Chapter XXIII

Of the Foundation of the Carmelite Convent of the glorious St Joseph in the city of Seville. The first mass was said on the Feast of the Blessed Trinity, 1575.

Well, while I was at the town of Veas, waiting for the licence of the Council of Orders for the foundation at Caravaca, there came to see me a Barefoot Father of our Order, called Master Fray Gerdnimo of the Mother of God, Gracian, who had taken our habit a few years before, at Alcala. He was a man of great learning, uoderstanding, and modesty, together with great virtues practised through all his life: so that our Lady seems to have chosen him out for the good of the Primitive Order, when he was at Alcala, very far from taking our habit, although not from joining an Order. For though his parents had other views for him on account of his great ability and their being in high favour with the King, he himself was far from being of their mind.

As soon as he became a student, his father wished to set him to study law; but he, although he was very young, minded this so much that by force of weeping he prevailed upon him to let him attend the courses of theology. As soon a,s he had taken his Master's degree, he treated with the Jesuits¹ about entering the Company, and they had accepted him, but for certain reasons they said he should wait some time. He has told me that every pleasure he had was a torment to him, because he felt that that was not a good way to heaven: and he always kept hours of prayer and his recollection and purity of thought with extreme care.

At that time a great friend of his, Fray Juan of Jesus, who likewise had a Master's degree, entered our Order as a lay Brother at the monastery of Pastrana. I do not know whether it was through a letter which he wrote to him about the greatness and antiquity of our Order, or what the beginning was: but something gave him such a great taste for reading everything about it and verifying it by the writings of great authors, that he says he often had an uneasy conscience, feeling that he was neglecting the study of other things because he could not tear himself away from these; and his hours of recreation he employed in these.

0 wisdom and power of God! how little can we escape from what He wills! Well did our Lord see the great need there was of a person such as him for the work which His Majesty had commenced. I often give Him praises for the favour He has done us in this: for if I had taken great pains to request of His Majesty such a person as could set in order all the affairs of the Order in these their beginnings, I could not have succeeded in asking so much as His Majesty gave us in him. Blessed be He for ever!

Well, while it was very far from his mind to take our habit, he was asked to go to Pastrana to speak to the Prioress of the convent of our Order there (for it had not yet been removed thence) about receiving a nun. What means does not the Divine Majesty employ! For if he had meant to go there to take the habit, probably there would have been so many people to oppose it that he would never have done it. But our Lady the Virgin, to whom he is extremely devoted, desired to reward him by giving him her habit, and so I think it was through her intercession that God did him this favour. And indeed the cause of his having conceived such affection to the Order and taken the habit, was this glorious Virgin, who would not leave one so desirous of serving her without the opportunity of carrying it into effect: for it is her wont to favour those who seek her protection.

When he was a boy at Madrid he used often to go to an image of our Lady to which he had a special devotion. I forget where it was. He called it his lady-love, and visited it constantly. It must have been she who obtained from her Son the purity in which he has always lived. He says that sometimes the image seemed to him to have its eyes swollen with weeping for the many offences done against her Son. Thence there sprang up in him a great desire driving him to the cure of souls, and a very great distress when he witnessed offences against God. He is so strongly bent on this desire for the good of souls that any trouble whatever seems little to him if he thinks it can bear some fruit. This I have found by experience in many troubles which he has undergone.

Well, the Virgin led him to Pastrana as one caught with guile, he thinking that he was going in order to obtain the habit for a nun, and God was leading him there to give it to him himself. Oh secrets of God! And how, without our seeking, does He keep disposing our ways to shew us lovingkindness: and how thus did He reward this soul for the good works he had done and the good example he had always given and his earnest desire to serve His glorious Mother; for His Majesty must always repay this with great rewards.

So, when he got to Pastrana, he went to speak to the Prioress in order to get her to receive this nun; and it would seem as though he spoke in order that she might gain from our Lord his own reception. For when she saw him, his conversation is so agreeable that, for the most part, all who have to do with him love him — it is our Lord's grace — and thus he is loved extremely by all the monks and nuns who are under him. For though he overlooks no fault, for he is extremely particular about this, his way of seeing to the good of the Order is so mild and agreeable that no one is able to complain of him.

Well, it happened to the Prioress as to others; and it gave her the strongest wish that he should enter the Order. She told the Sisters to consider how important it was for them, because at that time there were in the Order very few or, one might say, nobody like him: and so they should all beseech our Lord not to let him go, but that he might take the habit. This Prioress is a very great servant of God, so that I think her petition alone would have been heard by His Majesty, how much more that of souls so good as the Sisters who were there.

