CHAPTER XIV. OCCUPATIONS OF ST. IGNATIUS AT ROME. ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY ARE SUMMONED THERE. A NEW PROCESS The IGNATIUS, as soon as he had arrived in Rome, presented himself with his companions to the Pope; they were already known to him, and that in a favourable light. Sovereign Pontiff agreed to their petition, and commanded Faber and Laynez to give provisionally public lectures, the first on Holy Scripture, and the second on Dogmatic Theology, at the Sapienza, which is the name of the University of Rome. Ignatius at the same time began to give the Spiritual Exercises publicly to the people, and to several persons in particular, amongst whom was Cardinal Contarini, uncle to Peter Contarini, accounted by Maffei one of the most learned men of the time. This illustrious Cardinal took Ignatius for the director of his conscience, and said that he had found in him the guide he had been long seeking for. The Procurator of the Emperor, Peter Ortiz, wished to make trial of the qualities that Contarini praised in the Saint. He retired to Monte Cassino, to go through the Exercises in the most complete solitude, and invited Ignatius to accompany him thither. The impression they made on this celebrated Doctor was so strong, that he would have entered into the Society of Ignatius if the latter had not dissuaded him from this step on account of his age and the important commission with which he was charged. It was during the time Ignatius was at Monte Cassino that he was apprized of the death of James Hozez, who had been the last to enter into the new Society, and was now the first struck down by death. He died at Padua, the victim of his zeal, death having found him on that field of battle which he had freely chosen as his portion. At the moment of his death Ignatius saw his soul depart out of this life, surrounded with a marvellous splendour; and another time while assisting at Mass, at the moment that the Priest said the words, Confiteor. . . et omnibus Sanctis, he again saw him in the company of many others. He was in this manner consoled for the loss he had sustained, and had, moreover, the happiness of soon replacing, by another disciple, the one whom God had taken away from him. On his return to Rome he met a young Spaniard named Francis Strada, who, having been unsuccessful at Court, had come to Naples to seek his fortune in a military career. But Ignatius having brought him in conversation to more serious thoughts, he enrolled himself as a soldier under the standard of Christ, and rendered most signal services to God in several countries. The Saint himself informs us with great detail, in a letter to Elizabeth Roser, of what he and his companions did at Rome after his return. We here give a translation of the original, which lies in the collection of the Saint's letters at Rome. * I think you are both troubled and surprised at not receiving more frequent letters from me. I would myself write to you more often, persuaded that if I were to forget all the good which God has done to me through you, with so much goodness and love, His Divine Majesty would also forget me, for you have never ceased to render me service for the love and honour which you bear to Him. If I have delayed to write to you, it is because we hope from day to day and month to month to conclude an affair which concerns us, for I wish to inform you exactly of all that is passing here with regard to us. During eight whole months we have had to sustain the most terrible persecution which we have ever experienced in this life. I do not mean to say that they have troubled us personally or dragged us before tribunals, but by reports spread in public, and by denunciations the most unheard of, they have rendered us suspected by the Faithful, to their great disedification. We have been obliged to present ourselves before the Legate and the Governor of the city, the Pope having gone to Nice, on account of the scandal which numbers took against us. We have named several of those who have opposed us, and called upon them to declare in From this we see that the process was begun towards the end of March. presence of our Superiors what they have remarked reprehensible in our doctrine or our life. And that you may the better understand the matter from its commencement, I will here give you some explanations. It is little more than a year since three of us came to Rome, as I remember to have already told you. My two companions began immediately to teach gratuitously at the Sapienza, by order of the Pope-one taking positive and the other scholastic theology. For my part, I employed myself solely in giving the Spiritual Exercises within the city and beyond it. We sought in this manner to gain over, not so much on our own account as for the honour and glory of God, some men of learning and consideration, for our glory and our desire is to praise and serve His Divine Majesty. We hoped in this way to find less opposition among the men of this world, and to be able to preach with more effect the Word of God: for to judge by appearance, we laboured in a soil barren of good fruit, and productive only of bad. After having by these Exercises, with the help of God, won in our favour some personages considerable both for rank and learning, we resolved at the end of four months after our arrival to bring all our members together in this same city;* and having all assembled, we asked permission to preach, exhort, and hear confessions. The Legate gave us very extensive powers + in this matter, although many vexatious things were being reported meanwhile to his Vicar against us, and delayed the issuing of our faculties. When we had obtained them, four or five of our number set themselves to preach in different churches on Sundays and holidays, and to give instructions to children in other churches on the Commandments of God, on the deadly sins, &c. The two lectures at the Sapienza and the confessions were also continued. All preached in Italian. I alone preached in Spanish. I had at all my sermons a great crowd of people, and incomparably more than we expected, for three following reasons: (1.) Because it was an extraordinary time, being, in fact, immediately after the Festival of Easter, at the moment when the other preachers of Lent and of the principal Feast had ceased, for it is the custom here to preach only during Lent and Advent; (2.) because very many people after the exercises and sermons of Lent are disposed, in their inclination to sin, rather to return to the pleasures and diversions of the world than continue works of piety; (3.) because we neglect the ornaments and elegancies of discourse, since we have learned by a number of instances that our Lord in His infinite goodness does not forget us, and is pleased * This reunion took place before the end of March, 1538. St. Ignatius, therefore, arrived in Rome before the end of November, 1537. These were given by the Legate in the city, Cardinal Caraffa, in the absence of the Pope, and in virtue of his full powers, on the 3rd of May of this year. They were thereby authorized to exercise everywhere ecclesiastical functions during their life. The Saint preached in the