Saint Thomas of Villanova

As soon as he was of age, he was sent to school, where he became a model of modesty and good conduct. He served Mass with a devotion that had nothing of childhood in it. He took pleasure in sweeping the church and adorning the altars; as a child, he loved to imitate the ceremonies of the Church; when he played the preacher, he was one in reality; he repeated to his schoolmates the truths he had retained from the sermon; he was then very pathetic; he would burst into tears himself and often drew them from the eyes of his listeners. At seven years old, he drew attention for his love toward the poor: he would give his lunch to the first one he met, and he several times stripped himself to clothe those of the poor who lacked garments. One day when his mother had dressed him in new clothes, he gave his garments away to take back the old ones he had discarded. One day when he was alone in his father's house, six poor people appeared at the door: he could not refuse them charity; but as he did not have the key to the pantry, he had recourse to six chickens that were still following a hen, and distributed one to each of them. His mother, not finding them upon her return, asked him what had become of them; he confessed to her what he had done, adding ingenuously that, if a seventh poor person had appeared, he would have given him the hen as well. Far from reprimanding him for this liberality, she praised Our Lord within herself, praying Him to bless these first sentiments of charity that He inspired in him by His grace, and to increase them for His greater glory. He made himself the intercessor for those who asked for assistance from his parents, inquired carefully into their misery, then represented it in such touching terms that he was never turned away. He sometimes took the dinner that was prepared for the harvesters and went to carry it to the poor. He did the same with other things he could get his hands on, and God, to confirm this extraordinary conduct, provided for it through His Providence.

At that age when innocence keeps virtue sheltered from the dangers of the world, he began to practice mortification, in order to make his flesh feel the pains of penance, even before it was susceptible to the pleasures of concupiscence. He would lock himself in his room to spend entire hours in prayer, and to take the discipline there until he bled. He wore a rough hair shirt, like a powerful armor that kept him covered from the rebellions of the flesh. He could not manage his austerities so well that his mother did not become aware of them: the discipline he used was found all bloody. She was touched to see the mortification of her son written in characters of blood; but she took care not to prevent it, knowing well that purity is only preserved among thorns, and that the surest remedy to prevent the revolts of nature is to fortify oneself against it by such defenses. Indeed, Father Jacques Montiel, his confessor, has testified publicly that our Saint never let the precious lily of his chastity wither, and that he kept it pure and whole until the tomb.

His parents, having noticed the signs he gave of the goodness of his mind and his virtuous inclinations, sent him to study, at the age of twelve, at the University of Alcala. He went through all his humanities classes there and did his rhetoric , philosophy, and t université d'Alcala University city where Julian exerted an intellectual and spiritual influence. heology with a marvelous success that drew the eyes of everyone to him. But his virtue made him even more admirable than his science. He never uttered a single word that turned to his advantage, nor to the prejudice of his neighbor. One never saw any bitterness in him, whether he was answering or arguing in the schools, and one saw him on the benches and in the heat of the dispute, as modest and as tranquil as if he had not been interested in it. He was often taken, young as he was, as the arbiter of disputes that the most skillful had not been able to finish, and his charity and his inclination for peace found means unknown to the prudence of the flesh to reunite the most animated spirits.

During the course of his studies, he learned of the death of his father, which obliged him to go to Villeneuve, more to soften the grief of his mother by his presence than to put his domestic affairs in order. After reading his father's will, which left him, among other goods, a beautiful and large house, he abandoned it to his mother with the rest of his paternal inheritance, not wishing to share anything with her: but at the same time, although he was then only seventeen years old, he pointed out to her that, to make good use of this inheritance, she should consecrate it to the poor and make it a hospital in Villeneuve, where there was none yet. This virtuous woman, improving upon these salutary counsels, enclosed herself in her hospital and spent the years of her widowhood in the service of the poor. This action was so pleasing to God that He rewarded the mother of our Saint, even in this life, by several miracles, such as multiplying before her eyes the wheat in the granaries, increasing the linens and fabrics she used to clothe the indigent, and healing by the sign of the cross several desperate illnesses.

Thomas of Villanova then returned to Alcala to continue his studies. His virtue and talent shone there as before. The professors publicly exhorted the other students to follow his example and imitate his conduct. At twenty-six, he taught philosophy; he had as a student the famous Domingo de Soto, whom Spain recognizes as one of its greatest theologians. The University of Salamanca, informed of our Saint's success, managed to attract him to that city to teach moral philosophy there. The young professor, indifferent to temporal advantages, had long been preparing himself for religious life. He applied himself more and more to prayer, fasting, mortification of the senses, and works of charity, especially in assisting the students, for whom he had extreme compassion. He distributed the greater part of his earnings to them. Finally, after consulting God and deliberating maturely, he entered the Order of Saint Augustine, whose habit he took on the day of the Presentati on of Our Lady, at the Ordre de Saint-Augustin Religious order occupying the priory during the Middle Ages. convent of Salamanca (in November 1516). He thus entered this Order at about the same time that Luther was leaving it and consummating his apostasy.

The virtues that served as the base and foundation for the spiritual edifice he began to raise in his novitiate were, first, an almost continuous prayer. He remained in prayer from Matins until the hour of Prime, and from Prime until it was time to return to the choir. Among the devotional books he read, he was especially attached to Saint Bernard, whose reading was delicious nourishment for his soul. He used the interval between Vespers and Compline to review his theology, in order to always retain its ideas. It is thus that he practiced from his novitiate what he said so often: that the good religious prays while studying and studies while praying. This prayer was supported by a very profound humility: this professor, so renowned, so applauded, was the first in the exercises ordinarily used to test the submission of novices. The most abject tasks were those he sought with the most eagerness, and these virtues were accompanied by a very exact abstinence and an austerity that the Rule did not command. Besides the fasts of the Church and the Order, he performed several others with the permission of his superior. He slept only four or five hours at most. His bed was only a simple straw mattress, and during Advent and Lent he slept only on boards: a practice he observed all his life, even while being archbishop.

