious, honest, and learned men, namely John Thomas Caldentey, Doctor of Sacred Theology and of the sacred Canons, Dean of our holy Church of Cagliari, Vicar General of our Archbishopric; And the miracles attested to, and the Reverend Father Brother Dimas Serpi of the Order of Friars Minor of the Regular Observance, formerly Provincial Minister of this kingdom, to make an inquiry into all the miracles which Almighty God has deigned to work through the merits and intercession of the said venerable Father Blessed Salvator of Horta. And, as we have learned from them, through an instrument drawn up by an Apostolic Notary, God manifested His glory in him through many miracles, by which He made him illustrious both in life and after death. For which things to be obtained more perfectly and from their origin, The Commissioner is sent to Spain: the aforesaid Reverend Father Brother Dimas Serpi, whose fidelity we have tested, is sent to the kingdom of Catalonia at our wish by the Reverend Apostolic Visitor Fathers; to whom our Most Holy Lord, the Lord Clement, by divine providence Pope VIII, committed all things to be done in the said visitation of this kingdom of Sardinia. Given at Cagliari in our Archiepiscopal palace, on the 5th day of the month of February in the year 1600.

[160] When Dimas, having arrived in Spain, presented these letters to the Bishop of Barcelona and explained his petition to him, By whom and another appointed at Barcelona: requesting one or more pious, learned, and prudent men who would inquire according to the decrees of the Council of Trent into the life and miracles of Blessed Salvator, the most Reverend Don Francisco Olivon, Doctor of both Laws, Archdeacon of Saint Mary of the Sea, Canon of the Cathedral of Barcelona, Abbot of Saint Lawrence of the Mountain, and Prior or Perpetual Commendatory of Saint James of Fortinya, who today (says Domenech in the year 1602) is the Inquisitor of this Principality, was designated for that purpose by the Bishop. To him was added Brother Dimas himself, Apostolic Commissioner for the same purpose: who both, The process is formed, having employed all diligence with witnesses legitimately cited and examined, formed the process, afterwards confirmed and consigned by the Bishop in the following diploma.

[161] We, Ildefonso of Coloma, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Bishop of Barcelona, By the Bishop of Barcelona, of the Council of the Royal Majesty, to all and each who shall inspect these presents, greetings. The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, greatly loved by Christ, planted beside the running waters, cannot but daily bear precious fruit; especially since the Apostle says that if the root is holy, so are the branches. Romans 11:16 And since the root and foundation is Christ, and according to the same Apostle, no one can lay another foundation besides that which has been laid; hence it happens that the elect, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, as those chosen before the foundation of the world, shine forth by various works of holiness; left to us as an example and as a new shoot, that we may be provoked to imitate their footsteps. 1 Corinthians 3:11 And indeed, since among others who flourish in this vineyard, the venerable Father Salvator of Horta, of the Order of Saint Francis, It is approved, as to his life and miracles. was a branch of the tree and a stone of the foundation (as we piously believe), of extraordinary holiness and great purity; he is rightly to be praised and venerated by all. Reviewing his process, we have observed him to have been illustrated by God Almighty with many prerogatives and gifts: since those things which Paul enumerates appear in him; namely, the gift of wisdom in the renunciation of the world, of prophecy in the revelation of secrets, the grace of wonderful healings in healing those who came to him; 1 Corinthians 12:8 whom he received with a glad countenance and cheerful spirit and incredible charity: and what should not be consigned to oblivion, how extraordinary a follower of his vocation he was, and of his Seraphic Father's prayer, penance, disciplines, fasts, an admirable imitator of abstinence, of admirable humility, simplicity, and patience in persecutions, a most perfect imitator, and a lover of spotless purity. All of which things in the above-written process, drawn up by our command, presented to us and reviewed by us, appear more fully. Wherefore, lest so great a light and such wonderful works, shown to us in His humble servant, be hidden under a bushel, but may become known among men; so that by imitation of this venerable Father, having renounced the allurements of the world, they may strive to serve God, from whom all these things emanated: by the tenor of these presents, because we judge all things contained in the said process and the oaths received to be consonant with truth and piety, therefore in this our city and diocese, where the aforesaid venerable Father Salvator of Horta shone by so many wonderful works performed in the name of the Cross of Christ, we grant them to be proposed, read, and if necessary also printed. Given at Barcelona on the 30th day of August in the year of the Lord 1600.

Ildefonso Coloma, Bishop of Barcelona.