"Confession of St. Patrick" on fasting as a means of preparing for something… "a voice saying to me: `You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home …"

1.2: … a voice saying to me: `You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home …

17. And it was there of course that one night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me: `You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country.' And again, a very short time later, there was a voice prophesying: `Behold, your ship is ready.' And it was not close by, but, as it happened, two hundred miles away, where I had never been nor knew any person. And shortly thereafter I turned about and fled from the man with whom I had been for six years, and I came, by the power of God who directed my route to advantage (and I was afraid of nothing), until I reached that ship.