Home Trials

Though it had ended so well, the capture of the Fathers and Brothers in the Velina was very naturally not easily forgotten, and the gravest doubts were still abroad as to the prophecies of our Saint, and these doubts reflected on the whole of his past life. He had not, however, forfeited the esteem of those who knew him best.

In the summer of 1609, Doña Simonet y San Martí, a lady of good family, had nursed her father, who was ill with malignant fever, most assiduously for a whole week, till his death. She would not allow anyone else to wait on him, and never left his side. When he was gone, the faithful daughter crushed with grief and worn out with fatigue, caught the disease, which was in fact rife in Palma at the time. Both herself and her husband had been kind friends and benefactors to the College,¹1St. Alonso foretold to Doña Catherine that a new College of the Society would be founded in Majorca, and that she was not to die in that illness, as God reserved her to do a great work for the Society of Jesus. Dameto, Hist. de Mallorca, Tom. III., p. 689. But it was not till 1647 that the prophecy was fulfilled. Thanks to the generosity of Don Michael and Doña Catherine Simonet, and of her brother, Don Peter Antony San Martí, a second College, dedicated to St. Martin, was endowed and commenced. It had many strange vicissitudes. V. Historia del Colegio de St. Martino, MS. Montesion. and Father Torrens ordered the whole Community to pray for her recovery. St. Alonso was earnestly interceding for her, when a clear voice told him that in five days Doña Catherine would be out of bed and well; and as he still continued to pray that all might turn out for God’s greater glory and for the greater good of her soul, God made known to him that, though the lady was well prepared to die, yet she would gain more merit, and give greater glory to Her Lord, if, as He had decreed, her life were prolonged.

Doña Catherine had been given up by the doctor and by her husband. She had made her will; and Father Torrens had heard her general confession, at all events as far as she was able to make one. He asked her if she would like an autograph of St. Ignatius de Loyola, which had wrought several miracles in Majorca,²2Bolland., Vita St. Ign. Loy., T. xxxiii., p. 797; cf. Hist. MS. de Montesion, 1597, ’98. to be brought to her. She owned afterwards, that great as was her devotion to the Saint, she had still greater faith in the intercession of Brother Alonso. And she was so confident that, if he applied the relic, she would be cured, that she agreed to the Rector’s request on condition that it should be sent to her by the holy lay-Brother. He was then hardly able to leave the house, being so ill and so old, and he was suffering severely in his feet. However, Father Torrens sent him with Brother Serra. When he entered the sick-room, the lady said to him; “Commend me to God, for I am dying.” “Trust in God;” answered our Saint, “you will get well.” He spoke to her for some time on spiritual matters, after which he begged her husband and the others who were present to kneel down and to say the Our Father and Hail Mary three times in honour of the Blessed Trinity, the Salve Regina in honour of Our Lady, and the Our Father and Hail Mary in honour of St. Ignatius. “Then he asked me,” so Doña Catherine tells us in her deposition, “if he should apply the relic; this he did and left it with me. For a short space after his departure I was in great pain, every bone was in agony; I thought that I was dying, and the doctors were summoned;” they were hearing mass in the church of La Mercede, being September 27th, the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the patrons of physicians; “but immediately after suffering that pain, I felt quite well.” A servant was sent to the College with the good news, and got there before the two Brothers returned. The lady refused to have anything to say to the doctors and their prescriptions. Father Torrens, however, seemed to have overruled her objections; but an attack of fever at once returned in a most violent form, and she said to her confessor when next he came: “Father, my little faith was to blame for my being ill again, for I had no need of medicine.”

However, the seizure passed off, and Doña Catherine, to the surprise of everyone, got up perfectly cured. We often find that Saints concealed their miraculous powers by the employment of the relics or intercession of other Saints. Thus St. Francis Geronimo wrought numberless wonders by the relics of St. Cirus, and in our own times the Curé d’Ars veiled his preternatural cures under the power of St. Philomena. St. Alonso, besides the motive of humility, sought, no doubt, to add to the glory of his holy Father and Founder, by employing his handwriting to effect this cure. This is certain, that about this time, the miracles wrought in Palma by an autograph of St. Ignatius, were almost beyond count, so that one Father was fully occupied in taking the relic of the Saint to the houses of those who were sick.”³3Hist. MS. del Col. de Montesion. Cf. Litt. Ann. 1609.

