Alonzo Cano (1601–1667). San Francisco de Borja (Saint Francis Borgia), 1624, 189 x 123
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
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE BORGIA
Jésuite
(1510-1572)
Saint François de Borgia
était Espagnol et fils de prince. 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.
A 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... A 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.
A 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.
Étant un jour en voyage
avec un vieux religieux, il dut coucher sur la paille avec son compagnon, dans
une misérable hôtellerie. Toute la nuit, le vieillard ne fit que tousser et cracher;
ce ne fut que le lendemain matin qu'il s'aperçut de ce qui lui était arrivé; il
avait couvert de ses crachats le visage et les habits du Saint. Comme il en
témoignait un grand chagrin: "Que cela ne vous fasse point de peine, lui
dit François, car il n'y avait pas un endroit dans la chambre où il fallût
cracher plutôt que sur moi." Ce trait peint assez un homme aux vertus
héroïques.
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.
Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, Tours, Mame, 1950
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_francois_de_borgia.html
Francisco
de Goya, San
Francisco de Borja y el moribundo impenitente / Saint François de Borgia et
le Moribond impénitent, 1788, 300 x 300, cathédrale de Valence.
François de Borgia, un
saint issu de la plus sulfureuse des familles
Anne Bernet - publié
le 02/10/23
Vocation étonnante que
celle de François de Borgia, petit-fils bâtard d’archevêque, petit-fils d’un
bâtard de pape… qui devînt général des jésuites et fut canonisé pour ses réels
mérites par la sainte Église.
Le 1er mai 1539, la reine
Isabelle d’Espagne, épouse de Charles Quint, meurt à Tolède en donnant le jour à son cinquième
enfant. Drame d’une banalité absolue qui n’épargne ni grandes dames ni
bourgeoises, ni paysannes, ni pauvresses ; une femme sur deux, à l’époque et
pour longtemps encore, succombe à ses maternités. Les reines comme les autres.
Cette cruelle évidence n’empêche pas, en pareil cas, d’immenses chagrins. Très
épris de sa belle princesse portugaise, Charles Quint s’enferme dans un
monastère pour la pleurer en paix. Quant aux obsèques, qui seront célébrées,
selon l’usage des Rois catholiques, dans la chapelle funéraire de la dynastie,
à Grenade, il charge de s’en occuper l’un de ses plus fidèles serviteurs, le
marquis de Lombay, et l’épouse de celui-ci, Éléonore de Castro, dame d’atours
de la disparue, venue avec elle du Portugal.
Une ascendance bizarre
Qui est le marquis de
Lombay ? Premier-né du duc de Gandie et de Jeanne d’Aragon, fille bâtarde
de l’archevêque de Saragosse, lui-même fils bâtard du roi Ferdinand d’Aragon,
le marquis est le petit-fils de Juan de Gandie, un bâtard, lui aussi, né d’une
des maîtresses du cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, futur pape Alexandre VI, et neveu du
défunt pape Calixte III… Si la situation nous semble passablement choquante,
elle l’est, en fait, beaucoup moins aux yeux des contemporains qui jugent le
gouvernement de l’Église affaire aussi politique que celui de n’importe quel
État laïque ; cardinaux et souverains pontifes sont des administrateurs et des
guerriers, non des saints et rares sont ceux qui ont embrassé la vie religieuse
par vocation. L’on ferme les yeux sur leurs mœurs et leur vie privée, quand
même elle serait peu édifiante, voire choquante. Cela dit, Alexandre VI, malgré
ses liaisons et ses enfants adultérins, qu’il exhibe sans vergogne et marie
princièrement, est un homme de foi, qui craint Dieu, de temps en temps, et ne
plaisante pas avec les enseignements catholiques.
Cette ascendance bizarre
ne nuit donc en rien au marquis de Lombay, lequel, d’ailleurs, n’y peut rien.
Et puis, cela n’empêche pas d’être, de ce côté-là de la famille, chrétiens
exemplaires. La preuve en est que la grand-mère de M. de Lombay, après la mort
tragique de son époux, le premier duc de Gandie, Juan, fils aîné du Pape,
vraisemblablement occis sur ordre de son jeune frère, le cardinal César
Borgia…, a pris le voile chez les clarisses.
Une mission qui va
bouleverser sa vie
Cet exemple, comme celui
de ses parents, a fait de Francisco Borgia de Gandie, marquis de Lombay, un
garçon remarquablement pieux. S’il n’était l’aîné, il serait entré dans les
ordres, choix auquel son père s’est véhémentement opposé. Le mariage d’amour de
son fils et sa brillante réussite à la Cour semblent avoir écarté cette lubie.
