Note 7 — Chapter XLI

On September 27 of the former year 1665, our most reverend father-general, Fray Juan Bautista de Marinis, wrote a loving and thoughtful letter from Roma to the venerable father Fray Juan Bautista de Morales. That letter reached the province in 1667, and, although the father was dead, it will be proper that so precious a thing—to the credit of the paternal providence of its author, and of the reputation that this noble although so retired a member had gained with the supreme head of the order—shall not perish or be lost; and it is also to the credit of this holy province, for they so hold his name in memory as to honor it through its sons, our supreme heads. The letter reads as follows: “Reverend father in Christ: Health, and grace from the Holy Ghost. The news that I have received from the father provincial of that our province of the Filipinas is a great consolation to me. He gives me news of your Reverence’s health, and of the perseverance with which you are aiding in those conversions without any relaxation to your labors in your so advanced age. I thank the Lord therefor, from whom comes all good; and applying to your Reverence the sufferings of all the order, and giving you the benediction of our glorious St. Dominic, I thank you again and again for having served in our ministry for the conversion of souls, which is the object of our institute, and which your Reverence and your companions are, with the divine grace, accomplishing. Forty-two religious sailed in the mission which left Cadiz on July 5 of this year, for which the father lecturer, Fray Juan Polanco, procurator of the province, worked zealously and diligently. The consolation that I have had in the selection of those missionaries will increase if your Reverence will take them under your teaching, and encourage and exhort them so that, as sons of so good a father, they may give bread to those who, desirous of spiritual sustenance, beg it. May God please that it be so, for such is my desire. In regard to the labors of government, it will relieve us to receive letters from your Reverence, and to have news of the progress of so loving sons as it has been God’s pleasure to give me. I have sent breviaries and a formulary of devotion to the twelve associates of your Reverence, which is as a token of my love, so that you may be mindful of me in your prayers, and ask God to give me the success that I desire in the fulfilment of my obligation. I am sending to your Reverence documents containing the many thanks that the holy apostolic see has given us; and I inform you that his Holiness in our Lord, Alexander VII, who is auspiciously governing this Church, is granting us very loving favors; and I hope to receive even greater ones from his munificence. I shall give him an account of the extensive labors of your Reverence, and of the happiness that we may expect because an entrance has been made into the island Hermosa, whence the passage to China and to Japon will be facilitated. May God continually preserve and accompany your Reverence and all those my sons—to whom I say that the cause of the holy martyrs of Japon is proceeding felicitously;7 and that I hope that the laurel of their martyrdom will be a motive to the others, so that, if it should prove necessary for the maintenance of our holy faith to suffer as martyrs they may do so with gladness. Roma, September 27, 1665.