From this arises the fact that the confessional of Manila is, in my opinion, the most difficult in all the world; for, as it is impossible to confess all these people in their own tongues, it is necessary to confess them in Spanish; and each nationality has made its own vocabulary of the Spanish language, with which those people have intercourse [with us], conduct their affairs, and make themselves understood; and without it Ours can understand them only with great difficulty, and almost by divination. A Sangley, an Armenian, and a Malabar will be heard talking together in Spanish, and our people do not understand them, as they so distort the word and the accent. The Indians have another Spanish language of their own; and the Cafres have one still more peculiar, to which must be added that they eat half of the words. No one save he who has had this experience can state the labors which it costs to confess them; and even when the fault is understood in general, to seek for a specific account of the circumstances is to enter a labyrinth without a clue. For they do not understand our orderly mode of speech, and therefore when they are questioned they say “yes” or “no” as it occurs to them, without rightly understanding what is asked from them—so that in a short time they will utter twenty contradictions. It is therefore necessary to accommodate oneself to their language, and learn their vocabulary. Another of the very serious difficulties is the little capacity of these people to distinguish and explain numbers, incidents, and circumstances; add to this the unbridled licentiousness of some, in accordance with the freedom and opportunities [for vice] in this land, the continual backsliding, and the few indications of fixed purpose. In others, who are capable and explain their meaning well, is found a complication of perplexities—with a thousand reflections, and bargains, and frauds, and oaths all joined together; and faults that are extraordinary and of new kinds, which keep even the most learned man continually studying them. The heat of the country, and the stench or foul odor of the Indians and the negroes, unite in great part to make a hardship of the ministry, which in these islands is the most difficult; and on this account I regard it as being very meritorious. The annual confessions last from the beginning of Lent until Corpus Christi. In our college of Manila the church is open from daylight until eleven o’clock, and from two o’clock until nightfall; and always some fathers are present to hear confessions—for this is done not only by the active ministers, but by the instructors, when their scholastic duties give them opportunity; and I have known some fathers who remain to hear confessions during seven, eight, or more hours a day.
It makes them bear all these annoyances patiently, and even sweetens these, to see how many souls are kept pure by the grace of God, in the midst of so many temptations, like the bramble in the midst of the fire without being burned. There are many who are striving for perfection, who frequent the sacraments, who maintain prayer and spiritual reading, and who give much in alms and perform other works of charity. And it is cause for the greatest consolation to see, at the solemn festivals of the Virgin and other important feasts, the confessional surrounded by Indians, Cafres, and negroes, men and women, great and small, who are awaiting their turns with incredible patience, kept there through the grace of God, against every impulse of their natural dispositions and their slothfulness. And at the season of Lent it is heart-breaking to see the confessor, when he rises from his seat, surrounded by more than a hundred persons of all colors, who go away disconsolate because they have not obtained an opportunity to make their confessions; and in this manner they go and come for eight or ten days, or a fortnight, or even more, with unspeakable patience, but with such eagerness that when the confessor rises they go following him throughout the house, calling to him to hear their confessions. This is done even by boys of seven to twelve years, and hardly with violence can they be made to leave the father, and they continue to call after him; and some remain in the passages, on their knees, asking for confession, so great is the number of the penitents—to which that of the confessors does not correspond by far, nor does their assiduity, even if there were enough of them. The Society is not content with aiding those who come to seek relief in our church, and attending the year round all the sick, of various languages, who summon them to hear confession; but its laborers go forth—as it were, gospel hunters—to search for penitents. They assist almost all who are executed in the city; every week they go to the jails and hospitals; in Lent they hear confessions in all the prisons, and at the foundry, those of the galley-slaves. And in the course of the year they hear confessions in the college of Santa Ysabel—in which there are more than a hundred students, who are receiving the most admirable education—and in the seminary of Santa Potenciana, the students frequenting the sacraments often; and, in fine, they go on a perpetual round in pursuit of the impious.
