Chapter XXII

Of the Foundation of the Convent of the Glorious St Joseph del Salvador at Veas, on St Matthias' Day, 1575.

At the time when, as I have said, I had been sent from the Incarnation to Salamanca, while I was there, a messenger came from the town of Veas with letters for me from a lady of that place and from the parish priest and from other people, begging me to go and found a convent there, because they already had a house for it, and there was nothing wanting but to go and found it. I questioned the man. He told me great things of the country, and rightly, for it is most delightful, and the climate good: but seeing how many leagues it was off from Salamanca, I thought it out of the question, especially as it would have to be done by order of the Apostolic Commissary: for, as I have said, he was against foundations, or at least not in favour of them. So I intended to answer that I could not, without saying anything to him. Afterwards I reflected that as he was at Salamanca at the time, it would not be right to do so without asking his opinion, because of the injunction which our Most Reverend Father General had laid upon me not to omit to found.

When he had seen the letters he sent to tell me that he did not think their feelings should be hurt; that he was edified by their devotion; and that I should write to them saying that when they had obtained leave from their Order¹, we would be ready to make the foundation. I might be certain, he said, that they would not get leave; for he had heard of the Knights Commanders from other parties who had tried for many years and not succeeded in getting it: and they should not be answered harshly.

I sometimes think of this, and how it comes to pass that of what our Lord wills, even when we will it not, we become the instrument without intending it, as in this case was the Father Master Fray Pedro Fernandez, the Commissary. And so when they had obtained the licence, he could not refuse, but the foundation was made in that way.

This convent of the Blessed St Joseph of the town of Veas was founded on St Matthias* Day in the year 1575." It had its origin in the following manner, to the honour and glory of God. There was at Veas a gentleman of noble lineage and abundance of worldly wealth, called Sancho Bodriguez de Sandoval. He was married to a lady named Dona Catalina Godinez. Among other children whom the Lord gave them were two daughters; the elder, Dona Catalina Godinez, the younger, Dona Maria de Sandoval, who were the foundresses of the said convent.

The elder girl was fourteen when our Lord called her for Himself. Up to that age she was very far from giving up the world, but rather held so high an opinion of herself that any marriages which her father attempted to arrange for her seemed to her not good enough.

One day when she was in a chamber within the one where her father was (although he was not yet up), by chance she happened to read on a crucifix which was there the title which is written over the cross; and suddenly, as she read it, the Lord entirely changed her. For she had been thinking over a match which was proposed for her, which was an exceedingly good one, and saying within herself, "With how little my father is satisfied, with just an eldest son! While I myself intend my family to begin with me." She was not inclined to marry, because she thought it beneath her to be subject to anyone. Nor did she know whence this pride arose. Our Lord very well knew whence to cure it, blessed be His mercy!

Thus when she read the title, a light seemed to have come into her soul to know the truth, just as though the sunlight had come into a dark room: and in this light she fixed her eyes on the Lord Who was on the cross dripping with blood, and she thought how evil entreated He was, and thought of His great humility, and what a different way she was taking, walking in pride. She must have spent some time thus; for the Lord threw her into a trance. In this trance His Majesty gave her a genuine and deep knowledge of her own wretchedness, and she would have had everyone know of it. He gave her a desire to suffer for God so great that she could have wished to suffer all that the martyrs had gone through, and with this, so profound a self-abasement of humility and self-abhorrence that, if it had not been for offending God, she could have wished to be an outcast woman, that everyone might abhor her. And thus she began to abhor herself, with a great desire for penance, which she afterwards put in practice. Then and there she vowed poverty and chastity, and desired to see herself in such subjection that she would have been pleased if she could have been carried off to the Moors' country for it. All these virtues have so endured in her that it can well be seen tohave been a supernatural favour of our Lord, as will presently be told in order that all may praise Him.

