Page 102 - FLIPBOOK - Life of Saint Gerard Majella - Vassall-Phillips

CHAPTER 16
NEW MARVELS

S
aint Gerard was only thirty years of age, yet he was already
completely worn out. His whole life had been devoted to prayer
— oftentimes continued for long hours far into the night — to
the severest bodily austerities, and to hard physical labour. Still,
exhausted though he felt, he never relaxed his efforts: never for one
instant did he dream of repose — his great ambition was to work on
uncomplainingly even to the end, until the night should come when
he could work no longer. Did charity or duty call on him to sacrifice
himself, he was always found eager to answer to the call.
As though to reward the generosity of His servant, Almighty God
now loaded him with gifts and graces in an ever-increasing
abundance. It was especially towards the close of his life that Gerard
manifested his power of “Bilocation,” that is to say of being seen in
17

17 St. Thomas, the Thomists generally, Vasquez and some other Theologians
deny that the same body can, even by miracle, exist circumscriptively in two
different places at the same time. They are consequently obliged to account for
any cases of Bilocation or Multilocation — if admitted to be real — in one of
the three following ways:

I. Per visionem imaginariam — i.e., the imagination is impressed
(miraculously) with a picture of a Saint not physically present.

II. Per representationem cxtrinsecam in aliquo corpore aereo — i.e., a
real external image of the Saint is produced by God and seen by

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