Saint Francis Solano

The hours that were not given to study, the young Francis spent cultivating his father's garden, and he charmed this work with the singing of canticles. To grow in piety, no less than in science, he assiduously frequented the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. At the age of twenty, he entered the Franciscans of Montilla. T he austeriti Franciscains Religious order welcomed by Engelbert in Cologne. es of the novitiate were not enough for his fervor. Under his ordinary clothes, he wore a rough hairshirt, observed an almost continuous fast, slept on vine branches, with a block of wood for a pillow, during Advent and Lent, and frequently gave himself the discipline until he bled. After his profession, he followed studies in philosophy and theology. As he understood these sciences, he turned them into meditations accompanied by prayers and tears, so that he became at once the most learned and the most holy. Appointed master of novices, then superior of a convent, he instructed and commanded more by his examples than by his words. Having obtained permission to abdicate these charges, he gave himself entirely to the salvation of souls, preaching with much faith, charity, and fruit to the poor people of the region. When he was sent to beg, he gathered the little children around him and recited with them the principal truths of Christian doctrine. The plague having broken out in the country, Francis devoted himself to the service of the sick, both for the soul and for the body. He taught them to sanctify their sufferings and tried to bring them relief. Those who escaped death, he dressed in new clothes and led them back home to the singing of canticles. The religious who assisted him having died, Francis performed the office of two all by himself. He was struck himself; but, barely recovered, he returned to serve his dear sick until the scourge had ceased. His faith and charity obtained more than one extraordinary healing.

As the grateful populations showed him great esteem and affection, the humble Francis sought to escape it. He asked for permission to go and preach to the barbarians of Africa, hoping to shed his blood there for the faith. He only obtained permission to go to South America in 1589. Off the coast of Peru, the vessel was assai Pérou Province in America where the saint carried out his mission. led by a furious storm, which pushed it against a sandbank and caused a leak. The pilot, seeing no remedy, urged the principal passengers to save themselves in the longboat; Francis Solano was among them. But, considering that the multitude could not benefit from it, he cried out aloud: "God forbid that, for the love of temporal life, I should separate myself from my brothers here who are in peril of both temporal and eternal life!" Immediately, raising the cross, he exhorted them to implore divine mercy. As there were among them some negroes who were still infidels, he instructed them in a few words in the Christian faith and conferred Baptism upon them. A few moments later, a gust of wind broke the ship in two. The half in which most of the neophytes were located disappeared into the waves. The other half, in which Saint Francis was located, began to float. Terror was at its height among his fellow shipwrecked passengers; alone without fear, the holy man exhorted them to place their trust in God, to merit His help through prayer and penance, assuring them that the longboat would return to take them after three days. In the interval, he preached penance to them on the wreckage of the ship, giving them the example himself by striking himself with ropes on his bare shoulders. After they had thus spent three days and three nights between life and death, they saw the longboat appear. Francis was about to board it last, when the part of the ship that had saved them for three days began to sink. As the waves had moved the longboat away, the holy man reached it by swimming; his habit was carried away by the waves, but he found it again on land, on the shore.

When the missionaries had recovered somewhat from their fatigues in Lim Lima Capital of Peru and the saint's primary place of residence. a, Francis Solano was sent more than seven hundred leagues away, t o the province of T province de Tucuman Argentine province evangelized by the saint. ucuman, otherwise known as Rio de la Plata, to evangelize the tribes wandering in the forests and deserts. Their languages were diverse and very difficult: he learned them in a short time, less by the efforts of the mind and memory than by the grace of Him who said: 'Those who believe in me will speak in new tongues.' For, after fifteen days, he spoke one of these languages in a way that surpassed the natives. At first, they attributed this prodigy to magic; but soon they noticed something more wonderful. As at the first Pentecost, while the Saint spoke in a single language, he was understood in all the others.

But what the new apostle applied himself to even more than to speech, for the conversion of souls, was prayer, fasting, and voluntary austerities. The journeys, the fatigues, the perils through forests, deserts, and rivers, nothing was too much for him to win the poor savages to Jesus Christ, to instruct them, to baptize them, to hear their confessions. In time, he no longer needed to run after them: they came to find him of their own accord, and in great throngs. And what the magistrates had not been able to obtain from them through the rigor of justice and the fear of punishment, the Saint had only to say a word, and they executed it instantly with joy. Here, among others, is a proof of the authority that his humility and charity had acquired for him.

On a Holy Thursday, while the faithful were occupied with the divine offices, an army of barbarians arrived, bringing them war and death. The terror was extreme. Francis Solano walked alone to meet the enemies; and, although they spoke very diverse languages, he announced peace and concord to them in a single language. They understood him so well that more than nine thousand of these barbarians asked for and received Baptism. Their change was such that that very night a great number of them mingled with the Catholic faithful to perform the flagellation, in honor of Jesus scourged at the pillar. All these peoples, having returned home, affirmed that they had heard all their languages in that of the holy man.

