The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 35, 1640-1649 / Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

by Unknown

CHAPTER III

Of the intermediary chapter; and of some religious who are mentioned in it as having died, leaving behind the reputation of virtue.

The intermediary chapter of the provincialate of father Fray Carlos Clemente Gant was held in the convent of St. Dominic in Manila, May 15, 1639. [The deceased missionaries given mention in that chapter are as follows: Jacinto de San Geronimo, who professed in the convent of Santa Cruz at Carboneras in the province of España, and died in the province of Itui, after a glorious life of labor. Geronimo Morer, of the province of Aragon, who professed in the convent at Valencia, and died at an advanced age in the missions of the Babuyanes; he had charge there of about one thousand tributes in two villages. Juan de Santo Tomas, who died September 5, 1638, one of the founders of the province. Next morning early also died the lay-brother Juan de San Dionisio, a native of Aguilar, who took the habit at the convent of Escala Cœli (i.e., the Ladder of Heaven) at Cordova; he was known, before his arrival at the Philippine province, as Juan de Heredia. He joined the Philippine mission in 1590, and on reaching that land was employed in various duties, among them that of nurse in the Chinese hospital of San Gabriel.]

[Chapters iv and v deal with the life of Juan de Santo Tomas (alias de Ormaza), one of the founders of the province of Santo Rosario, and its fourth provincial. He was a native of Medina del Campo, and his father was a noted jurist. The latter desiring his son to follow in his footsteps, he was sent to the university of Salamanca; but the youthful student, developing a taste for the religious life, prevailed upon his parents to allow him to devote himself to religion. He entered the Dominican convent at Valladolid, where he professed. The first mission to the Philippines, which arrived there in 1587, found him among its ranks. Arrived at the islands he was assigned to the missions at Bataan, where he labored assiduously until the year 1600, when he became provincial by unanimous vote. Shortly after the completion of his term of office he was sent to Japan as vicar-general of the Dominican missions there, and after several years there he returned to Manila and resumed his old vicariate of Bataan. As old age came on he retired to the convent of Manila, where he died at the age of nearly ninety, on December 7, 1638. In the general chapter held in Rome in 1644, he received mention for his good life and works.]