Francisco ne le sait pas encore, mais la funèbre mission dont son roi l’a
chargé va bouleverser sa vie du tout au tout. De Tolède à Grenade, il y a 500
kilomètres, ce qui demande plus d’un mois de voyage, au rythme du char funèbre,
et, en mai, en Espagne, il fait chaud. En dépit du cercueil de plomb dans
lequel il a été placé, le cadavre de la reine se décompose. Or, l’étiquette
prévoit qu’à l’arrivée à la nécropole royale la bière soit ouverte afin de
s’assurer que la dépouille est bien celle confiée à la garde de l’escorte.
Lorsque le couvercle est enlevé, et les Grands invités à attester de l’identité
de la défunte, Isabelle est dans un tel état de pourriture que nul n’ose ni
s’approcher pour la reconnaître ni attester qu’il s’agit bien de la radieuse et
ravissante jeune femme qu’ils ont connue.
Nul, sauf Francisco
Borgia, esclave de son sens du devoir. Le choc est atroce. Confronté à la
réalité du trépas, il atteste que cette « chose qui n’a de nom en aucune
langue » est pourtant bien la reine d’Espagne, ce dont il peut jurer car
il n’a pas quitté le cercueil du regard un instant. Puis, blême, le marquis de
Lombay murmure :
Je ne servirai plus jamais
un seigneur qui puisse mourir.
Il respectera ce serment,
dès qu’on lui en accordera le loisir.
Une prière d’offrande et
d’abandon
Devenu duc de Gandie à la
mort de son père en 1542, Borgia perd sa femme quatre ans plus tard. Toujours
amoureux d’elle, il a supplié le Ciel de la lui laisser. À quoi le Crucifié
devant lequel il prie répond : « Si tu désires profondément que je te
laisse plus longtemps ta duchesse, je t’en fais seul juge mais je t’avertis que
ce choix ne serait pas convenable. » Brisé mais résigné, Francisco répond
par une prière d’offrande et d’abandon :
Seigneur, je ne puis rien
faire de moins pour répondre à Ton infinie et gracieuse générosité que t’offrir
ma vie, celle de mon épouse, celle de mes enfants et tout ce que je possède en ce
monde. C’est de Ta main que j’ai tout reçu, je Te rends donc le tout en Te
priant d’en disposer selon Ton bon plaisir.
Deux ans plus tard, il
entrera dans la Compagnie de Jésus, en deviendra Général et l’une des plus grandes
figures de l’Ordre.
Lire aussi :Gabriel de l’Addolorata, le patron des séminaristes, était un
noceur
Lire aussi :Saint Calixte, la miséricorde et le pécheur qui voulait servir
Dieu
Lire aussi :« Saint Pierre est un signe d’espérance pour les
pécheurs »
SOURCE : https://fr.aleteia.org/2023/10/02/francois-de-borgia-un-saint-dans-la-plus-sulfureuse-des-familles/
.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).
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE BORGIA,
CONFESSEUR.
Né en 1510, mort le 30
septembre 1572. Canonisé en 1671, fête en 1688.
Leçons des Matines (avant
1960)
Quatrième leçon.
François, quatrième duc de Gandie, fils de Jean de Borgia et de Jeanne
d’Aragon, petite-fille de Ferdinand le Catholique, après avoir passé au sein de
sa famille une enfance admirable d’innocence et de piété, se montra plus
admirable encore par la pratique exemplaire des vertus chrétiennes et l’austérité
de sa vie, à la cour de l’empereur Charles-Quint, et ensuite dans le
gouvernement de la Catalogne. A la mort de l’impératrice Isabelle, il fut
chargé de conduire son corps à Grenade, pour y recevoir la sépulture. En voyant
le changement opéré sur le visage de l’impératrice, il réfléchit à la vanité de
tout ce qui est mortel, et s’engagea par vœu à se dépouiller de tous ses biens
dès qu’il le pourrait, pour ne plus servir que le Roi des rois. Dès lors il
avança tellement dans la vertu, qu’au milieu des affaires du siècle, il
reproduisait tous les traits de la perfection religieuse, et qu’on l’appelait
le prodige des princes.
Cinquième leçon. Éléonore
de Castro, son épouse étant morte, il entra dans la Compagnie de Jésus, afin
d’y mener plus sûrement une vie cachée, et de s’interdire l’accès aux dignités
par l’engagement sacré d’un vœu. Il mérita que son exemple portât plusieurs
princes à embrasser un genre de vie plus austère, et que Charles-Quint
lui-même, en abdiquant l’empire, déclarât que François avait été son
inspirateur et son guide. Dans cette profession de vie rigoureuse, François
réduisit son corps à une maigreur extrême par le jeûne, les chaînes de fer, le
cilice, des flagellations longues et sanglantes et la privation de sommeil.
