Other journeys of father Fray Diego in the service of the Lord,
for the advancement of the conversions of these tribes.
After all these hardships and perils, which were suffered with such
great patience, father Fray Diego went to the court of España--not to
gain honor or wealth, or rent, or any other temporal thing; but because
of love of the Lord, for His glory, the extension of the gospel, and
the salvation of these tribes. Since he had already passed through so
many difficulties, divine Providence did not see fit that he should
find them there, where there are ordinarily so many; and the royal
Council immediately gave him permission and direction to convey
a number of religious to this province at his Majesty's expense,
that they might there carry on the excellent work which had been
begun by the religious of this order, and that they might continue
to draw heathen from the darkness of unbelief to the light of the
gospel. Father Fray Diego was not of a character to regard himself as
exhausted, although he had so many reasons to be so; and therefore,
without more delay, he traversed the [ecclesiastical] provinces of
España, Aragon, and Andalucia, seeking for laborers for this part of
the vineyard of the church, or this new vine in it. [As this was a
work of God, He moved the hearts of many good religious to volunteer
to undertake this arduous enterprise. They were greatly influenced by
hearing from father Fray Diego and others of the great need and lack
of religious in this province, to accomplish the vast work with which
it is charged; and of the good done by our order in these regions,
which follows the primitive order in the strict observance of the
rule, and which is like the primitive church in the conversion of
the peoples. This company embarked near the first of July, 1605; and,
after suffering the ordinary discomforts of two long voyages following
so closely one after the other, they reached Manila the next year,
six having died in the voyages and journeys. One of these was father
Fray Pedro Valverde, a student in the college of San Gregorio, a
son of San Pablo at Cordova, and a religious of superior virtue. He
died as the vessel was just beginning to come among the islands, and
was buried in an Indian hamlet near the port of Ybalon. Some years
afterward, when the father provincial sent a religious for his bones,
he found the body still entire, without a foul odor or any decay,
just as if it had been newly buried; but neither the Indians nor their
encomendero would permit him to take it away, keeping possession of
it as a holy body. The day after they arrived, the superior gave them
their assignments throughout all the province because of the great
need of religious; and many were sent to Nueva Segovia.] Ere long,
many of the religious wrote to him thanking him for having brought
them to so devoted a province, where they had so much opportunity
to serve God and to do good to their fellow-men. In particular,
father Fray Matheo de la Villa, a son of Sant Esteban at Salamanca,
wrote to him. He was in a large village, the whole population of which
was composed of heathen who desired to become Christians. He taught
them what they desired much, and he desired more. He wrote that on
Holy Saturday he had been obliged to baptize six hundred of them in a
church which they themselves were making; and that he now understood
the language of the natives sufficiently, though he had been only six
months learning it. In spite of this diligence, they were not able to
attend to this great spiritual harvest, for the laborers were few;
and so, though new and old were apportioned, there were not enough,
although they did all in their power, for many villages of heathen who
begged for them with great urgency. The provincial, grieved by this,
and seeing that he had no answer to make except that he would pray
God to bring religious from España, wrote to father Fray Francisco
de Sant Joseph, whom he had left in Manila as vicar-provincial,
and to the other religious, an account of affairs. In particular he
told them that the Indian chiefs from inland had come to him begging
him, on their knees and in tears, to give them a religious to teach
them the way to heaven; and that one of them had offered to make a
village of two thousand inhabitants and the other of nine hundred, in
order that the religious might with greater ease give them Christian
instruction. The Indians in their heathen condition live in farmsteads
and tiny hamlets, where it is very difficult to teach them; and it
is impossible that teaching shall enlighten them, because of the
inability of the religious to care for and attend to so many small
villages. Hence, to make good Christians of them, it is necessary
to gather them in larger villages. At the beginning, there was great
difficulty in causing the Indians to leave their ancient abodes; though
by the help of God, and of that spirit of gentleness and kindness
which He gives to His disciples, the religious overcame it. These
heathen Indians were so eager to have teachers that, unlike the rest,
they did not wait to be asked; but, to succeed in obtaining religious,
themselves offered by anticipation to remove this difficulty, which
is generally so great. The provincial wrote, in addition, that if the
ministers at Manila should be reduced somewhat in number he could
send someone, or someone could go, to help in this extreme need,
to which he could not give aid from there. Father Fray Francisco
de Sant Joseph called together the fathers who formed the council;
and they, after considering the case, found only one religious who
could go. This was father Fray Jacintho de Sant Jeronimo. Because
of this father Fray Francisco de Sant Joseph--as one who always
thought of himself that he did little, and that he would be little
missed--set out with this religious at the time of his embarcation,
without consulting anyone else. In this he acted as superior, which he
then was. After he had sailed eight leguas, he wrote to the religious
of Manila that he was going to supply this lack, since it seemed to
him that he would not be much missed here. But the father-provincial
did not approve, because he knew that for the Indians about Manila,
whose language he understood admirably, he was a St. Paul. On this
account he was called, even by the religious of other orders, "the
apostle of the Indians." For the Spaniards he was a second St. John
Chrisostom in preaching and life; and hence the provincial was not
slow in sending him back to his former post.
