Today October 10

Today is the (old) feast of St. Francis Borgia (1510 - 1572). The canonization of this guy proves there's hope for every family. The Borgias were a clan of fornicators, manipulators, extortioners and murderers . . . and look, one of their scions is a saint!

He was a layman, married with 8 kids, busy with the onerous affairs of being the duke of Gandia. He'd had a good, solid, liberal education and been tested as viceroy of Catalonia -- which, in retrospect, he said trained him to be the strong, diplomatic and unerring third superior general of the Jesuits much later on.

At 18, he saw St. Ignatius Loyola led off in chains by the Inquisition -- an event that, little did he know, would have huge effects on him later. The sight haunted him for years, and after the sudden death of his wife 18 years later, he asked to be accepted into the order. Blessed Peter Favre hand-delivered the request to the now free superior general St. Ignatius of Loyola. He wrote back that Francis needed to stay home with his kids for awhile. The needed him; the youngest one was only 8. But once he got his affairs in order and his kids set up and established, Ignatius would have no objections. So Francis, frustrated, set about humbly obeying, and did in fact usefully continue supporting the state of Gandia, the Dominican convent, the hospital and the university he'd founded. Three years later he was ready, though the world sure wasn't. It was as if Princess Grace resigned Monaco and became a Discalced Carmelite! The shockwaves of a duke leaving his castle for the Jesuits, who accept no worldly honors, were felt all over the world. And he paid. He had to work as a dishwasher, water and wood carrier, kitchen sweep and waiter. But he was ordained a priest and immediately became an open-air CCD teacher. He was still in Spain at this time. He worked his way into Portugal, then back to Spain, where he "was practically the founder of the Society in Spain." - Butler's Lives, so many houses did he open and keep going by his three-fold commitment to: a) prayer; b) anti-materialism; and, c) obedience.

He became superior general upon the death of Father Laynez in 1565 and brought the Society to the utmost reaches of the earth -- to its great benefit. The Jesuits, you know, were exceedingly tactful and progressive, painstakingly learning the languages and cultures of all the people they evangelized, and as far as possible, keeping all the traditions of the native peoples. This made him no friend of the Inquisition, nor he of them. He never was arrested, though.

He did not neglect Europe even in his push to the Far East and the Americas and he expanded the Society to Poland. (The Poles are truly grateful.) He helped the poor and starving in Rome (where he was now stationed, as general), becoming truly a "Second Joseph." He died immediately after returning from a papal-ordered visit to Spain. St. Francis Borgia, pray for us.