One can judge by these beginnings with what fervor he made his profession. He received all the more interior sweetness, as he could not see others perform this ceremony without shedding tears in abundance. The solitude of the novitiate had suspended the functions of his charity; but as soon as he saw himself at liberty to perform them, he exercised them with marvelous ardor and humility, and it can be said that there was no place in the monastery where he did not show his charity. He visited the sick so often that one would have said the infirmary was his ordinary dwelling. He took pleasure in feeding them, making their beds, wiping away their sweat, cleaning their room, and rendering them even more humiliating services. When he knew the needs of his brothers, he anticipated them and offered himself to them with incomparable promptness and cheerfulness. He said that the infirmary was the burning bush of Moses, where one found God among the thorns of labor, by serving and supporting the infirm, and where the heart was set ablaze with the flames of charity through acts of humility, patience, kindness, and mortification that one could practice there. Thus, when the sick saw him enter, they looked upon his visit as that of an angel descended from heaven, who came to soften their bitterness, calm their anxieties, temper the heat of their fever, appease their pains; in a word, to bring them by his mere presence entirely divine consolations.

Having been ordained a priest some time after his profession, he celebrated his first Mass on Christmas Day, with a tenderness and devotion that is not easy to express; for he was so absorbed in the contemplation of the childhood of Our Lord, that the sight of this mystery carried him into ecstasy, particularly when the Gloria in excelsis was sung and these words of the Preface: Quia per incarnati Verbi mysterium, which he uttered only with torrents of tears. The same sentiments of love toward a child God came to him every year: which obliged him, while being archbishop, to say the first two Masses in his chapel, so as to have only his chaplains as witnesses of these divine operations. His face was then so brilliant that one could not sustain the radiance when one came to look at it. His priesthood served as a new motive for him to work with more fervor than ever for Christian and religious perfection. He said sometimes that it is a very bad sign in a priest when one sees him approaching the holy altars every day without becoming better or more mortified. He lived in continuous recollection, so that having his mind always free and his heart clean, he would be better disposed to the celebration of the divine Mysteries, the mere thought of which, which was ceaselessly present to him, inspired in him admirable sentiments of God. He had no useless moment in the whole day; those who had business with him sought him ordinarily only in one of these five places, which he had consecrated to the five wounds of Our Lord: at the altar, in the choir, in his cell, in the library, or in the infirmary. He asserted that those places were his homeland, where his soul rested, and that the others were only prisons to him. He said also that the streets of cities should not serve as a promenade for religious, but only as a path of pilgrimage; that one should not make visits of civility or pure compliment, but out of a truly Christian zeal and with a sincere desire to procure the salvation of souls through holy and salutary conversations. He could not see an idle and useless religious, and he compared him to a soldier without arms and exposed to the attack of his enemies.

Despite his love for the obscure and hidden life, he was applied by his superiors to teach theology at Salamanca, and he explained the Master of the Sentences in his course. He had a solid mind and judgment; but his memory was not as fortunate, which obliged him to great work; however, this laborious employment did not make him relax any of his ordinary exercises: he also continued to visit the sick, according to his pious custom. He neglected nothing to make his students learned; but he had no less care to lead them to virtue, because, he said, science and great erudition without piety is like a sword in the hands of a child, which can only do harm to itself and no good to anyone. He did not, however, carry things from one extreme to the other, for he blamed equally those who, under the pretext of devotion, did not apply themselves enough to study, because, he said again, if piety is advantageous to the one who possesses it, it cannot be so to the Church or to one's neighbor when it is not accompanied by doctrine and the understanding of Holy Scripture and the Fathers; and it is a great abuse, he added, to believe that the study of letters does not accommodate itself with the recollection of the cloister.

He was then employed in preaching. He performed this duty with such zeal that he immediately became the admiration of Salamanca. Some said he was a Saint Paul in the depth of his doctrine; others called him the Elijah of the new law, because of the zeal that accompanied his discourses. There were even those who compared him to a seraph descended from heaven for his admirable ardor. He preached the Lenten season in the cathedral when Spain was in turmoil due to the uprising of most of its provinces against their sovereign in the year 1521. It was with the greatest success, according to Fr. Jean de Magnanaton, later Bishop of Segovia, who speaks of it as a witness and as one of the conquests of our hero. He made such a great number of conversions in this famous city that one would have said Salamanca had become a monastery, so great and universal was the reformation of morals in all conditions and among all persons. Everyone became so inflamed with the fire of devotion that he kindled in hearts that nothing was breathed but penance, prayer, the frequenting of the Sacraments, works of charity, and generally the practice of all Christian virtues. Many young men renounced the world to embrace religious life; the novitiates of all the Orders in Salamanca were filled; the superiors were forced to send the postulants to other cities in Castile. This extraordinary popularity caused Charles V to want to hear him, and he was so satisfied that, from the very first time, he made him his ordinar y preacher. T Charles-Quint Emperor involved in the wars leading to the destruction of the convent. his prince was avid for his sermons: sometimes, so as not to miss them when Saint Thomas preached outside the palace, he would strip himself for an hour of royal majesty and slip into the audience in private. It was clear that his doctrine was not at all studied and that he worked more to win hearts through the unction of his words than to satisfy the ear through their arrangement. He learned more at the foot of the crucifix and in prayer than in books; thus, he did not approve of preachers who neglect prayer and consume all their time making a heap of thoughts and conceptions to deliver them from the pulpit. "It is in prayer," he said, "that man receives lights that illuminate his mind and ardor that warms his will. It is in it that he forms the arrows with which the hearts of the listeners must be pierced. Study alone without prayer fills the understanding only with subtleties and curious things, and leaves the chest cold and frozen, and it is impossible for movements of fire and inflamed words to come from there." It was not to divert from study that he gave these instructions, but to show the necessity of prayer, to which he confessed he was indebted for the success of his preaching.

