Saint
François de Borgia
Duc
de Gandie, général de la Compagnie de Jésus (+ 1572)
L'Histoire retient surtout les scandales de son grand-père, le pape Alexandre VI Borgia. La mère de François est fille illégitime d'un archevêque de Saragosse lequel d'ailleurs est un bâtard du roi Ferdinand le Catholique. Dans cette famille va naître une fleur de sainteté. A 19 ans, Charles-Quint en personne le marie à la portugaise Eleonore de Castro. François est un grand personnage: duc de Gandie, grand-veneur de l'Empereur, écuyer de l'Impératrice, gouverneur de Catalogne. Père de huit enfants, il perd son épouse alors qu'il a 36 ans. Deux ans plus tard, il change de cap, entre chez les jésuites et devient "maître général de la Compagnie" à 55 ans. Il s'impose comme "second fondateur", un père indulgent et ferme, profondément aimé de ses frères. Sous son gouvernement, les Jésuites se répandent dans toute l'Europe et dans les missions lointaines. Il leur donne un grand dynamisme et fait de son Ordre l'un des grands artisans de la Contre-Réforme.
Fils aîné du duc Jean de Borgia, François naquit en 1510 à Gandie, dans le royaume de Valence. Après une éducation raffinée à la cour de l'empereur Charles-Quint, il épousa en 1529 Éléonore de Castro, dont il eut huit fils. En 1542, il succéda à son père comme duc de Gandie; mais après la mort de sa femme il renonça à son duché. Il entra dans la Compagnie de Jésus, et, ses études de théologie achevées, y fut ordonné prêtre en 1551. il fut élu troisième Général en 1565. Il fit beaucoup pour la formation et la vie spirituelle de ses religieux, pour les collèges qu'il fit fonder en divers lieux et pour les missions, remarquable par l'austérité de sa vie et son don d'oraison. Il meurt à Rome le 30 septembre 1572 et fut canonisé par Clément X en 1671.
Un internaute nous signale:
'Ici, en Espagne, on célèbre la festivité de saint François Borja / Borgia ("San Francisco de Borja) le 3 octobre'
Voir aussi sur le site de la province de France des Jésuites où il est fêté le 3 octobre.
30 septembre au martyrologe romain: À Rome, en 1572, saint François de Borja,
prêtre. Après la mort de sa femme, dont il avait eu huit enfants, il quitta les
dignités du siècle et refusa celles de l'Église, entrant dans la Compagnie de
Jésus, dont il fut élu préposé général, vraiment remarquable par l'austérité de
sa vie et son don d'oraison.
Martyrologe romain
Quel grand remède pour tous nos maux que de méditer la
Croix du Christ!
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/8492/Saint-Francois-de-Borgia.html
.jpg)
Divo Francisco Borgiæ è Duce Gandiæ tertio, Soc. Jesu generali, à Clemente X Pont. Max. sanctorum clitum fastis ad scripto, Encomia emblemate, prosa, versu in de salvatoris Soc. Iesv ad S. Clementem, publice affixa in perpetuum amoris monumentum re ac typis incidi fecerunt, dum philosophum eius auspicys cptam primâ laureâ coronarent, 1672 (1670s) Authors: Firmus, Georgius, 1635-1683 Damperviel, J. G Physici Pragenses Text Appearing After Image: S.FKA^HCISCVS fiOKaiA. SOCIE.TATI5 ^ ? € 5 V J. G. diarn/urvuLJ c-ulp.. HIC STETIT FRANGISGVS POST SUMMA,GENLIS, OPES, DIGNITATES,M ETAM HABUITOMNIUM CONTEMPTUM. P R I N C I P I, R E G I ^, C JE S A RE JE. DOMUM PR/ETULIT RELIGIOSAM; RELIGIOSUS ANTE RELIGIONEM, RECENS NATAM ELEGIT, IPSE NOVO PARTUNATU S, ECINERIBUS PHOENIX. UNO PASSUO M N I LI M V 1 R T U T U MG R A D U STRANSCENDIT. C 2 Redc Reac Philofophi: c orruptio unius Gencratio e(l alterius : Quando Corruptio IfabellaiGtncratio eftr &Nativitas Borgi je. 6 FrancisceIItane etiam hic vidii^ej perifTeeft .Ut n^ formflr quidem cadaver contemplariliceat,Quin eo ipfo C\s filius Mortis ?Std fortem tuam, Dux inclytej n^ accufa:Imperantem Regibus matrem naclus esTantum abeftut GenerisclaritatemNovis NataHbus obfcuraris.Corruptoexranguine,qusnarcipolTit utilitas?Dudum quafivit Pfalmicen,Sic genitus, refpondes Qusftioni:Stupendam adeo Genefim quia non (omniavit antiquitas,Idcirco eam Theogonia? non attexuit:Tunctamen BORGf/F, proxim
Jésuite
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_francois_de_borgia.html
SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/10-10-St-Francois-de-Borgia
SOURCE : http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/gueranger/anneliturgique/pentecote/pentecote05/046.htm
.jpg)
SOURCE : http://www.lejourduseigneur.com/Web-TV/Saints/Francois-Borgia
SOURCE : http://missel.free.fr/Sanctoral/10/10.php
Saint François de Borgia
François, fils aîné du duc Jean de Borgia, naquit en
1510 à Gandie, dans le royaume de Valence. Après une éducation raffinée à la
cour de l’empereur Charles-Quint, il épousa en 1529 Éléonore de Castro, dont il
eut huit fils. En 1542, il succéda à son père comme duc de Gandie ; mais après
la mort de sa femme il renonça à son duché et, ses études de théologie
achevées, fut ordonné prêtre en 1551.
Entré dans la Compagnie, il fut élu troisième Général
en 1565. Il fit beaucoup pour la formation et la vie spirituelle de ses
religieux, pour les collèges qu’il fit fonder en divers lieux et pour les
missions. Il mourut à Rome le 30 septembre 1572 et fut canonisé par Clément X
en 1671. Il est fêté le 3 octobre dans la Compagnie de Jésus.
Biographie détaillée
François de Borgia (en espagnol : Francisco de Borja y
Trastámara), duc de Gandie, grand d’Espagne, naît à Gandie, dans le royaume de
Valence (Espagne), le 28 Octobre 1510. Il était le fils de Juan Borgia, le 3e
duc de Gandie, et de Jeanne d’Aragon, fille d’Alphonse d’Aragon
(1470-1520) ; François était aussi arrière-petit-fils du Pape Alexandre
VI.
À peine put-il articuler quelques mots, que sa pieuse
mère lui apprit à prononcer les noms sacrés de Jésus et de Marie. Âgé de
cinq ans, il retenait avec une merveilleuse mémoire les sermons, le ton, les
gestes des prédicateurs, et les répétait dans sa famille avec une onction
touchante. Bien que sa jeunesse se passât dans le monde, à la cour de
Charles-Quint, et dans le métier des armes, sa vie fut très pure et toute
chrétienne ; il tenait même peu aux honneurs auxquels l’avaient appelé son
grand nom et ses mérites.
À vingt-huit ans, la vue du cadavre défiguré de
l’impératrice Isabelle le frappa tellement, qu’il se dit à lui-même :
« François, voilà ce que tu seras bientôt… À quoi te serviront les
grandeurs de la terre ?… »
Toutefois, cédant aux instances de l’empereur, qui le
fit son premier conseiller, il ne quitta le monde qu’à la mort de son épouse,
Éléonore de Castro. Il avait trente-six ans ; encore dut-il passer
quatre ans dans le siècle, afin de pourvoir aux besoins de ses huit enfants.
François de Borgia fut digne de son maître saint
Ignace ; tout son éloge est dans ce mot. L’humilité fut la vertu dominante
de ce prince revêtu de la livrée des pauvres du Christ. À plusieurs reprises,
le Pape voulut le nommer Cardinal ; une première fois il se déroba par la
fuite ; une autre fois, saint Ignace conjura le danger.
Plus l’humble religieux s’abaissait, plus les honneurs
le cherchaient. Celui qui signait toutes ses lettres de ces mots :
François, pécheur ; celui qui ne lisait qu’à genoux les lettres de ses
supérieurs, devint le troisième général de la Compagnie de Jésus. François de
Borgia meurt à Rome, à l’âge de 62 ans, le 30 Septembre 1572 et sera canonisé
en 1671 par le Pape Clément X (Emilio Altieri, 1670-1676).
“Quel grand remède pour tous nos maux que de méditer
la Croix du Christ”
Nous sommes tous en marche vers le Seigneur ; en
prononçant nos vœux, nous avons revêtu l’équipement nécessaire à ce voyage ;
notre profession religieuse est donc vaine si nous ne marchons pas allégrement
sur cette route et si nous ne courons pas dans la voie de la perfection jusqu’à
ce que nous arrivions à « la divine montagne de l’Horeb ».
Le premier avis que j’ai à vous donner, je le trouve
formulé comme il suit au commencement de la dixième partie des Constitutions,
où il est question des moyens de conserver et d’accroître la Compagnie : « Les
moyens qui unissent un instrument à Dieu, qui le disposent à être manié
régulièrement par sa main divine, sont bien plus efficaces que ceux qui le
disposent à servir les hommes. Ces moyens sont la justice et la générosité, la
charité surtout, la pureté d’intention dans le service divin, l’union familière
avec Dieu dans les exercices spirituels, un zèle très pur pour le salut des
âmes, sans autre recherche que la gloire de celui qui les a créées et rachetées
».
Paroles bien dignes d’être l’objet de notre plus
sérieuse attention, puisque notre bienheureux Père les a écrites avec tant de
soin et d’amour pour ses enfants. En effet, si nous voulons y réfléchir
sérieusement, nous reconnaîtrons que la négligence à employer les moyens qui
unissent l’instrument à Dieu suscite et aggrave les dissensions et les misères
qui déchirent les sociétés religieuses. Car comme la sécheresse d’un terrain
fait dépérir les fleurs et les fruits des arbres, ainsi l’aridité habituelle
dans les méditations et autres exercices de piété dévore dans l’âme religieuse
les fleurs et les fruits spirituels.
Donc le religieux qui ne s’exerce pas à la méditation
et à l’imitation de Jésus crucifié, celui-là travaillera sans ardeur à la
gloire de ce divin Maître ; bien plus, il n’y apportera que lâcheté, et,
cependant, il ne laissera pas d’être satisfait de lui-même et de mépriser les
autres.
Quel grand remède pour tous nos maux que de méditer la
Croix du Christ !
(Lettre 717 du mois d’avril 1569 adressée à toute la Compagnie.
Texte espagnol dans MHSI : S. Franciscus Borgia, t. 5, Madrid, 1911, pp. 78-79 ;
tr. fr. : Lettres choisies des Généraux, t. I, Lyon, 1878, pp. 32-33).
SOURCE : https://www.jesuites.com/saint-francois-de-borgia-sj/
Saint Francis Borgia
Also
known as
- Francisco
de Borja y Aragon
- 30 September
- 3 October (Jesuits)
- 10 October on some calendars
Profile
Born to the nobility,
the great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI; grandson of King Ferdinand of Aragon; son of Duke Juan Borgia.
Raised in the court of King Charles V and educated at Saragossa, Spain. Married Eleanor de Castro
in 1529, and the father of eight children. Accompanied Charles on his expedition
to Africa, 1535, and to Provence, 1536. Viceroy of
Catalonia, 1539–1543. Duke of Gandia, 1543–1550. Widower in 1546.
Friend and advisor
of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Joined the Jesuits in 1548. Ordained in 1551. Notable preacher. Given charge of
the Jesuit missions in the East and West Indies.
Commissary-general of the Jesuits in Spain in 1560. General of the Jesuits in 1565. Under his generalship
the Society established
its missions in Florida, New Spain and Peru, and greatly developed
its internal structures. Concerned that Jesuits were in danger of
getting too involved in their work at the expense of their spiritual growth, he
introduced their daily hour-long meditation. His changes and revitalization of
the Society led to him being
sometimes called the “Second Founder of the Society of Jesus”. He worked
with Pope Saint Pius V and Saint Charles Borromeo in the Counter-Reformation.
Born
- 28 October 1510 at Gandia, Valencia, Spain
- 23 November 1624 by Pope Gregory XV in Madrid, Spain
- against earthquakes
- Portugal
- Rota, Marianas
St. Francis Borgia was born within the Duchy of Gandia, Valencia on October 28, 1510. He was the son of Juan de Borgia, the 3rd Duke of Gandia and Joana of Aragon, daughter of Afonso de Aragon, Archbishop of Zaragoza, who, in turn, was the illegitimate son of Ferdinand the Catholic (King Ferdinand II of Aragon) and his mistress Aldonza Ruiz de Iborra y Alemany. Francis was also the paternal great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI.
The future saint was unhappy in his ancestry. His grandfather, Juan Borgia, the second son of Pope Alexander VI, was assassinated in Rome on 14 June, 1497, by an unknown hand, which his family always believed to be that of Cæsar Borgia. Rodrigo Borgia, elected pope in 1402 under the name of Alexander VI, had eight children. The eldest, Pedro Luis, had acquired in 1485 the hereditary Duchy of Gandia in the Kingdom of Valencia, which, at his death, passed to his brother Juan, who had married Maria Enriquez de Luna. Having been left a widow by the murder of her husband, Maria Enriquez withdrew to her duchy and devoted herself piously to the education of her two children, Juan and Isabel. After the marriage of her son in 1509, she followed the example of her daughter, who had entered the convent of Poor Clares in Gandia, and it was through these two women that sanctity entered the Borgia family, and in the House of Gandia was begun the work of reparation to the Borgia family name which Francis Borgia was to crown.
Although as a child he was very pious and wished to become a monk, his family sent him instead to the court of the Emperor Charles V. He distinguished himself there, accompanying the Emperor on several campaigns and marrying, in Madrid in September 1526, a Portuguese noblewoman, Eleanor de Castro Melo e Menezes, by whom he had eight children: Carlos in 1530, Isabel in 1532, Juan in 1533, Álvaro circa 1535, Juana also circa 1535, Fernando in 1537, Dorotea in 1538, and Alfonso in 1539. In 1539, he convoyed the corpse of Empress Isabella of Portugal to her burial-place in Granada.
It is said that, when he saw the effect of death on the beautiful empress, he decided to “never again serve a mortal master.” However, while still a young man, he was made viceroy of Catalonia, and administered the province with great efficiency. His true interests, however, lay elsewhere. When his father died, the new Duke of Gandia retired to his native place and led, with his wife and family, a life devoted entirely to Jesus Christ and The Holy Catholic Church. In 1546 his wife Eleanor died and Francis was determined to enter the newly formed Society of Jesus. He put his affairs in order, renounced his titles in favor of his eldest son, Carlos, and became a Jesuit priest. Because of his high birth, great abilities and Europe-wide fame, he was immediately offered a cardinal’s hat. This, however, he refused, preferring the life of an itinerant preacher. In time, however, his friends persuaded him to accept the leadership role that nature and circumstances had destined him for: in 1554, he became the Jesuits’ commissary-general in Spain; and, in 1565, the third Father General or Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
His successes have caused historians to describe Francis as the greatest General after Saint Ignatius. He founded the Collegium Romanum, which was to become the Gregorian University, dispatched missionaries to distant corners of the globe, advised kings and popes, and closely supervised all the affairs of the rapidly expanding order. Yet, despite the great power of his office, Francis led a humble life, and was widely regarded in his own lifetime as a saint.ˇ
Francis Borgia died on September 30, 1572 in Rome. He was beatified in Madrid on November 23, 1624 by Pope Gregory XV. He was canonized nearly thirty five years later on June 20, 1670 by Pope Clement X.