The miracles were so well known and so evident, that in 1607, by Apostolic authority, the juridical examination of them was made with a view to the process of beatification. We know, too, that our Saint, especially after he ceased to be head Porter, used, when his health allowed him, to go out as companion to the Fathers on their visits to the sick. Oftentimes the priests themselves begged to have with them the holy Brother, for they felt sure that his prayers would make their work successful; or else the sick or their parents and friends asked for him, as his very presence brought a blessing to their house. Can we not attribute to his prayers a share—and that no small one—in the miracles wrought by the relic of St. Ignatius? It is a fact that after the death of St. Alonso, when the devotion to his holy Father was thoroughly established, and St. Ignatius was already beatified, and still more so after his canonization,⁴4St. Ignatius was canonized on the 12th of March, 1622. we hardly hear of a single miracle obtained in Majorca through his intercession, while wonders were continually being wrought by the intercession of St. Alonso.

At the beginning of the August of 1609, Father Ponce de Leon’s term of office as Provincial of Aragon came to an end, and he was succeeded by Father Joseph de Villegas, who belonged to the province of Castile. On account of the action of the Saint in the affair of the Velina, the new Provincial deemed it his duty to make a thorough and searching inquiry on the spot, into the character and inner life of our Saint, with a view to adopting such measures as might prove necessary in his regard. Father de Villegas arrived at Majorca on August 2nd, 1610, for the Annual Visitation of the College. With the Provincial came Brother Francis Colin,⁵5Colin was born in 1592 at Ripoll, in Catalonia. He was only 14 when he entered the Noviciate of the Society. His stay at Majorca lasted till 1616. After studying his Philosophy, he taught Rhetoric there. On his return to Spain he was, in succession, Professor of Philosophy and of Theology. He then dedicated himself to the mission of the Philippine Isles, where he arrived in 1625. After many years spent as missioner, he was made Provincial, and at the close of his life he retired to the Noviciate near Manilla, where he wrote his Life of the Saint, and where he died a most holy death in 1660. the future spiritual child and biographer of St. Alonso, and also some other young religious, who, like himself, were to make their philosophical studies at Montesion.

The Provincial proceeded with all the care and prudence that an investigation so delicate as the one he had undertaken demanded. Among other matters he came to the conclusion that there was a good deal of exaggeration in the value set on the spiritual writings of Alonso, and he especially disapproved of things which had been used by the Brother being kept as relics. He called the Community together, and, sending St. Alonso out of the room, he gave a very positive order on the subject. He was at the same time determined to make a trial of our Saint’s humility, the touchstone of true virtue, and he took an opportunity of doing so, from a circumstance which was of no importance.

St. Alonso, out of his love of poverty, always wore a very old and patched cassock, but the Father Rector had just ordered him to get a new one, so as to be more presentable on the arrival of the Provincial. Father Torrens had no small difficulty in overcoming the good Brother’s attachment to his old habit; for every time that the tailor went to the Saint’s room, Alonso begged him to come another time, on the plea that he must first speak to the Superior. He would urge on the Rector that, as he was an old man and would very soon be dead, it was utterly useless to get him any new clothes, and his threadbare habit was far better suited to one who had so short a time to live. And when at last the tailor came and said that the Superior, in spite of all his reasons to the contrary, insisted that he should have new clothes, he folded his arms, shrugged his shoulders, and said simply: “Do, Brother, what you are told.”