He had a certain light or interior vision by which he knew the spiritual needs of his listeners; but, what is admirable, although they were of different conditions, they felt enlightened and inflamed by the force of the same discourse, as if he had spoken to each of them in particular. His spirit was so strongly penetrated by the truths he preached that several times he happened to be caught in ecstasy in the middle of his sermon. On a Holy Thursday, explaining these words: *Domine, tu mihi lavas pedes*, he entered so deeply into their meaning that after having said these words: "What, Lord! To me, to me, you, you who are my God, the glory of the angels and the beauty of heaven," he remained without being able to go further, and no other movement of life was perceived in him, except that tears flowed from his eyes in abundance. The same thing happened to him while preaching on the day of the Transfiguration, on these words: *Bonum est nos hic esse*, and at the clothing of a novice, while explaining these: *Soror nostra parvula est*. These ecstasies were ordinary for him when he contemplated the mysteries of the law of grace; but the longest and most marvelous was the one he had while archbishop, on the day of the Ascension, on these words: *Valentibus illis elevatus est*; for, as if he had accompanied the glorious triumph of Our Lord, he remained from the morning until five o'clock in the evening in a continuous rapture, all withdrawn into himself and without any sign of life appearing in him.

Two and a half years after his profession (1519), he was elected prior of Salamanca, although, according to the custom of the province, no one was raised to this office until after having served the Order for seven years; but, because of his rare merit, an exception was made in his favor. He performed it so well that he was continued at the end of three years, then elected at Burgos and Valladolid; and, finally, he was twice provincial of Andalusia and once of Castile. His humility made him look upon his inferiors as his masters, and his charity made him treat them as his children. God had given him the discernment of spirits: knowing the inclinations of the religious, he governed them with incomparable gentleness and prudence; he commanded more by his examples than by his words, and he distinguished himself from others more by his holiness and exact observance than by his power and dignity. He took such good time for correction that, as he removed from it what was importunate and disagreeable, it was always received with docility and followed by amendment. The meekness of his heart made so much charm and agreeableness shine forth on his face and on his tongue that the most stubborn yielded to his remonstrances. When he discovered some fault, before reprimanding the guilty, he expiated it by fasts and disciplines until blood was drawn, as if he had committed it himself. It cannot be said how many religious he brought back to their duty by this path: the cowardly regained their first fervor, the weak were strengthened against the fragility of nature, and the obstinate returned promptly to obedience. He opposed above all novelties, which he said were sources of trouble and dissension in religious houses, contenting himself with having the ordinances of the province exactly observed. He recommended mainly four things:

First, that the divine offices be celebrated with all possible reverence, attention, and devotion, and that the spirit always accompany the voice, both in the choir and at the holy altar, God pouring his blessings upon a monastery only in proportion to the worship rendered to his majesty.

Secondly, that meditation and spiritual reading be done inviolably, because, as it is natural heat that preserves animal life, so it is meditation that gives strength to religious to perform with joy all the functions of their state. He who neglects it is undevout at the altar, distracted in the choir, light in the cloister, dissipated in conferences, sorrowful and restless everywhere. Work importunes him, obediences displease him, the artifices of the demon deceive him, temptations triumph over his fragility; in a word, he is a blind man without a guide who walks groping, who stumbles at every step, and who goes astray in the very middle of the main roads.

Thirdly, that peace, union, and fraternal charity be kept without any alteration, because a religious in the bitterness and sourness of heart is the image of a reprobate; his body no longer serves his soul except as a portable hell where it already suffers the darkness of passion, the fire of anger, the bites of hatred, the insatiable hunger for vengeance, the devouring worm, and the alarms and anxieties of a bad conscience.

The fourth thing, which he had mainly at heart, was that no one should remain in laziness and idleness. He called this vice the most fatal enemy of virtue, the ruin of the soul, the contagion of morals, the reef of chastity, and the source of all kinds of disorders. Although he was very restrained in the exercise of his authority, if a religious was found wandering in the convent and wasting time laughing, murmuring, or in other useless and frivolous actions, he wanted him to be, for the first time, reprimanded charitably; for the second, that it be done with vehemence, in full chapter; and that, for the third, he receive the discipline with the rigor that the constitutions enjoin for great faults.

By these means, he made observance flourish in all the houses whose conduct he had, whether as prior or as provincial. He himself observed the rule with such punctuality, despite his great occupations, that he confounded those who neglected to submit to it. His firmness, however, was so well tempered by gentleness that all loved him and admired his virtue, the good odor of which spread on all sides.

The high reputation he had acquired giving him much credit, he used it usefully to assist the afflicted. The Emperor Charles V held him in such esteem that he could refuse him nothing. This prince had condemned to death some very considerable gentlemen convicted of a crime of lèse-majesté: the greatest of Spain, the admiral, the constable, Cardinal Tavera, Archbishop of Toledo, the infant himself, Philip, who was king after Charles, his father, had intervened to obtain their pardon without having been able to bend the monarch. Saint Thomas went to find him and asked for pardon for the guilty, assuring him that they were repentant of their crime and that they would henceforth be his most faithful servants. And immediately, without further formality, the emperor ratified his request, to the great astonishment of the whole court: "You should not find it strange," he said, "that I have changed my mind at the prayer of the Father-Prior of the Augustinians of Valladolid; his requests are commands for me. He is a heavenly man who holds in his hand the key to hearts; he moves and turns them as he pleases. Does this incomparable servant and friend of God not deserve that we render to him, from now on, the honors that one would defer to the Saints, if they asked for some grace on earth, they to whom we address ourselves every day to obtain some from heaven?" This praise, from the mouth of an emperor as judicious as Charles V, is worth more than anything we could say about this admirable religious. A noble lady of the city of Burgos could not forgive the death of her son to a man who had killed him; she was actively pursuing vengeance, without all the solicitations of the persons who had some influence over her having been able to soften her heart. Saint Thomas undertook to bring her back to humanity: he went to find her in her house; but, oh wonder of the omnipotence of God in the conversion of an offended woman outraged by pain! as soon as she caught sight of him, she came to meet him, prostrated herself at his feet, and, as if the mere sight of our Saint had thrown into her heart the purest sentiments of mercy, she protested loudly that she forgave the murderer. To win such victories without fighting, one must have a sovereign and absolute power over spirits.