SOURCE : http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/saint-francis-borgia/
St. Francis Borgia
(Spanish FRANCISCO DE BORJA Y ARAGON )
Francis Borgia, born 28 October, 1510, was the son of Juan Borgia, third Duke of Gandia, and of Juana of Aragon; died 30 September, 1572. The future saint was unhappy in his ancestry. His grandfather, Juan Borgia, the second son of Alexander VI, was assassinated in Rome on 14 June, 1497, by an unknown hand, which his family always believed to be that of Cæsar Borgia. Rodrigo Borgia, elected pope in 1492 under the name of Alexander VI, had eight children. The eldest, Pedro Luis, had acquired in 1485 the hereditary Duchy of Gandia in the Kingdom of Valencia, which, at his death, passed to his brother Juan, who had married Maria Enriquez de Luna. Having been left a widow by the murder of her husband, Maria Enriquez withdrew to her duchy and devoted herself piously to the education of her two children, Juan and Isabel. After the marriage of her son in 1509, she followed the example of her daughter, who had entered the convent of Poor Clares in Gandia, and it was through these two women that sanctity entered the Borgia family, and in the House of Gandia was begun the work of reparation which Francis Borgia was to crown. Great-grandson of Alexander VI, on the paternal side, he was, on his mother's side, the great-grandson of the Catholic King Ferdinand of Aragon. This monarch had procured the appointment of his natural son, Alfonso, to the Archbishopric of Saragossa at the age of nine years. By Anna de Gurrea, Alfonso had two sons, who succeeded him in his archiepiscopal see, and two daughters, one of whom, Juana, married Duke Juan of Gandia and became the mother of our saint. By this marriage Juan had three sons and four daughters. By a second, contracted in 1523, he had five sons and five daughters. The eldest of all and heir to the dukedom was Francis. Piously reared in a court which felt the influence of the two Poor Clares, the mother and sister of the reigning duke, Francis lost his own mother when he was but ten. In 1521, a sedition amongst the populace imperilled the child's life, and the position of the nobility. When the disturbance was suppressed, Francis was sent to Saragossa to continue his education at the court of his uncle, the archbishop, an ostentatious prelate who had never been consecrated nor even ordained priest. Although in this court the Spanish faith retained its fervour, it lapsed nevertheless into the inconsistencies permitted by the times, and Francis could not disguise from himself the relation in which his grandmother stood to the dead archbishop, although he was much indebted to her for his early religious training. While at Saragossa Francis cultivated his mind and attracted the attention of his relatives by his fervour. They being desirous of assuring the fortune of the heir of Gandia, sent him at the age of twelve to Tordesillas as page to the Infanta Catarina, the youngest child and companion in solitude of the unfortunate queen, Juana the Mad.
In 1525 the Infanta married King Juan III of Portugal, and Francis returned to Saragossa to complete his education. At last, in 1528, the court of Charles V was opened to him, and the most brilliant future awaited him. On the way to Valladolid, while passing, brilliantly escorted, through Alcalá de Henares, Francis encountered a poor man whom the servants of the Inquisition were leading to prison. It was Ignatius of Loyola. The young nobleman exchanged a glance of emotion with the prisoner, little dreaming that one day they should be united by the closest ties. The emperor and empress welcomed Borgia less as a subject than as a kinsman. He was seventeen, endowed with every charm, accompanied by a magnificent train of followers, and, after the emperor, his presence was the most gallant and knightly at court. In 1529, at the desire of the empress, Charles V gave him in marriage the hand of Eleanor de Castro, at the same time making him Marquess of Lombay, master of the hounds, and equerry to the empress, and appointing Eleanor Camarera Mayor. The newly-created Marquess of Lombay enjoyed a privileged station. Whenever the emperor was travelling or conducting a campaign, he confided to the young equerry the care of the empress, and on his return to Spain treated him as a confidant and friend. In 1535, Charles V led the expedition against Tunis unaccompanied by Borgia, but in the following year the favourite followed his sovereign on the unfortunate campaign in Provence. Besides the virtues which made him the model of the court and the personal attractions which made him its ornament, the Marquess of Lombay possessed a cultivated musical taste. He delighted above all in ecclesiastical compositions, and these display a remarkable contrapuntal style and bear witness to the skill of the composer, justifying indeed the assertion that, in the sixteenth century and prior to Palestrina, Borgia was one of the chief restorers of sacred music.
In 1538, at Toledo, an eighth child was born to the Marquess of Lombay, and on 1 May of the next year the Empress Isabella died. The equerry was commissioned to convey her remains to Granada, where they were interred on 17 May. The death of the empress caused the first break in the brilliant career of the Marquess and Marchioness of Lombay. It detached them from the court and taught the nobleman the vanity of life and of its grandeurs. Blessed John of Avila preached the funeral sermon, and Francis, having made known to him his desire of reforming his life, returned to Toledo resolved to become a perfect Christian. On 26 June, 1539, Charles V named Borgia Viceroy of Catalonia, and the importance of the charge tested the sterling qualities of the courtier. Precise instructions determined his course of action. He was to reform the administration of justice, put the finances in order, fortify the city of Barcelona, and repress outlawry. On his arrival at the viceregal city, on 23 August, he at once proceeded, with an energy which no opposition could daunt, to build the ramparts, rid the country of the brigands who terrorized it, reform the monasteries, and develop learning. During his vice-regency he showed himself an inflexible justiciary, and above all an exemplary Christian. But a series of grievous trials were destined to develop in him the work of sanctification begun at Granada. In 1543 he became, by the death of his father, Duke of Gandia, and was named by the emperor master of the household of Prince Philip of Spain, who was betrothed to the Princess of Portugal. This appointment seemed to indicate Francis as the chief minister of the future reign, but by God's permission the sovereigns of Portugal opposed the appointment. Francis then retired to his Duchy of Gandia, and for three years awaited the termination of the displeasure which barred him from court. He profited by this leisure to reorganize his duchy, to found a university in which he himself took the degree of Doctor of Theology, and to attain to a still higher degree of virtue. In 1546 his wife died. The duke had invited the Jesuits to Gandia and become their protector and disciple, and even at that time their model. But he desired still more, and on 1 February, 1548, became one of them by the pronunciation of the solemn vows of religion, although authorized by the pope to remain in the world, until he should have fulfilled his obligations towards his children and his estates—his obligations as father and as ruler.
On 31 August, 1550, the Duke of Gandia left his estates to see them no more. On 23 October he arrived at Rome, threw himself at the feet of St. Ignatius, and edified by his rare humility those especially who recalled the ancient power of the Borgias. Quick to conceive great projects, he even then urged St. Ignatius to found the Roman College. On 4 February, 1551, he left Rome, without making known his intention of departure. On 4 April, he reached Azpeitia in Guipuzcoa, and chose as his abode the hermitage of Santa Magdalena near Oñate. Charles V having permitted him to relinquish his possessions, he abdicated in favour of his eldest son, was ordained priest 25 May, and at once began to deliver a series of sermons in Guipuzcoa which revived the faith of the country. Nothing was talked of throughout Spain but this change of life, and Oñate became the object of incessant pilgrimage. The neophyte was obliged to tear himself from prayer in order to preach in the cities which called him, and which his burning words, his example, and even his mere appearance, stirred profoundly. In 1553 he was invited to visit Portugal. The court received him as a messenger from God and vowed to him, thenceforth, a veneration which it has always preserved. On his return from this journey, Francis learned that, at the request of the emperor, Pope Julius III was willing to bestow on him the cardinalate. St. Ignatius prevailed upon the pope to reconsider this decision, but two years later the project was renewed and Borgia anxiously inquired whether he might in conscience oppose the desire of the pope. St. Ignatius again relieved his embarrassment by requesting him to pronounce the solemn vows of profession, by which he engaged not to accept any dignities save at the formal command of the pope. Thenceforth the saint was reassured. Pius IV and Pius V loved him too well to impose upon him a dignity which would have caused him distress. Gregory XIII, it is true, appeared resolved, in 1572, to overcome his reluctance, but on this occasion death saved him from the elevation he had so long feared.
On 10 June, 1554, St. Ignatius named Francis Borgia commissary-general of the Society in Spain. Two years later he confided to him the care of the missions of the East and West Indies, that is to say of all the missions of the Society. To do this was to entrust to a recruit the future of his order in the peninsula, but in this choice the founder displayed his rare knowledge of men, for within seven years Francis was to transform the provinces confided to him. He found them poor in subjects, containing but few houses, and those scarcely known. He left them strengthened by his influence and rich in disciples drawn from the highest grades of society. These latter, whom his example had done so much to attract, were assembled chiefly in his novitiate at Simancas, and were sufficient for numerous foundations. Everything aided Borgia — his name, his sanctity, his eager power of initiative, and his influence with the Princess Juana, who governed Castile in the absence of her brother Philip. On 22 April, 1555, Queen Juana the Mad died at Tordesillas, attended by Borgia. To the saint's presence has been ascribed the serenity enjoyed by the queen in her last moments. The veneration which he inspired was thereby increased, and furthermore his extreme austerity, the care which he lavished on the poor in the hospitals, the marvellous graces with which God surrounded his apostolate contributed to augment a renown by which he profited to further God's work. In 1565 and 1566 he founded the missions of Florida, New Spain, and Peru, thus extending even to the New World the effects of his insatiable zeal.
In December, 1556, and three other times, Charles V shut himself up at Yuste. He at once summoned thither his old favourite, whose example had done so much to inspire him with the desire to abdicate. In the following month of August, he sent him to Lisbon to deal with various questions concerning the succession of Juan III. When the emperor died, 21 September, 1558, Borgia was unable to be present at his bedside, but he was one of the testamentary executors appointed by the monarch, and it was he who, at the solemn services at Valladolid, pronounced the eulogy of the deceased sovereign. A trial was to close this period of success. In 1559 Philip II returned to reign in Spain. Prejudiced for various reasons (and his prejudice was fomented by many who were envious of Borgia, some of whose interpolated works had been recently condemned by the Inquisition), Philip seemed to have forgotten his old friendship for the Marquess of Lombay, and he manifested towards him a displeasure which increased when he learned that the saint had gone to Lisbon. Indifferent to this storm, Francis continued for two years in Portugal his preaching and his foundations, and then, at the request of Pope Pius IV, went to Rome in 1561. But storms have their providential mission. It may be questioned whether but for the disgrace of 1543 the Duke of Gandia would have become a religious, and whether, but for the trial which took him away from Spain, he would have accomplished the work which awaited him in Italy. At Rome it was not long before he won the veneration of the public. Cardinals Otho Truchsess, Archbishop of Augsburg, Stanislaus Hosius, and Alexander Farnese evinced towards him a sincere friendship. Two men above all rejoiced at his coming. They were Michael Chisleri, the future Pope Pius V, and Charles Borromeo, whom Borgia's example aided to become a saint.
On 16 February, 1564, Francis Borgia was named assistant general in Spain and Portugal, and on 20 January, 1565, was elected vicar-general of the Society of Jesus. He was elected general 2 July, 1565, by thirty-one votes out of thirty-nine, to succeed Father James Laynez. Although much weakened by his austerities, worn by attacks of gout and an affection of the stomach, the new general still possessed much strength, which, added to his abundant store of initiative, his daring in the conception and execution of vast designs, and the influence which he exercised over the Christian princes and at Rome, made him for the Society at once the exemplary model and the providential head. In Spain he had had other cares in addition to those of government. Henceforth he was to be only the general. The preacher was silent. The director of souls ceased to exercise his activity, except through his correspondence, which, it is true, was immense and which carried throughout the entire world light and strength to kings, bishops and apostles, to nearly all who in his day served the Catholic cause. His chief anxiety being to strengthen and develop his order, he sent visitors to all the provinces of Europe, to Brazil, India, and Japan. The instructions, with which he furnished them were models of prudence, kindness, and breadth of mind. For the missionaries as well as for the fathers delegated by the pope to the Diet of Augsburg, for the confessors of princes and the professors of colleges he mapped out wide and secure paths. While too much a man of duty to permit relaxation or abuse, he attracted chiefly by his kindness, and won souls to good by his example. The edition of the rules, at which he laboured incessantly, was completed in 1567. He published them at Rome, dispatched them (throughout the Society), and strongly urged their observance. The text of those now in force was edited after his death, in 1580, but it differs little from that issued by Borgia, to whom the Society owes the chief edition of its rules as well as that of the Spiritual, of which he had borne the expense in 1548. In order to ensure the spiritual and intellectual formation of the young religious and the apostolic character of the whole order, it became necessary to take other measures. The task of Borgia was to establish, first at Rome, then in all the provinces, wisely regulated novitiates and flourishing houses of study, and to develop the cultivation of the interior life by establishing in all of these the custom of a daily hour of prayer.
He completed at Rome the house and church of S. Andrea in Quirinale, in 1567. Illustrious novices flocked thither, among them Stanislaus Kostka (d. 1568), and the future martyr Rudolph Acquaviva. Since his first journey to Rome, Borgia had been preoccupied with the idea of founding a Roman college, and while in Spain had generously supported the project. In 1567, he built the church of the college, assured it even then an income of six thousand ducats, and at the same time drew up the rule of studies, which, in 1583, inspired the compilers of the Ratio Studiorum of the Society. Being a man of prayer as well as of action, the saintly general, despite overwhelming occupations, did not permit his soul to be distracted from continual contemplation. Strengthened by so vigilant and holy an administration the Society could not but develop. Spain and Portugal numbered many foundations; in Italy Borgia created the Roman province, and founded several colleges in Piedmont. France and the Northern province, however, were the chief field of his triumphs. His relations with the Cardinal de Lorraine and his influence with the French Court made it possible for him to put an end to numerous misunderstandings, to secure the revocation of several hostile edicts, and to found eight colleges in France. In Flanders and Bohemia, in the Tyrol and in Germany, he maintained and multiplied important foundations. The province of Poland was entirely his work. At Rome everything was transformed under his hands. He had built S. Andrea and the church of the Roman college. He assisted generously in the building of the Gesù, and although the official founder of that church was Cardinal Farnese, and the Roman College has taken the name of one of its greatest benefactors, Gregory XIII, Borgia contributed more than anyone towards these foundations. During the seven years of his government, Borgia had introduced so many reforms into his order as to deserve to be called its second founder. Three saints of this epoch laboured incessantly to further the renaissance of Catholicism. They were St. Francis Borgia, St. Pius V, and St. Charles Borromeo.
The pontificate of Pius V and the generalship of Borgia began within an interval of a few months and ended at almost the same time. The saintly pope had entire confidence in the saintly general, who conformed with intelligent devotion to every desire of the pontiff. It was he who inspired the pope with the idea of demanding from the Universities of Perugia and Bologna, and eventually from all the Catholic universities, a profession of the Catholic faith. It was also he who, in 1568, desired the pope to appoint a commission of cardinals charged with promoting the conversion of infidels and heretics, which was the germ of the Congregation for the Propogation of the Faith, established later by Gregory XV in 1622. A pestilential fever invaded Rome in 1566, and Borgia organized methods of relief, established ambulances, and distributed forty of his religious to such purpose that the same fever having broken out two years later it was to Borgia that the pope at once confided the task of safeguarding the city.
Francis Borgia had always greatly loved the foreign missions. He reformed those of India and the Far East and created those of America. Within a few years, he had the glory of numbering among his sons sixty-six martyrs, the most illustrious of whom were the fifty-three missionaries of Brazil who with their superior, Ignacio Azevedo, were massacred by Huguenot corsairs. It remained for Francis to terminate his beautiful life with a splendid act of obedience to the pope and devotion to the Church.