By a law of the Society⁶6Cong. v. 6. Cf. Reg. custod. vest., 6. the cassocks of the lay-Brothers were to be some six inches shorter than those of the Fathers; and whether it was that the tailor had not taken the right measure, or because the old man was bent by age, at all events, the new cassock seemed longer than was allowed by the rule. As the good Brother was always rapt in God, and took whatever was given to him, he did not notice the fault. The Provincial sent for him to the room where the Community were assembled. As soon as he had come in, he said very harshly to him, in the presence of everyone, “What is one to think, Brother Rodriguez, of one who has been so long in the Society, and who ought to be a source of edification to the whole house and a pattern of virtue to all whom he meets, and who is on the contrary, a cause of disedification and scandal? What idea will our young men have of the observance of rules, when they see the oldest Brother in the College with a long cassock? What are they to think about humility, when they see him trying to put himself on a level with the priests? What idea will they have of poverty, when they see him with a smart new habit, just as if, after so many years in the Society, he has not yet learned to despise the vanities of the world? Is not all this contrary to the advice which he gives others by word and by writing? And how is this, that a lay-Brother wastes so much time in writing, though this work is exclusively that of priests; as the work of lay-Brothers is to see to the care of the house? Accordingly, I order the Brother to bring to my room all his writings, and for the future he is never to take a pen into his hand for anything whatever, except in such matters,” he said, turning to Father Torrens, “as I shall leave noted down for your Reverence.”

“And now,” he continued, “I desire the Brother tailor to bring his scissors and to cut down Brother Rodriguez’s habit to what is prescribed by the rule.” The tailor did as he was bid, and the Saint, who was rejoiced at this public humiliation, said not a word. One can imagine how the Community were touched at the patience of the holy Brother, whose face betrayed the peace and joy which filled his soul. Father Colin, who was present, says, “I can bear witness how useless was the precaution of the Provincial, that nothing which belonged to Alonso should be kept as a relic; for there and then, some secretly gathered up the cuttings of the cassock, and kept them as great treasures.”

Though St. Alonso was delighted at this open rebuff, still he felt very deeply being forbidden to write anything for the benefit of others, and this gave the tempter an opportunity to suggest to him thoughts, that were calculated to rob him of his peace of mind. So ardent was his zeal for the good of his neighbours, so visible the fruit which his writings had produced, that it seemed to him that, as he was debarred from the ministry of public preaching, no field remained now open for his work with souls; neither could he doubt that the revelation which had been the main cause of this prohibition came really from God. Still the order of the Provincial was clear, and God’s wish was made known to him without a shadow of doubt. “Does not God,” urged the devil, “desire the salvation of souls? how then can He prevent you doing so much good by your writings?” The trouble which this difficulty raised in his soul was quite enough to show our Saint the hand of the enemy, and Alonso opposed to it his usual weapons. Nor was God wanting to him to enable him to regain his peace of mind, for He raised him, by a marvellous grace to a fresh height of perfection. Even before his entry into religion, our Saint had promised Father Santander that he never would do his own will for the rest of his days. Well had he kept his word, and long before this time he had reached an heroic degree of conformity to the will of God. The consuming desire to seek and to do in all things the will of God, Whom he so deeply loved, is the most prominent among all the virtues which the pages of the humble Saint’s memorial reveal to us. But there is no finality in perfection; even the Saints are subject to the more subtle disorders which the apparently contradictory claims of different virtues entail. Thus, in the case of our Saint, it was his zeal, so perfect in itself, which prompted him to run counter to the will of God.

One evening in the month of August, the Father Provincial assembled the Community in the College Church to address to them a spiritual conference.⁷7It was the custom for the exhortations to be given in the summer time in the Church, after the doors had been closed to the public. V. Marimon, lib. vi., § 8. When the usual prayers before the discourse were finished, the religious rose from their knees and sat down. In the brief moment that elapsed between their taking their places and the beginning of the exhortation, St. Alonso was suddenly visited by a ray of divine light that smote his soul like a flash of lightning, and left in it, as a deep impress, a new and still more perfect conception of the Divine Will. It showed him how great was this Will, and that henceforward “his heart must be as its seal, in which nothing else but it could be found, either for himself or for others. He saw too, that God wished him to obtain this conformity by the interior practice of mortification of his own will; and the means which he was to employ in order to do this, must be to abandon himself wholly to the Divine Will.”⁸8Memor., n. 160. Father Colin was present on this occasion, and he, who knew so many of the secrets of his heart, tells us that henceforth to Alonso, “it seemed as if it was not himself who acted, but God Who was within him, that it was God Who saw through his eyes, Who heard through his ears, Who spoke through his lips, Who worked by his hands, in a word, that God was the soul of which Alonso was but the body.”