D’ailleurs, il ne s’épargnait aucune fatigue pour se vaincre et pour sauver les
âmes. Orné de tant de vertus, il fut nommé, par saint Ignace, commissaire
général de la Compagnie en Espagne, et quelques années après, on l’élut, malgré
lui, troisième général de la Compagnie. Dans cette charge, il se rendit
extrêmement cher aux princes temporels et aux souverains Pontifes, par sa
prudence et sa sainteté. Il fonda ou développa en divers lieux nombre
d’établissements, envoya des membres de sa Compagnie en Pologne, dans les îles
de l’Océan, au Mexique et au Pérou, dirigea vers d’autres contrées des
missionnaires qui, par leurs prédications, leurs sueurs et leur sang, propagèrent
la foi catholique et romaine
Sixième leçon. Il avait de lui-même une si basse opinion qu’il s’appropriait le nom de pécheur, comme étant le sien. Il refusa avec une humilité qui ne se démentit jamais, la pourpre romaine que les souverains Pontifes lui offrirent à différentes reprises. Balayer la maison, mendier son pain aux portes, servir les malades dans les hôpitaux, par mépris de soi-même et du monde, il en faisait ses délices. Tous les jours il consacrait de longues heures, ordinairement huit et quelquefois dix, à la méditation des choses du ciel. Cent fois par jour, il faisait la génuflexion pour adorer Dieu. Jamais il n’omit de célébrer la sainte Messe. L’ardeur divine qui le consumait, se manifestait par l’éclat de son visage lorsqu’il offrait le saint Sacrifice, et quelquefois même pendant qu’il prêchait. Un instinct céleste lui marquait les lieux où le très saint corps de Jésus Christ, caché dans l’Eucharistie, se trouvait en réserve. Sur l’ordre de saint Pie V, il accompagna le Cardinal Alexandrin, légat du Siège apostolique, que le Pape envoyait auprès des princes chrétiens, pour former une ligue contre les Turcs. Ce fut donc par obéissance qu’il entreprit ce long voyage, malgré l’affaiblissement de ses forces. Il mourut à son retour à Rome, où il avait désiré achever sa vie, à l’âge de soixante-deux ans, en l’année mil cinq cent soixante-douze. Sainte Thérèse, qui recourait à ses conseils, l’appelait un saint, et Grégoire XIII, un fidèle administrateur. Enfin, de nombreux et grands miracles l’ayant glorifié, Clément X l’inscrivit au nombre des Saints.
SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/10-10-St-Francois-de-Borgia
.jpg)
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE BORGIA,
CONFESSEUR.
Vanité des vanités, tout
n'est que vanité (Ecclc. I, 1) ! Il n'eut besoin d'aucun discours pour s'en
convaincre, le descendant des rois célébré en ce jour, lorsqu'à l'ouverture du
cercueil où l'on disait qu'était endormi ce que l'Espagne renfermait de
jeunesse et de grâces, la mort lui révéla soudain ses réalités. Beautés de tous
les temps, la mort seule ne meurt pas ; sinistre importune qui s'invite de vos
danses et de vos plaisirs, elle assiste à tous les triomphes, elle entend les
serments qui se disent éternels. Combien vite elle saura disperser vos
adorateurs ! Quelques années, sinon quelques jours, peut-être moins, séparent
vos parfums d'emprunt de la pourriture de la tombe.
« Assez des vains
fantômes ; assez servi les rois mortels ; éveille-toi, mon âme. » C'est la
réponse de François de Borgia aux enseignements du trépas. L'ami de
Charles-Quint, le grand seigneur dont la noblesse, la fortune, les brillantes
qualités ne sont dépassées par aucun, abandonne dès qu'il peut la cour. Ignace,
l'ancien soldat du siège de Pampelune, voit le vice-roi de Catalogne se jeter à
ses pieds, lui demandant de le protéger contre les honneurs qui le poursuivent
jusque sous le pauvre habit de jésuite où il a mis sa gloire.
L'Église emploie les
lignes suivantes à raconter sa vie.