Other miracles further increased his renown. One day while he was preaching in Tucuman, he learned that these peoples, due to the lack of water, were on the point of leaving the country, to their great regret and prejudice. Enlightened from above, he assured them that very close by was a spring of living water. The inhabitants, unable to believe it because of the long drought, went out with him into a field, and, pointing with his staff to a completely arid spot, he ordered them to dig there. Scarcely had they removed a little earth when a considerable fountain of fresh water flowed from it. Even today it is so abundant that it turns two mills; and the inhabitants, Spaniards and Indians alike, have not ceased to call it the fountain of Saint Solano.

Appointed successively Custos of the province of Tucuman and superior of the monastery of Lima, Francis achieved so much through his humble supplications that he was relieved of his duties, so that he could apply himself solely to preaching and the salvation of souls. God favored him with extraordinary graces, the supernatural knowledge of hearts, the gift of healing, and the spirit of prophecy. As people saw his predictions come to pass exactly, his threats made a terrible impression. In 1603, while prea ching in the city ville de Truxillo Peruvian city whose destruction was predicted by the saint. of Truxillo, not far from Lima, he announced expressly, fifteen years in advance, that the first of these cities would be destroyed along with the church where he was preaching, but not the pulpit, which would remain intact in the midst of the ruin s. This was fulfille tremblement de terre Seismic event that destroyed Truxillo in accordance with the saint's prophecy. d to the letter by an earthquake on February 14, 1618.

The year following this prediction, that is to say in 1604, while in Lima, he left the monastery one day towards evening and advanced into the main square before the people, who soon flocked from all sides. He began to speak strongly against the corruption of morals, and taking as his text these words of Saint John: "All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," he announced in a threatening manner the coming perdition, not of the material city, but of the souls of those who inhabited it.

This preaching was for the people of Lima what the preaching of Jonah was for the people of Nineveh. Although the Saint had not spoken of the ruin of the city, but of that of souls, all the listeners interpreted it in both senses. The entire city donned mourning; everyone beat their breasts and implored divine Mercy; the churches were opened, the Blessed Sacrament exposed; people confessed with great composure; the confessors of the city could not keep up. This salutary terror spread even into the houses of the religious: those of Saint Dominic practiced extraordinary penances upon themselves and sang litanies to appease the justice of heaven. The Viceroy of Peru, astonished by this sudden commotion of the whole city, consulted that very night with the Archbishop of Lima, Saint Turibius. A commission was appointed to investigate the causes. It called Sa saint Thuribe Archbishop of Lima and contemporary of Francis Solano. int Francis, who repeated his oath before it. The effect was the same; all the listeners were seized with fear and melted into tears. At the same time, the Saint gave a written declaration that he had not spoken of the material destruction of the city, but of the spiritual ruin of souls through sin. This declaration was made public; but it did not prevent the composure and terror from increasing even further. Then the Viceroy said: "Let us not take useless pains; this is the work of God, who has willed, by this means, to soften hearts hitherto hardened."

What Saint Francis Solano had been all his life, a model of faith, patience, humility, charity, and seraphic devotion, he was particularly during the two months that preceded his death. Exhausted by a continuous fever, he looked at the Savior on the cross and blessed Him for being willing to supplement, through the pains of illness, the discipline he could no longer impose upon himself. He conversed continually with God, or about God with his brothers. Often he was caught up in ecstasy. On the feast of the Holy Trinity, he left his cell, despite his weakness, and intoned in a loud voice: "Let us bless the Father and the Son, with the Holy Spirit!" His familiar aspiration was: "Glorified be God!" On the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, he had ecstatic conversations with the Lamb of God, upon his bed of pain. He predicted that he would die on the day of Saint Bonaventure, his favorite saint. Three days before his death, looking at the religious who was serving him, he burst into tears and said: "Lord Jesus, whence comes this to me? You are attached to the cross, and I am relieved by the ministry of your servants; you are naked, and I am covered; you are struck with blows and crowned with thorns, and I am filled with so many goods and consoled in so many ways!"

On the day of Saint Bonaventure, July 14, the fever ceased suddenly, the breath of the sick man spread a sweet odor, his hands lost their wrinkles. As the religious were reciting the divine office, the sick man raised his hands at the Gloria Patri, and said his accustomed aspiration: "Glorified be God!" They then sang the Symbol of the faith. When they reached these words: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine, the church bell rang for the elevation of the solemn mass; immediately the holy man, looking at the crucifix and crossing his hands, breathed his prayer for the last time: "Glorified be God!" and he expired, on July 14, 1610, at the age of sixty-one. Countless miracles immediately attested to his holiness. The acts cite more than one hundred for his beatification. The canonization process cites more than twenty more. He was beatified by Clement X, and canonized by Benedict XIII, in 1726. His Benoît XIII Pope who established the Institute as a religious Order in 1725. feast has been set for July 24.

He is represented baptizing negroes, and holding a rosary in his hand.

Acta Sanctorum.