For ever blessed be Thou, my God, Who in one moment unmakest a soul and makest it anew! What is this, 0 Lord? I would fain ask here what the Apostles asked Thee when Thou healedst the blind man, saying, Did his parents sin? I ask, Who had merited so sovereign a favour? Not she, for I have already said what were the thoughts from which Thou didst deliver her when Thou didst thus deal with her. Oh the depth of Thy judgements, Lord! Thou knowest what Thou doest, and I know not what I am saying, forasmuch as Thy works and judgements are unfathomable. Be Thou for ever glorified Who canst do even more; where should I be, if this were not! But it might be in part her mother; for she was so good a Christian that it may be Thy goodness was pleased, in lovingkindness, that in her life-time she should see such great virtue in her daughters. Sometimes I think Thou bestowest such favours on those who love Thee: doing them the grace of giving them something wherewith to serve Thee.

While she was in this state, there came such a loud noise overhead in the room that it seemed as if it was all tumbling down. . All the noise seemed to come down through a corner to where she was, and she heard loud roars which went on some time; so that her father, who, as I have said, was not yet up, began to shake with fear, and, as though beside himself, put on a gown and took his sword and went in and looking very white he asked her what it was? She answered that she had seen nothing. He looked into another room within hers, and seeing nothing, he told her to go to her mother; and to her mother he said that she must not let her be alone, telling her what he had heard.

Well can it be understood from this what the devil must feel when he sees a soul lost out of his power whom he reckons already as his prey. As he so hates our good, I am not surprised that, when he saw the pitiful Lord doing so many mercies together, he was taken by surprise and made so great a demonstration of his feeling: especially as he must have known that, through the wealth of graces contained in that soul, he would have to go without other souls which he considered his own. For it is my own belief that our Lord never does so great a favour without its extending to others besides the person himself.

She never told anything of this: but it left her with the greatest desire for the Religious life, and she greatly besought it of her parents. They would never give consent. At the end of three years during which she had greatly besought it, when she saw that they would not allow this, she dressed herself, one St Joseph's Day, in plain sober clothes. She told only her mother, whom it would have been easy to persuade to let her be a nun: her father she dared not. In this dress she went to church, in order that, since she had been seen in it publicly, it might not be taken from her: and so it turned out, for they said nothing about it.

During those three years she kept hours of prayer, and mortified herself in every way she could, as the Lord taught her. She used to go into the yard and wet her face and set herself in the sun, so that for her ill looks she might cease to be harassed with offers of marriage. She had a great dislike to giving orders to anyone, yet, as she kept house for her parents, she had to give orders to the women servants, because she could not do otherwise. Then, when she thought of this, she would watch until they were asleep, and go and kiss their feet, being distressed that, being better than her, they should serve her. As in the daytime she was kept occupied with her parents, when the time for sleep came she would spend the whole night in prayer; so that for a long time she went with so little sleep that it would seem impossible if it were not supernatural. Her penances and disciplines were many; for she had no one to keep her in check, nor did she speak of it to anyone. Among other things, during the whole of one Lent she wore next her skin one of her father's coats of mail. She used to go apart to pray in a lonely place where the devil played strange tricks upon her. Often she began her prayers at ten in the evening, and was not aware of the hour until day broke.

In these exercises she spent about four years, when the Lord began to let her serve Him in other greater ones, giving her most serious sicknesses and very painful, such as continual fever, dropsy, and heart disease, and a cancer which was excised. These sicknesses lasted about seventeen years j for she was hardly ever well. Five years after God had done her that favour, her father died: and her sister, who was then fourteen (that is, a year after she herself had made that change) also put on a plain dress, though she was very fond of amusements, and also began to practise devotion. Her mother aided her in all her good practices and desires. Thus she approved of their employing themselves in one work which was most virtuous, but very foreign to their quality; namely, teaching girls to sew and read, without payment, but only for the sake of teaching them to pray and to. know the Faith. They did much good; for many resorted to them, and even to this day can be seen in these the good habits which they learned when they were little. But it did not last long; for the devil, being annoyed by the good work, made the parents consider it mean to allow their daughters to be taught gratis². This together with the infirmities which began to oppress her, brought the work to an

end.

