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Chapter XV

Of the Foundation of the Monastery of the glorious St Joseph in the city of Toledo, in 1569.

There was in the city of Toledo a merchant, a man much respected and a servant of God, who chose never to marry, but lived the life of a very good Catholic. He was a very truthful and honest man; and by legitimate trade he increased his wealth with the intention of using it for some work which should be pleasing to the Lord. His name was Martin Ramirez. A mortal sickness seized him. There was at Toledo a Father of the Company of Jesus, Paul Hernandez, who, while I was staying there, had heard my confession at the time when I was arranging for the foundation at Malagon. He had a great desire that a convent of our nuns should be founded at Toledo. Hearing of Martin Ramirez' illness, he went to speak to him, and told him how greatly to the Lord's service it would be to make this foundation, and that he could leave to its charge the chapelries and chaplainships which he desired to found; and that in it could be celebrated certain festivals; and all the rest which he had made up his mind to leave to one of the town parishes. He was already so ill that he saw he had not time to arrange for this, so he left it all in the hands of a brother of his, Alonso Alvarez Ramirez; and, this done, God took him. He acted wisely; for this Alonso Alvarez is a very discreet and God-fearing man, very truthful and liberal and accessible to reason. And as I have had a great many dealings with him, I can say this most truthfully as an eyewitness.

When Martin Ramirez died, I was making the foundation of Valladolid, where Father Paul Hernandez of the Company wrote to me, and Alonso Alvarez himself, giving me an account of what had taken place, and telling me to come quickly, if I wished to accept that foundation: and so I started soon after the repairs of the house were completed. I arrived at Toledo on the eve of Lady Day, and I went to the house of Dona Luisa1, the foundress of Malagon, which is where2 had stayed at other times. I was most joyfully welcomed, because her affection for me is very great. I took with me two companions, great servants of God, from St Joseph's of Avila. An apartment was at once given us, as usual, where we lived enclosed just as in a monastery.

I began at once to talk over the business with Alonso Alvarez and a son-in-law of his, Diego Ortiz, who, although a very good man and a theologian, was more wedded to his own opinion than Alonso Alvarez, and did not yield so quickly to reason. They began to demand of me a great many conditions which I did not think suitable to consent to. We kept going on with the negotiations, and seeking a hired house to take possession of; and, although they hunted a great deal, they could never find one that would do. No more could I prevail with the Governor to give me the licence -for there was no Archbishop2 at this time — although the lady with whom I was staying earnestly solicited it, and also a gentleman who was a Canon of the church, Don Manrique, son of the Governor of Castille3. A great servant of God was he, and is, for he is still alive; and, some years after the foundation of that house, he, although of very weak health, entered the Company of Jesus, where he is now. He was a great person in Toledo, because of his great capacity and worth. For all this I could not succeed in obtaining the licence; for when they had got the Governor to be a little propitious, the members of the Town Council4 were not so. On the other hand, Alonso Alvarez and I could not come to terms because of his son-in-law, to whom he left too much. At last we came to disagree altogether.

I did not know what to do: for I had come for no other purpose but to found; and I saw that if I went away without, it would be much noticed. In all these difficulties I minded not getting the licence more than anything else: because I believed that, when possession was taken, the Lord would provide, as He had done in other places. So I determined to speak to the Governor. I went into a church which was close to his house, and sent to beg that he would be so good as to speak to me. It was already more than two months that we had been trying to persuade him, and things only got worse every day. When I found myself in his presence, I said that it was an evil thing that there should be women who desired to live in such strictness and perfection and enclosure, and that those who were enduring nothing of the kind, but were living in luxury, should desire to hinder works so well pleasing to our Lord. These and many other things I said to him, with great decision, which was given me by the Lord. It so moved him that before I parted from him he gave me the licence.

I went away well content: for I felt as if I had got every- thing, when really I had nothing, for it might have been as much as three or four ducats that I had in hand. With this I bought two pictures, for we had no sort of image to put on the altar, and two straw mattresses and a blanket. Of a house there was no sign: with Alonso Alvarez I had already broken off. There was a friend of mine, a merchant, of the same place, who never had wished to marry, nor cared for anything but to do good to the prisoners in the gaol and many other good works. His name was Alonso de Avila. He told me not to be anxious about a house, for he would seek one for me. He fell me ill.