“This vision was entirely spiritual, and yet for all that it caused such an extraordinary change in his outer man, that all of us who were there noticed it, and it seemed to me that it was even on the point of finding expression in words. After this occurrence he was as it were absorbed into God,⁹9“Endiosado” is a phrase of mystical theology to express this close union of will with God. and signed with the seal of the Divine Will, so as to have no other wish or will but God’s, which is the very highest point of the unitive way.”¹⁰10Colin, lib. 1, p. 112. Cf. Marimon, lib. vi., § 7. St. Alonso fully understood how arduous was the task of this interior mortification of his own will, which was the condition of his perfection, and so, as he was serving the Rector (Father Torrens’) mass, in the inner chapel of the college,¹¹11The Capilla Domestica was adjoining the sacristy of the College Church; a passage, over which the bell tower rises, separated it from the Capilla Mayor, or the sanctuary of the Church. he ardently begged God to help him in this work. Great were the heavenly illustrations which he then received. God again and again asserted how deeply He valued this entire surrender of the soul into His hands. To encourage Alonso, He promised him that, though the task would cost him much, he might always count upon His aid, nor would He ever forget him. As usual, in spite of God’s previous assurances, this fresh light filled Alonso with terror and profound humility, for he dreaded that under such high thoughts there might lurk some ambush of the enemy, to make him fall into pride and offend the God he so much loved. He lifted his heart to Heaven, and he was again assured he would not be permitted to be deceived.

Still this dread oppressed him and he turned to his tower of refuge, Our Blessed Lady. “Where I am,” was her quick reply, “there is nothing to fear. I have care of thee; do what my Son has told thee;” meaning that he was to obey the revelation made to him at mass. From that moment it was our Saint’s constant practice to come before God with his heart full of love towards the Divine Will, offering himself up to do and to bear whatever the Eternal Goodness might please to ordain. He lived no longer for himself. He had but one pleasure, one wish—to accomplish the Divine Will.

Such generosity merited for him graces so great, that though our Saint humbled himself down as nothing before them, still he feared and trembled for himself. The very next day, while serving Mass, Our Lord repeated two or three times over the same lesson of the value of this entire union with the will of God. Our Lady at this period of his life, showed him many extraordinary signs of her love. Amongst others, in one of her apparitions, she said to him, “How can I fail, Alonso, to love thee, when thou hast so much love for me?”

When, by such repeated assurances from Heaven, all possible doubt was removed as to whether this impulse towards “that height of perfection”¹²12St. Alonso’s own words. Memor., loc. cit. was from Heaven or not, and when Alonso had set his face resolutely and steadily, by this sure but steep road, towards the mountain of God, his Divine Master at once sent him various opportunities of practising this submission of his will, which afforded him an exercise of it, and powerfully aided him to progress in it. First there came back again the old difficulty, why God permits and even wishes for certain things: why, for example, some He saves, while others He allows to be lost, when if He willed, He could save everyone. Puzzled with these terrible problems, he raised his heart to God, and, doggedly refusing to listen to any argument the tempter put before him, he only exclaimed: “God is infinitely good; He is infinitely wise; He loves us with an infinite love. Whatever He permits or ordains is holy and good, while I am as if I were not, nor have I any right to exist.” And so saying, to use his own expression, “he shut himself up in God, abandoning himself entirely to Him, and the demon was foiled and fooled.”

A second occasion for Rodriguez was, that at the same time that his Provincial forbade him to exercise his zeal—a thing so much to his taste—in writing spiritual advice for others, the order to write down all special favours which he received from God, a duty most repugnant to him, was re-enforced. These favours were of themselves distasteful to his humility, much more did he fear any publicity given to them, lest in any way it should cause him to offend God. But even this was, to our Saint, a means of closer union with God’s will. “Lord,” he exclaimed, “I seek for nothing but Thy love, and to do Thy will; and I beg of Thee, I implore of Thee, to do whatever may be for Thy greater glory, and whatever may make me serve Thee better.”

