Pedro Garavito was born in 1499 at Alcántara in Extremadura and studied at Salamanca. In 1515 he joined the Franciscans of the strict observance, taking the name of his home town. While still young he became a superior and a sought-after preacher, and from 1538 he served as provincial; when his plans for a stricter life met opposition, he gave up office and withdrew for a time to the hermitages of Arrábida in Portugal.
With papal permission obtained in 1553 he founded small, very poor friaries whose friars went barefoot, ate little and spent long hours in prayer; in 1561 they became a province of their own. His austerity was famous: Teresa of Ávila recorded his telling her that for forty years he had slept only an hour and a half a night. The short treatise on prayer and meditation that goes under his name, largely a condensation of Luis de Granada's Book of Prayer and Meditation, spread widely in Spain and beyond.
Peter of Alcántara in the library (1 work)
- Peter of Alcántara: A Golden Treatise of Mental Prayer — c. 1556; translation 1632, edition 1844
The Franciscan reformer's short method of meditation, praised by Teresa of Ávila.