GM 83

English

Many years later I received these relics from my mother. While I was travelling from Burgundy to Clermont, a huge storm appeared in my path. The storm frequently flashed with lightning in the sky and rumbled with loud crashes of thunder. Then I took the holy relics from my pocket and raised my hand before the cloud. The cloud immediately divided into two parts and passed by on the right and the left; it threatened neither me nor anyone else. Then, as a presumptuous young man is expected to behave, I began to be inflated by the arrogance of vainglory. I silently thought that this concession had been made especially for me, rather than because of the merits of the saints. I boasted to my travelling companions and insisted that I had deserved that which God had bestowed upon my naivete. Immediately my horse suddenly slipped beneath me and threw me to the ground. I was so seriously bruised during this accident that I could hardly get up. I understood that this accident had happened because ofmy pride; and it was sufficient to note that afterwards the urge of vainglory did not bother me. For if it happened that I was worthy to observe some manifestations of the powers of saints, I have proclaimed that they were due to the gift of God through the faith of the saints.

Latin

Post multos vero annos has reliquias a genetrice suscepi; cumque iter de Burgundia ad Arvernum ageremus, oritur contra nos magna tempestas, coepitque crebris ignibus micare caelum validisque tonitruorum fragoribus resonare. Tunc extractas a sinu beatas reliquias, manu elevo contra nubem; quae protinus divisa in duabus partibus, dextra laevaque praeteriens, neque nobis neque ulli deinceps nocuit At ego, ut iuvenilis fervor agere solet, vanae gloriae inflari supercilio coepi et tacitus cogitare, non haec tantum sanctorum meritis quam mihi propriae fuisse concessum, atque ad socios itineris iactans, ac proferre, quae innocentiae meae Deus praestiterit, ut haec mererer. Nec mora, elapsus subito sub me equus, ad terram elisit; in quo casu tam graviter sum contractus, ut vix surgere possim. Intellexi enim, mihi ista a vanitate evenisse, satisque fuit dehinc observare, ne me ultra vanae gloriae stimularet aculeus. Nam, ei evenit, ut mererer deinceps aliqua de sanctorum virtutibus contemplare, Dei illa munere per sanctorum fidem praestita praeconavi.