Note 4 — Chapter III

6. He also had a garden or country-house, called Calumpang, because of its location. He made them [268] a present of it, and of a portion of the lands surrounding it, on condition that the said religious found a convent on that site, where some religious could live retired and free from disturbance. The then vice-provincial, Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel, took possession, after obtaining the necessary licenses from the government and from the archbishop. With these was formed a convent of the same house, and a small church was erected under the invocation of St. Sebastian, being dedicated to that glorious martyr, a being to whom especial devotion was paid by its founders, who aided its cost with their wealth. The archbishop, then Don Fray Miguel Garcia Serrano, adjudged [to it] the spiritual administration of the tenants of the lands, to the number of about thirty houses. The minister of Sampoloc had a suit pending about those tenants, but as soon as they were adjudged to that new church, they escaped from his demands; and free possession remained to them, which was confirmed by the royal patronage. A beautiful image of our Lady of Carmel was placed in that church a few years afterward, which was brought from Mexico by a mission of those religious. Her devotion extended her worship, and her favors made her more famous. The dean of that holy church, Don Juan Velez, given up by the doctors, and already without hope, begged the religious to carry the holy image of Carmel to his house. At the entrance of that Lady, and the fervent prayer of the dean, he suddenly became well and completely cured. As a thank-offering for so singular a favor, he returned the image to her church, and made her a very solemn feast. He founded with the ordinary authority a confraternity, under the title of Carmel, which attained [269] so many members within a short time that the number was more than two thousand, of both sexes. The dean continued the feast every year, but scapularies were not distributed because they had no authority for it, and because they had no members of the Carmelite order.4 Therefore those religious had recourse to a competent prelate of the Carmelites, who could concede the permission with apostolic privilege—the very reverend father-provincial of Andalucia, Maestro Fray Diego de el Castillo, granting authority to the prior of the convent of San Sebastian in Philipinas in order that he, in his person alone, could and might bless the scapularies of his holy order, and distribute them to the faithful who might request them. From the receipt of that despatch, and by means of such a distribution, the confraternity became full to overflowing. The feast could not be [270] held on its appropriate day in July, which is wont to fall in the height of the rainy season. Having recourse to the apostolic see, Pope Clement Eleventh erected the confraternity anew, and set its feast for the twenty-first of January, with special concessions of a plenary indulgence weekly, and additional ones during the year on days assigned by the archbishop. Those weekly indulgences fall on Wednesday, and the others on the four Sundays of the month in February, May, July; and the last, on the day of the betrothals. The same pontiff later extended the plenary indulgence of the twenty-first of February to the following week, in order to satisfy the devotion of the innumerable crowd. If those nine days were increased to a fortnight, the crowd would always be numerous. In the nine days are administered from six to seven thousand communions, besides many who commune in other churches. It is the most extensive devotion among Spaniards and natives. That devotion had its failings, as is usual among numerous crowds, which have been corrected by the zeal of the superiors. That confraternity has since been established in the city of Zebu, and has in the same manner been extended into the Bisayan provinces.