Saint Peter Paschal

However, the charity of Jesus Christ still pressed upon him, and he burned with the desire to assist Christian slaves, who, besides the miseries of the body, were every day in danger of suffering shipwreck in the faith. Thus he formed the design of becoming a religio us of the Order o Ordre de la Merci Religious order dedicated to the redemption of Christian captives. f Mercy, all the more so because this Order is particularly applied to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin, for whom he had a singular devotion. He returned to Spain for this purpose and present ed himself to Saint P saint Pierre Nolasque Founder of the Order of Mercy and superior of Peter Paschal. eter Nolasco, whom he already regarded as his father, because it was through his prayers that he had been obtained from heaven. This holy Founder obliged him to perform the duties of a canon for one more year, to edify his entire chapter by the example of his virtues; then, having had him make a retreat at a convent of his Order, named Our Lady of El Puig, he gave him the religious habit in Valencia on the day of the Kings in the year 1251. As this fervent novice had always led an innocent and penitent life in the world, he had no difficulty in forming himself to the exercises of religion. After his profession, he went to Barcelona, to his blessed superior, and occupied himself there with preaching and teaching theology, until the King of Aragon requested him as tuto r for the Don Sanche Son of the King of Aragon, disciple of Peter Paschal, and Archbishop of Toledo. Infante Don Sancho, his son, who wished to embrace the ecclesiastical state. He went to Saragossa for this purpose, and discharged this important function so worthily that his illustrious disciple, whom he taught particularly the science of the Saints, wished to embrace his institute and become, like him, a religious of Mercy.

This retreat of the young prince gave our Saint the freedom to go and redeem slaves in the land of the Moors. He brought back a great number of them to Toledo, and those he could not deliver, he confessed, exhorted to patience, and left perfectly consoled. Upon his return, he found an order from Saint Peter Nolasco to come to him as soon as possible. This was because the Saint wished to die in his arms and make him the heir to his spirit and zeal. A few years later, the Infant prince, of whom we have just spoken, was elected Archbishop of Toledo; and, as he had not yet reached the age assigned by the Canons to govern that Church, he requested Saint Peter Paschal Urbain IV Pope who canonized Felix in 1262. from Urban IV as his coadjutor. His Holiness, who was informed of the merits of this excellent religious, approved this choice and appointed him for this purpose titular Bisho p of Gr Grenade City under Moorish rule of which he was bishop and where he was martyred. anada, which was still under the power of the Moors. He was consecrated in this capacity in the year 1262, after which he undertook, with the zeal of a true pastor, the guidance of this great archbishopric which was entrusted to him; he visited its cities, towns, and villages, conducted apostolic missions there, and spared nothing to banish all disorders from it. As ecclesiastical discipline had greatly relaxed there, he made admirable regulations to restore it to its former vigor. As ignorance reigned among the parish priests, he composed an excellent book for their instruction. As the people were living in vice and libertinism, he employed all his pastoral vigilance to reform them; but he was finally relieved of this burden by the death of the archbishop, who died in 1275 from wounds he had received in a battle against the Moors.

Then he retired to a convent of his Order, in order to await there the opportunity to make new journeys for the redemption of captives. He often asked God that he might be ordered to go to Tunis, in Africa, where he hoped that his zeal against the impiety of the Mahometans would procure for him the crown of martyrdom. However, he carried out very fruitful missions in various provinces of Spain and Portugal, and he founded monasteries of his institute in Toledo, Baeza, and Jerez, to have workers who could second his zeal. The state of the Church of Granada, afflicted and overwhelmed under the tyranny of the infidels, touched him extremely; he therefore believed himself obliged to go there, to offer his help to the Christian slaves, who, for being in chains, did not cease to be the sheep of his flock. One cannot express the fruits that his presence produced in that city. He was the light and the support of these poor persecuted ones; he visited them in their prisons, served them in their illnesses, consoled them in their anguish, relieved them in their poverty and misery, administered the Sacraments to them, and instructed them in the necessary points of the doctrine of the Church. Many, desperate from the ill-treatment of their masters, were strengthened by his fervent exhortations. Renegades returned, through his care, to the bosom of the Church. He converted to the faith a quantity of Moors and Jews, and procured for a great number of Christians a double freedom, by withdrawing them at the same time from the servitude of sin and the slavery of men. He founded a convent of his Order in Jaén, so that the religious could go from there secretly to Granada, for the assistance of the captives. The infidels could not help but admire his virtue, and there was almost none who did not bear him a singular respect. One of the judges of the city having taken prisoner the Redemptorist Fathers of Castile and Aragon, and seized all the money they brought for the ransom of the slaves, even though they were provided with good passports, he went to find him, and spoke to him with such courage and firmness that he finally compelled him to return the imprisoned Fathers to him with all their money.