A third occasion of practising this conformity, which Alonso deemed “at once the most painful toil of life and the most exalted means, by God’s grace, to attain to this perfection,” was this. There came before his soul, whether he was in sleep or when he was awake, a sensible realization of the interior sufferings which meet us in the hour of death. These sufferings surpass “all the trials and persecutions in the world, however great they may be. Temptations of every sort that Hell can invent, like those fearful ordeals through which he had passed for the space of many years. But if one knows with the grace of God how to draw profit from this, it purchases for us an immense increase of grace and glory. The sicknesses and ordinary pains of the body, however great they may be, are little in comparison with what the soul then has to suffer, and this is accompanied with excessive dryness. The remedy that he employs is to lift his heart to God, with a strong desire to serve Him, and to say to Him: ‘Lord! crush me down, just as Thy greater glory demands, and as is best for myself. And since I am all Thine, do with me according to Thy best pleasure. This will be my greatest joy, and I shall love Thee the more because of the favour Thou dost me in granting me this trial, as through it I can suffer for Thy love.”¹³13Memor., n. 164. 1611.

A fourth means used by our Saint to practise submission to the Divine will was great intimacy with God, by which he obtained whatever he chose to ask. His manner of doing this was—to quote his own words, “To excite in my heart a great love for God and for my neighbour. And then to ask for myself and for others whatever is most for the honour of His Divine Majesty and the salvation of my own soul, without having any regard to flesh and blood; and, accordingly, my prayers are always answered.”

“Lord,” was his constant petition, “I beg of Thee to arrange this business, or to dispose of this affair, according to Thy greater glory and the good of my soul, in order that I may serve Thee better.” “And this request,” he adds, “God always grants.” Two or three instances of the efficacy of his prayers occurred about this time.

A gentleman of high rank was reduced to very great poverty, but could not bring himself to let his state be known; perhaps, even if he had done so, it would not have been any good to him. He came to tell his trouble, however, to Brother Alonso, partly to relieve his mind and partly to seek the aid of his comfort and of his prayers. The poor man had a wife and four or five children, besides some servants. His household was not large, but he had no means of procuring food for them; nor had he a home to shelter them, for, in addition to his other troubles, he had received notice to quit his house, and though he had arranged to take another, he was required to pay down, in advance, within the space of two days, the sum of forty pounds—Majorcan—or otherwise another tenant would take possession. His whole fortune was the future chance of his gaining a law suit, by which he hoped to acquire such a sum of money as would put him in a position befitting his birth. Meantime, he was absolutely without means to support either himself or those dependent upon him. Such a story naturally excited the deepest compassion in St. Alonso. He promised to lay this sad case before his heavenly Queen. He bade the gentleman to do the same, and sent him away with his heart lightened and consoled. Hardly had he, in fact, got off the doorstep of the College gate, when he met a wealthy townsman, whom he knew but very slightly. However, he made up to him, and told him how badly he was in want of forty pounds. At once the rich man not only gave him this sum, but liberally provided for all present wants, until the law suit was gained and all his monetary difficulties were at an end. Never did this nobleman cease to thank God for His goodness, and to extol the charity and the power of prayer of Brother Alonso.¹⁴14Marimon, lib. iv., § 14.

“Another time a servant of God came to him, (Brother Rodriguez) to talk to him about great sufferings, both of soul and body, with which he was much afflicted. He was a wealthy man, and he had come to recommend himself to his prayers. Alonso consoled him and strove, with the aid of God, to raise his hopes. He promised also to pray to God for his intention, which was one of great importance, and he did so with great fervour. Three different times during (Alonso’s) prayer, it was made known to him that the servant of God was freed from his sufferings, and would never again have to endure them. A few days after, in fact, he came to visit the Brother, and to tell him how pleased and grateful he was for the favour God had conferred upon him.” Our Saint adds, “I believe that the great change, and the resolution he has taken to labour for his own soul and that of others, will be greatly to God’s glory.”¹⁵15Memor., n. 184.

The fifth and last exercise of St. Alonso’s close conformity to the will of God was naturally the special value which he set on obedience, for this virtue is nothing else than the embracing God’s will as made known by the voice of the Superior.¹⁶16Memor., n. 165. Many instances of his practice of this virtue have been already given, and many more will occur in their proper place.

