(2) The Church has never denied that the blessed dead may in ways unknown to us influence the living and lead them upward. St. Teresa learned much from the devout monk, St. Peter of Alcántara. At the moment of his death, according to Teresa’s testimony, he appeared to her in great glory, and said he was going to rest. “It seems to me,” she added, “that he consoles me more than when he was here with me.”
To the mourning heart the Christian teacher may say in St. Paul’s words: “Perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season that thou mightest receive him for ever.”
“Have not we too?—Yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognised intelligence.
“Such rebounds our inward ear
Catches sometimes from afar;—
Listen, ponder, hold them dear.
For of God, of God they are.”[45]