65. When he was offering the sacraments,[805] and the deacon had approached him to do something belonging to his office, the priest beholding him groaned because he had perceived that something was hidden in him that was not meet. When the sacrifice was over, having been probed privately concerning his conscience he confessed and denied not[806] that he had been mocked[807] in a dream that night. And Malachy enjoined penance upon him and said, "It was your duty not to have ministered to-day, but reverently to withdraw from sacred things and to show respect to so great and divine mysteries, that purified by this humiliation you might in future minister more worthily."
Likewise on another occasion,[808] when he was sacrificing and praying at the hour of sacrifice with his accustomed sanctity and purity of heart, the deacon standing by him, a dove was seen to enter through the window in great glory. And with that glory the priest was completely flooded, and the whole of the gloomy basilica became suffused with light. But the dove, after flitting about for a while, at length settled down on the cross before the face of the priest. The deacon was amazed; and trembling on account of the novelty both of the light and of the bird, for that is a rare bird in the land, fell upon his face, and palpitating, scarcely dared to rise even when the necessity of his office required it. After Mass Malachy spoke to him privately and bade him, as he valued his life, on no account to divulge the mystery which he had seen, as long as he himself was alive.
Once, when he was at Armagh with one of his fellow-bishops, he rose in the night and began to go round the memorials of the saints, of which there are many in the cemetery of St. Patrick,[809] with prayer. And lo, they saw one of the altars suddenly take fire. For both saw this great vision, and both wondered. And Malachy, understanding that it was a sign of the great merit of him, or those, whose bodies rested under that altar, ran and plunged into the midst of the flames with outstretched arms and embraced the sacred altar. What he did there, or what he perceived, none knows; but that from that fire he went forth ablaze more than his wont with heavenly fire, I suppose there is none of the brothers who were with him then that does not know.
66. These things have been mentioned, a few out of many, but many for this time. For these are not times of signs, as it is written, We see not signs; there is no more any prophet.[810] Whence it appears sufficiently how great in merits was my Malachy, who was so rich in signs, rare as they now are. For in what kind of ancient miracles[811] was not Malachy conspicuous? If we consider well those few that have been mentioned, he lacked not prophecy,[812] nor revelation,[813] nor vengeance upon the impious,[814] nor the grace of healings,[815] nor transformation of minds,[816] nor lastly raising the dead.[817] By all these things God was blessed who so loved and adorned him, who also magnified him before kings,[818] and gave him the crown of glory.[819] That he was loved is proved in his merits, that he was adorned, in his signs, that he was magnified, in his vengeance on enemies, that he had glory, in recompense of rewards. You have in Malachy, diligent reader, something to wonder at, you have also something to imitate. Now carefully note what you may hope for as the result of these things. For the end of these things is a precious death.[820]
[718] Rem. This may have been a follower of Berengarius, who in his recantation in 1059 anathematized the heresy that the bread and wine "after consecration are merely a sacrament and not the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Mansi, xix. 900).
[719] Compare St. Bernard's method with Abélard, V.P. iii. 13; and for his dealing with a brother who did not believe in transubstantiation, ibid. vii. 8, 9.
[720] I follow the printed text: de consensu confusus quidem exiit, sed non correptus. But Mabillon, supported by A, has "he retired from the assembly confounded, but not brought to the right opinion" (de conuentu ... non correctus). K reads de conuentu ... non correptus.
[721] It would seem from this that Malachy was acting as legate. The date is therefore after 1140.
[722] Prov. xxviii. 21 (vg.).
[723] John xi. 51.