François, quatrième duc
de Gandie, naquit de Jean de Borgia et de Jeanne d'Aragon, petite-fille de
Ferdinand le Catholique. Admirable avait été parmi les siens l'innocence et la
piété de son enfance ; plus admirable fut-il encore dans les exemples de vertu
chrétienne et d'austérité qu'il donna par la suite, à la cour d'abord de
l'empereur Charles-Quint, plus tard comme vice-roi de Catalogne. Ayant dû
conduire le corps de l'impératrice Isabelle à Grenade pour l'y remettre aux
sépultures royales, l'affreux changement des traits de la défunte le pénétra
tellement de la fragilité de ce qui doit mourir, qu'il s'engagea par vœu à
laisser tout dès qu'il le pourrait pour servir uniquement le Roi des rois. Si
grands furent dès lors ses progrès, qu'il retraçait au milieu du tourbillon des
affaires une très fidèle image de la perfection religieuse, et qu'on l'appelait
la merveille des princes.
A la mort d'Eléonore de
Castro son épouse, il entra dans la Compagnie de Jésus. Son but était de s'y
cacher plus sûrement, et de se fermer la route aux dignités par le voeu qu'on y
fait à l’encontre. Nombre de personnages princiers s'honorèrent de marcher
après lui sur le chemin du renoncement, et Charles-Quint lui-même ne fit pas
difficulté de reconnaître que c'étaient son exemple et ses conseils qui
l'avaient porté à abdiquer l'empire. Tel était le zèle de François dans la voie
étroite, que ses jeûnes, l'usage qu'il s'imposait des chaînes de fer et du plus
rude cilice, ses sanglantes et longues flagellations, ses privations de sommeil
réduisirent à la dernière maigreur son corps; ce pendant qu'il n'épargnait
aucun labeur pour se vaincre lui-même et sauver les âmes. Tant de vertu porta
saint Ignace à le nommer son vicaire général pour l'Espagne, et peu après la
Compagnie entière l'élisait pour troisième Général malgré ses résistances. Sa
prudence, sa sainteté le rendirent particulièrement cher en cette charge aux
Souverains Pontifes et aux princes. Beaucoup de maisons furent augmentées ou
fondées par lui en tous lieux ; il introduisit la Compagnie en Pologne, dans
les îles de l'Océan, au Mexique, au Pérou ; il envoya en d'autres contrées des
missionnaires dont la prédication, les sueurs, le sang propagèrent la foi
catholique romaine.
Si humbles étaient ses
sentiments de lui-même, qu'il se nommait le pécheur. Souvent la pourpre romaine
lui fut offerte par les Souverains Pontifes ; son invincible humilité la refusa
toujours. Balayer les ordures, mendier de porte en porte, servir les malades
dans les hôpitaux, étaient les délices de ce contempteur du monde et de
lui-même. Chaque jour, il donnait de nombreuses heures ininterrompues, souvent
huit, quelquefois dix, à la contemplation des choses célestes. Cent fois le
jour, il fléchissait le genou, adorant Dieu. Jamais il n'omit de célébrer le
saint Sacrifice, et l'ardeur divine qui l'embrasait se trahissait alors sur son
visage ; parfois, quand il offrait la divine Hostie ou quand il prêchait, on le
voyait entouré de rayons. Un instinct du ciel lui révélait les lieux où l'on
gardait le très saint corps du Christ caché dans l'Eucharistie. Saint Pie V
l'ayant donné comme compagnon au cardinal Alexandrini dans la légation qui
avait pour but d'unir les princes chrétiens contre les Turcs, il entreprit par
obéissance ce pénible voyage, les forces déjà presque épuisées ; ce fut ainsi
que, dans l'obéissance, et pourtant selon son désir à Rome où il était de
retour, il acheva heureusement la course de la vie, dans la soixante-deuxième
année de son âge, l'an du salut mil cinq cent soixante-douze. Sainte Thérèse
qui recourait à ses conseils l'appelait un saint, Grégoire XIII un serviteur
fidèle. Clément X, à la suite de ses grands et nombreux miracles, l'inscrivit
parmi les Saints.
« Seigneur Jésus-Christ,
modèle de l'humilité véritable et sa récompense ; en la manière que vous avez
fait du bienheureux François votre imitateur glorieux dans le mépris des
honneurs de la terre, nous vous en supplions, faites que vous imitant
nous-mêmes, nous partagions sa gloire (Collecte du jour). » C'est la prière que
l'Église présente sous vos auspices à l'Époux. Elle sait que, toujours grand
près de Dieu, le crédit des Saints l'est surtout pour obtenir à leurs dévots
clients la grâce des vertus qu'ils ont plus spécialement pratiquées.
