CHAPTER VII

The Catholic faith is advanced by the preaching of Ours in various places in the Philipinas. The death of two religious in Talavera de la Reyna with great reputation.

The year 1677

§ I

The evangelical trumpet resounds in various territories of Philipinas, and especially in the ridges of Linao, and in the mountains of Cagayàn, in the island of Mindanào, by the means of our missionaries; and many heathens are converted to the Christian religion.

714. It has ever been a very common complaint among historians of the order, and all make it, of time the destroyer of all things and of the neglect in leaving advisory news thereof. There is no doubt that for these two reasons the memory of many valiant deeds of excellent religious, who have filled our discalced Recollect order with honors in the Philipinas Islands, who have extended the Catholic faith untiringly at the cost of unspeakable hardships, and destroyed the abominable altars of heathen blindness, have been lost. But never more than at present does that complaint appear justifiable, when we begin to treat of the progress of Christianity in the districts of Linào and Cagayàn, villages of the island of Mindanào, one of the Philipinas. There was the evangelical trumpet heard by dint of members of our reformed order, with memorable fruit.... Let us pass then to mention what we have been able to bring to light from the confused memories which time excused.

715. In the year 1674, father Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, a native of Zaragoza, was elected provincial in Philipinas. That apostolic laborer had always had great zeal for the conversion of souls. Agitated by that sacred fire that burned without consuming his heart which fed it, he worked in his own person, as much as he who did most, so that all the heathens of that distant archipelago should embrace, believe, and reverence the faith of the true God, in whose name only is found salvation. For that purpose he went not only once into the highest peaks of Zambàles, in order to illumine their darkness with the Catholic light or to lose his life in so heroic an act of charity. He desired with unspeakable anxiety to be given the opportunity to make a sacrifice of his blood by shedding it in so good warfare, in confirmation of the truth which he was preaching. "When shall I have the desirable happiness," he exclaimed to his pious fellow countryman, San Pedro Arbuès, "of being made a good martyr from a bad priest by the merciful God?" That desire we see already had made him leave every fear; and consequently, without any horror of death, notwithstanding that it represented itself to him as to all, full of bitterness, he placed himself in excessive dangers, in order that he might whiten with the water of baptism the souls of the inhabitants of those ridges, so that in their darkened bodies they might obtain the beauty of grace. Thus was his practice throughout his life, not only in the above-mentioned district, but also in other places of the many which are entrusted to us in those vast territories, and if he did not effectively obtain the crown of martyrdom, yet the merited reward will not be lacking to such prowess.

716. He did that when he was not the superior prelate, but afterwards when he became provincial, he flew with his cares to undertakings of almost infinite breadth. He beheld very near the great empire of China, peopled by an incredible multitude of souls, almost all of them seated in the shadows of death, and their acute intellects ignorantly disturbed in the obscure darkness of their errors. The mission so often craved by our reformed order to those countries, was the first object of his zealous heart. He could not be satisfied with trying to send others as evangelical laborers, but he tried with the greatest seriousness to abandon the glory of the provincialate, in order that he might be employed personally in an expedition so much to divine service, and his inability to accomplish it cost him many a bitter sob. He became a sea of tears, when he thought of the distant kingdoms (also almost in sight) of Japòn, Bornèy, Sumàtra, Tunquìn, Cochinchina, Mogòl, Tartària, and Persia; for most of those who have their wealth and amenities live but as mortals basely deceived by their brutish worships, in order to die eternally in the more grievous life. To some of those places and especially to Japòn, he had practical ideas of sending missionaries, and even of going thither in person, and he made the greatest efforts for that purpose. And although he did not obtain the end of his desires, because of the obstructions which the common enemy is wont to place to such works, such eagerness cannot but be praised very highly; and consequently, they will have been rewarded with great degrees of glory, because of what he was trying to communicate to the souls of others.

717. Since, then, he could not accomplish so well conceived love which extended itself to the salvation of the whole world, he set in operation the maxims which his burning charity dictated to him in regard to the extensive limits entrusted by the Lord of the vineyard of the Philipinas for the cultivation of our holy discalced order, with a so visible utility to the Church. In the first place he arranged with admirable prudence that certain missionary religious should incessantly travel through the villages of our administration, like swift angels or like light clouds in order to preach the obligation of their character to the Christian Indians. They were to advise them at the same time to take the sacraments frequently, of the horror of idolatry, of the love of the faith, of obedience to the Church, and to the appreciable submission to the Catholic king from which so many blessings would follow to them, and by which they would be delivered from innumerable evils. For that purpose he assigned two religious of the Visayan language, one of the Tagálog, and one of the Zambal--all of the spirit that such an occupation demanded. He ordered each one of them to make continual journeys through the large and small settlements of the district of his language, preaching the mission with the same formalities that they are wont to observe in Europa. He also ordered the father priors of the respective districts to give such fathers every aid for that apostolic ministry, both temporal and spiritual, as such was for the service of God and the greater purity of our Catholic faith.