On 7 June, 1571, Pius V requested him to accompany his nephew, Cardinal Bonelli, on an embassy to Spain and Portugal. Francis was then recovering from a severe illness; it was feared that he had not the strength to bear fatigue, and he himself felt that such a journey would cost him his life, but he gave it generously. Spain welcomed him with transports. The old distrust of Philip II was forgotten. Barcelona and Valencia hastened to meet their former viceroy and saintly duke. The crowds in the streets cried: "Where is the saint?" They found him emaciated by penance. Wherever he went, he reconciled differences and soothed discord. At Madrid, Philip II received him with open arms, the Inquisition approved and recommended his genuine works. The reparation was complete, and it seemed as though God wished by this journey to give Spain to understand for the last time this living sermon, the sight of a saint. Gandia ardently desired to behold its holy duke, but he would never consent to return thither. The embassy to Lisbon was no less consoling to Borgia. Among other happy results he prevailed upon the king, Don Sebastian, to ask in marriage the hand of Marguerite of Valois, the sister of Charles IX. This was the desire of St. Pius V, but this project, being formulated too late, was frustrated by the Queen of Navarre, who had meanwhile secured the hand of Marguerite for her son. An order from the pope expressed his wish that the embassy should also reach the French court. The winter promised to be severe and was destined to prove fatal to Borgia. Still more grievous to him was to be the spectacle of the devastation which heresy had caused in that country, and which struck sorrow to the heart of the saint. At Blois, Charles IX and Catherine de' Medici accorded Borgia the reception due to a Spanish grandee, but to the cardinal legate as well as to him they gave only fair words in which there was little sincerity. On 25 February they left Blois. By the time they reached Lyons, Borgia's lungs were already affected. Under these conditions the passage of Mt. Cenis over snow-covered roads was extremely painful. By exerting all his strength the invalid reached Turin. On the way the people came out of the villages crying: "We wish to see the saint". Advised of his cousin's condition, Alfonso of Este, Duke of Ferrara, sent to Alexandria and had him brought to his ducal city, where he remained from 19 April until 3 September. His recovery was despaired of and it was said that he would not survive the autumn. Wishing to die either at Loretto or at Rome, he departed in a litter on 3 September, spent eight days at Loretto, and then, despite the sufferings caused by the slightest jolt, ordered the bearers to push forward with the utmost speed for Rome. It was expected that any instant might see the end of his agony. They reached the "Porta del Popolo" on 28 September. The dying man halted his litter and thanked God that he had been able to accomplish this act of obedience. He was borne to his cell which was soon invaded by cardinals and prelates. For two days Francis Borgia, fully conscious, awaited death, receiving those who visited him and blessing through his younger brother, Thomas Borgia, all his children and grandchildren. Shortly after midnight on 30 September, his beautiful life came to a peaceful and painless close. In the Catholic Church he had been one of the most striking examples of the conversion of souls after the Renaissance, and for the Society of Jesus he had been the protector chosen by Providence to whom, after St. Ignatius, it owes most.
In 1607 the Duke of Lerma, minister of Philip III and grandson of the holy religious, having seen his granddaughter miraculously cured through the intercession of Francis, caused the process for his canonization to be begun. The ordinary process, begun at once in several cities, was followed, in 1637, by the Apostolic process. In 1617 Madrid received the remains of the saint. In 1624 the Congregation of Rites announced that his beatification and canonization might be proceeded with. The beatification was celebrated at Madrid with incomparable splendour. Urban VIII having decreed, in 1631, that a Blessed might not be canonized without a new procedure, a new process was begun. It was reserved for Clement X to sign the Bull of canonization of St. Francis Borgia, on 20 June, 1670. Spared from the decree of Joseph Bonaparte who, in 1809, ordered the confiscation of all shrines and precious objects, the silver shrine containing the remains of the saint, after various vicissitudes, was removed, in 1901, to the church of the Society at Madrid, where it is honoured at the present time.
It is with good reason that Spain and the Church venerate in St. Francis Borgia a great man and a great saint. The highest nobles of Spain are proud of their descent from, or their connexion with him. By his penitent and apostolic life he repaired the sins of his family and rendered glorious a name, which but for him, would have remained a source of humiliation for the Church. His feast is celebrated 10 October.
Sources
Suau, Pierre. "St. Francis Borgia." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 10 Oct. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06213a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was
transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. In honor of David J. Collins,
S.J.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. September
1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley,
Archbishop of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Francis Borgia y Aragon, SJ (RM)
Born at Gandia, Valencia, Spain in 1510; died shortly after midnight on September 30, 1572, in Rome; canonized 1671.
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1010.shtml
François Foppens, Francesco Borgia, Opera Omnia, Bruxelles, 1675
Saints
of the Society of Jesus: Saint Francis Borgia
When the Blessed Peter
Favre died at Rome, the Fathers, in their distress, asked how he could be
replaced. “He will be,” answered Saint Ignatius. “A great personage will join
the Society, will contribute loyally to its support and propagation, and by his
eminent virtues will become an edification to us all.” Favre was replaced in
Germany by the Blessed Peter Canisius, whom he had received into the Society.
The personage who was to replace him in Spain was Saint Francis Borgia, the
third General of the Society. How often we think some loss to be irreparable in
this life! “O ye of little faith!” Seek only the glory of God, and fear not
that He Who could make children of Abraham out of the stones will neglect His
own work. The trouble is that we will not purify our affections, and therefore
we suffer when we might be wholly happy. And yet, when we consider the brevity
of time, what fools we are not to live by faith alone, and to live up to our
faith, and with all the profit our faith can bring to us!
Francis Borgia, Duke of
Gandia, Viceroy of Catalonia, and cousin to the Emperor Charles V, entered the
Society, on the death of his wife, at the age of forty. Having been obliged to
identify the body of the deceased Empress Isabel, he was so impressed by the
change in the remains, from a beauty which all admired to loathsome corruption,
that he declared in his heart on the spot he would no longer serve a perishable
master. In religion he was what he had been in the world, an example of the
sublimest virtues, a great contemplative, a man of admirable wisdom. When, in
the year 1565, Saint Francis, who had five times refused the cardinal’s hat,
learned that he had been chosen General of the Society, he burst into a flood
of tears. Great as he was in all the virtues, humility was his virtue of
predilection. It was right that he, like Saint Aloysius, being of such exalted
origin, should, like the Angelical Youth, endeavor by humility to make himself
the lowliest of men. A few months later Saint Pius V was elected Pope. Contrary
to all precedent, in going to his coronation he stopped at the house of the Jesuits
that he might see Saint Francis Borgia and embrace him. This reminds us of
Saint Louis, King of France, stopping at the convent of Brother Giles and
embracing him, both kneeling down, and then going away without a word. The
saints understand each other. Saint Pius V died on the 1st of May, 1572, Saint
Francis Borgia on the 1st of October following. He had been sent with the Papal
Legate to visit the courts of Portugal, Spain, and France, and rouse them to
united action against the Turks, the enemies of the Christian name. Though in
broken health, he obeyed the mandate of the Pope, his only Superior on earth.
Had he not returned to Rome a dying man, he might probably have been elected
successor to his august and saintly friend. But God never intended to rob
Francis of his beloved humility. To obtain this humility, there was no kind of
self-abasement which he did not practice. No less constant were his efforts to
subdue the rebellion of the flesh; from being a very portly man he reduced
himself by his mortifications to a mere skeleton. He spent hour after hour in
prayer; he confessed his sins twice a day; by an interior instinct he knew when
Jesus Christ was present in the tabernacle, the special object of his devotion.
The Emperor Charles V declared that, in abdicating his crown and retiring to a
monastery, he was animated by the example of the Duke of Gandia.
MLA Citation
- Father D A Merrick, SJ. “Saint Francis Borgia”. Saints of the Society of Jesus, 1891. CatholicSaints.Info. 29 December 2018. Web. 13 November 2020. <https://catholicsaints.info/saints-of-the-society-of-jesus-saint-francis-borgia/>
- SOURCE
: https://catholicsaints.info/saints-of-the-society-of-jesus-saint-francis-borgia/
Chapel with St Francis Borgia. Cathedral (Sé) of Santarém. Portugal
Pictorial Lives of the Saints – Saint Francis Borgia
Saint Francis Borgia,
Duke of Gandia and Captain-General of Catalonia, was one of the handsomest,
richest, and most honored nobles in Spain, when, in 1539, there was laid upon
him the sad duty of escorting the remains of his sovereign, Queen Isabella, to
the royal burying-place at Granada. The coffin had to be opened for him that he
might verify the body before it was placed in the tomb, and so foul a sight met
his eyes that he vowed never again to serve a sovereign who could suffer so
base a change. It was some years before he could follow the call of his Lord;
at length he entered the Society of Jesus to cut himself off from any chance of
dignity or preferment. But his Order chose him to be its head. The Turks were
threatening Christendom, and Saint Pius V. sent his nephew to gather Christian
princes into a league for its defence. The holy Pope chose Francis to accompany
him, and, worn out though he was, the Saint obeyed at once. The fatigues of the
embassy exhausted what little life was left. Saint Francis died on his return
to Rome, October 10th, 1572.
Reflection – Saint
Francis Borgia learnt the worthlessness of earthly greatness at the funeral of
Queen Isabella. Do the deaths of friends teach us aught about ourselves?
SOURCE
: https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-saint-francis-borgia/
Corner statue Valletta, Malta
Weninger’s Lives of the Saints – Saint Francis Borgia, Confessor
Saint Francis Borgia, a
bright example of virtue, both for ecclesiastics and laymen, was born in 1510,
at Gandia, in Spain. His father was John Borgia, the third Duke of Gandia; and
his mother, Joanna of Aragon, grand-daughter to Ferdinand the Catholic.
Francis, when only a child, was already remarkable for his virtue and piety.
When scarcely seventeen years, old he came to the Court of the Emperor Charles
V, where, notwithstanding the many and great dangers to which he was exposed,
he preserved his innocence by frequently partaking of the Blessed Sacrament, by
great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and the practice of mortification. His
talents and his edifying life gained him the esteem of the Emperor; hence the
Empress gave him in marriage a very virtuous lady, who was a great favorite of
hers. Francis was then made chief equerry to the Emperor, and created Marquis
of Lombay. The court which Francis kept after he was married might have served
as a model to all Christian princes. He distributed the hours of the day, so
that certain times were devoted to prayer, to business, and to recreation. He,
at the same time, began the praiseworthy practice of selecting every month a
Saint for especial veneration. He was much opposed to gaming, and did not allow
his servants to indulge in it. He used to say: “Gaming is accompanied by great
losses; loss of money, loss of time, loss of devotion, and loss of conscience.”
The same aversion he had for the reading of frivolous books, even if they were
not immoral. He found his greatest delight in reading devout books, and said:
“The reading of devout books is the first step towards a better life.” At the
period in which he lived the principal enjoyments of the higher classes were
music and hawking; and, as he could not abstain from them entirely, he took
care, at such times, to raise his thoughts to the Almighty, and to mortify
himself. Thus, when he went hawking, he closed his eyes at the very moment when
the hawk swooped; the sight of which, they say, was the chief pleasure of this
kind of hunting.
The Almighty, to draw
His servant entirely away from the world, sent him several severe maladies,
which made him recognize the instability of all that is earthly. He became more
fully aware of this after the death of the Empress, whose wondrous beauty was
everywhere extolled. By the order of the Emperor, it becarhe the duty of
Francis to escort the remains to the royal vault at Granada. There the coffin
was opened before the burial took place, and the sight that greeted the
beholders was most awful. Nothing was left of the beautiful Empress but a
corpse, so disfigured, that all averted their eyes, whilst the odor it exhaled
was so offensive that most of the spectators were driven away.
Saint Francis was most
deeply touched, and when, after the burial, he went into his room, prostrated
himself before the crucifix, and having given vent to his feelings, he
exclaimed: “No, no, my God! in future 1 will have no master whom death can take
from me.” He then made a vow that he would enter a religious order, should he
survive his consort. He often used to say afterwards: “The death of the Empress
awakened me to life.” When Francis returned from Granada the Emperor created
him Viceroy of Catalonia, and in this new dignity the holy Duke continued to
lead rather a religious than a worldly life. He had a fatherly care for his
subjects, and every one had at all hours admittance to him. Towards the poor he
manifested great kindness. He daily gave four or five hours to prayer. He
fasted almost daily, and scourged himself to blood. He assisted at Mass, and
received Holy Communion every day. When he heard that disputes had arisen among
the theologians at the universities, in regard to the frequent use of Holy
Communion, he wrote to Saint Ignatius, at Rome, and asked his opinion on the
subject. Saint Ignatius wrote back to him, approving of the frequent use of
Holy Communion, and strengthening him in his thoughts about it Meanwhile, the
death of his father brought upon him the administration of his vast estates,
without, however, in the least changing his pious manner of living. Scon after
his pious consort, who was his equal in virtue, became sick. Francis prayed
most fervently to God for her recovery. One da y, while he was thus praying, he
heard an interior voice, which said these words: “If you desires that thy
consort should recover, thy wish shall be fulfilled, but it will not benefit
thee.” Frightened at these words, he immediately conformed his own will in all
things to the Divine will. From that moment the condition of the Duchess grew
worse, and she died, as she had lived, piously and peacefully. Saint Francis,
remembering his vow, determined to execute it without delay. Taking counsel of
God and of his confessor, he chose the Society of Jesus, which had recently
been instituted. Writing to Saint Ignatius, he asked for admittance, which was
cheerfully granted. But, to settle his affairs satisfactorily, he was obliged
to remain four years longer in his offices. Having at length, by the permission
of the Emperor, resigned his possessions to his eldest son, he took the
religious habit, and proceeded to Rome. Scarcely four months had elapsed since
his arrival, when he was informed that the Pope wished to make him a cardinal;
and, to avoid this dignity, he returned to Spain- Being ordained priest, he
said his first Mass in the chapel of the Castle of Loyola, where Saint Ignatius
had been born; and then spent a few years in preaching and instructing the people.
It would take more space than is allowed to us to relate how many sinners he
converted, and how much he labored for the honor of God and the salvation of
souls. During this time he visited Charles V., in the solitude which this great
Emperor had chosen to pass his last days, after he had abdicated his throne. At
length, Saint Francis was recalled to Rome, where he was, much against his
will, elected General of the Society of Jesus. He fulfilled the many and
arduous duties of this office with the utmost diligence; his greatest care
being to further the honor of God and the salvation of souls. To effect this he
founded colleges in many cities, and sent apostolic men into all parts of the
world to convert the heathen. In all the persecutions of the Society he placed
his trust in God. He used to say that the Society was hated and persecuted,
first by the heretics and infidels; secondly, by those who led a godless life;
and thirdly, by those who were not well informed as to the end and aim which
its members had in view. When he had for seven years most wisely governed the
Society, the Pope sent him, on most important business of the Church, to Spain,
Portugal, and France. This long and painful journey, with the labors of his
mission, exhausted his strength so that he fell ill before he had reached Rome
on his return. Perceiving the danger in which he was, he made all possible
haste, but visited on his way the holy house of Loretto, to commend himself to
the protection of the Blessed Virgin. When at last he arrived at Rome, more
dead than alive, he prepared himself without delay to receive the last
Sacraments. The time still left him on earth he passed in devout exercises; and
therefore declined to receive the visits even of bishops and cardinals, saying
that he had now to do only with God, the Lord of life and death. Before his
death, while silently praying, he fell into an ecstasy; and after it, full of
confidence and hope, he gave his soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father, in
the year 1572. His body was looked upon and honored as that of a Saint, by the
prelates of the Church, as well as by the laity; and God approved their
veneration by many miracles.
Still clearer proofs of
the holiness of the Saint were the virtues by which he shone as well in his
religious life, as while he was in the world at his father’s house and at
Court. Those who frequently made use of his advice, among whom was Saint
Teresa, looked upon him as a Saint; and this was also the opinion of many
others, who knew his holy manner of living. We have not space to speak of all
his virtues; but one of them we cannot pass over in silence. This is the virtue
of humility, or of despising all worldly honors. His humility was as deep and
admirable as his birth and the dignities conferred upon him were high. It was
through humility that he, more than once, refused the Cardinal’s hat. As much
as others desire praise, so much did he prefer to be despised. He was never
heard to say a word in praise of himself, neither would he allow others to
extol him. His signature to his letters was generally, “Francis, the sinner.”
He esteemed himself worthy of no honor, but only of punishment and disdain.
When, in travelling, he was taken to a miserable inn and ill served, he uttered
not a word of complaint, but said that it was better lhan he deserved. As
General of the Society, he performed the lowest work in the house. He served
the cook, gave food to the poor at the door, swept the house, and carried
baskets of bread and other food to the indigent. The many wrongs and injuries
which God permitted to be done him; the many persecutions which he innocently
suffered; the pains of several maladies, – all these he bore, not only with
Christian patience, but with joy and a desire to suffer still more. He often
prayed most earnestly to God to give him still greater crosses, as he believed
that his sins deserved more punishment. This admirable humility was the result
of his severe and daily mortification. Hence it came that he was indefatigable
in practising penance. He was very corpulent as Duke, but afterwards became so
reduced by fasting that he could fold his skin, in the breadth of a yard, like
a coat around him. He made the food he took disagreeable by adding to it
several bitter herbs. When sick he took his remedies very slowly, the longer to
taste their bitterness. He scourged himself daily most mercilessly, and it was
known that he gave himself as many as eight hundred strokes. Around his body he
constantly wore a sharp-pointed iron girdle. In one word, there was no kind of
humiliation and mortification which he could think of that he did not practise.
Hence it is not to be wondered at that God, who exalts those who humble
themselves, gave to Saint Francis the gifts of prophecy, of freeing the
possessed, curing the sick, and of working other miracles.