Combien précieuse
apparaît en vous cette prérogative, ô François, puisqu'elle s'exerce dans le
domaine de la vertu qui attire toute grâce ici-bas, comme elle assure toute
grandeur au ciel ! Depuis que l'orgueil précipita Lucifer aux abîmes et que les
abaissements du Fils de l'homme ont amené son exaltation par delà les deux
(Philipp. II, 6, 11), l'humilité, quoi qu'on ait dit dans nos temps, n'a rien
perdu de sa valeur inestimable ; elle reste l'indispensable fondement de tout
édifice spirituel ou social aspirant à la durée, la base sans laquelle nulles
autres vertus, fût-ce leur reine à toutes, la divine charité, ne sauraient
subsister un jour. Donc, ô François, obtenez-nous d'être humbles ;
pénétrez-nous de la vanité des honneurs du monde et de ses faux plaisirs.
Puisse la sainte Compagnie dont vous sûtes, après Ignace même, augmenter encore
le prix pour l'Eglise, garder chèrement cet esprit qui fut vôtre, afin de
grandir toujours dans l'estime du ciel et la reconnaissance de la terre.
Dom Guéranger. L'Année liturgique
SOURCE : http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/gueranger/anneliturgique/pentecote/pentecote05/046.htm
.JPG)
Church
of São Jerónimo de Real, Braga, Portugal.
La liturgie se souvient
de saint François Borgia. C'était un "grand d'Espagne" au XVIe
siècle. Il était même vice-roi de Catalogne et un excellent administrateur.
Après la mort de son épouse vers 1548, ayant pourvu à l'établissement de ses
huit enfants, le duc François renonce au pouvoir et aux richesses. Préoccupé de
réparer les fautes de ses ancêtres et de sa famille (les Borgia !), il entre
dans la Compagnie de Jésus fondée par saint Ignace de Loyola. Il en deviendra
le 3e supérieur général.
Le Jésuite François de
Borgia va se "distinguer" par sa ferveur et son humilité : il porte
l'Évangile à travers l'Espagne et le Portugal. Il aura la tâche délicate d'être
l'exécuteur testamentaire de l'empereur Charles Quint dont il prononcera
l'oraison funèbre. Sous sa direction, mettant en oeuvre de rares qualités
administratives et humaines, la Compagnie de Jésus va se développer
considérablement par les missions en Pologne, au Pérou et au Mexique. Saint
François de Borgia (à ne pas confondre avec l'autre grand saint jésuite : saint
François Xavier) termine sa vie à Rome, au terme d'une mission épuisante, en
1572. Son corps, transporté à Madrid, a disparu dans l'émeute de 1931. Avec
saint Antoine de Padoue, saint François Borgia est le patron de l'Espagne et du
Portugal. François vient du nom latin du peuple des "Francs".
Rédacteur : Frère Bernard Pineau, OP
SOURCE : http://www.lejourduseigneur.com/Web-TV/Saints/Francois-Borgia
Chapel
with St Francis Borgia. Cathedral (Sé) of Santarém. Portugal
Saint François Borgia
Fils aîné du troisième
duc de Gandie, Francisco de Borja naquit à Gandie (sud de Valence) le 28
octobre 1510. Il était par son père, Jean de Borja, l'arrière-petit-fils du
pape Alexandre VI et, par sa mère, Jeanne d'Aragon, l'arrière-petit-fils du roi
Ferdinand le Catholique. Orphelin de mère en, 1520, il fut élevé par son oncle
maternel, Jean d'Aragon, archevêque de Saragosse, jusqu'à ce qu'on l'appelât à
la cour de la reine Jeanne la Folle, à Tordesillas, comme page de la princesse
Catherine, soeur de Charles-Quint. Quand l'infante Catherine épousa le roi Jean
III de Portugal, François retourna à Saragosse pour étudier la philosophie
(1525).
En 1528, il entra au
service de Charles-Quint qui, en 1529, lui fit épouser une dame d'honneur de
l'impératrice Isabelle, Eléonore de Castro, dont il aura huit enfants ; marquis
de Llombai en 1530, grand veneur de l'Empereur et grand écuyer de
l'Impératrice, Charles-Quint, lui confia la surveillance de la cour pendant la
victorieuse campagne contre Tunis (1536), lui demanda de l'instruire en
cosmographie, puis se l'adjoignit pendant l'expédition de Provence, et mit sous
son influence l'infant Philippe.