While he was visiting the convents of the province under his charge, Charles V nominated him on his own initiative to the archbishopric of Granada; and, to give him the patent himself, he had him come to Toledo. But the Saint begged the emperor with such insistence to excuse him from accepting this office that he did not wish to press him further. However, God, who wanted to make him a worthy pastor of his people, soon after created an opportunity to place him on the episcopal throne; for, the archbishopric of Valencia having become vacant archevêché de Valence Place of Ismidon's early studies. by the resignation of George of Austria, uncle of Charles V, who had been elevated to the bishopric of Liège by a brief of Paul III, the emperor, who was then in Flanders, was obliged to provide for it. He had no intention of nominating Saint Thomas, for fear of distressing him and being refused once again; but he nominated a religious of Saint Jerome: Our Lord permitting it thus to show that his election was to be a stroke of Providence, and not a work of the hands of men. The secretary dispatched the patent, and believing he had heard the name of Fr. Thomas of Villanova, he filled it with his name. The emperor, very surprised by this change, asked him why he had not executed his orders: "Sire," replied the secretary, "Your Majesty will do me the honor of believing that I listened to you attentively and that you named Fr. Thomas; but if I misunderstood your orders, this fault will soon be repaired by dispatching another patent where I will put the name that it will please Your Majesty." — "No," replied the emperor, "what is written shall remain written, you have done better than I said, or I said better than I thought. I see well that this election comes from God and not from me." Thomas was in the choir of his convent in Valladolid, occupied with singing Compline with the community, when one of the officers of the viceroy, Prince Philip, son of Charles V, brought him the patent of his nomination. The brother porter, joyful at this news, entered the choir with precipitation, and approaching our Saint, who was prior, announced to him in a rather loud tone of voice that a person from the court was waiting for him in the parlor. Saint Thomas did not leave until the end of the office, and having received the imperial ordinance, he told the messenger calmly that he would go to confer about this matter with the viceroy, and condemned the brother porter to take the discipline for not having entered the choir with enough gravity. The next day, he went to the palace, and, after having thanked the prince very humbly for the honor that the emperor his father was doing him, he begged him to support his refusal, because he recognized himself as incapable of bearing the weight of the episcopate. He went to see him again two or three other times, to reiterate the same prayer; and, finally, prostrating himself at his feet, he returned the patent into his hands, begging him to forgive him if he acted in this way, because he only did it to clear his conscience. Several great lords came to find him in his convent to force him to yield to the choice of the emperor; the Cardinal of Toledo even spoke to him about it in private in his cell and did what he could to sway him. But it was useless. All his resistance made it judged that other means must be employed to win him over. It was therefore decided to have recourse to his provincial, so that he might command him, by virtue of holy obedience, and under pain of excommunication, to acquiesce to his nomination to the episcopate. This expedient had all the success that was hoped for; for, as he looked upon the person of God in that of his superior, he submitted humbly to his orders. It was a loss for the Order of Saint Augustine to be deprived of such a great man, especially because he had been a deputy to the last General Chapter, held in the year 1543, with two other Fathers, one from Italy and the other from France, to review the constitutions of the Congregation, which had been altered in many places. But it was a considerable gain for the Church to have such a vigilant pastor in one of the principal episcopal sees of Spain. Thus, everyone expressed joy, while he alone was plunged into an ocean of sadness. One would have said, seeing his withered face and counting his sighs, that some unfortunate accident had befallen him. The thought that he was going to lose the rest and security of the cloister to expose himself to the dangers of the episcopate overwhelmed him with pain. The sight of the account he had to render for so many souls, at the peril of his own, made him shudder. He remained retired in his cell without even wanting to receive the visits of friends who wanted to congratulate him. He spent all the time from his nomination until his consecration, the ceremony of which was performed by the Archbishop of Toledo in the city of Valladolid, in tears and prayer. A few days later, fearing to leave sheep who desired the coming of their pastor to languish, he set out on foot to go to Valencia, dressed simply in his very worn religious habit, with a hat that was almost as old as he was, without any other pomp or company than a single religious and two servants of the convent. On his way, he had the thought of going to see his mother, who had begged him to pass through Villanueva de los Infantes. This seemed reasonable to him; but, after having recommended the matter to God, as he was accustomed to do in all his doubts, he went straight to Valencia, judging that the church, which was his spouse, should be preferred to his own mother. As soon as he had set foot in the territory of his diocese, which had long suffered from excessive drought, from which great sterility was feared, the sky opened and gave water in abundance. He went to the monastery of his Order, called Our Lady of Succor, outside the walls of Valencia, where he lived for a few days as a simple religious, going to the choir and the refectory with the others. Finally, on the first day of the year 1545, being fifty-six years old, he made his entry into the episcopal city with angelic humility and modesty. At the door of his church, he did not want to use the velvet cushions that had been prepared for him; but, after having adored the cross, which he embraced with many tears, he humbly kissed the earth at its feet.

The first thing he did, after these ceremonies, was to visit the prisons of the ecclesiastical court, which were adjacent to the archbishop's palace; when he saw them damp, dark, and seeming less made for men than for animals, he said with a sigh and shedding tears: "I order that these dungeons be filled in and their entrance walled up; they are not suitable for public thieves: how could one have locked priests in there? God forbid that, under my administration, any cleric should ever be condemned to spend even an hour there! It is by very different means that I intend to correct my brothers and win them to God." The members of his chapter, seeing his poverty, made him a gift of four thousand ducats; he immediately had this sum taken to the administrators of the great hospital, saying to his priests "that he would always regard as done to himself the good that would be done to the poor of his diocese."

Honors were far from changing his habits; he always maintained the modesty and simplicity of a religious, both in his clothing and at his table. For several years he wore the same robe he had brought from the monastery; and, during the eleven years he was archbishop, he had only two new ones.

Only common dishes were served at his table, except for one slightly better dish that he had added for guests. One day, he had a lamprey that had cost four reals resold, in order to give the proceeds to the poor. Besides the ordinary fasts of his Rule, which he always observed as rigorously as in the cloister during Advent, Lent, and the vigils of feasts, he fasted on bread and water, which he took in secret so as not to be seen by anyone. He used only earthenware dishes, except for a small salt cellar and silver spoons that were set out for people from the outside. He cut back on something every day for the food of the poor. He often pointed out to his steward that the property of the archbishopric did not belong to the archbishop, and that he should be very careful not to make any superfluous expenditure, for fear of having to give a rigorous account of it at the judgment of God. He had several relatives of low condition; however, he was not ashamed to see them at his home, to converse with them familiarly, and to acknowledge them as such in the presence of the greatest lords, even though they were dressed poorly and like villagers; he gave them what was necessary, without raising them above their condition. Such was the domestic life of Saint Thomas; let us now see what he did for the government of his Church.