During the trials which the Provincial’s Visitation brought on our Saint, he received special consolation. The Feast of the Assumption was again this year—1610—a day of grace to our Saint. He had been to Communion, and the crowd of communicants was so great about the altar that he withdrew into the Chapel off the Sacristy. There a sudden transport rapt his soul with a marvellous swiftness into Heaven, where our Blessed Lady—with his Angel Guardian and St. Ildephonsus on either side, and a countless multitude of angels—received it into Her hands, and offered it to the Most Blessed Trinity with a joy which was echoed back by all the Blessed. Again, as in a former vision, Alonso knew by God’s light each and every one of the Angels and Saints, their names, their perfections, as though he had lived with them for a lifetime, and he saw them all individually and in general, each in the other by reason of the perfect union of all.¹⁷17Colin, f. 173, who gives the date. Cf. Marimon, lib. vii., § 18. A like wonder is recorded in a vision about this time. Our Saint was so filled with the desire of the salvation of souls, that at one and the same time he found himself in some mysterious and inexplicable manner speaking to every living man and woman of the shortness of life, of the pains of hell, of eternal glory, and the infinite goodness of God, of how much He merits our service, and thus leading them out of the darkness of error to know and to serve Him, and so to save their souls. This, the most marvellous of all his heavenly visions, lasted for a quarter of an hour.

On the fourth of September, 1610, the Father Provincial, Joseph de Villegas, sailed for Spain, as his Visitation had come to its conclusion. He took with him two friends of our Saint, Fathers Ignatius Blanch and Matthew Reguer.¹⁸18Father Reguer was a Catalan by birth. He arrived in Majorca in January, 1594, in company with Don Ferdinand Zanoguerra, who came to be Viceroy of the island. Father Matthew was minister in 1595, and for many years a confessor in the College. Once when Father Matthew had gone to visit a sick lady, with Alonso as his companion, she, with her mother and other relations, begged the Father to implore God to restore her to health. “If you want this,” said the Father, “ask it of Brother Alonso Rodriguez,” and accordingly they all turned with great earnestness to the humble Brother. He was so astounded, and showed such evident signs of his trouble and sorrow at these marks of respect, that the whole family were quite grieved at what they had done, and humbly begged the Brother’s pardon. Father Miralles often took him with him on his visits to an aged invalid who lived close by. The chair in which Alonso used, on those occasions, to sit was long kept as a wonder-working relic. It is now lost.

Francis Colin, in a letter which he wrote to Father Marimon, September 21st, 1618, gives us some interesting details of the life of St. Alonso at this time. “In the year 1610, though the Brother was so old and so oppressed with infirmities that he could hardly walk, he went to Father Torrens, then the Rector, and very earnestly entreated that some laborious work might be given him, for he insisted that he was leading a very lazy life in the College, and he begged, for the love of God, that he might have something to do. Father Torrens, seeing that he was so disconsolate, allowed him, but only for that one occasion, to take the place of the porter during first table. The Brother had at this time also the duty of filling the holy-water stoups, and of giving notice to those who had to see the Spiritual Father; and never was the slightest unpunctuality noticed in him, but the greatest possible diligence in all matters. Oftentimes when he met me he asked me what o’clock or what day of the month it was, so as to carry out the orders given to him. The days on which we had to go to confession, he went immediately on hearing the bell, whether the Father was in the house or not, and stayed without moving at the door of his confessor’s room. * * * * *”

“So punctual was he in saying his usual prayers that I noticed very often, when the bell rang for the end of mid-day recreation, that even before he had left his place, he had begun to recite some of his devotions. These, as well as his rosary, he always recited aloud, but in a subdued tone, whenever he could do so without being remarked.”

“One day, passing by his room, though he was then so old and infirm, I heard him disciplining himself with as much energy as if he were a young man of twenty-five. When any Superior or priest chanced to pass by when he was washing his hands, he at once took off his cap with his wet hands, without waiting to dry them, as I remarked a number of times. He often met me when about to pass through a door at the same time as himself, nor could I ever succeed in making him pass before me. And this was his way with all the scholastics, and much more with the priests.”¹⁹19MS. letter of Father Colin, Montesion.