Church of our Lady of Mont Serrat, and what was most admired in him was his power of touching the heart and that he spoke as a man who had the power of the Holy Spirit. His auditors were all Spaniards, and among them was Ortiz, the delegate of the Emperor, who used to boast that he had not been absent from one of his sermons during the time he was at Rome. to make use of us, notwithstanding our littleness, to show through us His mercy to others. We appeared then before the tribunal, at which two of our three opponents were cited to appear. One of these having been found by the judge to be quite the reverse of what he expected, the others whom we had begged to present themselves were so alarmed that they had no longer the will nor the courage to appear; but they obtained against us a decree which forbade us to prosecute the affair before other tribunals. As they were persons of means-one of whom had a thousand and the other six hundred crowns a year, and were besides men belonging to the Court and in office, one especially being a man of great consideration-they represented the matter to the Cardinals, and other important personages of the Court, in such an aspect that they raised up against us for a long time many obstacles during our struggle. At length the two heads of this little cabal presented themselves, at the term fixed, before the Legate and the Governor, and declared that they had heard our sermons and our lectures, &c., and their testimony completely justified our doctrine and our morals. Although the Legate and the Governor had much esteem for us, yet they wished, out of regard for these persons and for others besides, to hush up the affair. We, on the contrary, demanded several times, as appeared to us just, that declaration should be made in an authentic manner whether our doctrine was good or bad, so as to take away all occasion of scandal from the people generally in our regard. We could not, however, obtain this legally and under title of justice. Still no one durst henceforward speak against us, for fear of the law being invoked against themselves. As we could not obtain a juridical sentence, one of our friends spoke to the Pope, upon his return from Nice, and besought him to give us the declaration which we desired. He promised to do so; but as no result came from this, two of Ours again spoke with him on the subject. The Pope having gone shortly after this interview to one of his castles in the environs of Rome, I went there and spoke alone with His . Holiness for a full hour in his apartment. After having explained to him at length our design and our purposes, I frankly told him how often proceedings had been taken against me in Spain and at Paris, how many times I had been in prison at Alcala and at Salamanca, not wishing that he should hear these things from any other than myself. And with a view to obtain from him an order for an inquiry, that in some way or other we might have a sentence or declaration passed on our doctrine, I told him, in fine, that to preach and exhort the people with fruit we must preserve our reputation, not only before God our Lord, but also before men; and that to avoid all suspicion on our doctrine and lives, I begged of His Holiness in the name of all my companions that he would be pleased, in order to remedy the evil, to charge an ordinary judge, whom he should choose, to make inquiry into our doctrine and lives, that we might be blamed and punished if they were found fault with-at the same time asking his protection if they were found to be without blame. The Pope, as far as I could conclude from my interview with him, received my request with kindness, and praised our talents and the use we made of them for good. Some time after, having first spoken with us in terms worthy of a true Pastor, he addressed to the Governor, who was a Bishop and the highest judicial authority both ecclesiastical and civil at Rome, an order to prosecute immediately our affair. He began the inquiry anew with all possible care. The Pope, having returned to Rome, expressed himself publicly, and to those around him, several times in a manner that was very honourable to us. For every fortnight it is the custom for several persons to meet at the Vatican and to dispute in presence of the Pope during his repast. These favourable words of the Sovereign Pontiff dispelled in great measure the storm, so that the sky became every day more clear for us, and now our affairs, in my opinion, are proceeding as well as we could desire for the service and glory of God our Lord, since already several Bishops beg us earnestly to come and do some good in their dioceses, with the help of God; but we keep ourselves quiet as yet, in hopes of a better future. By the grace of the Lord our God, we have at last obtained the sentence which we desired, and it has been attended by a truly wonderful coincidence. You must know that a report was spread here that we had escaped out of several places, among others from Spain, from Paris, and from Venice. Now precisely at the moment when the sentence was to be given in our affair, God was pleased to send here the President Figueroa, who had once put me in prison at Alcala and had twice proceeded against me, the Vicar General of the Legate at Venice, who had held an inquiry upon me when we began to preach in the Venetian States, the Dr. Ortiz, who had in like manner instituted a process at Paris, and the Bishop of Vicenza, in whose diocese three or four of us had preached. All gave witness in our favour. Besides which, the cities of Sienna, Bologna, and Ferrara sent hither authentic attestations in favour of us. The Duke of Ferrara, not content with doing this and taking our affairs still more to heart because he saw the honour of God attacked in our person, wrote also to our Ambassador and deigned to address several letters to our Society, in which he declared that he made our business his own because he knew the good we had done in his city and in others besides, although, on account of the obstacles put in our way, we had much difficulty in remaining at Ferrara. We give thanks to the Lord our God that up to this time we have not ceased to preach two or three times a day on holidays, and have given two catechisms each day, while the others occupied themselves in hearing confessions and some in giving the Spiritual Exercises. Now that we have a sentence in our favour, we hope to extend further our preaching and catechisms to the children. Although the soil is dry and barren, and we meet with many contradictions, we cannot meanwhile say that we have been in want of work to do, and that God our Lord has not done more for us than we could have imagined. I will not enter into further detail, being afraid of making this letter too long, but I can say in general that God our Lord has fully contented us. cannot, however, refrain from saying that four or five new companions have resolved to join us, and have now persevered in this resolution for some months. We dare not receive them yet; for, besides other things, they have laid to our charge that we wish to found a Congregation or an Order, without authorization of the Holy See. Although we do not. I |