De nature pieuse, fidèle
à ses devoirs, le marquis de Llombai, pendant une convalescence, lut les
homélies de S. Jean Chrysostome ; lors de la campagne de Provence il assista le
poète Garcilaso de la Vega dans son agonie et, au retour, après une maladie
dont il crut mourir, il prit la résolution de la confession et de la communion
mensuelles. Quand l'Impératrice Isabelle mourut (1° mai 1539) il fut chargé de
reconnaître et de conduire à Grenade son cadavre décomposé ce qui
l'impressionna si profondément qu'il s'écria : Ah ! Je n'aurai jamais
d'attachement pour aucun maître que la mort me puisse ravir et Dieu seul sera
l'objet de mes pensées, de mes désirs et de mon amour !
Nommé par Charles-Quint
vice-roi de Catalogne (26 juin 1539) François Borgia exerça sa charge avec
prudence et énergie pendant quatre ans au bout desquels il devint grand
majordome de la princesse Marie de Portugal, femme de l'infant Philippe, mais
il ne remplit jamais les fonctions car la reine du Portugal ne voulait pas
qu'Eléonore de Castro approchât sa fille qui mourut en donnant naissance à
l'infant Don Carlos (12 juillet 1545). Quatrième duc de Gandie la mort de son
père (17 décembre 1542), il présidait à plus de trois mille familles vassales,
au marquisat de Llombai et à quatorze baronnies.
Eléonore de Castro mourut
le 27 mars 1546. Le duc de Gandie, fort lié avec les premiers Jésuites qu'il
protégeait de toute son influence, suivit les exercices de saint Ignace et
résolut de faire vœu de chasteté et d'obéissance, puis d'entrer dans la
Compagnie de Jésus (2 juin 1546) ; il fit secrètement sa profession solennelle
(1° février 1548) et s’en vint étudier la théologie à l'université de Gandie
qu'il avait fondée.
Le 31 août 1550, sous
prétexte de gagner l'indulgence jubilaire de l'Année Sainte, François Borgia se
rendit à Rome où il fut ordonné prêtre (23 mai 1551) et célébra sa première
messe (1° août). Il fut envoyé prêcher au Pays Basque, puis au Portugal. En
avril 1555, il était commissaire général de la Compagnie de Jésus en Espagne et
au Portugal. Charles-Quint le choisit, conjointement avec l'infant Philippe,
comme son exécuteur testamentaire. Appelé à Rome, il y arriva le 7 décembre
1561 et fut élu général de la Compagnie de Jésus le 2 juillet 1565.
Il mourut à Rome, le 30 septembre 1572, à minuit. Béatifié par Urbain VIII le 21 novembre 1624, il fut canonisé par Clément X le 12 avril 1671.
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/
Also
known as
Francisco de Borja y
Aragon
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
30
September 1572 at Ferrara, Italy
relics translated
to the Jesuit church
in Madrid, Spain in 1901
23 November 1624 by Pope Urban
VIII in Madrid, Spain
12 April 1671 by Pope Clement
X at Saint
Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Rome, Italy
Rota,
Marianas
skull crowned with
an emporer’s diadem
Gallery of
images of Saint Francis
Additional
Information
An
Example of Humility and Self-Contempt, by Father Francis
Xavier Lasance
Book
of Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Catholic
Encyclopedia, by Pierre Suau
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Francis
Xavier Weninger
Meditations
on the Gospels for Every Day in the Year, by Father Pierre
Médaille
Saints
of the Day, by Katherine Rabenstein
Saints
of the Society of Jesus
Short
Lives of the Saints, by Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly
books
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
other
sites in english
Little
Pictorial Lives of the Saints
Order of Ignatian Spirituality
images
video
sites
en français
Abbé
Christian-Philippe Chanut
fonti
in italiano
Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi
MLA
Citation
“Saint Francis
Borgia“. CatholicSaints.Info. 11 October 2023. Web. 18 October 2023.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-francis-borgia/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-francis-borgia/
St. Francis Borgia
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/
Pietro
Antonio Rotari, St. Francis Borgia in adoration, XVIIe siècle
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
Sources: Archives of
Osuna (Madrid), of Simancas; National Archives of Paris; Archives of the
Society of Jesus; Regeste du généralat de Laynez et de Borgia, etc.