He began with the visitation of his diocese, which he carried out with all possible vigilance, going even to the smallest villages, and preaching everywhere with apostolic zeal. He used forgiveness rather than severity to extirpate vices. By this path he won over an infinity of people, of whom he might perhaps have made only hypocrites or desperate men, had he treated them according to the rigor of the Canons. After his visitation, he assembled a synod, where he had regulations made to cut off several disorders he had noticed in the clergy as well as in the people. It is true that the canons of his cathedral opposed this and sent him a notary to appeal to the Pope, claiming that His Holiness had exempted them from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary. But the Saint, who sought only the glory of God and in no way to extend his authority, gave this beautiful answer: "I am not their judge; well then! God will be. They do not want to obey my Synod and they appeal to the sovereign Pontiff; and I appeal from their resistance to Jesus Christ. He knows well the need they have of reform. Let them escape if they wish from my justice, but they will never escape from His, and they must necessarily appear before His tribunal." But they were soon obliged to implore this same justice to which they had had so much trouble submitting.

The governor, contrary to the laws of the time, had a canon and another cleric arrested, judged, and condemned, who should only have appeared before ecclesiastical courts. The canons had recourse to the archbishop and, asking his pardon for the past, begged him to defend the immunities of the Church thus violated. Saint Thomas demanded an explanation from the governor for this injustice. The governor refused any reparation. Then the prelate was obliged to employ censures. The Duke of Calabria, viceroy of the province, had him asked to lift these censures, and sent word to him that, if he did not do so, his council was of the opinion that the temporalities of his Church should be seized. But Saint Thomas, not at all frightened by these threats, answered him three things that would deserve to be written in letters of gold. The first, that the quality of bishop that he bore obliged him to defend by the sword of censures the rights of the Church when they were violated, just as the quality of minister of the King of Spain obliged the Duke to defend by arms the royal authority when it was attacked. The second, that if his temporalities were taken, it would not be he who would be harmed, but the poor, to whom they belonged: "For, to me," he said, "what harm would come of it? Can one strip a man who is already naked? Will they chase me from my diocese? Would to God that it were permitted for me to leave it! I would return with joy to my little cell, which I only left with regret, and I would live there more content than I am in this palace." The third, that he valued his life no less than temporal goods, and that he was ready to shed even the last drop of his blood for the defense of the Spouse of Jesus Christ, whose guardianship had been entrusted to him. This firmness stopped the viceroy, and was the cause of the conversion of the governor, who publicly repaired the injury he had done to the Church. In a circumstance where he could not satisfy the desires of the Emperor Charles V, it was pointed out to him that he risked offending that monarch: "I would be devastated," he replied, "to give His Majesty the slightest reason to be angry with me; but if I cannot content him without offending my God, here is the key to our cell that I always carry at my belt; he only has to permit me to retire there, I will gladly leave my archbishopric and go and shut myself in."

But of all the virtues, the one that shone most in Saint Thomas, and which constitutes the character of his holiness, is his charity toward the poor. He loved them so tenderly, and was always so disposed to do them good, that he often snatched the morsel from his own mouth and deprived himself of the necessary to help them in their miseries. There usually came four or five hundred of them every day to his palace, to whom he gave food. As it was represented to him that many of these poor were only idlers and vagabonds who abused his kindness and sometimes deceived his servants by taking two alms for one: "If there are such people here," he said, "it is for the governor and the judge of police to take care, that is their duty; mine is to assist all those who present themselves at my door. What does it matter to us if they deceive us, provided that we give them alms in sincerity of heart and in the name of Jesus Christ, of whom they are the members? Perhaps the one who is refused will be an angel sent by God to test our charity." The income of his archbishopric amounted to eighteen thousand ducats: he used one thousand to maintain some chaplains he had founded in his cathedral in order to increase the number of those who assisted at the night office; two thousand for new converts; four thousand for the maintenance of his house. All the rest, except for two thousand in pension that he paid to Dom George of Austria, his predecessor, was for the poor, without reserving anything for the following year. He had a list of the 'shamefaced' poor of each parish, and had them called one after the other, in order to give them the alms himself, without obliging them to make themselves known to others. He also went to visit them every week to inquire about their needs and provide for them.

To persons who had once seen themselves in opulence, and whom misfortune had reduced to poverty, he gave enough to live honestly. When he could not give them charity himself, he did so through the intermediary of some priest or some religious. He also took the greatest care of foundlings, the sick, and poor girls. He took charge of little orphans who were without property and without assistance; and, when they were of age, he had them learn a trade, so that they could earn their living.

His almoner was charged with providing the feverish and other sick people with the best meats to make them broth, and generally everything ordered by the doctor charged by him with the care of the poor. He added something special for those who had incurable ailments, in order to console them and soften the bitterness of their misery.

The compassion he had for poor girls, whose virtue was in peril because of their extreme indigence, made him extraordinarily liberal toward them. He took care to marry them and to provide them with a dowry according to their condition. Those who, despite a better birth, were in the same necessity, received a more ample alms. No credit was needed to solicit his zeal; one did not have to exaggerate one's needs to make him open his hand; he was never more content than when he could anticipate the indigent with his liberalities. He sometimes even gave double what was asked of him, because he always believed he was doing too little for the poor; his charity, which had neither limits nor measure, made him desire to do even more.

