Saint Peter Of Alcantara

First Point

When still quite young, Saint Peter of Alcantara entered the Order of Saint Francis and set about at once to imitate the Founder in the love he had for poverty. For this reason he customarily called poverty the pearl of the Gospel and caused it to flourish in the monasteries that he reformed. The more we are poor, the more we will have the spirit of Jesus Christ, who made it his glory to be poor throughout his life and who established his religion on the foundation of this virtue. The more despoiled we are of the possessions of this world and the more we renounce the comforts of life, which are the most natural reasons why people desire and love riches, the more we will share in the possession of grace and the more pleasing we will be to God. The heart must be empty of these material creatures if we wish God to take full possession of it, as Jesus Christ said to the young man who asked him the way to be perfect.¹ This is why apostolic people who labored effectively for the salvation of souls, as this saint did, tried not only to have no attachment to possessions but even to regard them as rubbish,² according to Saint Paul’s expression. This is also what you need to do to be worthy of your work. Poverty ought to be so dear to you that you practice it in all things, with the result that as you hold on to nothing but God, you find in God what cannot be found in creatures. In this way you will be able to receive from God the fullness of grace, both for you and for others, especially the love of poor and the zeal you need to bring them completely to God.

Second Point

It is impossible to appreciate how austerely this saint lived. For some twenty years, he wore an undergarment made of tin. He never covered his head or his feet, and in the coldest winter he never came near the fire. His cell was so small that he could neither stand erect nor lie at full length in it. He slept so little that he had almost overcome the need for sleep. By means of all these most extraordinary austerities, he became so independent of the needs of his body that it seemed he no longer had one or that it no longer belonged to him. The passions cannot be mastered or the flesh prevented from revolting unless fasting and mortification are used to bring them into subjection. This is the way that all the saints lived in order to obtain this result; you will not find any other way than this, joined to prayer. This is what Jesus Christ prescribes for us in the holy Gospel.³ It is quite right that the body be submissive to the spirit, but if we wish it to be so, we must take the sure means to achieve this result. Take those of fasting and prayer, and if this saint cannot be your model in all that he did to mortify his body, imitate him at least in his recollection, which was so great that he never looked at the ceiling of the places where he was and did not know any of his religious except by the sound of their voices.

Third Point

This saint had a marvelous gift of prayer and spent a great deal of time in this exercise. His recollection at prayer was ordinarily so great that it obtained for him an almost continual awareness of God. He took such delight in prayer that he had an extreme dislike for sleep, because, as he said, it was the only thing that could separate him from God’s presence, something that death cannot do, because it gives us the living, effective, and eternal presence of God. This saint, considering that prayer procures this happiness, used to say that a half hour of prayer ought to be regarded as only a preparation for making it well. Try to make interior prayer well in the same way this saint did, by the practice of interior recollection. If you persevere in it, recollection will make the practice of the presence of God easy. There is nothing you must or can procure with more care, for it is happiness anticipated in this life. It is also of great use to you in your work, because this work concerns God and aims at winning souls for him. It is, therefore, a matter of great consequence not to lose sight of God in your work. Be as faithful to this as you possibly can.

Historical Context

Peter of Alcantara (1499–1562) was born in the city of Spain that is part of his name. His father was a lawyer and the governor of Alcantara. At the age of 16, Peter entered a very strict house of the Observant Franciscans at Manjaretes and was ordained in 1524. Shortly thereafter, he began a series of reform efforts that became a separate Alcantarine Franciscan group, until 1897, when Leo XIII joined them to the Observants again. He also helped Saint Teresa of Ávila in her reform. He was canonized in 1669, another of the saints recognized in De La Salle’s lifetime. His feast is not in the current liturgical calendar.

Scripture Citation

1. Mt 19:21
2. Phil 3:8
3. Mk 9:29