Literature: Monumenta historica S. J. (Madrid); Mon. Borgiana; Chronicon
Polanci; Epistolæ Mixtæ; Quadrimetres; Epistolæ Patris Nadal, etc.; Epistolæ
et instructiones S. Ignatii; ORLANDINI AND SACCHINI, Historia Societatis
Jesu; ALCÁZAR, Chrono-historia de la provincia de Toledo; Lives of
the saint by VASQUEZ (1586; manuscript, still unedited), RIBADENEYRA, (1592),
NIEREMBERG (1643), BARTOLI (1681), CIENFUEGOS (1701); Acta SS., Oct.,
V; ASTRAIN, Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Asistencia de España, I
and II (1902, 1905); BÉTHENCOURT, Historia genealógica y heráldica de la
monarchía española (Madrid, 1902), IV, Gandia, Casa de Borja; Boletín
de la Academia de la Historia (Madrid), passim; SUAU, S. François de
Borgia in Les Saints (Paris, 1905); IDEM, Histoire de S.
François de Borgia (Paris, 1909).
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.
SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06213a.htm
Weninger’s
Lives of the Saints – Saint Francis Borgia, Confessor
Article
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.
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/
François Foppens, Francesco Borgia, Opera Omnia, Bruxelles, 1675
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.
The name of Borgia
(Borja) is understandably ill-sounding; however, Saint Francis was outstanding
among those who brought honor to it. He was the scion of the family that
produced Pope Callistus III (1455-1458) and a great-grandson of the man who
became Pope Alexander VI of unhappy memory (who had fathered four children at
the time of his elevation). Alexander VI had purchased the dukedom of Gandia
for his son Peter and, upon Peter's death, gave it to another son, John, who
was murdered soon after his marriage.
Francis was the eldest of
14 children born to John's son, the third duke of Gandia, and Juana of Aragon,
daughter of the illegitimate some of King Ferdinand of Aragon. Two of his
brothers became cardinals, one an abbot, one an archbishop, and two of his
sisters became abbesses. Francis studied rhetoric and philosophy under his
uncle, the archbishop of Saragossa.
For ten years from 1528
the marquis of Lombay, Saint Francis, was in the service of Emperor Charles V,
to whom he was an adviser. At Alcalá de Henares, Francis was impressed by the
appearance of a man whom he saw being taken to prison by the Inquisitors: Saint
Ignatius of Loyola. Francis accompanied the emperor on a campaign in Provence.
At age 19 (1529), Francis married Eleanor de Castro, by whom he had eight
children.
In 1539 the Empress
Isabella died, and Francis and his wife Eleanor accompanied the funeral
procession from Toledo to Elvira. When they arrived at the tombs the coffin was
opened, and the sight of the decomposing body of the empress, who in her
lifetime had been so beautiful, had a profound effect on Francis. Thereafter,
he devoted himself to fervent prayer and took Communion frequently. He also
made his first contacts with the itinerant Jesuits.
That same year, Emperor
Charles V appointed him imperial viceroy in Catalonia, which has its capital at
Barcelona. He proved a model governor; but he was not acceptable to everybody
because of his determined efforts to suppress corrupt administration of justice
by the nobility and magistrates. He later wrote: "It was when I was
Viceroy of Catalonia that God prepared me to be general of the Society of
Jesus." He prayed as much as he could without neglecting his duties or
growing family. The frequency of his sacramental communions caused unfavorable
comment.
In 1543, his father died
and Francis inherited all his titles, including that of duke of Gandia, and
estates. He served for a time as master of the household of Prince Philip. When
King John of Portugal refused to recognize his position in Philip's household,
who had broken off his engagement to John's daughter, Francis retired to his
duchy where he planned to build a Jesuit college. He used this time to found a
Dominican monastery on his estate, restore a hospital, fortify Gandia against
Moorish attacks and Barbary pirates. His wife also planned to build a
monastery, but, much to Francis's great grief, she died in 1546 before
completing the plans, leaving eight children of whom the youngest was eight years
old.
Shortly after the death
of Doña Eleanor, Blessed Peter Favre briefly visited the duke. Peter left for
Rome with a message to Saint Ignatius that his host had vowed to become a
Jesuit. Ignatius advised him to wait until he had settled his children and
finished the foundations that he had begun. Meanwhile he was to study for a
doctorate in theology at the university in Gandia, which he had inaugurated.
Francis complied until he was called to court the following year. Thereupon he
wrote urgently to Saint Ignatius who allow him to make his profession
privately. The 40-year-old Francis left for Rome on August 31, 1550, made his
profession, and returned to Spain within four months.
Having received
permission from the emperor, Francis made over his titles and estates to his
eldest son, Charles, and provided for his other children. Retiring to the
hermitage at Oñate near Loyola, Francis shaved his head and beard, donned
clerical robes, and was ordained a priest in 1551 during Whitsuntide. His
action, which on the advice of Saint Ignatius Loyola he had kept a secret until
the last moment, caused a sensation and earned him the nickname 'the Holy
Duke.' The first Mass that he celebrated at Vergara was so crowded that it had
to be held outdoors and lasted several hours. The pope had granted a plenary
indulgence for assisting at the Mass.
