St Peter Alcantara

Peter was only 16 when he left home to join the Franciscans. He was such a holy man that the Franciscans asked him to be in charge of the group of brothers he lived with. Even though this was a very important job, all Peter wanted to do was live a life of making sacrifices for Jesus. So when he was 40 years old, Peter started a stricter order of Franciscan brothers called the Congregation of St. Joseph of the Strict Observance. This group followed St. Francis’ very strict life in order to get as close to Jesus as possible and to make sacrifices for the sins of the world. Although he had a hard time getting this order started, it has spread very far around the world. Many believe that this order and their sacrifices helped to fix a lot of things that were going wrong in the Church during that time. Peter spent 40 years of his life living as simply as he could and sacrificing as much as he could. He would only eat bread and drink water, he never lay down to sleep, and he only slept for 1.5 hours a day. He was St. Teresa of Avila’s spiritual guide and helped her to become closer to Jesus and to pray more; his guidance helped her to become a Saint too. He also had a mission to place crosses in as many places as he could, to remind himself and others of the suffering of Jesus, which was so close to his heart. He would carry these crosses on his own shoulders to wherever he wanted to place one, preach beside the cross, and then pray there for many hours. He was found by many floating in the air (levitating) as he prayed next to the cross. He died while kneeling in prayer saying the bible verse, “I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go unto the house of the Lord!”