.JPG)
Church of São Jerónimo de Real, Braga, Portugal.
Practical Considerations
• Saint Francis
instituted at his court, before he entered a religious life, the veneration of
the Saints of the Month. Every Catholic, besides worshipping the Almighty,
ought to honor the Saints. We should especially honor the Divine Mother, as the
Queen of all the Saints; then, the foster-father of Christ, Saint Joseph; and
further, our Guardian Angel and Patron Saint. Besides this, we ought to select
some special Patrons for whom we feel particular esteem and love. It is also
very beneficial to adopt the practise of the monthly Patrons. This consists in
selecting, on the last day of every month, a Saint whose festival will be
celebrated during the following month. Daily should he be invoked and honored.
If possible his life should be read and something from it be selected for
imitation. We may also approach the Sacraments on his festival, or on the
Sunday after it; and employ a little more time than usual in good works. It is
known that several great servants of God, at the end of their days, called upon
the Saints whom they had honored as their monthly Patrons during life, and it
cannot be doubted that they received benefit and comfort. “Every one,” says
Saint Bonaventure, “ought to venerate an especial Saint with great devotion. To
him he ought daily to commend himself, and practise some good work in his
honor.”
• The contemplation of
the corpse of the empress who had been celebrated for her beauty, caused Saint
Francis to despise the world, and to make the heroic resolution to serve God
alone. Oh! that those blind persons, who are so enchanted by the beauty of a
mortal being, that they forfeit for it their souls and their salvation, would
earnestly reflect how the body of that human being will look, after the soul
has left it. Nobody can then remain near it; it awakens the disgust of all who
look at it. They hurry it out of the house and bury it under the ground; and
then happens what Holy Writ says: “For when a man dies, he shall inherit
serpents and beasts and worms;” (Eccl. 10) and at last it will be reduced to
dust and ashes. Is it possible that one can know and believe this, and yet
forfeit heaven for the love of so perishable a body? And if you take pride in
your own beauty, think how you will look in a short time. Your body will not
fare better than the corpse of the beautiful empress. Worms will devour it. How
blindly do you therefore act, if you are now more anxious for its beauty and
comfort, than for your immortal soul. Ah! determine, after the example of Saint
Francis, to be more concerned for your salvation. Resolve to serve God
constantly, and with more zeal. “Why are you so solicitous to indulge, to adorn
your body, which, in a few days, will be the food of worms? Why do you give so
little care to the welfare and beauty of your soul, which must appear before
the Lord, your God?” asks Saint Bernard. “Consider well, that your body, which
you nourish now with delicious food, will shortly be food for worms, and the
stench of it will be so much more horrible,” says Saint Peter Damian.
MLA Citation
- Father Francis Xavier
Weninger, DD, SJ. “Saint Francis Borgia, Confessor”. Lives of the Saints, 1876. CatholicSaints.Info. 10 May 2018.
Web. 12 November 2020.
<https://catholicsaints.info/weningers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-francis-borgia-confessor/>
SOURCE
: https://catholicsaints.info/weningers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-francis-borgia-confessor/
St. Francis Borgia, Confessor
A.D. 1572
His life, compiled by F. Ribadeneira, who was nine years his confessor, is the master-piece of that pious author, who, by his acquaintance with the holy man, and his own experience in an interior life, was excellently qualified to animate in his expression the narrative of the actions of the saint with that spirit with which they were performed. The Latin translation of this life by F. And. Scot is looser than that extant in old French, made by the lord of Betencour. This valuable work is exceedingly improved by F. Verjus, a French Jesuit, who has retained the entire spirit and piety of the original, in the life he has compiled of this saint, in a smooth, elegant, and florid style; in which performance he had also recourse to the life of St. Francis Borgia, written by F. Eusebius of Nieremberg, in 1644, to a third life, which was only in MS. though written the first in time, soon after the saint’s death, by F. Dionysius Vasquez, who had been nine years the saint’s confessor, and had lived with him a much longer time. This MS. history wants method: the original is kept in the professed house of the Jesuits at Valencia in Spain. F. Verjus also quotes large MS. memorial with which he was furnished by the saint’s decendants who flourish to this day in several illustrious branches in Spain, the chief of which is the duke of Gandia. See also F. Orlandini, Hist. Societ. l. 8, and chiefly F. Sachini, ib. t. 3, or Borgia. Likewise F. Bartoli’s curious additional anecdotes of this history collected from the archives of the Professed House at Rome.
Many Christians seem afraid of following Jesus Christ
with their whole hearts, and live as if they were for compounding with God and
the world. These persons have a very false idea of virtue, which they measure
only by their want of courage. If they once opened their hearts to the divine
grace, and were sincerely resolved to spare nothing that they might learn to
die to themselves, and to put on the spirit of Christ, they would find all
their pretended difficulties to be only shadows; for, by the omnipotent power
of grace, the roughest deserts are changed into smooth and agreeable paths
under the feet of the just man. This Saint Francis Borgia experienced, both in
a private life in the world, at court, in a religious retirement, and in the
functions of an apostolic life. Saint Francis Borgia, fourth duke of Gandia,
and third general of the Jesuits, was son to John Borgia, duke of Gandia, and
grandee of Spain, and of Joanna of Arragon, daughter of Alphonso, natural son
to Ferdinand V. king of Arragon, who was also regent of Castile for his
daughter Joanna, and his grandson Charles, afterwards emperor. Ferdinand, who,
by taking Granada in 1491, had put an end to the reign of the Moors in Spain,
and by marrying Isabel, the heiress of Castile, united that whole monarchy in
his family, was great-grandfather to our saint. The family of Borgia or Borja,
had long flourished in Spain; but received a new lustre by the exaltation of
cardinal Alphonso Borgia to the pontificate, under the name of Calixtus III in
1455. Saint Francis was born in 1510, at Gandia, a town which was the chief
seat of the family, in the kingdom of Valencia. His pious mother had a great
devotion to Saint Francis of Assisium, and in the pangs of a dangerous labour
made a vow, that if she brought forth a son he should be called Francis. As
soon as he began to speak, his parents taught him to pronounce the holy names
of Jesus and Mary, which he used often to repeat with wonderful seriousness. At
five years of age he recited every day on his knees the chief parts of the
catechism. All his diversion was to set up pious pictures, make little altars,
imitate the ceremonies of the church, and teach them to the little boys who
were his pages. From the cradle he was mild, modest, patient, and affable to
all. The noble sentiments of gratitude and generosity which he then began to
discover, were certain presages of an innate greatness of soul; the former
being inseparable from a goodness of heart, and the latter, when regulated by
prudence and charity, being the greatest virtue of a prince, who is raised
above others only that he may govern, and do good to mankind.
Francis, at seven years of age, could read his mother
tongue, and the Latin office of the Blessed Virgin very distinctly. His father,
therefore, thought it time for him to learn writing and grammar, for which
purpose he appointed him a preceptor of known prudence, learning, and piety,
who was called Dr. Ferdinand. At the same time he was furnished with a
governor, whose business it was at different hours to fashion the young prince
to the exercises that were suitable to his birth, in proportion as his age was
capable of them. It was the first care of the parents, in the choice of the
masters whom they placed about their son, that they were persons of uncommon
piety, whose example might be a continual lesson of virtue, and whose
instructions should all ultimately tend to the grafting in his mind true
sentiments of morality and religion, without which all other accomplishments
lose their value. Learning, good-breeding, and other such qualifications, are
useful and necessary instructions and helps; but these never make the man:
every one is properly only such as the principles and maxims are by which he is
governed. It is by these that a man’s life is guided; if they are false or
depraved, his understanding is deprived of the light of truth, his heart is
corrupted, and it is impossible he should not go astray, and fall headlong down
the precipices which the world and his passions prepare for him. It is
therefore the first duty of every parent and master to study, by every means,
to cure the passions of youth, to begin this by repressing their exterior
effects, and removing all occasions and incentives; then to instil into their
minds the strongest antidotes, by which he may be enabled and encouraged to
expel their poison: and for this task no age is too early or tender; for if the
mind has once taken any wrong bent, it becomes infinitely more painful and
difficult to redress it. Opportunities are also to be taken in all studies of
seasonably and strongly inculcating short lessons of religion, and all virtues.
By this means their seeds are to be sown in such a manner in a tender heart,
that they may shoot deep roots, and gather such strength as to be proof against
all storms. Our saint was blessed by God with such dispositions to virtue, and
so good a capacity for his studies, that in all these parts of his education
his masters found his task both agreeable and easy. Before he was ten years old
he began to take wonderful delight in hearing sermons, and spent much time in
devotion, being tenderly affected to the Passion of our divine Redeemer, which
he honoured with certain daily exercises. In his tenth year, his pious mother
fell dangerously ill; on which occasion, Francis, shutting himself up in his
chamber, prayed for her with abundance of tears, and after his devotions, took
a sharp discipline a long time together. This was the first time he used that
practice of mortification, which he afterwards frequently made a part of his
penance. It pleased God that the duchess died of that distemper in 1520. This
loss cost Francis many tears, though he moderated his grief by his entire
resignation to the divine will. Her pious counsels had always been to him a
great spur to virtue; and he took care never to forget them.
At that time Spain was filled with tumults and
insurrections of the common people against the regency (1). The rebels taking their
advantage of the absence of the young king, Charles V. (who was then in
Germany, where he had been chosen emperor) plundered the houses of the nobility
in the kingdom of Valencia, and made themselves masters of the town of Gandia.
The duke fled with his whole family. Going to Saragossa, he left his son
Francis, then twelve years old, under the care of the archbishop, John of
Arragon, who was his uncle, being brother to his deceased mother. The
archbishop made up a household for his nephew, and provided him with masters in
grammar, music, and fencing, which he had begun to learn at Gandia. The young
nobleman laboured at the same time to improve daily in grace and in every
virtue. Two sermons which he heard an Hieronymite friar, who was his
confessarius, and a learned and spiritual man, preach, one on the last
judgment, the other on the passion of Christ, made strong impressions on his mind,
so that he remained ever after exceedingly terrified at the consideration of
the divine judgments, and, on the other side, conceived an ardent desire to lay
down his life for the love of his divine Redeemer, who died for him. Going to
Baëza to see his great grandmother, Donna Maria de Luna, wife of Don Henriquez,
uncle and master of the household to King Ferdinand, and great commander of
Leon, with several other relations, he was confined there six months by a
grievous fit of illness; during which time he gave great proofs of admirable
patience and humility. From Baëza he was sent to Tordesillas, to be taken into
the family and service of the infanta Catharine, sister to Charles V. who was
soon after to be married to John III. king of Portugal. The marriage was
accomplished in 1525; but when the infanta went into Portugal, the Duke of
Gandia, who had greater views for his son in Spain, recalled him, and engaged
the archbishop of Saragossa to reassume the care of his education.
Francis was then fifteen years old, and after he had
finished rhetoric, studied philosophy two years under an excellent master with
extraordinary diligence and applause. Many so learn these sciences as to put on
in their thoughts and expressions a scholastic garb, which they cannot lay
aside, so that their minds may be said to be cast in Gothic moulds. Hence it
has become a proverb, that nothing is more horrid than a mere scholar, that is
a pedant, who appears in the world to have reaped from his studies scarcely any
other advantage than to be rendered by them absolutely unfit for civilized
society. Nothing contributes more to improve all the faculties of the human
mind than a well-regulated and well-digested course of studies, especially of
the polite arts and philosophy; but then these must be polished by a genteel
address and expression, by great sentiments of modesty and generosity, by a
fine carriage suitable to a person’s rank, and by sincere Christian virtue. The
prudent archbishop was solicitous to procure his nephew all these advantages.
He was particularly careful to make his pupil active and laborious, by seeing
that he went from one employment to another, without leaving any void or
unprofitable time between them; nor did his masters fix the end of their
instructions in the letter of his studies; but made use of everything in them
to frame his judgment, and form in him true taste; and they taught him to refer
everything to virtue. This seemed the natural bent of the young nobleman’s
soul, and in the eighteenth year of his age he had strong inclinations to a
religious state. The devil raised up instruments to second his attack, and
assailed the servant of God with most violent temptations of impurity, in order
to profane that pure soul which God had consecrated to himself. Francis opposed
to this dangerous enemy very frequent confession, fervent prayer, reading pious
books, mortification, humility, distrust in himself, and a firm confidence in
God, whose mercy alone bestows the inestimable gift of chastity, and to whom
this glorious victory belongs. By these means the saint triumphed over this
passion, and had preserved his virginal purity unspotted, when providence fixed
him in the holy state of marriage. His father and uncle, to divert his thoughts
from a religious life, removed him from Saragossa to the court of Charles V. in
1528, where they hoped his thoughts would take a different turn. The ripeness
of his judgment and prudence were such as seldom appear in a more advanced age;
and by his virtue, and his unaffected obsequiousness, and assiduity in serving
his prince, he could not fail of gaining a high place in his favour. Francis
had a heart not insensible to the motives of such an honour, and full of tender
sentiments of gratitude and generosity; but still more of those of religion. He
considered his duty to his prince as his duty to God; and though he willingly
accepted of every mark of his prince’s regard for him, he was very solicitous
in all things to refer himself, his actions, and whatever he received from God,
purely to the divine honour. The perfect sanctification of his own soul was his
great and constant aim in all he did. As religious exercises themselves,
without regularity, can never be steady, and without this advantage lose a
considerable part of their lustre and merit, Francis was extremely exact in
regulating both his personal devoirs, and the principal duties of his family.
In it hours were appointed for every one to go every day to mass; for evening
prayers, for pious reading, and meals. He heard sermons as often as possible,
and conversed much with pious persons, went to confession almost every Sunday,
and on all great festivals. It was also a part of his care that his whole
family should spend well those days which are particularly set apart for the
divine service. It is indeed from the manner in which a Christian employs them,
that we may form an idea of his conduct with regard to his general practice and
sense of religion.
Saint Francis, though he delighted chiefly in the
company of the most virtuous, was courteous and obliging to all, never spoke
ill of any one, nor ever suffered others to do it in his presence. He was a
stranger to envy, ambition, gallantry, luxury, and gaming; vices which are
often too fashionable in courts, and against which he armed himself with the
utmost precaution. He not only never played, but would never see others
playing, saying that a man commonly loses by it four things, his money, his
time, the devotion of his heart to God, and his conscience. One of his servants
discovered, that on the days on which he was obliged to visit company in which
ladies made a part, he wore a hair-shirt. In him it appeared, that there is no
readier way to gain the esteem of men, though without seeking it, than by the
heroic practice of Christian virtue. Nothing is so contemptible even amongst
men of the world, as insolence, pride, injustice, or anger; nothing so hateful
as one who loves nobody but himself, refers everything to himself, and makes
himself the centre of all his desires and actions. Nor is there anything more
amiable than a man who seeks not himself, but refers himself to God, and seeks
and does all things for God, and the service of others; in which Christian
piety consists. The wicked themselves find no more solid comfort or protection
in affliction than the friendship of such a person; even those who persecute
him, because his virtue is a censure of their irregularities, nevertheless
admire in their breasts that sincere piety which condemns them. This is more
conspicuous when such a virtue shines forth in an exalted station. It is not
therefore to be wondered that Francis was honoured and beloved by all the
court, particularly by the emperor, who called him the miracle of princes.