He did all he
could--through humility and extreme asceticism--to make men forget his exalted
origins, but his abilities could not be hidden. His preaching drew huge crowds
in Spain and Portugal. He went through the villages with a bell, calling the
children to catechism, instructing and preaching especially in Guipuzcoa.
Father Francis's superior in the house treated him severely to counter the
effects of his previous exalted position.
The superior had little
to worry about, however. Francis imposed upon himself severe mortifications.
Upon his conversion Francis was an exceedingly fat man, but his physical
austerities soon returned him to normal proportions. When he was required to
curb his mortifications under obedience, he would devise physical discomforts
to remind him of his position before God. Later in life he believed that he had
been imprudent in his mortifications.
During this period of
preaching throughout Spain, he became acquainted with Saint Teresa of Ávila. He
was one of the first to recognize her greatness. Later during a return to Spain
he was instrumental in protecting her from her persecutors when her confessor
insisted that her visitations were wiles of the devil. Francis, who had himself
received many tokens of divine grace, needed only one conversation with her to
be convinced that her visions were indeed divine, and after that Saint Teresa
was put under Jesuit confessors.
In 1554 Saint Ignatius
Loyola appointed him provincial for those countries and the Indies. In this
office Francis popularized the then little-known Jesuits, founding numerous
houses and colleges, attracting many good recruits, and ministering to the
abdicated Charles V and the dowager queen Joanna, who had gone mad after the
death of her husband fifty years earlier. Queen Joanna had a special aversion
to the clergy, but allowed Francis to comfort her on her deathbed.
There was enmity between
Saint Francis and the Inquisition, and King Philip II listened to the calumnies
of those jealous of the saint. Nevertheless, he continued his work in Portugal
until 1561, when he was summoned to Rome by Pope Pius IV at the instigation of
the Jesuit general, Father Laynez. Among those who regularly attended the
sermons of Saint Francis were Cardinal Charles Borromeo and Cardinal Ghislieri
(Pius V).
Four years later was
unanimously elected father general of the Jesuits. The order made great
progress during his seven-year rule; he has, indeed, been called its second
founder. In fact, it is that Francis put the roof on the building whose
foundations were laid by Saint Ignatius. He revised the rule of the Society in
1567.
Francis was particularly
concerned with the improvement of the Roman College (now the Gregorian
University), which he had already partially endowed. He encouraged the Jesuits
to engage in foreign missionary work. He built Sant'Andrea on the Quirinal,
began the famous Gésu church in Rome, established the Polish province, built
colleges in France, and opened American missions. In 1566, when the plague
ravaged Rome, he raised money to relieve the poor and sent his priests to tend
the sick in hospitals.
As general of the Society
of Jesus, Francis was one of the leading figures of the counter-reformation.
Francis was a typical saint of the Spanish nobility: He was courteous, humble,
refined, kind, and generous to others but austere to himself. He would sign
himself "Francis the Sinner," until Saint Ignatius ordered him not to
do so. As the bishop of Cartagena said in a letter to a friend, he was "a
model duke and a perfect Christian gentleman."
In 1571, Pope Saint Pius
V chose Saint Francis to accompany a mission led by Cardinal Bonelli to several
European capitals to gather support for a crusade against the Turks; his
reputation had preceded him, and crowds gathered, shouting: "We want to
see the saint" and clamoring to hear him preach. But the fatigue entailed
aggravated his failing health. When he arrived at the home of his cousin, Duke
Alfonso of Ferrara, he was so ill that he was sent to Rome on a litter.
In his last moments, as
his brother Thomas rehearsed their names, Francis pronounced a blessing on each
of his children and grandchildren. When Francis was no longer able to speak, a painter
was sent to his bedside to record his appearance. Francis saw him, expressed
his displeasure with his dying hands and eyes, and turned his face away so that
nothing could be done. The saint quietly died two days after returning to Rome.
He was typical of the patrician saints: self-effacing, determined,
enterprising, winning people of all ranks by his kindness and courtesy
(Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Walsh, Yeo).
Portrayed as a Jesuit holding a skull crowned with an imperial diadem. Sometimes the skull is on a book; other times he is shown kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament (Roeder).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1010.shtml
Saints
of the Society of Jesus: Saint Francis Borgia
Article
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/
.jpg)
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/
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
Corner
statue Valletta, Malta
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: |
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Archivio Parrocchia |
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/73800
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)/