This practice of humility, for it was no mere external politeness, sprang from his desire to remove, as far as possible, that greatest hindrance to conformity to God’s will, any remnant of self-esteem. For this end, he kept ever before him his own baseness and vileness, and contrasted it with the Infinite Omnipotence and Majesty of His Lord.²⁰20Memor., n. 173. June, 1611. And, in presence of the measure of himself which this contrast afforded him, he most gladly accepted from God’s hands all contempt and every trial, however sharp they might be; but as to the miraculous favours, of which he could not help being conscious, and which are regarded as marks of holiness, “he could find no holiness in them, because holiness can only be bought at the cost of many and great trials, owing to the conflict which is needed to pluck out our vicious habits from the soul, and to plant virtues in their place. And it is in these conflicts that holiness consists. But those other things, which have just been mentioned, cost no trouble so far as I know, either interior or exterior; and so that person (himself) treats these things and these interior voices as if he had to do with a phantom, or with a person at a distance, and not with himself. For he fears—and, with reason, as one does not know for certain what they are—lest he might be deceived.”²¹21Memor., n. 181. January, 1612.

To aid him in carrying out more perfectly this acceptance of crosses, St. Alonso summed up under two heads all that might happen to him. First, as to everything that came from without, he made it a rule to receive it joyfully for the love of his Lord, Whose presence was always a reality to him. Secondly, as to everything from within—his every thought, each word of counsel or reply, any duty he had to perform—he never failed to consult God beforehand, and to follow the light he then received. And the deep interior peace which he experienced when the thought, word or deed, was in accordance with God’s will, was the sure sign to him that he should carry it out, just as any disquiet was a mark that it had not the Divine approval.²²22Memor., n. 172.

The beatification of St. Ignatius was decreed in Rome on December 3rd, 1609. The festivities at Majorca took place on the first three days of May, 1610. The splendid religious plays in the College halls, the fireworks and rejoicing in the square before the house, never so much as tempted our Saint to lift his eyes to the many attractions which these celebrations presented. Fray Simon Bauza, who was then Bishop, a distinguished member of the Order of St. Dominic, and who had been born not far from the site of Montesion, came to sing High Mass in state and to preach on this occasion.

The Community awaited him at the College gate, and on his arrival the Superior and the Fathers of greater note amongst them came forward to pay him their respects. But the Bishop, after a few words of finished courtesy in reply, asked for Brother Alonso, who was trying to hide behind the crowd. The Rector called him forward, and, blushing deeply, he threw himself at the feet of the Prelate. Bishop Bauza at once raised him up, asked him kindly about his health, and questioned him as to what he felt about the Beatification, which was such a joy to all. Our Saint answered in such a way (so the tradition says) that the Bishop made the remark, “I think, Brother, we shall not have to live long to see the festivities of your own Beatification.” The only effect of this prophecy, as it may fairly be called, was to fill St. Alonso with fresh confusion, and to make him redouble his penances to rid himself of the fear which the words of the Bishop had put into his mind.²³23Furio y Sastre, pp. 44, seq. It appears probable that it was on this visit of the Bishop that the incident, narrated at pp. 108–109, took place. V. note.

In December, Don John de Villaragut y Sans, the Viceroy of Majorca, was lying dangerously ill. He was a thorough Christian gentleman, and his uprightness and sound judgment had won for him the affection of his subjects. Prayers were said for his recovery in all the churches and religious houses of the island, and particularly in the College of Montesion, which was under special obligations to him, for he had always been a staunch friend of the Society. On the recent occasion of the Beatification of our Holy Father St. Ignatius, he had contributed so largely to the festivities, and had given so many proofs of his devotion and reverence towards our Blessed Founder, that the Community of Montesion felt that he had fresh claims on their charity.²⁴24Marimon, Tom. II., lib. v. Doña Anne Pardo, the wife of the Viceroy, had such deep veneration for St. Alonso that she kept his portrait in her room. This lady, fearing to be left a widow far away from her home, constantly importuned Father Torrens to urge the holy Brother to intercede on behalf of her husband. The Rector gladly consented, and Alonso, as usual, in all his needs, implored Our Lady’s help. Though with great submission to God’s will, yet with great perseverance, he prayed on, till one day in an ecstasy he beheld Our Lady, bearing in her lap the dead body of Don John, and he heard her say, “I will have him in my keeping.” The Viceroy died a holy death on the 22nd of December, bearing with great conformity the cruel agony which he had to endure. It was only after his death that our Saint understood the meaning of the vision, and he then took it as a pledge of the good knight’s salvation.