The empress had so great an esteem for him, and so
high an idea of his merit, that she fixed her eye on him to marry Eleanor de
Castro, a Portuguese lady of the first rank, a person of great piety and
accomplishments, her principal favourite, who had been educated with her, and
whom she had brought with her out of Portugal. The emperor was well pleased
with the proposal, and concluded a treaty with the Duke of Gandia for his son’s
marriage. The great qualities and virtue of the lady, and his deference for the
emperor and his father, did not allow Francis long to deliberate upon so
advantageous an offer, which opened to him a road to the highest favours of the
court. The marriage was solemnized in the most Christian manner; to which state
the saint brought the best preparation, innocence of life with unsullied purity,
and an ardent spirit of religion and devotion. The emperor on that occasion
created him Marquis of Lombay, and master of the horse to the empress, and
having had experience of his wisdom, secrecy, and fidelity, not only admitted
him into his privy-council, but took great delight in conferring often
privately with him upon his most difficult undertakings, and communicated to
him his most important designs. The marquis, to rid himself of the
importunities of those who followed more dangerous diversions, spent some of
his time in music, played on several instruments, and sung very well; he also
set poetical pieces to music, and composed cantatas which were sung in some
churches in Spain, and called the compositions of the Duke of Gandia; but he
never could bear any profane songs. It was to please the emperor, who was fond
of hawking, that he first followed that diversion, always in his majesty’s
company; he was afterwards very expert, and took much delight in it. He
sometimes mentioned the aspirations with which he entertained his soul on those
occasions, sometimes admiring and adoring the Creator in the instinct of a bird
or beast, or in the beauty of the fields and heavens; sometimes considering the
obedience and docility of a bird, and the disobedience of man to God; the
gratitude of a wild and fierce beast or bird, which being furnished with a
little food, forgets its natural ferocity, and is made tame; yet man is
ungrateful to God from whom he receives all things; the hawk soars to heaven as
soon as its pinion is at liberty; yet man’s soul grovels on the earth. In such
like reflections and self-reproaches the pious marquis was often much affected
and confounded within himself, and to pursue his pious meditations he often
left the company to hide himself in some thicket. The emperor studied
mathematics, and Francis made use of the same master to learn those sciences,
especially the branches which are most useful for fortifying towns, and the
whole military art, on which subjects his majesty frequently conversed with
him. The emperor made him his companion in his expedition into Africa against
Barbarossa in 1535, and in another which he undertook against France into
Provence in 1536, whence he despatched him to the empress to carry her news of
his health and affairs.
Under a violent fever with which the marquis was
seized in 1535, he made a resolution to employ for his ordinary reading no
other books but those of piety, especially devout instructions, the Lives of
Saints, and the holy scripture, particularly the New Testament, with a good
commentator; in reading which he often shut his book to meditate on what he had
read. In 1537, being at the court, which was then at Segovia, he fell sick of a
dangerous quinsy, in which he never ceased praying in his heart, though he was
not able to pronounce the words. These accidents were divine graces which
weaned Francis daily more and more from the world; though, whilst it smiled
upon him, he saw the treachery, the shortness, and the dangers of its
flattering enjoyments, through that gaudy flash in which it danced before his
eyes. Others receive the like frequent admonitions, but soon drown them in the
hurry of pleasures or temporal affairs in which they plunge their hearts. But
none of those calls were lost on Francis. His life at court had always appeared
a model of virtue; but as he had not yet learned perfectly to die to himself, a
mixture of the world found still a place in his heart, and his virtues were
very imperfect. He even feared and bitterly accused himself that he had
sometimes in his life been betrayed into mortal sin; but God was pleased to
call him perfectly to his service. In 1537 died his grandmother, Donna Maria
Henriquez, called in religion Mary Gabriel. She was cousin-german to King
Ferdinand, and married John Borgia, the second duke of Gandia. By his sudden
death she remained a widow at nineteen years of age, having had by him two
children, John, our saint’s father, and Isabel, who became a Poor Clare at
Gandia, who was afterwards chosen abbess of that house, and was eminent for her
extraordinary devotion, and love of extreme poverty and penance. Mary, her
mother, after having brought up and married her son, and seen the birth of our
saint, entered the same austere Order, in the thirty-fourth year of her age. The
physicians declared, that if she embraced so severe a manner of life, she could
not live one year; (2) nevertheless, she survived in it thirty-three years,
living the most perfect model of humility, poverty, recollection, and penance,
under obedience to her own daughter, who was abbess of that monastery. She met
death with so much joy, that in her agony she desired a Te Deum might be sung
as soon as she should have expired, in thanksgiving for her happy passage from
this world to God. The marquis used afterwards to say, that from the time that
his grandmother went to heaven he found his soul animated with new strength and
courage to devote himself most perfectly to the divine service. God blessed his
marriage with a numerous and happy offspring, five boys and three girls:
Charles, the eldest, who was duke of Gandia, when Ribadeneira wrote the life of
our saint; Isabel, John, Alvarez, Johanna, Fernandez, Dorothy, and Alphonsus.
Dorothy died young a Poor Clare at Gandia; the rest all married, enjoyed different
titles and posts of honour, and left families behind them.
Saint Francis was much affected at the death of his
intimate friend, the famous poet, Garcilas de Vega, who was killed at the siege
of a castle in Provence, in 1537. The death of the pious Empress Isabel
happened two years after, on the 1st of May, 1539, whilst the emperor was
holding the states of Castile at Toledo with the utmost pomp and magnificence.
His majesty was much afflicted for the loss of so virtuous a consort. The
Marquis and Marchioness of Lombay were commissioned by him to attend her corpse
to Granada, where she was to be buried. When the funeral convoy arrived at
Granada, and the marquis delivered the corpse into the hands of the magistrates
of that city, they were on both sides to make oath that it was the body of the
late empress. The coffin of lead was therefore opened, and her face was
uncovered, but appeared so hideous and so much disfigured that no one knew it,
and the stench was so noisome that every body made what haste he could away.
Francis not knowing the face would only swear it was the body of the empress,
because, from the care he had taken, he was sure nobody could have changed it
upon the road. Being exceedingly struck at this spectacle, he repeated to
himself: “What is now become of those eyes, once so sparkling? Where is now the
beauty and graceful air of that countenance, which we so lately beheld? Are you
her sacred majesty, Donna Isabel? Are you my empress, and my lady, my
mistress?” The impression which this spectacle made on his soul remained strong
and lively during the thirty-three years that he survived it, to his last
breath. Returning that evening from the royal chapel to his lodgings he locked
himself up in his chamber, and passed the whole night without a wink of sleep.
Prostrate on the floor, shedding a torrent of tears, he said to himself, “What
is it, my soul, that I seek in the world? How long shall I pursue and grasp at
shadows? What is she already become, who was lately so beautiful, so great, so
much revered? This death which has thus treated the imperial diadem, has
already levelled his bow to strike me. Is it not prudent to prevent its stroke,
by dying now to the world, that at my death I may live to God?” He earnestly
conjured his Divine Redeemer to enlighten his soul, to draw him out of the
abyss of his miseries, and to assist him by his all-powerful grace, that with
his whole heart he might serve that master of whom death could not rob him. The
next day, after the divine office and mass in the great church, the celebrated
and holy preacher, John of Avila, made the funeral sermon, in which, with a
divine unction and energy, he set forth the vanity and deceitfulness of all the
short-lived enjoyments of this world, false and empty in themselves, and which
entirely vanish when death cuts the thread of our life, and overturns at once
all those castles which our foolish imagination has raised in the air. He then
spoke of the eternal glory or misery which follows death, and of the
astonishing madness of those who in this moment of life neglect to secure what
is to them of such infinite importance. This discourse completed the entire
conversion of the marquis, who, that afternoon, sent for the preacher, laid
open to him the situation of his soul, and his desires of bidding adieu to the
world. The holy director confirmed him in his resolution of quitting the court,
where a soul is always exposed to many snares, and of entering upon a new
course of serving God with the utmost fervour. Francis determined upon the spot
to forsake the court, and soon after made a vow to embrace a religious state of
life if he should survive his consort.
At his return to Toledo the emperor made him viceroy
of Catalonia, and created him knight and commander of the Order of Saint James,
or of the Red Cross, the most honourable in Spain. Barcelona was the residence
of his government; and no sooner had he taken possession of his post, but he
changed the whole face of the province. The highways were cleared of robbers;
against their bands the viceroy marched in person, and caused the criminals to
be rigorously executed, having first provided them with the best spiritual
assistance to prepare them for their punishment and death. He carefully watched
the judges, obliging them to administer justice impartially, and to despatch
lawsuits with all reasonable expedition. He set up, in all parts of the
province, schools and seminaries for youth, and assisted debtors and all
distressed persons with extraordinary charities. The great duties of his
charge, to which he applied himself with unwearied diligence, and which made
him at once the judge, the father, and the protector of a numerous people, were
no impediments to his exercises of religion. Four or five hours together were
devoted by him to mental and vocal prayer every morning as soon as he rose,
without any prejudice to public affairs or neglect of his family. He added to
every hour of the divine office, which he said every day, a meditation on a
station of our Saviour’s passion so as to accompany him every day through all
its parts, from the garden to the sepulchre. He performed daily devotions to
our Lady, in which he meditated on the principal mysteries and virtues of her
life. At the times in which he gave audience or applied himself to business, he
had God always present to his mind. When he was obliged to assist at public
entertainments or diversions, his mind was usually so absorbed in God that if
he was afterwards asked about them, he could give no account of what had passed
or been said at them. Tears of devotion often gushed from his eyes, even in the
midst of business, and he would sometimes thus address himself to God: “Who
could ever soften this heart of mine, which is harder than flint or adamant,
but you alone, O Lord! You, O God of mercies, who could draw fountains of water
from a rock, and raise up sons of Abraham out of stones, could change a stony
heart into one of flesh.” His austerities were excessive. He entirely laid
aside suppers that he might employ that time in prayer. Having passed two lents
without taking any other sustenance than once a day a mess of leeks, or some
pulse with a piece of bread, and a cup of water to drink, he was desirous to
fast in that manner a whole year. At the same time he kept a table suitable to
his rank, for the lords who visited him, and the officers who attended him;
dining with his company he ate his leeks or pulse very slowly, and conversed
facetiously with them that no one might observe him, if possible, though at
table his discourse generally turned on piety. His watchings, disciplines, and
other austerities were very severe. By this rigorous way of living he, who was
before very fat, became so lean that his servant found his clothes grown about
half a yard too big for him within the space of a year. He used often to say:
“We must make our way towards eternity, never regarding what men think of us or
our actions, studying only to please God.” Knowing the obligation of dying
perfectly to ourselves, this he endeavoured to effect from the beginning of his
conversion by humiliations, and a sovereign contempt of himself. He had
formerly been accustomed to communicate only once a month. Since he had altered
his manner of living, he confessed his sins once every week; communicated in
public on all great festivals, and privately every Sunday, generally with
wonderful spiritual consolations and delights. He sometimes considered the
peace, serenity and solid joy with which divine love fills a soul whose
affections are disentangled from earthly things, and the inexpressible pure
delights and sweetness, which the presence of the Holy Ghost infuses into
hearts which he prepares by his grace to receive his communications; and
comparing these with the foolish, empty, and base satisfactions of worldlings,
he was not able to express his astonishment, but cried out: “O sensual, base,
miserable, and blind life! is it possible that men should be such strangers to
their own happiness, such enemies to themselves, to be fond of thy false
enjoyments, and for their sake to deprive themselves of those that are pure,
permanent, and solid!” This was the life of the devout viceroy when F. Antony
Aroaz, the first professed Jesuit after the ten that were concerned in the
foundation of that Order, came to preach at Barcelona. By his means Francis
became acquainted with this new institute, and the character of its holy
founder, to whom he wrote to consult him whether so frequent communion as once
a week was to be commended in persons engaged in the world. Saint Ignatius, who
was then at Rome, answered him, that frequent communion is the best means to
cure the disorders of our souls, and to raise them to perfect virtue: but
advised him to make choice of a prudent and pious director, and to follow his
advice. Pursuant to this direction Francis continued his weekly communion,
employing three days before it in preparatory exercises, and three days after
it in acts of thanksgiving. From that time he began frequently to make use of
Jesuits for his directors, and to promote the Society of Jesus in Spain, which
had been approved by Paul III. two years before.
During this interval died John, duke of Gandia, his
father, a nobleman of singular virtue. When a person complained that his alms
exceeded his estate, his answer was: “If I had thrown away a larger sum on my
pleasures, no one would have found fault with me. But I had rather incur your
censure, and deprive myself of necessaries, than that Christ’s members should
be left in distress.” Francis was much affected at the news of his death, by
which the title and honours of Duke of Gandia devolved upon him. Shortly after,
he obtained of the emperor, as he passed through Barcelona on his road to
Italy, leave to quit his government; but his majesty insisted that he should
repair to court, and accept of the office of master of the household to the
infanta, Maria of Portugal, daughter to King John III. then upon the point of being
married to Philip, the emperor’s son; but the death of that princess before the
intended marriage set our saint at liberty to follow his own inclinations to a
retired life. He therefore returned to Gandia in 1543, which town he fortified,
that it might not be exposed to the plunders of the Moors and pirates from
Barbary. He built a convent for the Dominicans at Lombay, repaired the
hospital, and founded a college of Jesuits at Gandia. His duchess Eleanor, who
concurred with him in all his pious views, fell sick of a lingering distemper,
during which Francis continued to fast, pray, and give large alms for her
recovery. One day as he was praying for her, prostrate in his closet, with
great earnestness, he was on a sudden visited with an extraordinary interior
light in his soul, and heard, as it were, a voice saying distinctly within him:
“If thou wouldst have the life of the duchess prolonged, it shall be granted;
but it is not expedient for thee.” This he heard so clearly and evidently that,
as he assured others, he could not doubt, either then or afterwards, but it was
a divine admonition. He remained exceedingly confounded; and penetrated with a
most sweet and tender love of God, and bursting into a flood of tears he
addressed himself to God as follows: “O my Lord and my God, leave not this,
which is only in thy power, to my will. Who art Thou but my Creator and
sovereign good? and who am I but a miserable creature? I am bound in all things
to conform my will to thine. Thou alone knowest what is best, and what is for
my good. As I am not my own, but altogether thine, so neither do I desire that
my will be done, but thine, nor will I have any other will but thine. Do what
thou pleasest with the life of my wife, that of my children, and my own, and
with all things thou hast given me.” Thus in all our prayers which we put up to
God for health, life, or any temporal blessings, we should only ask that he
grant them in mercy, and so far only as he sees expedient for our spiritual
good. The duke made this oblation of himself and all things that he possessed
with extraordinary fervour and resignation. From that day the duchess grew every day sensibly much
worse, and died on the 27th of March, 1546, leaving the duke a widower in the
thirty-sixth year of his age. Her great piety, and the heroic practices of all
Christian virtues by which she prepared herself for her passage, gave him the
greatest comfort under his loss by an assured hope of her eternal happiness. A
few days after her death, F. Peter Le Fevre or Faber, Saint Ignatius’s first
associate in founding his Order, came to Gandia. He was then leaving Spain to
go into Italy, and was ordered by Saint Ignatius to call upon the Duke of
Gandia in his way. Our saint made a retreat under his direction according to the
spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius, and rejoiced exceedingly that he had
found in this experienced director such a spiritual master and guide as he
wished. With him the saint agreed upon the execution of a design he had formed
of founding a college of Jesuits at Gandia, and F. Le Fevre, after having said
mass, laid the first stone, the duke the second, and his sons each another, on
the 5th of May, 1546. In favour of this college the duke procured that Gandia
should be honoured by the pope and emperor with the privileges of a university.
F. Le Fevre died on the 1st of August the same year, 1546, soon after his
arrival at Rome. After his departure from Gandia, Saint Francis from the
conferences he had with him, composed several small treatises of piety, which
show by what exercises he began to lay the foundation of a spiritual life. The
two first of these books treat of the method of acquiring a true knowledge of
ourselves, and sincere humility. (3)
In the mean time,
the good duke took a resolution to consecrate himself to God in some religious
Order, and having long recommended the affair to God, and taken the advice of
learned and pious men, deliberating with himself whether to prefer an active or
a contemplative state, he made choice of the active, and determined to embrace
the society of Jesus, then lately founded, in which he was much delighted with
the zealous views of that holy Order, and with that rule by which all
preferment to ecclesiastical dignities is cut off. He sent his petition for
admittance to Saint Ignatius at Rome by a servant. The holy founder received
his request with great joy; but, in his answer, advised the duke to defer the
execution of his design till he had settled his children, and finished the
foundations he had begun, advising him in the mean time to study a regular
course of theology at Gandia, and to take the degree of doctor in that faculty.