Several persons burdened with debts were pulled out of trouble by the sums he distributed to them to satisfy their creditors. He wanted all the poor to have the freedom to speak to him whenever they needed his assistance. A person excusing himself for coming to bother him for the second time: "My child," he said to him, "do not speak to me thus, I am in no way bothered by those who have recourse to me in their needs. Do you not know that I only possess my office to receive your complaints and bring to them all the relief that is possible for me?" A lord of Valencia, to whom the Saint gave fifteen crowns every month to maintain his family, found himself obliged, by an accident, to have recourse to his benefactor; but as the ordinary alms he received made him timid, he came at night to beg one of his almoners to represent this necessity to him. Saint Thomas was deeply touched by it: "See," he said, "how great is the misery of this poor lord, since notwithstanding the ordinary fifteen crowns, he comes, at this hour, to ask us for more; let him be given twenty crowns immediately"; and, a moment later, having his almoner called back: "Count him forty," he said, "because my heart tells me that it is not without great need that he comes here at such an hour. Try to console him, and tell him from me that he should trust in God." He was warned one day that another lord, to whom he also gave fifteen crowns (this was his ordinary alms for the nobles), was making bad use of it: that instead of using it for the necessities of his house, he was losing it at gambling, and that it would be appropriate to cut it off, in order to make him wiser. "God forbid," replied the holy prelate, "for, if he does one evil with the alms we give him, he will perhaps do two if we come to take it away from him." Nevertheless, although he defended the accused in his absence, he did not fail to rebuke him strongly in private, threatening to give him nothing more if he did not change his conduct: this correction profited the culprit greatly.

An artisan, with whom our Saint had not been able to agree for the purchase of a work that was only worth eighteen or twenty sous, withdrew quite dissatisfied with his buyer, whom he suspected of avarice; but necessity having constrained him to have recourse to him to obtain enough to marry his daughter, he received sixty crowns from him. The steward, who knew what had happened the first time, could not help but say to the archbishop: "Some time ago, My Lord, you were looking much more closely with that man; you were arguing with him for eighteen or twenty sous, and now you give him a considerable sum." — "The expense I was making then," replied the Saint, "was for me; but, presently, I am giving an alms. There, it was a question of my property, or rather of a property that I was to use for my own use; but here, it is the property of the poor. I must spend nothing but what is precisely necessary for my maintenance, and even then I spend it with difficulty; but when it is necessary to assist the needy, I have no difficulty in doing so with abundance, since it is their property, and I am obliged to spare nothing to relieve them in their needs."

Having let himself be persuaded by some friends to make a hall in his palace to make it more comfortable, he wept for a long time over this expense, which he judged, later, to be little necessary, because, by it, he had deprived the poor of the money he had used for it. He also had great regret for having founded a college for poor students in the University of Alcala, because, that city not being in his diocese, he believed that God would ask him for a rigorous account of why he had used this sum for others than his own flock. What also caused him pain was that he had given the administration of it to the religious of his Order, fearing that he had in that followed his inclination too much; and, to repair these two faults, although in the eyes of men they were perfections, he founded another college in the University of Valencia, and put priests there to instruct the poor of his diocese.

The largesse of Saint Thomas seems, at first sight, inexplicable; but one ceases to be surprised, if one considers what the virtue of almsgiving is, and how common it is in Our Lord to multiply it in the hands of his servants to give them the means to help more unfortunate people. Indeed, his granaries were found several times full of grain, when one thought they had been emptied by dint of drawing from them. The cloth that was used to make shirts for the poor provided much more than one could hope for according to the course of nature; the money itself multiplied as one distributed it; it was the same for bread and for flour.

These wonders and many others have been justified by authentic proofs, as one can see in the authors that we will cite at the end of this summary. Thus, having in his hands the treasures of divine Providence, it was not at all necessary that he torment his farmers to be paid his income. When it was a question of giving land to a farmer, although it was published at auction and it was free for everyone to set the price, he did not want it to exceed that of equity. One day, having learned that two men were goading each other as to who would become the successful bidder for one of these farms and that they were raising the price in competition to their own detriment, he sent word to them that they should cease. If by accident some loss happened to his farmers, he bore this damage without waiting for them to speak to him about it; he remitted to them as alms what he could have demanded from them by justice.

This great charity, which led him to assist all the poor in their bodily necessities, was but a consequence of the zeal he had for the salvation of men. For their conversion, he employed, besides his preaching and private admonitions, groans at the feet of the Crucifix, and practiced rigorous austerities on his innocent flesh. He preferred to shed tears and blood before God to bring his diocesans back to their duty, rather than to use other means that would not have cost him so much, had he wished to use the authority of his office. Libertinism and debauchery, which had reached their peak in his time, not only among the laity but also among those consecrated to God, gave ample material for his zeal. He would lead sinners into his private study to have the freedom to unburden his heart to them, to say and do for them everything his fervor inspired in him. This study, where he performed all his secret devotions, was as pleasant to the righteous as it was terrible and dreadful to the wicked, and, as if God had established there the tribunal of His final judgment, some received there the foretastes of paradise through the blessings the Saint gave them; while others, through the accusations of their own conscience, felt there in advance the terrors and alarms of their condemnation. There, in their presence, he would fall into prayer; then he would give them touching exhortations capable of softening the most hardened hearts, and, finally, all bathed in tears, he would take the discipline for them with such rigor that he would not cease striking until the earth was stained with his blood. It is thus that, by his own bloodletting, he healed the incurable diseases of his flock.

Warned that an ecclesiastic, whom he had several times reproved for his wicked life, was still continuing it with scandal, he had him come to his study, and, after having pointed out the miserable state in which he was living: "As it is perhaps," he said to him, "my indulgence that has fomented your debauchery, and you have remained in it only because I have delayed too long in punishing it, I must, from now on, suffer the penalty for it." And immediately, prostrating himself before a crucifix, he scourged himself so rigorously with the discipline that the culprit, no longer able to bear the remorse of his conscience, threw himself at his feet and promised him, before the image of Jesus Christ crucified, that he would change his life: indeed, he lived thereafter with as much edification as he had previously caused scandal. The holy prelate often reiterated this same penance in private for hardened sinners, whose conversion God finally granted him. One day, having been unable, through his exhortations, to win over a debauched man, he touched him and made him change his conduct by revealing to him a part of his chest and shoulders bruised and bloodied by the austerities he had performed for him: "See, my brother," he said to him, "see the marks of the penance I have imposed upon myself for your sins: if you are unhappy enough to continue your excesses by despising the mercy I use toward you, take care that God, who is just, does not deprive you of His." He had a list of all the vicious priests, all the concubinary laymen, gamblers, usurers, married persons who were separated, and generally all those suspected of some vice, in order to reprove them in time and place and lead them to the correction of their morals.

