10
There was another peasant who, when he came into Rome on a Sunday morning, always went to the church where St. Philip was.[9] ‘You quite weary[10] one with your continual preaching about the Blessed Sacrament. I’m so tired of hearing about it, that I declare to you I don’t care so much about it as my mule does about a sack of corn.’ Padre Filippo preferred convincing people in some practical way to going into angry discussions with them; so he did not say very much in answer to the countryman’s remarks, but asked him the name of his village. Not long after he went down to this village to preach; and had a pretty little altar erected on a hill-side, and set up the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition. Then he went and found out the same countryman, and said, ‘Now bring a sack of corn near where the altar is, and let’s see what the mule does.’ The countryman placed a sack of corn near the altar, and drove the mule by to see what it would do.
The mule kicked aside the sack of corn, and fell down on its knees before the altar; and the man, seeing the token, went to confession to St. Philip, and never said anything profane any more.