718. The profits and good effects that followed that undertaking happily instituted, and reduced to fact with rare success, cannot be easily explained. Oh would that the lack of religious almost transcendental in all times in that province did not prevent the prosecution and perpetuity of so holy a custom by which unspeakable harvests of spiritual blessings were obtained, although some temporal riches should be spent in it. It is true that the ministers of parish priests of our said order who live continually in the villages, attend to those duties without avoiding any toil. But since they always live among their parishioners, and treat them so near at hand, and since they exercise over them a certain kind of authority, greater than that which the curas in España possess, it will not be imprudent to observe (considering human weakness, and the cowardice of the Indians), that some will not go to confess to those said parish priests without great fear, the common enemy infusing them with fears lest the parish priests perhaps will punish them for the sins that they might confess. Let us add to this that there are no other confessors on whom to rely, especially in the districts which are at some distance from Manila. Also it is almost impossible as our ministries are located, for the Indians to go from one village to another for that purpose. For these reasons, I myself have experienced, and I have heard it asserted by many curates that too many sacrilegious confessions are made, for sins are kept hidden out of shame, to the deplorable ruin of souls. All the above impediments cease undeniably so far as the missionaries are concerned. Hence one can infer the great fruit that would be gathered in spiritual matters by means of the profitable idea which was invented by our father Fray Joseph and put in practice in his time with the utmost ardor.

719. Besides that, by causing his subjects to multiply, since not in number, at least in their courage for work, the vigilant superior ordered those who were in the ministries to perform with the utmost effort what they had always done, namely, that they should not be content with directing the souls of the faithful to heaven, but should strive with might and main for the conversion of the heathen. And since the fire of love as regards God, their provincial, and their neighbors, burned with intensity in those gospel laborers, one can not imagine how greatly the activity of that fire, strengthened with the breath of the exhortation of so worthy a prelate, was increased and worked outside. We can assert without any offense to anyone else what has already been suggested in other parts of this history, namely, that our discalced religious in the Philipinas Islands, outstripped all the other religious in the so meritorious quality of suffering hardships. [30] The villages most distant from Manila, those that offer less convenience for human life, those with the most ferocious people, and all surrounded by Moros, by heathens, and by other barbarous Indians, in regard to whom any confidence would be irrational, are the ones in our charge. And adding to this that one minister generally has charge of many settlements, which are at times located in distinct islands, one can easily see how many fatigues, sweatings, and how much weariness will be caused by the spiritual administration of those who are enlisted in the Catholic religion. What will all that be then, if they have to attend also to the reduction of so great a number of souls, who live lawless in idolatry in sight of the law of grace! I repeat that our Recollects, equal in their zeal to the other gospel laborers, exceed them there without difficulty in the necessary opportunities for suffering. Moreover, if our brothers have the advantage at all times in this regard of other missionaries, those of the triennium of which we are speaking, excelled themselves, for they labored more than ever in the administration of the faithful and in the conversion of the heathen.

720. But the greatest efforts that the venerable father provincial put forth, and the places where the religious assigned for that work labored with excessive fervor, were in the districts of Butuàn and Cagayàn, which are located in the island of Mindanào. There was a heathen Indian called Dato Pistig Matànda, who had been living for many years on the banks of the river Butuàn between the villages of Linào and Hothìbon. He was of noble rank, a lord of vassals, and had great power and a not slight understanding, although he was corrupted with an execrable multitude of vices. He, instigated by the devil, had caused all the efforts of the evangelical ministers to return fruitless for many years; for idolatry maintained not only in the castle of his soul, but as well in all the territory of his jurisdiction, the throne which it had usurped, and the continual assaults which were made without cessation against that obstinate heart by the members of our discalced order had no effect. Several religious had endeavored to make him submit to the sweet yoke of the evangelical law, and they availed themselves with holy zeal of all the stratagems which, as incentives, generally attract the human will to reason and open the door to grace in order that it may work marvels. Especially did the holy father Fray Miguèl de Santo Thomàs, make use of all the means that he considered fitting to reduce the Indian chief to the true sheepfold as well as those who were strayed from it in his following, during the whole time that he graced that river by his presence. But experience proved that God reserved the triumph solicited on so many occasions for the happy epoch of which we are treating at present, for his own inscrutable reasons. At that time then the divine vocation working powerfully and mildly, and availing itself as instruments of our religious who resided in Butuàn and in Linào, softened that erstwhile bronze heart and he not only received baptism, but also tried by all means to have his vassals do the same. Hence, leaving out of account a great number of children, the adults who were reëngendered in the waters of salvation and became sons of God and heirs of glory, exceeded three hundred.