Some days before this, a very saintly Franciscan friar, Brother Martin of the Cross, had come to Toledo. He stayed some days, and when he went away, he sent me a young man5, called Andrada, whose confessions he heard, begging him to do whatever I asked him. The young man was not rich, but very poor. One day when I was in church at mass, he came and spoke to me, and told me what that excellent man had told him, and assured me that anything whatever that he could do for me, he would, though he had nothing but himself to help us with. I thanked him; and it amused me much, and my companions more, to see what sort of assistance the holy man had sent us; for his appearance was not that of a person for Barefoot nuns to associate with.

Well, when I found myself with the licence and without anyone to help me, I did not know what to do, nor whom I could ask to seek a hired house for me. I remembered the young man whom Brother Martin of the Cross had sent me, and I spoke of him to my companions. They laughed at me a great deal, saying that I must do no such thing, that it would only serve to make our affairs public. I would not listen to them; for I trusted that his being sent by that servant of God was not without significance, and that he was meant to do something. So I sent to fetch him, and told him, with all the secrecy that I could enjoin on him, what had taken place, and that therefore I begged him to seek a house for me, and I would give the name of a surety for the rent. The surety was that good Alonso de Avila, who, as I said, had fallen ill. He thought it an easy thing, and he said he would seek one.

Early next morning, when I was at mass in the Jesuits' church, he came to speak to me and said that he had already got a house and had brought me the keys, that the house was near at hand and that we should go to see it. So we did: and it was such a good one that we lived in it about a year. Often when I think over this foundation, the ways of God amaze me. For about three months — at least more than two, for I do not remember exactly — such wealthy people had gone up and down Toledo hunting for a house, and had no more found one than if there had been no houses in the town: and all at once came this young man, who was not rich but very poor, and it pleased the Lord that he should find it at once. And it pleased Him that when it might have been founded without difficulty if Alonso Alvarez and I had agreed, this was not the case, but very far from it, in order that the foundation might be made in poverty and difficulty.

Well, as we were satisfied with the house, I at once gave orders to take possession before anything was done in it, so that there might be no hindrance; and in a very short time the said Andrada came to tell me that that day the house would be cleared out so that we could take our furniture there. I told him that there was but little to be done, since we possessed nothing but two mattresses and a blanket. He must have been astonished. My companions were vexed at my telling him, and said, How could I have done such a thing! for he would not care to help us, when he saw how poor we were. I paid no attention to this: nor did he think anything of it; for He who gave him that good will must needs lead him on until he had finished his work. And indeed in all that he did in getting the house in order and bringing in workmen, I do not think we were a bit more earnest than he was.

We borrowed what was necessary for saying mass; and we went with a workman6 at nightfall with a little bell for taking possession, of the sort which they ring for the elevation, for we had no other; and we spent the whole night — I in great apprehension — getting ready: and we found nowhere to make the chapel but in a room to which the entrance was through another adjoining cottage occupied by some women, which the lady who owned it had let to us also.

We had not dared to say anything to the women, lest they should tell of us: and when we had everything ready just before dawn, we began to open the door, which was blocked up and opened into a tiny court. When the women, who were in bed, heard the knocks they arose in terror. We did our best to soothe them, but it was almost time for mass. Although they were rude, they did us no harm; and when they saw what it was for, the Lord pacified them. Afterwards I saw how badly we had done: for at the time, with the preoccupation which God sends in order that the work may be done, one does not think of what may go wrong.

Well, the trouble came when the lady to whom the house belonged heard that a chapel had been made in it; for she was the wife of a country gentleman. She made a great to-do.

It pleased the Lord that she was pacified on bethinking herself that, if she did not annoy us, she might sell us the house advantageously. Then, when the members of the Council heard that the monastery was established for which they had never been willing to grant a licence, they were furious, and they went to the house of a church dignitary, to whom I had imparted my plans in confidence, telling him what they meant to do to us. It was because the Governor, after he had given me the licence, had slipped off on a journey and was not in the town, that they betook themselves to this gentleman, indignant at such audacity as that an insignificant woman should have founded a convent there against their will. He made as though he knew nothing about it, and appeased them as well as he could, saying that I had done the same in other places, and surely in this case not without sufficient papers.

They sent us — I forget how many days after — an injunction forbidding mass to be said until we had shewn them the authorization by which we had founded. I answered them very mildly that I would do what they bid me, although I was not obliged to obey in this matter: and I begged Don Pedro Manrique, the gentleman of whom I have spoken, to go and speak to them and shew them the papers. He smoothed them down7, the foundation being already made: for if not, we should have had trouble.