The duke punctually obeyed his directions, but was obliged to assist, in 1547,
at the cortes or general states of three kingdoms, of which that of Arragon was
then compounded, and which were assembled at Monson. The reconciliation of the
nobility, both among themselves and with their sovereign, was the important and
delicate affair which was to be there settled. The emperor, who by former experience
was well acquainted with the extraordinary integrity and abilities of the Duke
of Gandia, had enjoined his son Prince Philip, who held the states, to take
care that he should be appointed tratador or president. By his dexterity and
steady virtue, matters were settled to the satisfaction of all parties, and the
saint delivered himself this last time in which he spoke on the public affairs
of state, in such a manner as to move exceedingly all who heard him. In the
same year he made the first vows of the Society before private witnesses in the
chapel of the college he had founded at Gandia. For Saint Ignatius, knowing the
earnestness of his desire to complete his intended sacrifice, and considering
by how many ties he was held, which it was difficult for him to break at once,
obtained a brief of the pope, by which he was allowed to spend four years in
the world after he should have made his first vows. By them the saint
consecrated himself with his whole heart as an holocaust to God; and, leaving
his castle to his eldest son, retired into a private house, where he studied
the positive and scholastic theology under the learned doctor Perez, whom he
invited from Valencia to settle in his new college at Gandia. The rule of life
which he prescribed himself was as follows: He rose every morning at two
o’clock, spent six hours in private prayers till eight, then went to
confession, heard mass, and received every day the holy communion; which he did
in the great church on Sundays and holidays, on other days in his own private
chapel or that of the nunnery of Saint Clare. At nine o’clock he received his
theological lesson, and studied till almost dinner time, when he took some
moments to give audience to his officers of justice, and despatched business;
he dined at twelve very temperately; after which he spent an hour in giving
useful directions to his children, servants, and others; the afternoons he gave
to his studies, and the evenings to his devotions without ever taking any
supper or collation. In his night examination he was remarkably rigorous in
calling himself to account, and punishing himself for the least failings that
he apprehended. He married his eldest son Charles to Donna Maria Centellas, the
daughter of Francis Centellas, count of Oliva, and Donna Maria Cardona,
daughter to the duke of that name. The saint also made a provision for all his
other children, took the degree of doctor at Gandia, and made his will which
was no difficult task, as by his prudence and economy he was his own executor,
and left no obligations undischarged; only he recommended to his heirs the
protection of his three convents, of the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Poor Clares.
Having finished
his affairs, though the four years which were granted him were not expired, he
set out for Rome in 1549, being accompanied by his second son John, thirty
servants, and some Jesuits who went from their convent at Gandia to a general
chapter which was then held at Rome. In going out of the town of Gandia he sung
those two verses: When Israel went out of Egypt: and, Our soul is escaped as a
bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
In his journey he observed the same rule of life which he had followed the
three last years, spending as much time in prayer, and going to confession, and
receiving the communion every day. Notwithstanding his repugnance, he was
obliged to submit to the magnificent receptions he met with at Ferrara, that of
the Duke of Florence, and at Rome, where he arrived on the 31st of August,
1550. He refused to lodge in the pope’s palace or any other which he was
earnestly pressed to do, and chose a mean cell in the convent of the Jesuits.
Saint Ignatius waited to receive him at the door, and the duke, throwing
himself at his feet, begged his blessing, and honoured him as his father and
superior. After paying his obedience to the pope, and receiving and returning
the visits of all the great men at Rome, he performed his devotions for the
Jubilee. With a considerable sum of money which he brought from Spain he built
a church for the use of the Professed House, and laid the foundation of a great
college of Jesuits called The Roman College; but refused the title and honour
of founder. Pope Gregory XIII., finished it in the most magnificent and
complete manner. From Rome he sent a gentleman who was a domestic client, to
the Emperor in Germany, to beg his license to resign his duchy to his eldest
son. He laments, in his letter to that prince, and accuses himself that, by the
scandalous life he had led in his court, he had deserved hell, and even the
lowest place in hell; earnestly thanks the divine mercy for having borne with
him with infinite goodness and patience; he expresses an humble and tender
gratitude to the fathers of the Society, who, out of compassion for his soul,
had admitted him amongst them to spend the remaining part of his life in
penance and in the divine service. He promises his imperial majesty to pray
that God who had made him victorious over his enemies, would give him the more
important victory over his passions, and himself, and enkindled his pure love
in his soul, with an ardent devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ, so that
the cross should become his delight and his glory. This letter was dated at
Rome the 15th of January, 1551.
Upon a rumour that
Pope Julius III was resolved to promote our saint to the dignity of cardinal,
he obtained the leave of Saint Ignatius, after having staid four months at
Rome, to withdraw privately into Spain, where he lived some time concealed in
Guipuscoa, (a small province in Biscay,) at the castle of Loyola, then retired
to a small convent of his Order at Ognata, a town about four leagues from
Loyola. In this place the emperor’s obliging answer was brought him, in which
his majesty expressed how much he was edified at the exchange he had made of
the world for heaven, and how much he was afflicted to lose him; but ratified
his request, and promised to take his children under his special protection.
The duke having read this letter, retired into an oratory, and, prostrate on
the ground, made the most perfect consecration of himself to God; and desiring
no other riches or possession but him alone, and renouncing in his heart the
whole world, he earnestly begged the grace perfectly to die to himself, that
God alone, or his love, might live and reign in his soul, and that he might
deserve to carry the cross of his Redeemer by the practice of mortification and
poverty. Coming out of his closet he made a solemn renunciation of all his
worldly dignities and possessions according to the legal forms, in favour of
his eldest son, who was absent; then cut his hair, put off his ducal robes, and
put on the Jesuit’s habit. This being done, he went again into the oratory to
renew his offering of himself to God, and to beg his grace that his sacrifice
might be made entire, and he sung with great joy those words of the psalmist: I
am thy servant. This passed in 1551. After the most devout preparation he was
ordained priest on the 1st of August the same year, and said his first mass in
the chapel of Loyola.
The saint begged
of the magistrates of Ognata a small hermitage dedicated in honour of Saint
Mary Magdalen, a mile from that town, and with the leave of his superior
retired thither with certain fathers of the Society, that he might more
heartily devote himself to the practices of humility, penance, and prayer. With
great importunity he obtained leave to serve the cook, fetch water, and carry
wood; he made the fire and swept the kitchen; and when he waited at table, he
often fell on his knees to beg pardon of the fathers and lay-brothers for
having served them ill; and he frequently kissed their feet with extraordinary
affection and humility. He loved and coveted the meanest employs with a sincere
affection of humility, and was delighted to carry a wallet on his shoulders to
beg, especially where he was not known. He often went through the villages with
a bell, calling the children to catechism, and diligently teaching them their
prayers and the Christian doctrine, and instructing and preaching to all ranks,
especially the poor. At the earnest request of the viceroy of Navarre, Don
Bernardin of Cardenas, Duke of Marquede, the saint preached in that country
with incredible fruit, and the duke regulated his whole conduct and all his affairs
by the saint’s direction. The emperor and Pope Julius III. concurred in the
design of adopting Saint Francis into the college of cardinals. Saint Ignatius
fell at the feet of his holiness, begging he would not inflict such a wound on
his Society, by which its fences would be broken down, and one of its most
express rules rendered useless. Saint Francis had recourse to tears, prayer,
and extraordinary mortifications, to avert the danger. When this storm was
blown over, Saint Ignatius sent Saint Francis an order to preach in other parts
of Spain, to which he was invited with great importunity. The success which
every where attended his labours is not to be conceived; and many persons of
the first quality desired to regulate their families and their consciences
entirely by his advice. After doing wonders in Castile and Andalusia, he seemed
to surpass himself in Portugal, especially at Evora and Lisbon. King John III.
had been the warmest protector of the Society from its infancy. His brother the
infant Don Lewis desired to make himself a Jesuit: but Saint Francis and Saint
Ignatius thinking his assistance necessary to the king in the administration of
the public affairs, persuaded him to satisfy himself with following a plan of
life which Saint Francis drew up for him in the world. The most learned doctors
acknowledge that the spiritual wisdom of this saint was not learned from the
books which he was accustomed to read, but from secret humble prayer, and a
close communication with the divine wisdom. Saint Ignatius augmenting the
provinces of the Society in Spain to the number of five, besides the Indies,
appointed Saint Francis commissary-general of the Order in Spain, Portugal, and
the Indies in 1554; but obliged him in the practice of particular austerities
to obey another; for such had always been the fervour of our saint in his
severe penitential exercises, that the holy general had found it necessary from
the beginning of his conversion to mitigate them by strict injunctions. Amidst
the numberless conversions of souls, and the foundations of new houses, Saint
Francis found time and opportunities for his accustomed devotions and
humiliations in serving his brethren and the poor in hospitals and prisons.
When any one was fallen into any fault, he would say to them: “Through my
unworthiness God has permitted such a misfortune to befal you. We will join our
endeavours in doing penance. For my part I will fast or pray, or take a
discipline so and so: what will you do?” On the like occasions such was his
patience and humility, it seemed impossible for any one to resist the force of
his example and charity. Saint Ignatius dying in 1556, F. Laynez was chosen
second general of the Society, Saint Francis being at that time detained in
Spain by a fit of the gout.
The Emperor
Charles V, sated with the emptiness of worldly grandeur, and wearied with the
dissipation, fatigues, and weight of government, forsook the world, abdicated
the empire by a solemn act which he signed at Zuytburg in Zell, on the 7th of
September, 1556, and chose for the place of his retirement a great monastery of
Hieronymites, called Saint Justus, in the most agreeable plains of Placentia,
in Spanish Estramadura, not far from Portugal. Antonio de Vera, (4) De Thou, (5) Surius, (6) Sleidan, and many other historians give us an edifying account of the
life he led in this solitude, applying himself much to pious reading (in which
the works of Saint Bernard were his chiefest delight), to the practices of
devotion, and to frequent meditation on death. That this might make the
stronger impression on his mind, he caused his own funeral office to be
celebrated before he died, and assisted himself at the ceremony, dressed in
black. He worked in his garden, and at making clocks, assisted at all the
divine offices, communicated very often at mass, and took the discipline with
the monks every Friday. As he travelled through Spain to the place of his
retirement, from Biscay, where he landed, he saw himself neglected by the
president of Castile and others who had the greatest obligations to him; and he
found the payments slack of the small pension which was all he had reserved out
of so many kingdoms. Hereupon he let drop some words of complaint; but,
desiring to see F. Francis Borgia, the saint waited upon him, and the emperor
was wonderfully comforted by his discourses. This prince had been prepossessed
against the Society, and expressed his surprise that F. Francis should have
preferred it to so many ancient Orders. The saint removed his prejudices, and
for the motives which had determined him in his choice, he alleged that God had
called him to a state in which the active and contemplative life are joined
together, and in which he was freed from the danger of being raised to
dignities, to shun which he had fled from the world. He added, that if the
Society was a new Order, the fervour of those who are engaged in it answered
that objection. After staying three days with the emperor, he took leave, and
continued his visitation of the colleges and new foundations erected in favour
of his Order in Spain.
The Society
sustained a great loss by the death of John III, the most valiant and pious
king of Portugal, who was carried off by an apoplexy in the year 1557. This
great and religious prince, who had succeeded his father, Emmanuel the Great,
in 1521, during a reign of thirty-six years had laboured with great zeal to
propagate the faith in Asia and Africa, and had founded many colleges and
convents. The crown devolved upon his grandson Sebastian, then only three years
old, his father, the infant John, son to the late king, and his mother, Joanna,
daughter to Charles V., being both dead. His grandmother, Queen Catharine, was
regent of the kingdom, to whom Saint Francis wrote a letter of condolence and
consolation, tenderly exhorting her to praise God for all his mercies, to be
resigned to his holy will, and to have no other view than to advance in his
grace and love. Afterwards the emperor deputed Saint Francis to make his
compliments of condolence to the queen regent, and treat with her about certain
affairs of great importance. A dangerous pestilential fever and her majesty’s
great respect for his person detained him a considerable time in Portugal; but
before the end of the year he went back to the emperor to inform him of the result
of his commission. His majesty soon after sent for him again, and discoursed
with him on spiritual things, especially prayer, works of satisfaction, and
penance, and the making the best preparation for death. The emperor told Saint
Francis that since he had been twenty-one years of age he had never passed a
day without mental prayer, and he asked, among other scruples, whether it was a
sin of vanity in him to have committed to writing several actions of his life,
seeing he had done it for the sake, not of human applause, but of truth, and
merely because he had found them misrepresented in other histories he had read.
Saint Francis left him to go to Valladolid; but had not been there many days
before news was brought of the emperor’s death. That prince, after devoutly
confessing his sins, and receiving the viaticum and the extreme unction,
holding a crucifix in his hands, and repeating the holy name of Jesus, expired
on the 21st of September, 1558. Saint Francis made his funeral panegyric at
Valladolid, insisting on his happiness in having forsaken the world before it
forsook him, in order to complete his victory over himself.
The true greatness
of our saint appeared not in the honours and applause which he often received,
but in the sincere humility which he took care constantly to nourish and
improve in his heart. In these dispositions he looked upon humiliations as his
greatest gain and honour. From the time that he began to give himself totally
to the divine service, he learned the infinite importance and difficulty of
attaining to perfect humility. The most profound interior exercise of that
virtue was the constant employment of his soul. At all times he studied most
perfectly to confound and humble himself in the divine presence beneath all
creatures, and within himself. Amidst the greatest honours and respect that
were shown him at Valladolid, his companion, F. Bustamanti, took notice, that
he was not only mortified and afflicted, but more than ordinarily confounded;
of which he asked the reason. “I considered,” said the saint, “in my morning
meditation, that hell is my due; and I think that all men, even children, and
all dumb creatures ought to cry out to me: Away; hell is thy place; or thou art
one whose soul ought to be in hell.” From this reflection he humbled his soul,
and raised himself to the most ardent love of God, and tender affection towards
the divine mercy. He one day told the novices that, in meditating on the
actions of Christ, he had for six years always placed himself in spirit at the
feet of Judas; but that, considering that Christ had washed the feet of that
traitor, he durst not approach, and from that time looked upon himself as
excluded from all places, and unworthy to hold any in the world, and looked
upon all other creatures with a degree of respect, and at a distance. When the
mules and equipages of many cardinals and princes preceded him, to show him
honour in the entry he made at Rome in 1550, before he had laid aside his
titles and rank in the world, he said: “Nothing is more just than that brute
beasts should be the companions of one who resembles them.” At all
commendations or applause he always shuddered, calling to mind the dreadful
account he must one day give to God, how far he was from the least degree of
virtue, and how base and execrable hypocrisy will appear at the last day. Upon
his renouncing the world, in his letters he subscribed himself Francis the
Sinner, calling this his only title, till Saint Ignatius ordered him to omit
it, as a singularity. In this interior spirit of humility he laid hold of every
opportunity of practising exterior humiliations, as the means perfectly to
extinguish all pride in his heart, and to ground himself in the most sincere
contempt of himself. He pressed with the utmost importunity Don Philip, whilst
that prince was regent of Spain for his father, to extort from him a promise
that he would never concur to his being nominated bishop, or raised to any
other ecclesiastical dignity; adding, that this would be the highest favour he
could receive from him. Others, he said, could live humble in spirit amidst
honours, and in high posts, which the established subordination of the world
makes necessary; but, for his part, it was his earnest desire and ambition to
leave the world in embracing the state of a poor religious man. When a
gentleman, whom John, king of Portugal, sent to compliment him upon his first
coming to Lisbon, used the title of his lordship, the saint was uneasy, and
said, he was indeed tired with his journey, but much more with that word. He
used to say, that he had reaped this only advantage from having been duke, that
he was on that account admitted into the Society; for he should otherwise have
been rejected as unfit and incapable. His greatest delight was to instruct the
poor in places where he was unknown, or to perform the meanest offices in the
convents where he came. It was his ambition at college to teach the lowest
class of grammar, and only dropped that request upon being told he was not
qualified for the task. At Evora, when the whole country assembled to receive
from him some instruction, he threw himself on his knees, and kissed the feet
of all the fathers and lay-brothers: with which act of humility they were more
affected than they could have been by any sermon. At Porto, though commissary
of his Order, he took the keys of the gate, and served as porter. A certain
postulant who was sent thither to him from Seville at that time, in order to be
admitted to the noviciate, found him at the gate among the poor. Saint Francis told
him there was a great heap of filth near them, which he was to carry away, and
asked if he would help him. The postulant readily assented, and they cleansed
the place. When he had eaten something very bitter and very ill dressed, on a
journey, his companion, F. Bustamanti, asked him how he could eat it. His
answer was: “It would seem delicious to one who had tasted of the gall with
which the damned are tormented in hell.” In travelling he generally lay on
straw, or, in winter, in barns. A nobleman, who had been his friend in the
world, asked him how he could rest so ill accommodated, and entreated him to
accept of better lodgings, and, in journies, to send a messenger to prepare
necessaries before he arrived. The saint replied: “I always send a faithful messenger
before me to do all that.” “Who is that?” said the other. “It is,” replied the
saint, “the consideration of what I deserve for my sins. Any lodging appears
too good for one whose dwelling ought to be in hell.” Being once on a journey
with F. Bustamanti, they lay all night together in a cottage upon straw, and F.