Five years after the death of the girls' father, their mother died. And, as it had always been Dona Catalina's vocation to be a nun, only that she had not been able to persuade them of it, she immediately sought to go and be a nun. Since there was no convent at Veas, her relations advised her, as the sisters had fairly sufficient to found a convent, to try to found one in her own town; for that this would be more to our Lord's service. As the town was under the Order of St James, the licence of the Council of Orders was requisite, and so she began diligently to set to work to get it. It was so hard to obtain that four years passed, during which they went to much expense and trouble, and until they presented a petition beseeching it of the King himself, nothing was of any avail: so much so that, seeing how great was the difficulty, her relations told her it was folly and she should let it alone. And, since she was almost always in bed, with such great infirmities, as I have said, they told her that no convent would admit her as a nun. She answered that if our Lord gave her good health within one month, they should recognize that the foundation would be to His pleasure, and she herself would go to Court to obtain it.

When she said this, it was more than six months since she had got out of bed and about eight since she had been able to move without help. At that time she had had continual fever for eight years, wasting and consumption, dropsy, with inflammation of the liver which burnt her up in such sort that even through her clothes the heat could be felt, and it singed her shift — a thing which seems incredible, but I myself heard from the doctor about the sicknesses which she had at that time; and I was greatly astonished. She had also arthritic gout and sciatica.

On the Eve of one St Sebastian's Day, a Saturday, our Lord gave her such perfect health that she did not know how to conceal it so that the miracle should not be known. She says that when the Lord was about to heal her, He sent her an interior trembling such that her sister thought her life was coming to a close; but she perceived in herself a complete change, and she says that in her soul she felt the difference, so much better was she. And she was much more pleased at having the health to be able to carry out the affair of the convent than she was to have her sufferings cease: because from the first moment when God called her, He had given her such self-abhorrence that for suffering she cared nothing. She says she had so strong a desire to suffer that she used to pray to God from her heart to exercise her in it in every way. His Majesty did not fail to accomplish this desire: for in those eight years she was bled more than five hundred times, besides so many cuppings as can be seen by the scars. Sometimes they rubbed salt into them, because a physician said it was good for drawing the poison out of a pain in the side; so this was done more than twenty times. What is most wonderful is that, when the doctor prescribed one of these remedies, she was eager for the moment when it should be carried out, without any dread; and she encouraged the doctors to the cauteries which were frequent for the cancer and on other such occasions. She says that what made her desire it was to prove the sincerity of her desire for martyrdom.

When she found herself suddenly well, she spoke to her confessor and doctor about moving her to another town, so that it might be said that the change of air had done it. They were not willing: rather the doctors told it abroad, because she was already considered incurable on account of a hemorrhage through the mouth so bad that they said it was the lungs themselves. She stayed in bed three days, not daring to get up, lest her good health should be known: but as that could no more be concealed than had been her sickness, it was of little use.

She told me that in the previous August, one day when she was imploring our Lord either to take from her the great desire she had to be a nun and found the convent, or else to grant her the means of doing so, she was assured with great certainty that she would be well in time to go in Lent to obtain the licence. And so she says, that during that period, although her infirmities oppressed her much more, she never lost hope that the Lord would do her that favour. And although she received unction twice: once so much in extremis that the doctor said it was no good going for the oil, for she would be dead before it came, she never lost her confidence in the Lord that she would die a nun. I do not mean to say that it was in that time between August and St Sebastian's Day that she twice received unction, but before.

When her brothers and relations saw the mercy and the miracle which the Lord had done in giving her health so suddenly, they dared not hinder her going, although it seemed folly. She spent three months at Court, and in the end the licence was not given her. But when that petition was presented to the King, and he heard it was for Barefoot Carmelites, he ordered it to be given at once. When it came to founding the convent, it was well seen that she had obtained its acceptance with God, by the Superiors' being willing to accept it, even though it was so far off, and the endowment very small. That which His Majesty desires cannot fail to be accomplished.

So the nuns arrived at the beginning of Lent, 1575. The people went forth in procession to receive them with great solemnity and rejoicing. The satisfaction was universal: even the very children shewed it to be a work with which the Lord was pleased. The convent was founded that same Lent, on St Matthias' Day, and called St Joseph's of the Saviour³. The two sisters took the habit in the same day, to their great joy. The health of Dona Catalina improved. Her humility, obedience, and desire to be thought little of shew clearly that her desires for the service of our Lord were genuine. May He be glorified for evermore!