The position of prior of the principal convent in the province of
Manila was vacant, and the religious in it unanimously elected father
Fray Diego as their superior. He declined the position as long as he
could, and accepted it only when he was compelled to do so by the rule
of strict obedience. He filled the position remarkably well, though
he did not hold it long; for in the following year the vessels from
Nueva España brought news of the death of father Fray Domingo de Nieva,
who had gone in the preceding year as procurator of this province in
España. He had left the cares of this life to enjoy the quiet which,
because of his great virtue and charity, the Lord had kept for him in
heaven. Since it was very necessary for the province to have someone
in España to send them religious--for without this supply the province
could not be maintained--they immediately arranged to send another; and
no one was found so suitable as father Fray Diego. He was accordingly
asked to return and begin his labors anew by embarking for España,
where he was to act as the procurator of this province in all matters,
and was especially to provide them with religious.... Notwithstanding
the hardships and dangers of that voyage, his love to God and the
province, and his perception of the need which forced them to do this,
outweighed these other considerations; and he immediately prepared
himself for the departure which was at hand. With only three woolen
tunics in place of shirts, and the ship-stores for the first voyage,
without a real or anything else for the remainder of the journey, he
embarked in the middle of July, having remained in Manila not quite
a full year. They had good weather until they reached the latitude
of Japon, and from there such furious winds as lifted the sea up to
the sky.... Since they had come from so hot a climate as that of this
country, and had so suddenly entered this other, which was so cold,
they could not fail to suffer from many diseases. Many died on this
voyage, among them the commander and the master of the ship, and a rich
merchant who was a passenger. He, perceiving father Fray Diego's holy
way of life, his great virtue, poverty, contempt for temporal things,
devotion toward God, and charity toward his fellow-men, gave him all
his wealth, which amounted to seventy thousand pesos, that he alone,
at his own pleasure, without being obliged to render account to anyone,
might distribute the whole of it in pious works. He told him that,
though he had no heirs to whom he was obliged to leave anything,
he had some poor relatives in Portugal (whence he had come), and he
charged him to aid them. Father Fray Diego gave so much attention
to the fulfilment of his wish that he went in person to Portugal
solely for this purpose, sought with great care for the relatives of
the deceased, relieved their necessities, and left them all in good
circumstances, considering their estate, and very content. He also
fulfilled the rest of the desires of the testator in accordance with
the trust given him, without applying to himself or to any relative
of his more than the trouble and the reward from God, which would not
be small. [Father Fray Diego went on to España, and thence to Francia,
that he might for his province, and personally, yield obedience to the
most reverend general of the order, at that time Fray Agustin Galamino,
a holy man, who as such took particular delight in hearing what father
Fray Diego related as an eyewitness of the devotion of the province
of the Philippinas and of the great services which it wrought for the
Lord in the conversions of these idolatrous tribes. The pious general
gave him all the documents necessary for taking religious thither;
and father Fray Diego was about to return with the documents, that
he might not lose a moment in the execution of his trust, the great
importance of which he perceived. But his superior obliged him to
remain for the general chapter, which was to be held in the middle of
the year in Paris (in which he was a definitor)--to the great regret
of father Fray Diego at losing all this time from the affairs of
the province of which he thought so much. For ten years he filled
this office of procurator for the province in España, setting an
admirable example to lay and religious, who saw him always humble,
devout, and in poverty, and putting forward no claims for himself,
either within or without the order. This made him freely able to
express his judgment with holy and religious liberty before the royal
Council and to the president and members of it. They all looked upon
him with special respect. He aided in sending the religious brought
to this province by father Fray Alonso Navarete, who afterward was a
holy martyr, the first one of our order to suffer in Japon, and the
one who opened the door of martyrdom for so many as afterward followed
his good example. He later sent another shipload, with father Fray
Jacintho Calvo; and the same father Fray Diego, after sending these
first two, afterward set out to bring other religious with him. But,
when he arrived in Mexico, he received letters from the provincial
of this province, desiring him to return to España and continue his
functions as procurator-general in it. Here he could be of use only as
one man; there he could do the work of many, by sending so many good
religious. He went back to the labor which he had desired to give up;
and abandoning a life of contemplation in a cell, for which he was
eager, he returned to the publicity of tribunals, and the distraction
of journeys, from which he desired to flee. At all times, however,
he was instant in prayer, and in other devout exercises. As a reward
for this care, he received from the Lord success in the business
which he undertook, a successful despatch of it being furthered by
his prayer--which, it seemed, would have taken off his attention from
his business and interfered with it. In spite of all this experience
of the pleasure of the Lord in this exercise, he still desired to
retire and to prepare himself for a holy death; and he constantly
begged the superior of this province to send him a successor, that
he might return to it.]
