[53] This form of bodily mortification can be understood only by those who live in hot countries. In Europa it is no mortification at all, and there is no religious who does not practice it, as being a precept of the rules, which command that neither food nor drink be taken outside of fixed hours. But in intertropical countries, with the suffocating heat and the continual perspiration it is a necessity to drink water and quench one’s thirst with great frequency; and on this account the superiors have to grant dispensations from some prescribed usages that are, if not impossible, exceedingly difficult to fulfil in those countries. As a compensation, there are other forms of mortification which in cold countries are difficult to practice, such as sleeping on the ground, which in the regions that are mentioned above do not merit even the name of mortification.—Fray Tirso López.
[54] Spanish, cilicios: a term originally derived from the name Cilicia, from which country was brought in ancient times a cloth woven of hair, called therefore cilicium; applied to a belt or girdle of haircloth, or of metallic wires woven together, often with projecting points of metal, worn next to the skin by way of mortifying the flesh.
[55] “No one can serve two masters;” in verse 13 of the sixteenth (not seventeenth, as in our text) chapter of Luke’s gospel.
[56] Although difficulties arise in obeying two superiors, it is not impossible, and much less when the respective jurisdiction of each is over different activities—as occurs in the missions and villages directed by religious, in which the superior of the order is responsible for his subordinates conducting themselves as they should in their private lives, and the vicar or bishop watches to see that they are punctual in the discharge of their ministry as missionaries or parish priests. In such cases the gospel text, which speaks of those who command opposite things, does not properly apply.—Fray Tirso López.
[57] Tomás Antonio de la Cerda, Conde de Paredes and Marqués de la Laguna, succeeded Archbishop Rivera as viceroy of Nueva España on November 30, 1680; he held this office six years. During this time the shores of Nueva España were continually harassed by pirates and buccaneers—the most notable event being their capture and sack of Vera Cruz in May, 1683.
[58] This word cannot be found in the Spanish lexicons, and is probably a Siamese word, since on old maps of Siam are numerous place-names which begin with the syllable Ban. Bandel may be a place-name, but more probably designates the trading-post occupied by the Portuguese.
[59] The Windward fleet (armada de Barlovento) was maintained to protect Spanish commerce in the Atlantic between Spain and America. In 1689 it was composed of six ships of the line and a frigate. (Bancroft’s Mexico, iii, p. 224.)
[60] Pérez’s Catálogo enumerates forty-five in this mission band. Among them was a priest, Diego Higinio, who for many years ministered to the lepers in Bisayas.
[61] Spanish, hermano mayor, that is, the brother at the head of the association.
[62] The reference is to a passage in canon law, in the Corpus Juris, which runs thus: Si Episcopus à Paganis aut Schismaticis capiatur, non Archiepiscopus, sed Capitulum ... ministrare debebit:... The full citation is: Si Episcopus, “De supplenda negligentia Prælatorum,” lib. i, cap. iii, in Sexto. The Sextus, or sixth book, from which the above is taken, is entitled, Sexti Decretalium Liber, of Pope Boniface VIII; and is described in Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary, p. 106.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.