Note 39 — Chapter LVIII

The wounded were: father Fray Juan Luis de Guete, a son of the convent of Preachers in Valencia, in whose spine an arrow was fastened, being stopped by the bone; father Fray Juan Naya, a son of the convent of San Pedro Martyr at Calatayud, who escaped with a wound in his arm where an arrow had passed through it; and father Fray Jacintho Calvo, who was struck twice. He was a son of the convent of La Peña de Francia, where in course of time he hung up one of the arrows. The wounds were not so penetrating as to take their lives; but they made the fathers very happy because here, with this blessed beginning, they had begun to shed their blood for the Lord who had redeemed them with His own, and for the gospel which they were going to preach in His service. The religious who died there were six. They were so picked and selected among all the rest that, as they were the cream of all the others, it was plain that that which the islanders had done en masse was, so far as concerned the Lord, a most particular providence of His who had directed the arrows against the best and the ripest of the religious that they might be offered as early fruit on the table of the supreme Father, as something in which one may safely assert that He takes much pleasure. Three of these holy martyrs were children of the most religious convent of Preachers in Valencia, which, as it is so prolific in saints, naturally had here the greater share. The first was father Fray Juan de Moratalla, a native of Murcia, a religious of noble example, great mortification, silence, modesty, and composure. [He was devoted to prayer and solitude, and to the good of others. The second was father Fray Vicente Palao Valenciano, a religious very precise in his observance of the rules, and such as a priest ought to be. The third was Fray Juan Martinez, a priest, an Aragonese, a religious of purest and holiest life. The fourth was Fray Juan Cano, a native of Burgo de Osma, a son of San Pablo de Valladolid, young in age, old in virtue. The fifth religious was Fray Pedro Moreno, a deacon, a native of Villalba, a son of the royal convent of Sancta Cruz at Segovia, and a member of the most illustrious college of San Gregorio at Valladolid. He was devoted to prayer and to silent meditation. At his death the Lord wrought a miracle by enabling him to make his way to the seashore, where he died in prayer, and was afterward found beneath the water in the attitude of prayer. The sixth religious was Fray Jacintho de Cistenes, a son of the convent at Valencia, and a native of that noble city. He was young in age but venerable for his virtue. The Lord had revealed to him that he should die on the day of St. Lawrence, as he actually did, after suffering for some time from his mortal wound.39]