Note 133 — Chapter XXVIII

At this time happened a wonderful miracle in the province of llocos, whose memory endures unto today. It was as follows. Among the religious who were going to Filipinas quite ordinarily, in great numbers, went father Fray Pedro de la Cruz,133 to [291] whom our Lord gave much of His spirit, and who was called commonly “the Apostle of the Filipinas;” and for him the Lord worked many wonderful miracles. The province of Pangasinan—which as we said above we gave to the religious fathers of our father St. Dominic (perhaps from this fact, the latter have taken occasion to write that he was their religious; but the trick matters not; only it is not right to take him from those to whom he belongs, for the stones which shine with more luster in religion are those in whom our Lord shows more of His piety and mercy)—fell to this religious and holy man. This servant of God, then, being in a village of that province called Bagnotan, saw an Indian woman carrying a baby, to whom she had but recently given birth. The religious was doubtless moved by the spirit of heaven in his question. The Indian woman answered that she was taking the baby to bury it alive, for it had been born blind. When he asked her for her reason, she said that they had the custom of immediately burying alive any child born who was incapable of serving its parents, for in such case the latter had no interest or hope in its living. For it was an arduous task to give them being, to bear them in travail, to rear them through childhood and support them all their lives, since such children could not requite so many benefits. No arguments availed to persuade the Indian woman of the contrary, until the holy man made an agreement with her, namely, that she should give him the child, and that he would rear her and support her as his own daughter. With this agreement, the [292] mother gave the child to Father Pedro de la Cruz, and he entered his convent with his new daughter. He got a woman to nurse her at the price of four reals per month, and then with his right as father, set about baptizing her. He did so, and it was our Lord’s pleasure, for the credit of His servant, the value of holy baptism, and His own glory, and likewise so that that devilish custom should cease, that, as soon as the infant received the water of holy baptism, she gained her sight, although she had indeed been born blind....