should serve the convent for seven days together, which austerity his subjects most willingly embraced, being glad, in some measure, to imitate their chief. But he seasoned his own portion with ashes, or some ungrateful liquor, lest his palate should take pleasure in his meat.
Mother Theresa hath heard his companions say, that sometimes he lived eight days together without any meat or drink, especially when with more violence, he addicted himself to devotion. For he suffered in his prayers frequent raptures and extacies, of which (saith she) I am witness. He never drank wine, but water, though, for the infirmity of his stomach, it was prescribed to him by the physician: but he constantly refused it, saying, that nothing was so repugnant to holy purity and abstinence as flesh and wine, the one being an enemy to chastity, the other to contemplation, both which, as long as he lived, by God's grace, he would enjoy. I will set down for the satisfaction of the devout reader, the words of ever blessed Theresa, the glory and foundress of the discalceated Carmelites, to whom he was sometimes ghostly father, of whom she confesseth to have received much spiritual comfort; whose authority, by reason of her renowned sanctity, and living at the same time with him, is without control. Her words be these.