All took it much to heart, and with fasting, discipline, and prayer they continually besought it of His Majesty: and so He was pleased to do us this loving kindness. For when Father Gracian went to the Brothers' monastery and saw so much religion and such good arrangements for the service of our Lord, and above all, knew it was the Order of His glorious Mother, whom he so desired to serve, his heart began to be moved not to return to the world. The devil set before him

T. F. 11 plenty of difficulties, especially the distress it would be to his parents, who loved him greatly, and who built their hopes on his helping the fortunes of their children²: for they had many sons and daughters. But he, leaving this charge to God, for Whom he was giving up everything, determined to become one of the Virgin's subjects and take her habit. So they gave it him, to the great joy of all, especially the nuns and Prioress, who gave great praises to our Lord, deeming that it was through their prayers that God had done them this favour.

He went through his year of probation with the humility of the most insignificant novices. His virtue was specially tried during a time when, the Prior being away, there was left as Senior a very young and ignorant Brother, who had not the least ability or sense for ruling: and as for experience, he had none, because he had only entered the monastery a short time before. The way he led them and the mortifications he made them do were something quite excessive, so that whenever I think of it I wonder how they could stand it, particularly people such as Fray Gerónimo. He had need, to bear it, of the enthusiasm which God gave him. And it has since been seen that that Brother is afflicted with melancholia, and wherever he has been there have been difficulties with him, even when under obedience; how much more when he had to rule! For his moods are master of him, although, he is a good monk. And God sometimes permits such mistakes as that of putting people like him in office, in order to perfect the virtue of obedience in those whom He loves. So it must have been in this case. And by virtue of this trial, God has given Father Fray Jerónimo of the Mother of God the greatest light in matters of obedience, to teach those who are under him, as one who had such good practice in it at the beginning. And in order that he might not lack experience in anything which is needful for us, he had great temptations three months before his Profession; but, like the good captain he was to be of the Sons of the Virgin, he defended himself well against them: and when the devil more strongly urged him to give up the habit, he defended himself by promising not to give it up and promising to make his vows. He gave me a certain work³ which he had written during those great temptations, which edified me greatly, and shews well what strength the Lord gave him.

It may appear unsuitable that he should have communicated to me so many particulars about his soul. It may be that the Lord willed it in order that I might set it down here, for praised be He in His creatures: for I know that he has not opened himself so freely to his confessor nor to anyone else. The reason why he sometimes did so was that he had reason to think that, from my age and from what he had heard of me, I must have some experience. A propos of other things of which we happened to be speaking, he told me these things and others which are not for writing down, or I could say much more. I have indeed restrained myself lest it might pain him if this ever came into his hands.

I have not been able to write more, nor have I thought it necessary; because this writing will not, if ever, be seen for a long time; and it will be long before the memory is forgotten of one who has worked so well for the reformation of the primitive Rule. For, although he was not the first to begin it, he came at the right moment; for sometimes I should have been sorry that it had begun before if I had not such great trust in God's mercy. I am speaking of the monks' Houses: for the nuns' Houses, through His goodness, have always done well up to the present. And those of the Brothers had not done badly: only they carried in them seeds of quick decay; because, as they had no separate Province, they were governed by the unreformed Carmelites. To those who might have governed — that is, Father Fray Antonio of Jesus, who began the reform — was not given this power; no more had they Constitutions given by our Most Reverend Father General. In each House they did as seemed good to them. Until the Constitutions came, or they were governed by the reformed Order, there was continual trouble: for to some one thing seemed good and to others another. It sometimes distressed me sorely.

Our Lord set it right by the hand of Father Master Fray Jerónimo of the Mother of God: because he was made Apostolic Commissary, and was given authority and rule over the Discalced monks and nuns, and made Constitutions for the Brothers. For we nuns had them already from our Most Reverend Father General: so he did not make them for us, but for them; through the Apostolic authority which he held, and through the good abilities which, as I have said, the Lord had given him. The first time he visited them he set everything in such order and reasonable ways, that it plainly shewed him to be aided by the Divine Majesty, and to have been chosen by our Lady for the good of her Order. Of whom I earnestly entreat that she would prevail with her Son to favour him continually and give him grace to advance in His service. Amen.

Footnotes

1. In point of fact, the character of Father Gracian was rather that of a Jesuit than of a Barefoot Carmelite. His great liking for the pulpit and the confessional, his erudition, ability, and other qualifications for the active life, seem to belong more to a Jesuit than to a member of a religious Order given almost exclusively to the contemplative life. For all that, the reform of the Carmelite Order required a man of great activity, intelligence, and readiness; and Providence gave this to St Theresa in the person of Father Gracian. On the other hand, St Theresa, accustomed as she was to be directed by Jesuits, found within her young Order a priest with such qualities as theirs, and at once made a vow of obedience to him. When the reform was accomplished and St Theresa was dead, Gracian seemed to be out of place, and he was expelled from the Order. He wished to join the Jesuits; but they would not accept him. ↩

2. Considering that Gracian's father was secretary to Philip II and that the king was very fond of him, he was by no means well off. Several of his daughters, for want of money, had to enter convents which accepted, them without dowry, as a charity. ↩

3. What this work was, is not known. 11—2 ↩