This Sister told me among other things that, about twenty years ago, she lay down one night desiring to find the most perfect religious Order in the world, to become a nun in it. And she began to dream that she was walking along a way very strait and narrow, and dangerous for fear of falling inta great ravines which she could see. And she saw a Barefoot friar such that, when afterwards she saw Brother Juan de la Miseria,, a poor little Lay Brother of our Order who came to Veas while I was there, she thought he was the one she had seen. He said to her, Come with me, Sister. And he led her to a house where were a great number of nuns, and there was na other light in the house but that of the lighted candles which they were holding in their hands. She asked what Order it was; but they all kept silence, and lifted up their veils, and their faces were happy and smiling. And she declares that the faces she saw were those of the same Sisters whom she has now seen. And the Prioress took her by the hand, and said, Daughter, I want you here; and she shewed her the Constitutions and Rule. And when she awoke from this dream, it was with such content that she felt as if she had been in heaven: and she wrote down what she remembered of the Rule.

A long time passed before she told her confessor or anyone; and nobody could tell her about that Order.

There came to Veas a Father of the Company [of Jesus] who knew her desires, and she shewed him the paper and said that if she could find that Order, she would be happy; for she would enter it at once. He knew of our monasteries and told lier that that was the Rule of the Order of our Lady of Carmelal though he did not clearly make her understand this, but only told her about the monasteries which I was founding: and so she arranged to send me a messenger, as I have said. When the answer was brought her, she was so ill that her confessor told her she might make herself easy: for even if she were in the convent, they would turn her out; much less would they take her now. She was greatly distressed, and turned to our Lord with earnest longing and said, "My Lord and my God, I know by the Faith that Thou art He Who can do all things; then, 0 Life of my soul, do Thou take from me these desires, or give me the means of accomplishing them! "

This she said with exceeding confidence, imploring our Lady by the grief she felt when she saw her Son dead in her arms, to intercede for her. She heard a voice within her saying, Believe and hope; for I am He Who can do all things: Thou shalt have health. For to Him Who has had power to keep thee from dying of so many sicknesses, all mortal in their nature, and has forbidden them to work their natural effect, it will be more easy to take them away. She says that these words were said with such force and assurance that she could not doubt but that her desire would be accomplished, although many more infirmities weighed upon her, until our Lord gave her the health of which I have spoken. What has taken place certainly seems something incredible: and if I had not myself gained my information from the doctor and from the women who lived in the house and from other people, it would have been little wonder, wicked as I am, if I had thought that it was somewhat exaggerated.

Although she is not strong, she has health enough to keep the Rule, and looks well, and is very cheerful and so humble in every way, as I have said, that she makes us all praise our Lord. The sisters gave to the Order all they had, without any reservation; for their only condition was that we should be willing to receive them as nuns. Her detachment from friends and country is great, and she always greatly desired to go far away, so she earnestly begged it of the Superiors j although she is so obedient that she remains there contentedly. Just in the same way, when she took the veil⁴ she would not hear of being a choir Sister but a lay, until I wrote to her, saying many things and rebuking her for desiring anything but the will of the Father Provincial, saying that that was not the way to greater merit, and other such things, speaking harshly to her. And it is her greatest satisfaction when she is so treated. By this means I prevailed with her, much against her will.

Of this soul I know nothing which is not such as to please God: and this is the experience of us all. May it please His Majesty to keep her in His hand and increase her virtues and the grace which He has given, to His greater service and honour. Amen.

Footnotes

1. [The Knights of St James. Tr.] ↩

2. This touch is expressive and hits off the stupidly quixotic character of Spaniards then and now. It is unlikely that there was any teacher of little girls there. But the gentry, rather than that their children should take their turn with the children of the poor or be taught gratis, preferred that they should grow up ignorant. ↩

3. This convent no longer exists. The Community was dispersed during the civil war, several of the nuns going to the convent at Jaen. The chapel is used for public worship, serving as a parish church. ↩

4. [In Profession. Tr.] ↩