Sacred Calendar

Fourth Lesson - The King of Kings Preferred to Earthly Greatness

Francis, fourth Duke of Gandia, was the son of John Borgia, Duke of Gandia, and of Joan of Aragon, daughter of Alphonso, natural son to Ferdinand V. surnamed the Catholic, King of Aragon. [He was born at Gandia, in the kingdom of Valencia, in the year of our Lord 1510.] He passed his boyhood at home in great innocence and godliness, and was still more remarkable for his Christian graces and the hardness of his living, at the Court of the Emperor Charles V., and as Vice-Roy of Catalonia. [On May the 1st, 1539] died the Empress Isabella, and Francis, [as her master of the horse,] was commanded to attend her body to Granada, where it was to be buried. [At Granada the coffin was opened, in order that he might swear to the magistrates of the city that it was indeed the body of the late Empress,] and the sight of the awful change which death had made in her countenance so thrilled him with the thought of our mortality and corruption, that he bound himself by vow, as soon as he lawfully might, to give up all things, and to serve the King of kings only. From that time he so advanced in Christian graces, that his life might be called the miracle of princes, showing, in the midst of a vast mass of business, an image of perfection attained in a cloister.

Fifth Lesson - Austerity, Obedience, and Apostolic Labor

His wife, Eleanora de Castro, died [on the 27th of March, 1546,] and [in 1551] he entered the Society of Jesus, that therein he might hide himself more safely, and bar by the obligation of a vow the path to dignities. He was the worthy leader of many princes who have embraced a life of hardship, and Charles V. himself when he resigned the Empire did not deny that he had been moved and shown the way by Francis. In his struggle after austerity Francis, by fasting, by iron chains, by the roughest of hair-cloth, by long and bloody flagellations, and by denying himself any but very little sleep, reduced his body to the last degree, but would still spare no toil to overcome himself and to save souls. Thus full of ghostly strength, he was appointed by holy Ignatius, [in the year 1554,] Commissary-General of the Society in Spain, Portugal, and the Indies, and [on the 2nd of July, 1565,] notwithstanding all the precautions he could take to prevent it, he was chosen by the general Congregation of the Society to be General, being the third who held that office. In this position his wisdom and holiness of life greatly endeared him to Princes and Popes, and besides founding or enlarging very many houses in divers places, he sent brethren into the kingdom of Poland, into the islands of the Ocean, and into the provinces of Mexico and Peru, and into other lands also Apostolic men who spread the Roman Catholic faith by their preaching, their sweat, and their blood.

Sixth Lesson - Francis the Sinner

He thought so little of himself that he gave himself the nickname of "Francis the sinner." By the Popes he was oftentimes offered the dignity of Cardinal of the Roman Church, but the lowly firmness with which he refused it could never be overcome. In his cheap esteem of the world and of himself his chief pleasures were to clean the house, to beg for food from door to door, and to wait upon the sick in hospitals. He spent many hours every day, oftentimes eight and sometimes ten, in prayer and meditation. An hundred times every day he worshipped God upon his knees. He never missed the opportunity of offering the Holy Liturgy, and the fire from God which burnt within him sometimes shone forth in his countenance when he was lifting the Sacred Host, or preaching. By an inward power given him from God he could tell where the most Holy Body of Christ, under the Eucharistic veils, was kept. [In 1570, the year before the victory of Lepanto,] the blessed Pius V. sent Francis with the Cardinal Alexandrini on an embassy [into France, Spain, and Portugal,] to unite the Christian Princes against Turkey. His vital strength was then nearly worn out, but, through obedience, he undertook the toil of the journey. He became much worse during the travelling, and on his return brought to a blessed end at Rome, as had been his desire, the pilgrimage of this life, [a little before midnight between the last day of September and the first of October,] in the sixty-second year of his own life, and that of salvation 1572. Holy Teresa, who used his advice, called him an holy man, and Gregory XIII., a faithful servant. He was famous for many and great signs and wonders, and Clement X. at last numbered him among the Saints.