We went on some days with the mattresses and the blanket, without more to cover us, and one day we had not even a bit of wood enough to broil a sardine, when the Lord moved some one, I know not whom, to put in chapel for us a little faggot, with which we did better. At night we suffered a little from cold, for it was cold: however, we covered ourselves with the blanket and with the serge cloaks which we wear over our habit, which have often been useful to us. It will be thought impossible that, being in the house of a lady who cared so much for me, we should have begun in such poverty. I do not know how it was, except that it pleased God that we should find out the good of that virtue. I did not ask her for anything, because I do not like giving trouble; and she perhaps did not think of it — for I owe her more than what she might have given us then.

It was a very good thing for us: because the interior consolation and happiness which we experienced was so great that it often makes me call to mind what the Lord keeps locked up in virtues. As it were a kind of sweet contemplation was caused by that want we were in: although it lasted but a short time; for very soon Alonso Alvarez himself and others provided us with what we wanted: more, indeed; for I felt so sad that it seemed just as if I had found many jewels of gold, and they had taken them from me and left me poor, so distressed was I that our poverty was come to an end. So were my companions: for, seeing them look sad, I asked what was the matter, and they said, "What is the matter, Mother? That we seem to be no longer poor."

From that time forward there grew within me the desire to be very poor, and there remained with me a sovereign contempt for worldly wealth: since the lack of it increases our interior wealth, which certainly brings with it' a very different sufficiency and peace.

At the time when I was negotiating with Alonso Alvarez about the foundation, there were many people who disapproved of it and told me so, because the Alvarez family were not noble or gentle; although, as I have said, they were thoroughly good people of their estate, and in so considerable a town as Toledo I should not lack what was wanted. I did not pay much regard to what they said, because, glory be to God, I have always esteemed virtue above lineage. But there had been so much said about it to the Governor that he only gave me the licence on condition that I should found here as I had done in other places8.

I did not know what to do, because when the convent was founded, the Alvarez family began again to treat of their business; but as it was already founded, I took advantage of this to give them the principal chapel, but said they should have no voice in what concerned the convent; which is the arrangement to this day.

It was a difficult matter to settle: for there was already a great personage who desired to have the principal chapel, and there were many different opinions about it. Our Lord was pleased to give me light on this question, and thus one day He said to me, Before the judgement seat of God of how little account will be those lineages and dignities! and He blamed me severely for having given ear to those who had spoken of this: for it was not a matter for such as already held the world in contempt. With these and many other considerations I made myself heartily ashamed, and I determined to arrange to give them the chapel as I had begun to do. And I have never repented it; for we have seen clearly what difficulty we should otherwise have experienced in buying a house; for with their help we bought the one where the nuns now live, which is one of the best houses in Toledo, and cost 12,000 ducats. And as so many masses and festivals are celebrated there, it is a joy to the nuns and brings joy also to the people of the town. If I had given weight to the vain opinions of the world, it would have been impossible, so far as we can see, to have been housed so advantageously, and we should have done a wrong to him who with such good will did us this charity9.

Footnotes

  1. De la Cerda. See ch. ix. ↩

  2. The Archbishop was the celebrated Dominican, Bartolom^ Carranza: but his office was in abeyance, because he had been since 1557 in the prison of the Holy Office at Valladolid. Thence he was sent to Home, where he died in 1576. So St Theresa says there was no Archbishop in 1569, meaning that practically there was none. ↩

  3. [Adelantado. Tr.] ↩

  4. The Council was originally formed to deal with political and feudal cases; but through the Archbishop's Primacy and his landed property — he being a member of the Council — it became an ecclesiastical court for administration and litigation. ↩

  5. [A student. Tr.] T. F. 7 ↩

  6. A mason. 7—2 ↩

  7. He shewed them, that is, that it would not look well to forbid it when it was already done. ↩

  8. [In other places the founders were of gentle birth . Tr.] ↩

  9. The house to which they removed was in the quarter of St Nicholas, opposite the Mint. They went there in 1570. Alonzo Earairez and his son-in-law gave 12,000 escudos for it from what Martin Ramirez had left. Certain chapelries and obligations to keep such and such festivals were made a condition of the foundation, until the visit of the Father General Eossi. These obligations brought on the nuns so many annoyances that they had to leave that chapel, and in 1594 they removed to the house of Alonso Franco, close to the Misericordia, in the plaza of Saiicho Minaya. Neither did they succeed in settling there, the neighbourhood being very low and noisy. Finally, in 1607, St Theresa's niece, Beatrix of Jesus, being Prioress, bought a house in the parish of St Leocadia, close to the Cambron Gate, and there the convent has been ever since. The first chapel was kept under the name of St Joseph's Oratory or Martin Eamirez' Chapelries. ↩

Chapter 16 of 32