Saint Anthony Mary Claret - Catholic Apologetics Information

was in the water, I had felt exceedingly calm, but afterwards, on shore, I was horrified at the thought of
the danger I had escaped through the help of the Blessed Virgin.
72. Mary also saved me from a worse danger, not unlike that of the chaste patriarch, Joseph.
While I was in Barcelona, I used to visit a fellow townsman of mine from time to time. I never spoke
with anyone else in the house except him. When I arrived there, I would go straight to his room and talk
only with him, but the others in the house always saw me coming and going. I was fairly young then,
and although it's true that I had to buy my own clothes, I liked to dress--I won't say luxuriously--but with
a certain elegance, perhaps too much. Who knows? Maybe the Lord will take me to task for this on
judgment day. One day I went to the house and asked after my friend. The lady of the house, a young
woman, asked me to wait for him, as he was coming back soon. I had waited a little while when I
realized that her intentions were passionate, as her words and gestures made clear. I called out to the
Blessed Virgin and ran out of that house, never to return. I didn't tell anyone about what had happened,
for fear of ruining the lady's reputation.
73. God dealt me all these blows to wake me up and help me escape from the dangers of the
world. But it took an even harder blow, which came to me as follows. A young man of my own age
suggested that we pool our interests, and I agreed. We began by entering a lottery and were quite lucky
at it. As I was always very busy with my job, about the only thing I could do was act as trustee. He
bought the tickets and I took care of them. On the day of the drawing I gave him the tickets and he
would tell me how much we had won. Since we bought a large number of tickets, we won in every
drawing, sometimes quite a lot. We subtracted what we needed to buy more tickets and invested the rest
with brokers at 6 percent. I kept the receipts and that was all. My companion did all the rest.
74. I already had a large number of receipts that added up to a pretty sum when one day, lo and
behold, he came and told me that one of our tickets had won 24,000 duros but that when he went to
collect the money he found that he'd lost the ticket. And he was telling the truth, all right, because he had
gambled it all away and lost. But that wasn't all. He went to my room while I was away, picked the lock
of my trunk, and took all the receipts of our partnership. He even took my personal money and pawned
my books and clothes for a loan, which he lost at gambling. Finally, in an attempt to recoup his losses,
and finding that he had nothing more to gamble with, he broke into the house of an acquaintance, stole
the jewels of the lady of the house, and sold them. He gambled the money and lost again.
75. Meanwhile the lady discovered that her jewels were missing and surmised that this person had
taken them. She reported him to the authorities, who captured the thief. He confessed his crime, was
prosecuted and sentenced to two years in prison. I simply can't describe how great a blow this was to me-
-and not just because of my financial loss, although that was great enough, but because of my loss of
honor. I thought to myself, "What will people say? They'll think you were this fellow's accomplice in
gambling and burglary. Just think--a friend of yours in jail, in the penitentiary!" I was so embarrassed
and ashamed that I hardly dared show my face on the street. I thought that everyone was looking at me,
talking about me, focusing on me.
76. My God, how good and wonderful you have been to me! You surely used strange means to
uproot me from the world and an odd kind of aloes to wean me from Babylon. And you, my Mother:
what proper thanks can I show you for saving me from death in the sea? If I had drowned, as by all
rights I should have in that condition, where would I be now? You know quite well, my Mother. I would
be in the lower depths of hell because of my ingratitude. With David I should say: Misericordia tua
magna est super me, et eruisti animam meam ex inferno inferiori. 44
Chapter X
MY RESOLVE TO BECOME A CARTHUSIAN MONK AT MONTE-ALEGRE
44 Ps. 86:13: "Your love for me has been so great, you have rescued me from the depths of Sheol."
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