Bustamanti, who was very old and asthmatical, coughed and spit all night; and,
thinking that he spit upon the wall, frequently disgorged a great quantity of
phlegm on his face, which the saint never turned from him. Next morning F.
Bustamanti, finding what he had done, was in great confusion, and begged his
pardon. Francis answered: “You have no reason; for you could not have found a
fouler place, or fitter to be spit upon.” Trials which are involuntary are much
more profitable than humiliations of choice, in which self-love easily
insinuates itself. Such, therefore, as Providence sent, the saint most
cheerfully embraced. Amongst others, whilst he was employed at Porto in the
foundation of a convent, he heard that the Inquisition had forbidden the
reading of some of the little tracts he had written whilst he was Duke of
Gandia, upon a groundless suspicion of errors. His silence and modesty on that
occasion seemed at first to embolden his adversaries; but these works were at
last cleared of all suspicions of error, and the censure taken off. Some raised
a clamour against him on account of his former intimacy with the learned
Dominican, Bartholomew Caranza, archbishop of Toledo, whom, at the instigation
of King Philip II., the Inquisition in Spain cast into prison, upon false
surmises; but that prelate was protected by the pope, and at last died at Rome
in peace. Many slanders were raised against the Society in Spain, which
Melchior Cano, the learned bishop of the Canaries, author of the excellent
book, On Theological Commonplaces, suffered himself to be too much carried away
by; but the pious Lewis of Granada and our saint, after some time, dispersed
them.
By the
extraordinary humility of Saint Francis we may form some idea how much he
excelled in all other virtues. No one could be a greater lover of holy poverty
than our saint. This he showed in all his actions. From the day of his
profession he never intermeddled in money concerns, thinking it his happiness
that he was never employed as procurator or dispenser in any house of his
Order. How sparing he was in fire, paper, and clothes is altogether incredible.
One pair of shoes often lasted him two years. The same cassock served him in
journeys, and at home, in all seasons; only in travelling he turned the wrong
side out, that it might be kept neater, and last better. No one could ever
prevail upon him to use boots, or any additional clothing in travelling, in
sharp or rainy weather; and he never seemed better pleased than when he came in
wet and fatigued to a place where neither fire nor any refreshment was to be
had. The Marchioness of Pliego having sent him a present of a pair of warm
stockings, they were laid by his bedside in the night, and his old ones taken
away, in hopes he would not have perceived the change; but in the morning he
was not to be satisfied till the brother had brought him his old darned
stockings. The oldest habit and the meanest cell he sought. The Spanish
ambassador’s sister at Rome once said to him at table: “Your condition,
Francis, is wretched, if, after exchanging your riches for so great poverty,
you should not gain heaven in the end.” “I should be miserable, indeed,” said
the saint; “but as for the exchange, I have been already a great gainer by it.”
A perfect spirit of obedience made him always respect exceedingly all his
superiors: the least intimation of their will he received as if it had been a
voice from heaven. When letters from Saint Ignatius were delivered to him in
Spain, he received them on his knees, and prayed, before he opened them, that
God would give him grace punctually to obey whatever orders they contained.
When he served in the kitchen, he would never stir without the leave of the
brother who was the cook; and when for a long time he was ordered to obey a
lay-brother, called Mark, in all things that regarded his health and diet, he
would neither eat nor drink the least thing without his direction. He used to
say, that he hoped the Society would flourish to the divine honour by three
things: First, the spirit of prayer, and frequent use of the sacraments;
secondly, by the opposition of the world, and by persecutions; thirdly, by the
practice of perfect obedience. Penance is the means by which every Christian
hopes to attain to salvation. Saint Francis usually called it the high road to
heaven; and sometimes he said, he trembled lest he should be summoned before
the tribunal of Christ, before he had learned to conquer himself. For this
grace he prayed daily with many tears. His hair-shirts and disciplines, with
the cloths with which he wiped off the blood, he kept under lock and key whilst
he was viceroy of Catalonia, and whilst he was general of the Society.
Sometimes he put gravel in his shoes when he walked; and daily, by many little
artifices, he studied to complete the sacrifice of his penance, and to overcome
himself. When the cook had one day by mistake made his broth with wormwood,
which he had gathered instead of other herbs, the saint ate it cheerfully
without saying a word. Being asked how he liked it, he said: “I never ate
anything fitter for me.” When others found out the mistake, and the cook in
great confusion asked his pardon: “May God bless and reward you,” said he, “you
are the only person amongst all my brethren, who knows what suits me best.” To
his daughter, the countess of Lerma, when she complained of pain in a fit of
illness, he said: “God sends pain to those who are unwilling to bear it; and
refuses it to those who desire to suffer something for the exercise of patience
and penance.” Such desires in certain fervent penitents, arising from a great
zeal to punish sin in themselves, and subdue sensuality and self-love, ought to
confound our sloth, and love of softness and ease; but it is lawful and
expedient with humility and charity to avoid pain, if it may please God to
remove or mitigate it: though to bear it, when sent by God, with patience and
resignation, is a duty and precept; as it also is so far to practise
mortification, as to endeavour by it to fulfil our penance, and gain the
victory over ourselves. Saint Francis once said to his sister, the Poor Clare
at Gandia: “It is our duty in a religious state to die to ourselves twenty-four
times a day, that we may be able to say with the apostle, I die daily, and be
of the number of those of whom he says: You are dead. (7) In sickness he chewed
bitter pills, and swallowed the most nauseous potions slowly; and being asked
the reason, he said: “This beast (so he often called his body) must suffer to
expiate the delight it formerly took in immoderately flattering its palate; and
can I forget that Christ drank gall for me on his cross!”
Much might be said
on this saint’s singular prudence, on his candour and simplicity in all his
words and actions, and on his tender charity and humanity towards all men.
Though all virtues were eminent in him, none appeared more remarkable than his
spirit of prayer. Dead to the world and to himself, and deeply penetrated with
a sense of his own weakness and spiritual wants on the one hand, and of the
divine goodness and love on the other, he raised his pure affections to God
with unabated ardour. His prayer, even before he left the world, seemed
perpetual; but much more so afterwards. Amidst the greatest hurry of business
he kept himself in the actual presence of God, and often in company appeared
quite absorbed in him. Five or six hours which he dedicated together to prayer
in the morning seemed to him scarcely a quarter of an hour: and, when he came
from that heavenly exercise, his countenance seemed to shine with a dazzling
light. His preparation for mass often held him some hours; and in his
thanksgiving after offering that adorable sacrifice, he sometimes so much
forgot himself, being transported in God, that it was necessary to force him
from church, almost by violence, to dinner. Such were the devotion and modesty
which appeared in his face, that many, whenever they found their souls
spiritually dry, were excited to devotion by seeing and conversing a little
with him. In order to attain the greatest purity of soul possible, he went
twice a-day to confession, with great compunction for the smallest imperfection
in his actions, before mass, and again in the evening; a practice not to be
advised to those who are in danger of doing it negligently, or without
sufficient contrition, and endeavour perfectly to purge their hearts. From the
heavenly sweetness which he tasted in the communication of his soul with God,
he used to express his astonishment at, and compassion for, the blindness of
worldlings, who know not the happiness of a spiritual life, and delight
themselves in the brutal gratifications of sense. The news of the sudden death
of the saint’s dearest daughter, Isabel of Arragon, Countess of Lerma, a lady
of singular piety, and of the greatest endowments, was brought him whilst he
was in the streets of Valladolid, going to court. He stopped, shut his eyes,
prayed secretly for about the space of four minutes, and then went on. At court
he conversed with the princess as usual. In taking leave, he recommended to her
prayers the soul of her late servant Isabel. “What,” said the princess, “has a
father no more feeling for the death of such a daughter?” “Madam,” he replied,
“she was only lent me. The Master has called her hence. Ought I not to thank
him for having given her to me so long, and for having now called her to his
glory, as I hope in his mercy?” On the same occasion, he said to the constable
of Castile: “Since the Lord hath called me to his service, and hath required of
me to give him my heart, I have endeavoured to resign it to him so entirely,
that no creature, living or dead should ever disturb it.”
F. Laynez, second
general of the Jesuits, dying in 1565, Saint Francis, notwithstanding all the
precautions he could take to prevent it, was chosen to succeed him, on the 2d
of July. He made tender exhortations to the fathers who composed the general
assembly of the Society, and kissed the feet of every one amongst them before
they departed. His first care in this new charge was to found a house for the
novitiate in Rome. He promoted the interest of the Society in all parts of the
world with such success, that he might be called a second founder; and the zeal
with which he propagated the missions, and instructed and animated the
labourers in planting the gospel in the most remote countries of the eastern
and western hemisphere, entitles him to a great share in the conversion of
those countries to the faith. He was not less active in directing his religious
brethren in Europe, and in animating them with the zealous spirit of the
institute for the reformation of the manners of Christians. Preaching being the
principal means instituted by God for the conversion of souls, this holy
instructor of preachers, not content most earnestly to recommend this sacred
pastoral function, laid down excellent rules for duly performing the same. (8) In
1566, a pestilence broke out, and made great havoc in Rome; upon which occasion
Saint Francis procured both from the pope and magistrates plentiful alms for
the relief of the poor, and commissioned the fathers of his Order, two and two,
to attend the sick in all parts of the city, with imminent danger of their own
lives. In 1570, the year before the victory of Lepanto, Pope Pius V. sent Saint
Francis, with his nephew, the Cardinal Alexandrin, on an embassy into France,
Spain, and Portugal, to engage the Christian princes to send succours for the
defence of Christendom against the Mahometans. The saint had been for some time
in a bad state of health: his infirmities, inclination to retirement, and a
deep sense of the weight of his post, which he had filled five years, put him
upon a design to procure a discharge from that burden in 1570; but this his
brethren would by no means listen to. During this legation his distempers
increased upon him, insomuch that when he arrived at Ferrara in his return, the
Duke, who was his cousin, sent him from thence to Rome in a litter. During this
state of his illness he would admit no visits but from persons whose entertainment
turned on spiritual matters, except physicians. The fathers of the Society
begged he would name his successor, and allow them the satisfaction of taking
his picture; but he would do neither. When he had lost his speech in his agony,
a painter was introduced to his bedside. The saint perceiving him, expressed
his extreme displeasure with his dying hands and eyes, and turned away his
face, so that nothing could be done. F. Condren, the pious general of the
French Oratorians, and other holy men, have from a sincere humility shown a
like reluctance, whilst others have been inclined by charity to condescend to
such requests of friends. Saint Francis closed a holy life by a more holy and
edifying death, a little before midnight, between the last of September and the
1st of October, in 1572, having lived sixty-two years, wanting twenty-eight
days; Cardinal Buoncompagno, under the name of Gregory XIII. being pope, having
lately succeeded Saint Pius V. who died on the 1st of May the same year. F.
Verjus gives a history of several miracles, predictions, and raptures of Saint
Francis Borgia. (9) His body, which was buried in the old church of the professed
house, was afterwards, in 1617, by the care of the cardinal and Duke of Lerma,
the saint’s grandson, first minister of state to Philip III. King of Spain,
removed to Madrid, where it is honoured at this day in the church of the
professed house of the Jesuits. Saint Francis was beatified by Urban VIII. in
1624, and canonized by Clement IX. in 1671, and his festival fixed on the 10th
of October by Innocent XI in 1683.(10)
The active and contemplative life in an ecclesiastical
person are two individual sisters, which must always go together, and mutually
assist each other. Every pastor owes to God the homage of continual praise, and
to his people the suffrages of his sacrifices, and supplications in their
behalf. How diligently soever he acquits himself of his external duties towards
them, he fails essentially if he ceases to recommend earnestly to God their
public and private spiritual necessities, being appointed the mediator between
them and God. Moreover, recollection and assiduous pious meditation are the
very soul of an ecclesiastical spirit. A life of habitual dissipation strikes
not at particular duties only, but destroys the very essence and spirit of this
state, disqualifies a person for all its functions, and leaves him a stranger
to the spirit of all its sacred employments and obligations. The most essential
preparation, and the very soul of this state, is a spirit of prayer; without
this a person is no more than the shadow of a pastor, or a body without a soul
to animate it, and can never deserve the name of a clergyman, or a religious
man.
Note
1. Ferdinand V. succeeded Henry king of Castile in 1474, in the right
of his wife, Isabel, sister to that king; and, in 1479, upon the death of his
father, John II., king of Arragon, inherited that kingdom. In 1492, on the 2d
of January, he took Granada, and extinguished the reign of the Moors in Spain,
above seven hundred years after they had settled themselves there. In the
following March he banished the Jews out of Spain, to the amount of eight
hundred thousand souls. In 1496, he was styled by the pope the Catholic king.
His eldest surviving daughter, Joanna, married Philip, archduke of Austria, the
emperor Maximilian’s son, by whom she had two sons, Charles, born at Ghent, in
1500, and Ferdinand, who were afterwards successively emperors of Germany.
Queen Isabel, called also Elizabeth, dying in 1504, Ferdinand, who only reigned
in her right, was obliged to leave the crown of Castile to his daughter, Joanna,
though she was distracted, and continued generally confined first in Flanders
and afterwards in Spain. Her husband Philip I. governed Castile in her right
almost two years, till his death, in 1506, the twenty-eighth of his age.
Ferdinand, after this became again king or regent of Castile in her name till
his death, in 1516, when her son Charles coming out of Flanders into Spain, was
acknowledged king of all Spain, though he held Castile only in the name of his
distracted mother so long as she lived.
Charles the Fifth of Germany, and the First of Spain,
upon the death of his grandfather Maximilian, was chosen emperor in 1519, and
in 1520, going into Germany, resigned Austria to his brother Ferdinand. In
1525, Francis I. was made prisoner by him in the battle of Pavia. Muleassi, Dey
of Tunis, having implored his protection against Barbarossa, the most
formidable Turkish pirate, who had made himself Dey of Algiers, he was restored
by him. The emperor also obliged Soliman to raise the siege of Vienna. In 1555,
he resigned his kingdoms to his son Philip, and in the following year, the
empire to his brother Ferdinand, and died in 1558. He married Isabel, daughter
to Emanuel, king of Portugal. His daughters Mary, Joanna, and Margaret, were
married, the first to the Emperor Maximilian II., son of Ferdinand; the second
to John, prince of Portugal; the third to Alexander de Medicis, duke of
Florence, and afterwards to Octavius Farnesius, prince of Parma. Don John of
Austria, the illegitimate son of Charles V. is famous for the victory of
Lepanto, gained over the Turks in 1571, and an expedition which he commanded
against Tunis in 1573. He died governor of the Low Countries. Charles V. was
the most powerful prince in Europe since Charlemagne; being emperor of Germany,
king of Spain, Hungary, and Bohemia, possessing also the duchy of Milan, with
other territories in Italy, and the duchy of Burgundy, with the Low Countries.