The thought that he had to render an exact account of all the souls of his numerous diocese terrified him so much that he begged the Emperor to obtain from the Holy See the division of Valencia into several bishoprics, whose bishops would better know the needs of their faithful. He also worked with great ardor for the conversion of the Moors, who then occupied a large part of Spain. He asked several times to be relieved of his archbishopric, in order to apply himself entirely to this work; not having been able to obtain it, he at least obtained that learned and virtuous men be maintained in the parishes where these infidels lived. Upon his insistence, a seminary was founded to raise the children of the new converts. He annually devoted two thousand crowns to the maintenance of this house, which he increased in proportion to the number of children received there. A little before Lent, he would have preachers and confessors come to his palace to exhort them to work during this time, which he called the time of the harvest of the Gospel, with tireless zeal for the conquest of souls.

This incomparable ardor for the good of his neighbor made him sigh for a general Synod, where one could work for the reformation of morals in all the States of the Church. He took many steps to obtain its convocation. As he did not cease to lift his hands to heaven to merit this grace, it seems that he had a revelation that it had finally been granted to the Church; for one day, coming from the altar, he assured one of his officers that, in a short time, he would see the arrival of what he desired with such eagerness. Indeed, the very next day, letters were received from Pope Paul III, by which he indicated the assembly of the General Council of Trent. Broken by old age and weakened by illness, it was impossible for him to go there; but he did not fail to work for it a great deal through other means. Most of the bishops of Castile passed throug h Valencia and all came t Concile général de Trente Ecumenical council of the Catholic Church aimed at responding to the Reformation. o stay at his home. He spoke with them at length about the needs of the Church, and pointed out to them that this council, whose main end was to extirpate the nascent heresy of Luther and Calvin, was no less necessary for the reform of life and morals, then almost universally corrupted. He gave them advice and counsel that these same prelates admitted to him upon their return had been very well received by all the Fathers. He deputed in his place the Bishop of Huesca, to whom he gave a memorandum full of beautiful instructions that he had judged important for the good of the Church. Of all the articles he charged him to represent to the assembly, we will content ourselves with reporting two that give an idea of his design.

He requested that it be forbidden for a bishop to move from one bishopric to another, so that, being unable to hope for anything better than what he possessed, he would love more the people whose guidance God had given him. He also wanted all cures and benefices with the care of souls to be filled by priests native to the place, or at least to the diocese.

These Spanish bishops endured a horrible storm during the crossing that threatened them with evident shipwreck: having invoked our Saint, who had predicted that they would arrive happily in Trent, they were miraculously delivered by his merits. They saw him at the height of the storm, walking at the prow of the ship as if to serve as their guide, and holding in his hand a crozier, with which he showed the way, calmed the winds, smoothed the mountains of water, tamed the fury of the waves, and completely quelled the storm, while at the same time he raised the courage of these good prelates, banished fear from their hearts, and filled them with an unspeakable consolation. This is what they themselves attested in Trent, and, later, in Valencia, upon their return.

This admirable fidelity in well discharging all the duties of his office should, it seems, have set his conscience at rest; yet he was always penetrated by the fear of the judgments of God, to whom he had to render a rigorous account of the souls that His providence had committed to him. He had such a high idea of the obligations of a good pastor, and his humility inspired in him such low sentiments of himself, that he believed he had not sufficiently fulfilled them. Since obedience had imposed this burden upon him, he had had no joy, he said, that was not immediately crossed by an extreme sadness caused by his status as archbishop. This fear did not leave him a moment of rest; it troubled him even in his sleep, so that he often awoke trembling and went to the room of his confessor, who lodged near him, to cry out in a plaintive and alarmed tone of voice: "My father, my father, do you think that I can be saved with my bishopric? Is there hope that I will achieve my salvation in it?" He made several requests to the Emperor to be discharged from it; but having been able to obtain nothing from his sovereign on earth, he had recourse to the King of kings, and conjured Him with very fervent prayers accompanied by abundant tears to deliver him from the danger in which he was. On the day of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, as he was making this same prayer, prostrate on the ground in his oratory, he heard a voice which, coming from the crucifix, said to him: "Thomas, do not be afflicted, have a little more patience; on the day of the Nativity of my Mother, you will receive the reward of all your labors." And, as an incontestable testimony of this revelation, the mouth of the crucifix, which had formerly sweated blood in his presence, remained open, although it had previously been closed; and, what is no less admirable, one saw copper teeth so well formed and so distinct that the most skillful sculptors confessed that it was not possible to make similar ones with the instruments of their art. From then on, as if he had already seen his tomb open, all his actions were but a continual preparation for death.

The following August 29, he was attacked by a quinsy which forced him to take to his bed: he foresaw the fulfillment of what God had promised him. He made a general confession and wished to receive the Viaticum, which was brought to him processionally by his clergy. Three days before his death, he had the five thousand ducats that remained to him brought, and sent them to be distributed to the poor of the parishes of the city, with orders not to reserve a single denier. The eve of his passing, he asked if the entire sum had been distributed; he was answered that all the poor had been satisfied and that there still remained twelve hundred crowns which would be distributed immediately as soon as some needy person was discovered: "Ah! what are you saying?" cried the holy archbishop, "do, I conjure you for the love of God, that this money does not remain in my house tonight. Let them search everywhere for the poor; for they are my patrons and my intercessors, and let them be given so abundantly that nothing remains; otherwise, let it be taken to the hospital. Go, I pray you, although it is already midnight, and do not lose a moment; it will be a signal favor that you will grant me." He was satisfied; the distribution being finished, they came to tell him that not a denier remained of the five thousand ducats: "Oh!" he cried, full of an unspeakable joy, "how you have just consoled my poor soul with that word!" Then, turning toward the crucifix, he said to Him, while shedding tears of joy: "My God, You had made me the dispenser of Your goods in favor of the poor, I thank You for having granted me the grace to dispense them in such a way that nothing remains in my hands; thus, I will have the happiness of dying as a poor brother." A moment later, the treasurer came to tell him that he had received some money, and asked him what he wanted to do with it, as well as with his furniture, which he had not yet disposed of: "Right now," he replied, as if he feared that death might find him owning something, "let this sum be given to the poor, and let my furniture be taken to the rector of the college that I founded." There remained to him, therefore, only the bed on which he was lying; but, wishing to die in perfect poverty, he gave it to the jailer of his prisons. And shortly after, remembering that it was no longer his: "My friend," he said to the jailer, "allow me to die on your bed, otherwise I will gladly descend and lie on the floor, in order to be closer to my sepulcher." On Saturday evening, the eve of the Nativity of Our Lady, he received Extreme Unction with a fervor that delighted those present. The next day, September 18, he had Mass said in his room, and, after the consecration, he began the psalm: *In te, Domine, speravi*, which he recited slowly, and while meditating until the verse: *In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum*. While pronouncing these words, he finished his life on earth, to go and enjoy an eternal life in heaven. This was in 1553, in the sixty-seventh year of his age and the eleventh of his episcopate.

