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Peter was born in the year of Our Lord 1499 to a devout Spanish noble family. The pious boy soon determined to enter religious life and avoid the perils of a secular career. At age sixteen he joined the Franciscans, where he took on strict penances. For the sake of humility and custody of the eyes, he never looked a woman in the face, and rarely raised his eyes off the floor at all. For most of his life he ate once every three days, and then very little. He remained kneeling most of the night, and what little sleep he had was taken while sitting. By the age of twenty he was made superior of a small Franciscan friary, and a few years later ordained a priest. He spent several years preaching, primarily to the poor but also advising royalty and other nobles. In 1559 Peter met St. Teresa of Ávila, whom he defended against persecutors and supported in her reforms of the Carmelites. Teresa and many other saints considered Peter’s Treatise on Mental Prayer to be a spiritual masterpiece. Peter fell ill and died on the feast of St. Luke in the year of Our Lord 1562. He is the patron of nightwatchmen and nocturnal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
AT Arenas, in Spain, St. Peter of Alcantara, confessor, of the Order of Minorites, who was canonized by Clement IX on account of his admirable penance and many miracles.
At Rome, the birthday [into heaven] of the holy martyrs Ptolemy and Lucius, under Marcus Antoninus. The former, as we learn from the martyr Justin, having converted an immodest woman to the faith of Christ, and taught her to practise chastity, was accused by a profligate man before the prefect Urbicius, and condemned to languish a long time in a filthy dungeon. At length, as he declared by a public confession that Christ was his master, he was led to execution. Lucius disapproving the sentence of Urbicius, and avowing freely that he was a Christian, received the same sentence. To them was added a third, who was condemned to suffer a like punishment.
At Antioch, the holy martyrs Beronicus, the virgin Pelagia and forty-nine others.
In Egypt, St. Varus, soldier, under the emperor Maximinus. He used to visit and comfort seven saintly monks detained in prison, when one of them happening to die, he wished to take his place, and having suffered with them cruel afflictions, he obtained the palm of martyrdom.
At Evreux, St. Aquilinus, bishop and confessor.
In the diocese of Orleans, the departure from this world of St. Veranus, bishop.
At Salerno, St. Eusterius, bishop.
In Ireland, St. Ethbin, abbot.
At Oxford, in England, St. Frideswide, virgin.
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.