The province sent father Fray Matheo de la Villa, who has several
times been mentioned with praise. Thereupon father Fray Diego,
after obtaining the necessary licenses and decrees, gathered twenty
companions and came to live and die with them in this province--nearly
all the members of which were his sons, whom he had sent or brought
from España, as has been recounted. Hence he was received as the
general father of all, and was by all much beloved for the great good
which he had wrought for all of them, for each one in particular, and
for the whole province in general, by means of many royal decrees and
grants which he had obtained at court for medicine for the sick, wine
for the masses, oil for the lamps which burned before the most holy
sacrament, and habits for the religious, which are great sources of
relief in our great poverty. Among these things the provision for the
dress of the religious ought not to be passed over in silence. Neither
the province nor any house within it had any regular source of income;
and it provided for all its expenses entirely with alms received
from the faithful. Since serge for our habits had to be brought
from Nueva España, it was a difficult thing for the province to
send every year the money for all the clothing of the religious,
at the price in Mexico. The province provides the religious with
clothing, for no member of it cares for himself, or has any deposit
or anything else of his own, not even with the permission of his
superior. Hence the province sent directions to father Fray Diego to
ask his Majesty to give as alms the clothing for all the religious of
the province--and this not for one year or two, but forever, since the
same need and poverty were to continue forever. Father Fray Diego,
who was acquainted with the heavy demands upon the royal treasury,
regarded it as impossible to obtain this; and he put off asking for
it until he felt obliged to send an answer to the province. Feeling
practically certain that it would not be granted, he asked for it in
a memorial of his own, sending in other memorials in which he asked
for things which seemed to him very easy to grant; and when he looked
over the answers he found that the royal Council had unhesitatingly
allowed the grant and gift of the clothing (which he had regarded as
impossible), but had refused everything which he asked for in the
other memorial. From this it was plain that it was God who had in
His hand the heart of the king; and that He had done more than what
human prudence might hope for. This truth was all the more confirmed
by the fact that when the royal decree came to be presented before
the royal officials in Mexico, who were always accustomed to put a
thousand difficulties and contingencies in the way of such grants,
they not only did not put any such in the way of this grant; but,
seeing that the religious had from mere timidity asked much less than
they needed, urged them to ask for a sufficient amount. The matter was
immediately settled on this footing, and has remained so ever since,
a plain token that the Lord is pleased that the religious of this
province shall wear the habits which they have always worn--poor,
humble, rough, made of coarse and heavy serge; a penance for the
religious, and a good example for others, as have always been the
poor and rough habits of religious orders. At the first vacancy
of the position of prior in Manila father Fray Diego was a second
time elected prior. He filled the post to the great benefit of the
religious and the convent, to the needs and obligations of which
he attended with great care and charity. He was by nature taciturn
and somewhat rigid, but by virtue was so corrected and mild that he
left no necessity unremedied, no afflicted whom he did not strive
to console, no weak or fallen one for whom he did not pray. With
all he was gentle, and to all he desired to do good. While he was in
this position, and very far from thinking of changing his condition,
he received in the year 1632 the royal decree appointing him bishop
of Nueva Segovia. He hesitated long before accepting this dignity,
presenting many arguments against his acceptance. But, since all the
others were opposed to him in this matter, he gave up his own opinion
and accepted the episcopate, with the most firm determination not
to abandon his character as a friar vowed to poverty and to observe
the manner of living which he had previously maintained--and even
to improve it by far, as the superior station upon which he entered
required of him; and this determination he most perfectly fulfilled,
as will be seen. Someone very much devoted to the order sent him a
diamond cross for a pectoral; and he returned it, saying that it was
very rich for so poor a bishop, for whom a pectoral of wood would be
sufficient. The bulls did not reach him that year; so he waited for
them without leaving the cell in which he had lived in the hospital
of the Chinese. He took no servant, and made no change in his poor
manner of living, dress, and clothing. He went to the choir and
performed the other obligations of religious in this poor habit,
and did everything else, whether by day or in the midst of the night,
that he had promised. He was consecrated and went to his bishopric;
and giving himself up wholly to his obligations as bishop he personally
visited all his bishopric, leaving in all parts a lively memory of his
sanctity, devotion, and alms-giving. His common custom was to spend