The pressing needs of his Church having obliged him to make a journey to Rome, he was received there with great testimonies of esteem and friendship by Pope Nicholas Nicolas IV Childhood friend of Conrad, Minister General of the Franciscans, and later pope. IV, who had known him well in Toledo, when, as General of the Order of Saint Francis, he was visiting the convents of Spain. He preached at Saint Peter's and Saint Mary Major, by the command of His Holiness, and made admirable conversions there. Being at the feet of the tombs of the Apostles, he insistently asked them to have a share in that zeal for the salvation of souls with which they had been so inflamed, and there is no doubt that this request was granted to him. The Pope, marvelously edified by his zeal, judged him very suitable to preach the crusade, and sent him for this purpose to France and Spain, with the authority of Legate. He preached, from Rome to Paris, in almost all the cities and towns he entered, and performed great miracles in several places as a testimony that it was the will of God that one should take up arms for the recovery of the Holy Land. In Paris, the King and the entire court, the University, and the people welcomed him with the honors due to his merit and his character. People came to his sermons with eagerness, and the success was so great that, if Spain could have responded to the ardor of the French, who enlisted in crowds for this good work, this enterprise could have been brought to a successful conclusion. It is noted that while in the city, he defended, with much light and courage, the mystery of the Immacul ate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, an conception immaculée de la sainte Vierge Marian privilege and central dogma structuring the identity of the congregation. d this Queen of Angels, to show him her gratitude, appeared to him the following night, surrounded by seraphim, and placed a crown of glory upon his head. He received still other extraordinary favors on this journey, both from his guardian angel and from Our Lord Himself.

In the year 1269, he was electe d Bi Jaën Diocese of which he was the effective bishop. shop of Jaén. This diocese had been without a pastor for five years and was under the power of the Moors; one can judge from this how much it needed a zealous and vigilant prelate. He visited it with great care, recognized all the disorders, and applied such suitable remedies that, in a short time, Christian discipline was seen to flourish there again. The following year, he returned to Granada, where he used all his income for the relief of the poor and the redemption of slaves. He even undertook to convert more Mohammedans, and his word had such force that many renounced the reveries of Mahomet to embrace the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The partisans of the Alcoran made this a state crime against him; he was taken prisoner, loaded with chains, and subjected to very harsh treatment. As soon as this misfortune was learned in Jaén and Baeza, the clergy and the Christian people took up a collection and sent him a considerable sum of money to pay his ransom: he received it with much gratitude; but, by a charity of which there are almost no examples, instead of using it to set himself free, he used it for the deliverance of a number of women and children, whose weakness made him fear that they might eventually abandon the Christian religion. In prison, he composed several treatises to serve as a preservative for the faithful and to disabuse the renegades who had allowed themselves to be seduced by the tales of Mahomet. Thus, like another Saint Paul, he begot many spiritual children in chains. He was consoled in this state by several heavenly visions. The most significant was that in which Our Lord appeared to him in the form of a child of four or five years old, dressed as a slave to serve his Mass. The holy bishop, after his thanksgiving, believing him to be a child like the others, asked him some questions about the catechism; he answered with a wisdom and modesty that surprised him. But when he came to ask him who Jesus Christ was, the child revealed who he was and said to him: "Peter, it is I who am Jesus Christ; consider my hands and my side, you will find there the marks of my wounds. Furthermore, because you have remained a prisoner to give freedom to my slaves, you have made me your prisoner myself." And having said these words, he disappeared.

The Alfaquis, having been informed of the compositions he was writing in his prison against the errors of their sect, had him locked in a very dark dungeon without allowing anyone to see him. But the angels enlightened him in the midst of this darkness, and it is even said that they provided him with pens, ink, and paper to complete a new treatise against the extravagances of the Alcoran. The impossibility in which he found himself to assist the Christian slaves and the barbarians he had converted afflicted him extremely.

