Note 65 — Chapter LIX

The province sent father Fray Matheo de la Villa, who has several times been mentioned with praise. Thereupon father Fray Diego, after obtaining the necessary licenses and decrees, gathered twenty companions and came to live and die with them in this province—nearly all the members of which were his sons, whom he had sent or brought from España, as has been recounted. Hence he was received as the general father of all, and was by all much beloved for the great good which he had wrought for all of them, for each one in particular, and for the whole province in general, by means of many royal decrees and grants which he had obtained at court for medicine for the sick, wine for the masses, oil for the lamps which burned before the most holy sacrament, and habits for the religious, which are great sources of relief in our great poverty. Among these things the provision for the dress of the religious ought not to be passed over in silence. Neither the province nor any house within it had any regular source of income; and it provided for all its expenses entirely with alms received from the faithful. Since serge for our habits had to be brought from Nueva España, it was a difficult thing for the province to send every year the money for all the clothing of the religious, at the price in Mexico. The province provides the religious with clothing, for no member of it cares for himself, or has any deposit or anything else of his own, not even with the permission of his superior. Hence the province sent directions to father Fray Diego to ask his Majesty to give as alms the clothing for all the religious of the province—and this not for one year or two, but forever, since the same need and poverty were to continue forever. Father Fray Diego, who was acquainted with the heavy demands upon the royal treasury, regarded it as impossible to obtain this; and he put off asking for it until he felt obliged to send an answer to the province. Feeling practically certain that it would not be granted, he asked for it in a memorial of his own, sending in other memorials in which he asked for things which seemed to him very easy to grant; and when he looked over the answers he found that the royal Council had unhesitatingly allowed the grant and gift of the clothing (which he had regarded as impossible), but had refused everything which he asked for in the other memorial. From this it was plain that it was God who had in His hand the heart of the king; and that He had done more than what human prudence might hope for. This truth was all the more confirmed by the fact that when the royal decree came to be presented before the royal officials in Mexico, who were always accustomed to put a thousand difficulties and contingencies in the way of such grants, they not only did not put any such in the way of this grant; but, seeing that the religious had from mere timidity asked much less than they needed, urged them to ask for a sufficient amount. The matter was immediately settled on this footing, and has remained so ever since, a plain token that the Lord is pleased that the religious of this province shall wear the habits which they have always worn—poor, humble, rough, made of coarse and heavy serge; a penance for the religious, and a good example for others, as have always been the poor and rough habits of religious orders. At the first vacancy of the position of prior in Manila father Fray Diego was a second time elected prior. He filled the post to the great benefit of the religious and the convent, to the needs and obligations of which he attended with great care and charity. He was by nature taciturn and somewhat rigid, but by virtue was so corrected and mild that he left no necessity unremedied, no afflicted whom he did not strive to console, no weak or fallen one for whom he did not pray. With all he was gentle, and to all he desired to do good. While he was in this position, and very far from thinking of changing his condition, he received in the year 1632 the royal decree appointing him bishop of Nueva Segovia. He hesitated long before accepting this dignity, presenting many arguments against his acceptance. But, since all the others were opposed to him in this matter, he gave up his own opinion and accepted the episcopate, with the most firm determination not to abandon his character as a friar vowed to poverty and to observe the manner of living which he had previously maintained—and even to improve it by far, as the superior station upon which he entered required of him; and this determination he most perfectly fulfilled, as will be seen. Someone very much devoted to the order sent him a diamond cross for a pectoral; and he returned it, saying that it was very rich for so poor a bishop, for whom a pectoral of wood would be sufficient. The bulls did not reach him that year; so he waited for them without leaving the cell in which he had lived in the hospital of the Chinese. He took no servant, and made no change in his poor manner of living, dress, and clothing. He went to the choir and performed the other obligations of religious in this poor habit, and did everything else, whether by day or in the midst of the night, that he had promised. He was consecrated and went to his bishopric; and giving himself up wholly to his obligations as bishop he personally visited all his bishopric, leaving in all parts a lively memory of his sanctity, devotion, and alms-giving. His common custom was to spend one hour of prayer before mass, raising his fervor by mental devotion that he might say it with a greater spiritual elevation. This was in addition to many other hours of prayer by day and by night. After mass was finished, he spent another hour in giving thanks to the Lord for what he had received; and then he went immediately to his study of holy scripture, which likewise is prayer. He did not rise from his work until something happened which compelled him to. His expenses were almost nothing, so that the poor income of his bishopric was wholly spent upon charity and upon the adornments of his church; for in these two matters he spent as if he were rich. Hence in the short time during which he governed the bishopric (which was only a year and a half), he gave it more ornaments and jewels than others who had been superiors there had given in many years. He was most humble; and when father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant was vicar of the convent, the bishop used to go almost daily from his residence to our house to confess to him. When father Fray Carlos begged him to remain at home, and said he would go to hear his confession every day, the bishop declined, saying, “Your Reverence is very busy. I, who am less so, will come,” and on this footing this matter always continued. He took less food than when he was in the order, giving up one meal when he accepted the bishopric. He said that his position brought more obligations; therefore his food ought to be less. He always ate fish, if necessity did not force him to take something else. His bed was a piece of felt for a mattress and a blanket for covering, without any other pillow than the mat used by the poor Chinese, or one of the native mats—which was given a coat of a sort of varnish, so that the perspiration might be washed off and the pillow kept clean. In his whole house he had no other bed-clothes, so that even in his last sickness he had no mattress nor sheets, nor even a linen pillow upon which to rest his head; it was therefore necessary to bring that which was kept ready in the poor infirmary of the convent, for no such comforts were used or were to be found in the bishop’s house. When he went on visitation, he always took with him some bundles of cloth to distribute among the poor, and these and other good works which he did for them constituted the sole profit of his visitation. He highly esteemed the ministers whom he had in his bishopric, and was greatly pleased to see that they were practically all religious—not only of his own order, but also of that of our father St. Augustine. He loved both tenderly, and always had much good to say of all of them. During his time another bishop65 (who was a member of an order) put forward a claim that the royal decrees should be put in execution which provide that the religious who have charge of Indians shall be subject to the inspection and visitation of the bishop or his visitors. When this matter was discussed before the royal Audiencia, our good bishop was present—yielding, so far as his bishopric was concerned, the favor granted in these royal decrees. He declared and proved with many strong arguments that, though the execution of the decrees would greatly increase the dignity and temporal profit of the bishops, it was to the spiritual and temporal injury of the Indians. Hence, to avoid these greater injuries, he renounced with a good will these inferior gains, as a prelate who felt that all his gains were secured by procuring the proper ministry for those subject to him. The whole income of his bishopric he collected for the poor, without taking from it more than the labor or dividing it among the needy; for his own maintenance, he asked alms as one of the poor. When on any account he was absent from his bishopric, he left someone in it to distribute alms to the poor, that they might not be injured by his absence.