one hour of prayer before mass, raising his fervor by mental devotion
that he might say it with a greater spiritual elevation. This was in
addition to many other hours of prayer by day and by night. After mass
was finished, he spent another hour in giving thanks to the Lord for
what he had received; and then he went immediately to his study of
holy scripture, which likewise is prayer. He did not rise from his
work until something happened which compelled him to. His expenses
were almost nothing, so that the poor income of his bishopric was
wholly spent upon charity and upon the adornments of his church; for
in these two matters he spent as if he were rich. Hence in the short
time during which he governed the bishopric (which was only a year and
a half), he gave it more ornaments and jewels than others who had been
superiors there had given in many years. He was most humble; and when
father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant was vicar of the convent, the bishop
used to go almost daily from his residence to our house to confess to
him. When father Fray Carlos begged him to remain at home, and said
he would go to hear his confession every day, the bishop declined,
saying, "Your Reverence is very busy. I, who am less so, will come,"
and on this footing this matter always continued. He took less food
than when he was in the order, giving up one meal when he accepted
the bishopric. He said that his position brought more obligations;
therefore his food ought to be less. He always ate fish, if necessity
did not force him to take something else. His bed was a piece of felt
for a mattress and a blanket for covering, without any other pillow
than the mat used by the poor Chinese, or one of the native mats--which
was given a coat of a sort of varnish, so that the perspiration might
be washed off and the pillow kept clean. In his whole house he had
no other bed-clothes, so that even in his last sickness he had no
mattress nor sheets, nor even a linen pillow upon which to rest his
head; it was therefore necessary to bring that which was kept ready in
the poor infirmary of the convent, for no such comforts were used or
were to be found in the bishop's house. When he went on visitation,
he always took with him some bundles of cloth to distribute among
the poor, and these and other good works which he did for them
constituted the sole profit of his visitation. He highly esteemed
the ministers whom he had in his bishopric, and was greatly pleased
to see that they were practically all religious--not only of his own
order, but also of that of our father St. Augustine. He loved both
tenderly, and always had much good to say of all of them. During his
time another bishop [71] (who was a member of an order) put forward a
claim that the royal decrees should be put in execution which provide
that the religious who have charge of Indians shall be subject to the
inspection and visitation of the bishop or his visitors. When this
matter was discussed before the royal Audiencia, our good bishop was
present--yielding, so far as his bishopric was concerned, the favor
granted in these royal decrees. He declared and proved with many
strong arguments that, though the execution of the decrees would
greatly increase the dignity and temporal profit of the bishops,
it was to the spiritual and temporal injury of the Indians. Hence,
to avoid these greater injuries, he renounced with a good will these
inferior gains, as a prelate who felt that all his gains were secured
by procuring the proper ministry for those subject to him. The whole
income of his bishopric he collected for the poor, without taking
from it more than the labor or dividing it among the needy; for his
own maintenance, he asked alms as one of the poor. When on any account
he was absent from his bishopric, he left someone in it to distribute
alms to the poor, that they might not be injured by his absence.
The habit which he wore was of serge, and he wore an old frieze cloak
which had served one of the religious on his way from España. His
shoes were old and patched, and his breeches poor and mean, like those
used in this province. He wore no rings, and did not spend a real for
them or for a pectoral, being contented with those which were offered
to him as to a bishop in such a state of poverty. When he entered our
convents, he prostrated himself on the floor to receive the blessing of
the superior, as the other religious do; and he joined the community
and took no precedence in seating himself, just like any of the other
brothers. He did not permit them to give him anything special in the
refectory; and he remained in all things as humble and as perfect in
his duties, as a member of the order, as he had been before becoming
a bishop. The happy end of all his many arduous labors was at hand;
and after only three days of sickness he went to receive the endless
reward of his toils, leaving those who were subject to him above
measure sad at the loss of such a superior, father, and common
benefactor of all. But those who displayed the greatest feeling,
and with the greatest reason, were the religious of this province,
who had in him an honor, a defense, and an example, which incited
them to all virtue, and to strict observance of their rules. [His
death caused great sorrow, not only in his diocese but in Manila,
where he was beloved by all; and notable honors were paid to his
memory, even by the other orders.]