But the angels carried him several times to the places where these unfortunates, almost in despair, called for his help. He often spent the nights in prayer, and practiced bloody mortifications, to obtain from God for them firmness and perseverance, and he had the consolation of learning from heaven itself the success of his prayers. He was almost never without the company of these blessed spirits. His guards often saw his prison all luminous; and one day they saw a child of ravishing grace and beauty come out of it. These wonders caused the prince to have him released, but with a prohibition against writing anything, in the future, against the law of Mahomet. He mocked this prohibition, and he did not fail, in the freedom he enjoyed, to compose a very strong and very pressing book against this abominable sect. While he was working on it, the Christians saw above his head a globe of fire that covered him on all sides with an admirable light. As for the Alfaquis and the Marabouts, as soon as they were informed of it, they stirred up a furious persecution against him, and stubbornly demanded that he be arrested and put to death. They made so much noise that the king, fearing a general sedition, and even an attempt against his royal person, because it was known that he had a copy of this writing, abandoned him to their fury.

He prepared himself with joy for this sacrifice which he had so desired, and of which he was to be the victim. His guardian angel having declared to him that he would be massacred the next morning, he spent the whole night in prayer, offering himself to Our Lord for the salvation of the Christians, his children, and the Moors, his persecutors. He nevertheless felt fears and dread, and he suffered an agony similar to that which Jesus Christ endured in the Garden of Olives; but he soon calmed himself through a perfect abandonment to the dispositions of divine Providence. His Savior then appeared to him as if attached to the cross, and, clothed in the splendors of eternity, said to him: "Peter, I was sensitive like you, and I endured horrible torments everywhere for your love": which spread such an unction in his soul that from then on he breathed only for martyrdom. The jailers were witnesses to this extraordinary brightness, which made them fall backward, and they informed the Christians of it. In the morning, the Saint celebrated Mass with admirable fervor of spirit; and, as he was kneeling at the foot of the altar, making his thanksgiving, the Moors cut off his head, and by this means procured for him the glory of a blessed immortality. It was January 6, 1300, which was the seventy-third year of his age. They wanted to burn his holy body, his clothes, his sacred vestments, his hair shirt, his discipline, and everything that had served him, so that no religious cult would be rendered to them; but a sudden terror made them take flight, and gave the Christians the opportunity to seize them and transport them to a secret place. They clothed the body in his pontifical vestments and buried it in the caves of a mountain, near Mazzemore, with all the pomp that their state of servitude could allow them. God did not leave this massacre unpunished; he soon afflicted the city of Granada with famine, plague, and horrible earthquakes. The king saw his wives and children tormented by secret pains that tore their entrails; he himself died miserably, confessing that it was the holy Bishop of Jaén who was punishing him; and the prince, his son, also lost his crown and his life.

He is represented: 1° in chains, with a sword in his heart; 2° speaking to a child whose face is radiant; 3° with his throat cut at the foot of the altar.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

Fearing that the relics of the holy Martyr would be a continual source of misfortune for them, the Moors of Granada willingly gave them to the deputie s of Baeza City where the saint's relics rest. Jaén and Baeza, who came to ask for them. As these deputies were carrying them away, a dispute arose between them as to which of the two cities they should belong. To settle it amicably, it was agreed that they would be placed on a blind mule, which would be given the freedom to go where it wished, and that they would remain at the place where this mule carried them. The thing was carried out, and the mule carried them to Baeza.

Great miracles have been performed through the merits of this glorious Martyr, both during his life and after his death. In 1484, the canons of Baeza ordered in their assembly that a lamp be kept burning day and night before his tomb. Eight years later, Isabella, Queen of Castile, and King Ferdinand, her husband, had a chapel built in his honor.

Finally, P ope Cleme Clément X Pope who extended the cult of Saint Gonsalo to the entire Dominican Order. nt X, by a brief of June 28, 1673, granted the entire Order of Mercy the right to recite the office as for a holy pontiff and martyr. The same Pope extended this privilege of reciting the office and celebrating the mass of this holy Martyr to all the clergy, both secular and regular, of the dioceses of Valencia, Granada, Jaén, and Toledo, and ordered that his eulogy be inserted into the Roman Martyrology on October 23 and December 6.

We have from him eight books full of piety and erudition with which he enriched the republic of Christian letters.

Baltiet and Godescard. — See his Life written by various authors of his Order.