The actions of this emperor are extremely blackened by many French historians,
and as highly extolled by the Germans and Spaniards. If he was not perfectly so
good a man as the latter would make us believe, neither was he so bad as many
of the French writers endeavour to persuade us, and we ought to hope that the
faults he committed were cancelled by sincere repentance. Philip II., king of
Spain, reigned forty-two years, and died at the Escurial in 1598. Being four
times married, he had, by his first wife, (who was Mary, daughter of John IV.,
king of Portugal,) Don Carlos, who was put to death by his order; by his
second, Mary of England, he had no issue; by the third, Elizabeth, daughter of
Henry II. of France, he had Isabel, whom he gave in marriage to Albert, the
archduke, son to the Emperor Maximilian II. Albert was made cardinal very
young; but his brother the archduke Ernestus, governor of Flanders, dying in
1595, he, two years after, resigned his ecclesiastical dignities, and married
the infanta of Spain, the Low Countries being settled on them, with the joint
title of princes of Belgium. [back]Note
2. See De Lugo in Decal. [back]
Note
3. In the first, called An Exercise on the Knowledge of Ourselves,
heads of considerations on the knowledge of ourselves are laid down for an
exercise of seven days. The author prescribes that on each day some suitable
sentence of scripture be often repeated in the mind to renew and imprint deeper
the sentiments of devotion and humility. “As he who goes to the fire grows
warm, so,” says the saint, “he who by prayer and pious affections, applies his
heart continually to the flame of divine love, will feel it kindled in him. Go
then, devout soul; stir up thy affections, and raise them to God; thou art
invited to that happy employment which is the uninterrupted function of the
holy seraphim, that is, to love without intermission.” He will have every
meditation begun by the most sincere inward confession of our own insufficiency
as to all manner of good, and an earnest supplication for the divine grace. For
the heads of meditation on Monday, he proposes, that we are originally nothing;
have received from God a noble being; but by sin are fallen from our dignity;
he stamped upon us his own image, but this we have disfigured; he further
desires to bestow himself upon us; yet we fly from him, &c. On Tuesday, he
suggests our weakness and universal poverty. On Wednesday, how we have abused
and depraved all our faculties, blinded our understanding, depraved our will,
&c. On Thursday, how we have defiled and perverted all our senses. On
Friday, how ungrateful we have been to all God’s mercies and graces, especially
that of our redemption. On Saturday, how often we have deserved to be abandoned
by God, and plunged into hell. On Sunday, on God’s benefits, and our base
return. He begins every consideration with what God is to us; then proceeds to
what we have been towards God, that the two-fold knowledge of God and ourselves
may be improved, and keep pace with one another. In every meditation he
proposes some circumstance of the Incarnation. In the saint’s second treatise
of humility, entitled, A Spiritual Collyrium, (or cure for the eyes,) he
teaches how we are to cure the spiritual blindness of pride, by learning
sincerely to confound and contemn ourselves from the sight or consideration of
all things under the earth, upon the earth, and in the heavens, that the soul
may remain always humble, and may always please God. If we think on hell, we
must remember the devil is damned for one sin; we have committed many; yet the
divine mercy bears us, and we are still ungrateful. If upon purgatory, perhaps
some suffer there through our scandalous example or neglect, &c.
In the second part he runs through the elements, all
conditions of men, their actions, the powers of the soul, &c. showing how
we ought to draw confusion from each object or circumstance; as that the earth
is fruitful, we barren; flowers are fragrant to us, we full of stench in the
divine eyes; water feeds the earth, and assuages our thirst, we give not alms
to the poor, that is, refuse to give God his own gifts; servants obey us, yet
we disobey God; infidels are a reproach to us as Tyre and Sidon were to the
Jews; the poor put us in mind of our hardness of heart, and of our spiritual
indigence, &c.
In the third part he suggests like motives of
confusion within ourselves from all things in the heavens, the stars, planets,
angels, God, &c. The saint addressed to his devout aunt, who was a Poor
Clare at Gandia, a tract, entitled, The Mirror of the Christian’s Actions,
teaching us to begin all our principal actions by raising our minds to God with
acts, firstly, of sincere humiliation and confusion; secondly, of thanksgiving;
and, thirdly, of petition and oblation; of all which he proposes several forms
or models. Sitting down to table, reflect, says he, that you eat His bread to
whom you have been so often unfaithful and ungrateful: thank him, that he has
always nourished you, even when his enemy; beg that he who fed the multitudes
in the desert, feed your soul with his grace; offer to him your health, life,
and all you are to do, imploring his blessing; and so in other actions. He
proposes also a method of uniting our intention and actions with those of our
Redeemer on earth, especially in his Passion. A Paraphrase which he wrote on
the canticle of the Three Children, is a proof with what ardour he began to
exercise himself in acts of divine love, thanksgiving, and praise. “If thou art
not able, O my soul, sufficiently to praise the Lord for any one of the least
among his mercies and favours,” says he in the beginning of this work, “how
wilt thou be able to glorify and thank him for all his numberless and infinite
benefits?” &c. Another production of this saint’s pen was a discourse on
Christ weeping out of tender love and compassion over Jerusalem, (Luke xix.)
that is, over the spiritual miseries of a soul which is herself insensible to
them. His Preparation for the Holy Eucharist contains short heads of devotion
for three days before, and three days after communion; the first consisting in
earnest desires of that divine food, with tears of compunction, to cleanse
perfectly his soul, and prayer to beg Christ will discover to him what
spiritual ornaments are wanting to his soul, and will enrich her with them all,
that she may deserve to receive him to her salvation. The exercises
after communion are a continuation of thanksgiving, love, praise, and
supplications during three days. This exercise he planned for his own use
whilst he communicated once a week. These six treatises he composed in Spanish
whilst he was duke of Gandia, and remained in the world. The general abstract
here given of them may serve to show by what means he endeavoured to ground
himself in the most perfect humility, compunction, self-denial, and practice of
prayer, with the frequent and devout use of the sacraments, upon which his
advancement in Christian perfection mainly depended. [back]
Note
4. Hist. de Charles V. Also Bellegarde, Cant. de Mariana Hist.
d’Espagne, t. 7. [back]
Note 5. Thuanus, Hist. l. 21, n. 10, t. 1, p. 723. [back]
Note 6. Surius in Comment. Hist. sui Temporis; and Groves’s life of Card. Wolsey, t. 4, App. p. 50. [back]
Note 8. S. Fr. Borgia, l. de Ratione Concionandi. [back]
Note 10. Four treatises of St. Francis Borgia were translated into French, and printed at Paris in 1672, viz. his Letter to his aunt, abbess of the Poor Clares at Gandia, containing a mirror of a Christian’s actions, or the manner of performing them in the spirit of Christ. 2. Remedies against pride, or considerations and means for learning all humiliation and contempt of ourselves. 3. Exercises for holy communion. 4. An exercise for learning the knowledge of ourselves, in seven meditations for every day in the week. In Latin we have his excellent treatise on the method of preaching; often reprinted, his paraphrase on the Hymn of the three children Benedicite in thanksgiving; his sermon on Christ weeping over Jerusalem.
We have been promised an edition of his other works
which remain in MS. viz. His Instructions to his son the duke of Gandia. 2. Excellent
Homilies on the lamentations of Jeremie. 3. Some Sermons. 4. Meditations on the
life of Jesus Christ. 5. Spiritual letters. 6. His funeral discourse on Charles
V. before the court at Valladolid. [back]Rev.
Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume X: October. The Lives of
the Saints. 1866.
SOURCE : Butler’s Lives of the Saints – Saint Francis Borgia, Confessor
Pietro Antonio Rotari, St. Francis Borgia in adoration, XVIIe siècle
San Francesco Borgia Sacerdote
Gandia, Spagna, 28 ottobre 1510 - Roma, 30
settembre 1572
Nato nel
1510 a Gandia, in Spagna, fu paggio presso la Corte di Carlo V. Si sposò con
Eleonora de Castro da cui ebbe otto figli. Nonostante gli impegni che la carica
di Viceré della Catalogna comportava, non tralasciò di condurre una vita
spirituale intensa. Morta la moglie, entrò nella Compagnia di Gesù e, divenuto
sacerdote, alternò la predicazione alla scrittura di trattati spirituali.
Rinunciò alla carica di cardinale ma accettò gli incarichi importanti per la
Compagnia, come quello di Commissario Generale. Sue caratteristiche furono
l'umiltà, la mortificazione e una grande devozione all'Eucarestia e alla
Vergine. Fondatore delle prime missioni dell'America Latina spagnola, vigilò
sullo spirito originale dei gesuiti. Morì nel 1572. (Avvenire)
Etimologia: Francesco
= libero, dall'antico tedesco
Martirologio
Romano: A Roma, san Francesco Borgia, sacerdote, che, morta la moglie,
dalla quale aveva avuto otto figli, entrò nella Compagnia di Gesù e, lasciati
gli onori terreni e rifiutati quelli ecclesiastici, eletto preposito generale,
restò celebre per austerità di vita e spirito di preghiera.
Francesco Borgia, nato in Spagna nel 1510, smentì la mala fama che la propria potente famiglia si era acquistata in epoche precedenti. Infatti, pur avendo posizione mondana elevata e vita pubblica movimentata, egli riuscì a raggiungere, attraverso disparate vicende, la pienezza di una santità priva di ogni sospetto.
Il padre volle fare di lui un perfetto uomo di mondo, schernendo le sue inclinazioni religiose. E il ragazzo imparò le norme cavalleresche, ma studiò anche la filosofia; maneggiò le armi, ma non trascurò i libri; fu paggio presso la Corte imperiale, ma si fece terziario francescano.
La sua carriera fu brillante e movimentata. Era benvoluto da Isabella di Portogallo e dal marito Carlo V, il potentissimo Imperatore sui cui Regni " non tramontava mai il sole ". Egli lo nominò marchese di Lombai; ella gli dette in sposa Leonora di Castro, dalla quale ebbe otto figli. Fu eletto Gran Cavallerizzo dell'Imperatore e Grande Scudiero dell'Imperatrice. L'erede, Filippo 11, lo ebbe come amico e confidente. Viaggiava in portantina, leggendo però San Paolo e Giovanni Crisostomo. Impartiva lezioni di cosmografia all'Imperatore, che poi accompagnò in una guerra contro i Francesi. Ammalatosi e creduto in punto di morte, quando guarì prese l'abitudine alla Confessione e alla Comunione frequenti. Fu spinto verso una maggiore chiarezza spirituale dalla perdita della protettrice, l'Imperatrice Isabella, e dalla vista del suo volto decomposto dalla morte. Trovò allora una saggia e sicura guida spirituale nel Beato Giovanni d'Avila.
Proprio in quel tempo giungeva al culmine della sua carriera, con la nomina a Viceré di Catalogna. Per quattro anni si adoperò faticosamente per mutar volto a quella provincia, inquieta e ribelle, perché povera e mal governata. E quando, nominato Gran Maggiordomo e Consigliere di Stato, avrebbe potuto godere tranquillamente l'alta posizione, ritirandosi nel suo Ducato di Gandia, Ia morte dell'ancor giovane moglie lo spinse a quel passo che pose fine in modo imprevisto alla sua fortunata vicenda mondana.
Entrò nella Compagnia fondata da pochi anni dal conterraneo Ignazio di Loyola, e nel 1548 pronunziò i voti solenni. Considerando la sua eccezionale personalità, il Papa gli permise di restare nel mondo, per occuparsi dei figli del suo Ducato. Ma due anni dopo, Francesco Borgia rinunciò solennemente ai beni e alle cariche.
Avrebbe aspirato ad una vita ritirata e contemplativa, ma era una carta troppo importante per il giovane Ordine. Per obbedienza,- accettò perciò gli incarichi più laboriosi e impegnativi, e non deluse le speranze che la Compagnia riponeva in lui.
Con la sua saggezza, l'ammirazione di cui godeva, e l'aiuto di doni soprannaturali, Francesco Borgia con-tribuì all'espansione europea, anzi mondiale, della Compagnia di Gesù, preparando il rinnovamento cattolico della seconda metà del secolo.
Fu terzo Generale della Compagnia dopo Sant'Ignazio. Ne rinnovò le Costituzioni e ne fissò le pratiche spirituali. A Roma, fondò i principali Istituti dell'Ordine in rapido accrescimento. E viaggiò infaticabilmente fino alla vigilia della morte, venerato ambasciatore di carità e di concordia, autorevole consigliere di Imperatori, Re e Principi, per tornare finalmente a morire nella sua cella romana, nel 1572, riscattando il nome della famiglia dei Borgia con una gloria senza confini.
|
Fonte: |
|
Archivio
Parrocchia |
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/73800
.jpg)
Francisco Goya (1746–1828). San Francisco de Borja asiste a un moribundo impenitente,
vers 1788, 29 X 38, Colección Marquesa de Santa Cruz (Madrid, España).
FRANCESCO Borgia, Santo
di Pietro Tacchi Venturi - Enciclopedia Italiana
(1932)
FRANCESCO Borgia, Santo. - Fu quarto duca di
Gandía e terzo generale della Compagnia di Gesù. Figlio di don Giovanni e di
donna Giovanna d'Aragona, pronipote di Alessandro VI, nacque in Gandía il 28
ottobre 1510. Ventenne appena sposò Eleonora de Castro, portoghese, che in
dieci anni gli diede otto figli. Carlo V, lo creò nel 1530 marchese di Lombai e
nel 1539 viceré di Catalogna. Dopo la perdita del padre (1543) tornò in Gandía,
e quivi la morte della moglie (27 marzo 1546) affrettò quel mutamento interiore
già in lui iniziato alla scomparsa dell'imperatrice Isabella (i°maggio 1539) e
più ancora al contemplarne in Granata la salma (17 maggio 1539) putrescente e
disfatta. In Barcellona aveva trattato con Pietro Fabro, compagno di S. Ignazio
di Loiola; così si affezionò alla nascente Compagnia di Gesù, e il 2 giugno
1546 fece voto d'entrarvi. Il 1 febbraio 1548, in virtù d'un breve di Paolo III
emetteva la solenne professione religiosa con facoltà di restare nel secolo
fino a che non avesse dato ordine agli affari domestici. Intanto attendeva allo
studio della teologia: venuto poi il giubileo del 1550, pellegrinò a Roma; dopo
di che l'11 maggio 1551 cedeva ducato e titoli al primogenito don Carlos e il
23 si ordinava sacerdote.
Nel primo lustro della sua vita di gesuita (1551-1555)
fu alla Guipúzcoa, a Lisbona, a Valenza; poi, nominato dal Loiola commissario
della Compagnia nella Spagna e nelle Indie, attese senza passare a quest'ultime
a propagarla e consolidarla in entrambe, esercitando simultaneamente un saggio
e benefico influsso presso la vedova principessa Maria di Portogallo nipote di
Carlo V. Ma l'Inquisizione di Spagna stette per imprigionarlo come sospetto
d'eresia; la calunnia tentò di offuscarne l'onore; venne in disgrazia di
Filippo II; alcuni dei suoi più stretti parenti concorsero a straziargli il
cuore coi loro riprovevoli portamenti. Pio IV il 10 ottobre 1560 lo chiamò a
Roma; e la chiamata del papa mise fine alle difficoltà e spianò al B. la strada
al vicariato della Compagnia di Gesù (19 gennaio 1565) e poi al generalato (2
luglio 1565). Nel campo della cultura F. meritò altamente con la fondazione del
Collegio Romano. Molto anche contribuì ad arricchire Roma di nuove fabbriche,
quali furono il noviziato di Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, la chiesa dell'Annunziata
(scomparsa nel Seicento per dar luogo alla chiesa di S. Ignazio), quella del
Gesù, cui procurò e l'area, da lui acquistata con ingente spesa, e l'insigne
fondatore che fu il cardinale Alessandro Farnese.
Rifiutata la porpora più volte, fu inviato da Pio V,
nel giugno del 1571, come compagno del cardinale nepote Michele Bonelli, in
Spagna, Portogallo e Francia per la lega contro i Turchi. Questo ultimo
viaggio, intrapreso in condizioni rovinosissime di salute, accelerò la fine di
F. Tornato a Roma mortalmente infermo, vi morì a mezzanotte del 30 settembre
1572. Fu canonizzato da Clemente X il 12 aprile 1671 e se ne celebra la festa
il 10 ottobre. Le sue spoglie, trasportate nel 1617 dal Gesù di Roma a Madrid
nella chiesa dell'antica casa professa dei Gesuiti, vennero trasferite nel 1901
alla nuova loro chiesa alla calle Flor Baja, dove soltanto in parte vennero
ricuperate dalle fiamme degl'incendiarî del maggio 1931.
Bibl.: S. F. Borgia, in Mon Hist. Soc. Jesu,
voll. 5, Madrid 1894-1911, nei quali si ha in gran parte il carteggio del santo
prima e dopo la sua entrata in religione con altri documenti. Le antiche sue
biografie, da quella contemporaneo P. Ribadeneira sino a J. E. Nieremberg, a D.
Bartoli, e ad A. Cienfuegos, risentono, specialmente l'ultima, i difetti
dell'agiografia del Seicento. Assai pregevoli: P. Suau, Histoire de Saint
Fr. de Borgia, Parigi 1910; P. Karrer, Der heilige Franz von Borja,
Friburgo in B. 1921.
SOURCE : https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/santo-francesco-borgia_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/
