Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Journey of Viscount Ramon de Perellós to Saint Patrick's Purgatory (Author: Ramón de Perellós)

section 2

(The first successor of Saint Patrick)

And the first prior of the aforesaid church, who was a very good man and of good life, had himself made a room near the dormitory where the canons slept, because he was very old and had only one tooth and he did not want the young men to despise him for his age nor for them to molest him, because Saint Gregory says that even if an old man is not sick, he is always infirm because of his age; and some young men in there often visited him and said to him in fun:
‘Father, how long would you wish to stay in this world?’
And he would answer them:
‘My sons, if it so pleased God I would rather leave this world than dwell in it for long, because in it I never had but sorrow and wretchedness and in the other world I shall find nothing but glory.’

And those that often asked him this had heard the angels singing in the good man's room and the songs were and said as follows: You are blessed and blessed be the tooth in your mouth for it does not touch delicate food. For the good man only ate dry bread, such as is made in that land, made of oats; and of this bread they only eat 10 or 12 times but not continuously nor do they eat bread or drink wine, but live only on beef and drink water. And great lords drink milk as I shall recount in more detail in its place. In this regard the good man drank cold water and in the end he passed away from this life and went to Our Lord as he had always wished.

In the time of Saint Patrick — and afterwards — he had set down in writing all that he had seen of those who had entered that pit because some went there and did not come back and were lost because they had not been firm in the faith.


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