St. Patrick, Confession 19:
“After three days we reached land and made a journey through a desert; food was lacking, and famine prevailed over them, and one day the captain began to speak to me,
‘What’s all this, Christian? You say that your God is great and all powerful; why can you not say a prayer for us? We’re being sorely tried by famine. It’s hardly likely that we will see any other person out here.’
I then confidently replied to them,
‘Turn yourselves, in your faith and from all your heart to the Lord my God, because nothing is impossible for him, so that he send food to you today, enough for your journey, because he has an abundance everywhere.’
And, with the help of God, so it happened. There, a flock of pigs appeared in the road before our eyes, and the men killed many of them, and remained there for two nights. They were much revived, and their dogs too were restored, because many of them had fallen off and been left half-dead on the road. After this, they gave the greatest thanks to God, and I was honored in their eyes, and from this day they possessed food abundantly. They even found honey of the forest and offered part to me, and one of them said, ‘It is a little offering.’ Thanks to God, I ate none of it.”
et post triduum terram cepimus et uiginti octo dies per desertum iter fecimus et cibus defuit illis et fames inualuit super eos, et alio die coepit gubernator mihi dicere: ‘Quid est, Christiane? tu dicis deus tuus magnus et omnipotens est; quare ergo non potes pro nobis orare? quia nos a fame periclitamur; difficile est enim ut aliquem hominem umquam uideamus’. Ego enim confidenter dixi illis: ‘Conuertimini ex fide ex toto corde ad Dominum Deum meum, quia nihil est impossibile illi, ut hodie cibum mittat uobis in uiam uestram usque dum satiamini, quia ubique habundat illi’, et adiuuante Deo ita factum est: ecce grex porcorum in uia ante oculos nostros apparuit, et multos ex illis interfecerunt et ibi duas noctes manserunt et bene refecti et canes eorum repleti sunt, quia multi ex illis defecerunt et secus uiam semiuiui relicti sunt, et post hoc summas gratias egerunt Deo et ego honorificatus sum sub oculis eorum, et ex hac die cibum habundanter habuerunt; etiam mel siluestre inuenerunt et mihi partem obtulerunt et unus ex illis dixit: ‘Immolaticium est’; Deo gratias, exinde nihil gustaui.