Paul V Paul V Pope who approved the bull of erection of the Oratory. , who beatified him, ordered in his bull that, in the images and paintings made of the Saint, he should be represented in pontifical vestments, with the mitre on his head, but holding a purse in his hand instead of a crozier, that countless poor people should be depicted around him, and that the following should be written at the bottom: *Blessed Thomas of Villanova, surnamed the Almoner*.

## CULT AND RELICS. — WRITINGS.

His body, which lost nothing of its natural beauty in death, was buried, according to his last wishes, at Our Lady of Succour, in a vault made under the floor, facing the altar dedicated to the Mother of God. Above the tomb, a catafalque adorned with the insignia of the holy archbishop was erected. The funeral pomp held for him was magnificent; but what made it more famous was seeing at his procession more than eight thousand five hundred poor people who made the air resound with their sighs and groans, for the loss they had suffered in the person of an incomparable father and protector. Thus, on his epitaph, no other praise was placed than that of Almoner, which the Church did not fail to give him in the proper antiphons of his office, as the singular character of his holiness. In 1582, the body was raised from the ground and transported to the conventual church, where it was found as intact as it was at the moment of his death, and exhaling a sweet odor. The precious remains were then deposited in a white marble tomb, above which a silver lamp was suspended that was to burn night and day.

The miracles that occurred at his tomb gave a great increase to the devotion that already animated all hearts toward the blessed archbishop. He was invoked with even more faith and confidence, and with the prayers, wonders multiplied. In a few years, all of Spain resounded with the name of Saint Thomas of Villanova. From all sides, thousands of voices rose to ask for his beatification. In 1604, the holy body was removed from the tomb where it rested, and placed in the same church, below the choir of the religious, between two altars. On October 7, 1618, Pope Paul V proclaimed Thomas of Villanova blessed. The promulgation of the apostolic letters took place in Valencia on April 25 of the following year. Amidst an immense gathering of the faithful, the head of the blessed was transported from the church of Our Lady of Succour to the cathedral church, where it was deposited in a rich reliquary and entrusted to the care of the chapter.

Under the terms of the brief, the permission to perform the office of the Blessed was granted only to the Hermits of Saint Augustine of both sexes in the kingdom of Valencia, and to the regular and secular clergy of the city of Valencia itself. The following year, this favor was extended to the religious men and women of the Order of Saint Augustine, spread throughout the provinces of Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia, as well as to all the regular and secular clergy of Villanueva de los Infantes. Pope Gregory XV, by an indult of May 14, 1621, extended this permission to the entire Order. Finally, Pop e Alexander VI Alexandre VIII Pope cited in the text as having canonized the saint in 1658. II canonized him on November 1, 1658.

A volume of his *Sermons* has been printed which, although of a rather simple style and without the flowers of human eloquence, nonetheless breathes that air of devotion, as well as the zeal and charity with which his heart was animated. They are above all filled with such great *unction*, when he treats of the Love of the Good, of Humanity, and of Mercy, his three principal virtues, that it is impossible to read them without being touched by these same sentiments. As it was said of Saint Bernard that he was the Saint Augustine of France, we can also say of Saint Thomas that he was the Saint Bernard of Spain.

The Third Order of Saint Augustine would be little known in France without the zeal of Father Ange P Père Ange Proust French Augustinian religious who founded a society under the name of the saint. roust, of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, of the community of Bourges, who, being prior of the convent of Lamballe, in Brittany, moved with compassion to see so many poor people without help , instituted a society of pious girls for the service and restoration of ho société de pieuses filles pour le service et le rétablissement des hôpitaux Hospital congregation founded in Brittany inspired by the saint. spitals. It was from the example of Saint Thomas of Villanova, Archbishop of Valencia, that he drew this idea; he even placed his society under the invocation of this illustrious father of the poor, and it has kept the name.

Father Ange Proust nevertheless gave these girls the Rule of Saint Augustine. Several houses were founded in Brittany, at Moncontour, at Saint-Brieuc, at Dinan, at Saint-Malo, at Rennes, at Quimper, at Brest, at Landerneau, at Morlaix, at Châteaubriant, etc. They also had a house in Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, near the Invalides.

Their attire consists of a black dress closed in front and tightened by a leather belt; for headwear they have white linen cornettes falling in the form of a veil over the shoulders; underneath these cornettes descends a neckerchief in a point and a white apron when they are in the house. When they go out, they put on their cornettes a cap of pompon or black gauze and over it a large black veil; their face is surrounded by white muslin, joined under the chin, and forming a circle, like the Sisters of Nevers.

They take simple vows; and upon pronouncing them, a silver ring is placed on their finger, then a poor woman embraces them, saying to them: "Remember, my dear Sister, that you are becoming the servant of the poor."

We have used, to compose this biography, the *Lives of the Saint*, by Fathers Michel Salon, Nicolas Raxi, Claude Malabourg, and Hilarion de Coste. — Cf. *Acta Sanctorum*, volume v of September; *History of Saint Thomas of Villanova*, by Abbé Dabert; and *Spirit of the Saints*, by Abbé Grimes.