721. At the same time another father, who had a residence in the village of Linào, notably advanced our Christian religion in places thitherto occupied by infidelity. The mountains of that territory are inhabited by a nation of Indians, heathens for the greater part called Manòbos [31]--a word signifying in that language, as if we should say here, "robust and very numerous people." When those Indians are not at war with the Spaniards, they are tractable, docile, and quite reasonable. They have the very good peculiarities of being separated not a little from the brutish life of the other mountain people thereabout; for they have regular villages, where they live in human sociability in a very well ordered civilization. Although the above qualities, as has been seen, are very apropos for receiving the faith, notwithstanding that fact, although some of them are always reduced, they are very few when one considers the untiring solicitude with which our missionaries unceasingly endeavor to procure it. The reasons for so deplorable an effect are the same as we have mentioned in regard to the conversion of the Tagabalòyes Indians. But during the provincialate of our father Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, either because those obstacles ceased, or because divine grace wished to extend its triumphs, the results were wonderful. A very great number of those Manòbos were admitted into the Church--how many is not specified by the relations which we have been able to investigate, but we only see that they were many; for it is asserted that while the district of Butuàn, to which Linào belonged, consisted before that time of about three thousand reduced souls, its Christianity increased then by about one-third, the believers thus being increased for God and the vassals for the king.

722. In the mountains of Cagayàn, shone also the light of disillusionment, without proving hateful but very agreeable to rational eyes, for it caught them well disposed. The zealous workers of our Institute, shaken with the zeal of the venerable father provincial, devoted themselves to felling that bramble thicket which was filled with buckthorns of idolatry and even with thorns hardened in the perfidious sect of Mahomet. Three religious, who glorified that district, attended to so divine an occupation, stealing for it from the rest of the moments that were left to them from the spiritual administration which was the first object of their duty. They extended their work toward the part of Tagalòan, and even penetrated inland quite near the lake of Malanào through all the mountains of their jurisdiction. There like divine Orpheuses they converted brutes into men by the harmonious cithara of the apostolic preaching and those who were living, in the most brutish barbarity to the Christian faith, which is so united to reason. Thus did they reduce more than one hundred tributes to the villages of the Christians. That was a total of five hundred souls who were all drawn from their infidelity or apostasy. That triumph was so much more wonderful as at that time the war of the Malanào Moros against the presidio of Cagayàn was more bloody, and it is verified by experience that in all contests, the Catholic faith generally advances but little amid the clash of arms. But their increases, which we have related (as obtained in the triennium of the venerable father, Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, which was concluded in April, 1677) appear from several letters written in Manila by the most excellent religious in June and July of the above-mentioned year, and directed to our father the vicar-general, Fray Francisco de San Joseph, which have been preserved in the archives of Madrid.

[Section ii of this chapter relates a number of miraculous occurrences in the villages of Butuàn, Linào, and Cagayàn, and their districts--miracles which were greater than the recovery of health on receiving baptism, at the reading of the gospels, or after drinking the water left in the chalice after the sacrament, all of which were very common and little regarded. Those miracles had great weight in reducing those people to the Christian faith. For instance the dato above mentioned, Putig (or Pistig) Matanda, was converted after the successful exorcism of demons that had troubled his village. It is related in this section that "for reasons that seemed fitting, the convent and church of Butuàn were moved to the beach from their previous location; but it was afterward reëstablished there, one legua from the sea upstream." One of these years also the village of Cagayàn suffered greatly from the scourge of smallpox which was formerly so common in the Philippines. Section iii treats of Spanish affairs. Section iv deals with the life of Fray Melchor de la Madre de Dios who died in the Recollect convent of Talavera de la Reyna, Spain, May 30, 1677. He was born in Nueva Segovia or Cagayan in Luzón, his father being Juan Rodrigues de Ladera. While still young his parents removed to Manila where he studied until the age of twenty the subjects of grammar, philosophy, and theology. Although he was apt, he found himself below others not so clever as himself because the pleasures of the world appealed to him too strongly. Consequently, he quit his studies in disgust, and gave himself to trade, "the occupation of which is not considered disgraceful there to people of the highest rank." But his evil courses still prevailed and during his several trips to Acapulco he succeeded only in wasting his money. Returning to Manila after his final voyage, he gave up some of his worst vices, but still kept a firm grip of the world. He must have taken up his neglected studies again, but almost nothing is known of him until he reached his thirty-third year. It is said by some that he became a priest before joining the Recollect order, but there is a lack of definite knowledge on that score. At any rate he did not abandon his rather loose way of living. In the midst of his vices he had always been greatly devoted to St. Augustine, and his conversion finally occurred on the eve of that saint. Then a vision of the saint who appeared to him caused his conversion and an enthusiasm that never left him. He became a novitiate in the Recollect convent of Manila that same year 1639 and professed in 1640. After preaching with great clearness and force in Manila which had been the scene of his excesses, he was sent as missionary to the Visayan Islands, where he worked faithfully and well. But breaking down in health because of his strenuous life in the snaring of souls, he was compelled to retire to the convent of Cebú and then to that of Manila. It being impossible for him to accomplish much work longer in the Philippines because of his health, he begged and received permission to go to Spain for the remainder of his life. When he went is uncertain, but it was after 1656, for that year he was in Siargao in the province of Caraga. After his arrival at Madrid he was assigned to the convent of Talavera de la Reyna, where his memory was revered after death for his good works.]

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