Volume 37 — CHAPTER XIV

Of the election of provincial in the person of the father commissary Fray Francisco de Paula; and of religious worthy of note who died during that time.

Father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant having completed his term of office with great glory, a chapter was held in the convent of our father Santo Domingo in Manila, On the twentieth of April, 1641, the reverend father Fray Francisco de Paula, commissary of the Holy Office, preacher-general, then lecturer in morning classes in our college of Santo Tomas, vicar-provincial of this district of Manila—a son of the noted convent of San Estevan of Salamanca, and native of Segovia, of noble parentage—whose superior talents will be told in due time, was elected provincial with much satisfaction. There was a great lack of religious in the province, for no mission had come for six years, except that brought by father Fray Diego Collado. Although some of those religious were incorporated with the order, still many of them were dissatisfied. In short, so long as the province does not have a number of religious in excess of the actual number of ministries, it is a great anxiety and a cause of sorrow for our souls that there is no supply in cases of sickness and government, and the burdens of many are laid upon few. Further, all this gives the devil a gleam of hope that is important to him, and most harmful to the common welfare; and occasion is given for the ministers to be sold very dear, and a very high value is placed on their abilities and knowledge of languages. Therefore, a regiment of religious, which would be too much, is never more than enough; for in this beautiful Judith, the garments that apparently drag one down are the most necessary. The most efficacious means, and in fact the only one that ought to be used in such straits, was the one which the father provincial-elect immediately put into effect; namely, to have recourse to our Lord and the intercession of the saints, laying most stress on his efforts with our father St. Dominic, who is the keystone of all this edifice, in whose name are held firm these religious stones. A novena of solemn masses was immediately begun to the saint at his altar of Soriano. The first one was chanted by the father provincial, and he also despatched patents throughout the province ordering the same supplications to be made in the convents for the said reason, and for the field of Christendom in Japon—which was then in its death throes, our religious having been killed and exiled, and only a scattering of priests of other orders being left there. The miraculous result of those prayers in regard to the coming of our religious will be told later.