In this year I was ordered to assist the porteress at the grate. I had no inclinations to the employ, knowing the many occasions of distractions I should necessarily meet with, and that I should frequently be called out of the choir to answer the bell at the grate. Yet I made no reply, but resolved to content myself where obedience placed me. I knew God was not tied up to time or place, and that when He has a mind to favour us He can do it as well in exterior employments as in solitude, if our actions are performed with a pure intention to please Him. Though I had left solitude, I met with more occasions of mortification and contradiction, which I endeavoured to put up with in silence.

I had a particular delight in serving the poor who came sometimes to the turn to beg an alms, and I remember once as I was hurried about in serving the brewers who were then in the cloister, I carried them meat to the garden door, whence they were to fetch it. On a sudden I thought I saw our Blessed Saviour pass by the door in mean apparel. He seemed, as it were by chance, to cast His eyes upon me, at which He stopped a little, and looking upon me with great compassion and sweetness, spoke to me interiorly to this effect, ‘Poor Xaveria, who used to be conversing with Me and My angels, is tired and wearied in serving those poor men.’