On the Tuesday following Ascension Thursday, having remained a while in prayer after Communion, I was grieved because I was so distracted I couldn’t concentrate. So I complained to the Lord about our miserable nature. My soul began to enkindle, and it seemed to me I knew clearly in an intellectual vision that the entire Blessed Trinity was present. In this state my soul understood by a certain kind of representation (like an illustration of the truth), in such a way that my dullness could perceive, how God is three and one. And so it seemed that all three Persons were represented distinctly in my soul and that they spoke to me, telling me that from this day I would see an improvement in myself in respect to three things and that each one of these Persons would grant me a favor: one, the favor of charity; another, the favor of being able to suffer gladly; and the third, the favor of experiencing this charity with an enkindling in the soul. I understood those words the Lord spoke, that the three divine Persons would be with the soul in grace;1 for I saw them within myself in the way described.2
2. While, afterward, thanking the Lord for so great a favor, finding myself unworthy of it, I asked His Majesty with deep feeling, why, since he was going to grant me favors like these, He had allowed me out of His hand to become so wretched? For on the previous day I had felt great suffering on account of my sins since they were in my mind. I saw clearly how much the Lord did on His part, from the time I was a little child, to bring me to Himself through very efficacious means, and how I didn’t profit by any of them. Hence the excessive love God has in pardoning us for all this failure when we want to return to Him was made clearly manifest to me; and for many reasons this love was greater in my case than in anybody else’s.
3. It seems those three Persons, being only one God, were so fixed within my soul that I saw that were such divine company to continue it would be impossible not to be recollected.
There is no need here to put in writing some other experiences and words that occurred in this state.
4. Once, a little before this, when I was about to receive Communion, and the host was still in the ciborium—for it hadn’t been given to me yet—I saw a kind of dove that was noisily fluttering its wings. It so alarmed me and caused suspension of my faculties that much effort was required to receive the host. This all happened at St. Joseph’s in Ávila. Father Francisco de Salcedo3 gave me the Blessed Sacrament.
5. On another day, while hearing his Mass, I saw the Lord glorified in the host. He told me that Father Francisco’s sacrifice was pleasing to Him.