The confessional is, as it were, the harvesting of the crop; and the pulpit is the sowing, in which the seed of the gospel is scattered in the hearts of men, where with the watering of grace it bears fruit in due time, according to the coöperation [of the Holy Ghost?]. With great constancy and solicitude the Society contributes to the cultivation of these fields of Christianity, with preaching. In Manila the Society has, besides the sermons from the holy men of the order, other endowed feasts, and the set sermons[5] in the cathedral and the royal chapel. When necessity requires it, a mission is held, and the attendance is very large, although hardly a fifth of those who hear understand the Spanish language; this to a certain extent discourages the missionaries, as does even much more the fact that they do not encounter those external demonstrations of excitement and tears that they arouse in other places. This originates from the characteristic of a large part of the audience, that these attend with due seriousness only to certain undertakings; and the distractions of their disputes and business affairs, and their indolence and the air of the country, dissipate their attention beyond measure. Their imaginations, overborne with foolish trifles, and accustomed to our voices, become so relaxed that even the most forcible and persuasive discourses make little, if any, impression. Nevertheless, there are many in whom the holy fear of God reigns, and the seed of the gospel takes root—which they embrace with seriousness and simplicity, as the importance of the subject demands. The marvel is, that many Indians and a great many Indian women, only by the sound of [the preaching in] the mission, and without understanding what they hear, are stricken with contrition, confess themselves, and receive communion, in order to gain the indulgences—to their own great advantage, and to the unspeakable consolation of their confessors at seeing the wonderfully loving providence of God for these souls.
This fruit and this consolation are most evident in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,[6] which are explained through most of the year in our college. The principal citizens make their retreat there, and in the solitude of that retirement God speaks to them within their hearts; and marvelous results have been seen in various persons, in whom has been established a tenor of life so Christian that they may be called the religious of the laymen—in their minds those eternal truths, on which they meditate with seriousness, remaining firm, for the orderly conduct of their lives. The students in the college of San Joseph have their own society, which meets every Sunday, in which they perform their exercises of devotion and have their exhortations, during the course of the year. Every Sunday the Christian doctrine is explained to the boys in the school, and some example [for their imitation] is related to them; and they walk in procession through the streets, chanting the doctrine. The Indian servants of the college have their own assembly, conducted in a very decorous manner, with continual instruction in the doctrine. Every Saturday an address in Tagálog is given to the beatas who attend our church; they have their own society, and exercise themselves in frequent devotions, furnishing an excellent and useful example to the community. Every year they perform the spiritual exercises; and the topics therein are given to them in Tagálog, in our church, by one of Ours. Many devout Indian and mestizo women resort hither on this occasion, to perform these exercises, in various weeks, for which purpose they make retreat in the beaterio during the week required for that; and even Spanish women, including ladies of the most distinguished position, perform their spiritual exercises, and the topics for meditation are assigned to them in our church. This practice is very beneficial for their souls, of great usefulness to the community, and remarkably edifying to all.
The Society also busies itself in the conversion and reconciliation of certain heretics, who are wont to come from the East (as has been observed in recent years), and in catechising and baptizing the Moros or the heathens who sometimes reach the islands—either driven from their route, or called by God in other ways; and He draws them to himself, so that they obtain holy baptism, as has been seen in late years in some persons from the Palaos and Carolina islands, and from Siao. Another of the means of which the Society avails itself for the good of souls is, to print and distribute free many spiritual books in various languages, which are most efficacious although mute preachers. These, removing from men their erroneous ideas by clear exposition [of the truth], and leaving them without the cloak of their own fantastic notions, persuade them, without being wearisome, to abandon vice or error; and then they embrace virtue and the Christian mode of life. In Lent, as being an acceptable time and especially opportune for the harvest, the dikes are opened, in order that the waters of the word of God may flow more abundantly. On Tuesdays there is preaching to the Spaniards, and these sermons usually have the efficacy of a mission, although not given under that name. On Thursdays there is explanation of the doctrine, and preaching, in Tagálog, to the Indians; the attendance is very great, since many come, not only from the numerous suburbs of Manila, but even from the more distant villages. On Saturdays some good example of the Virgin is related, with a moral exhortation; the Spaniards who are members of fraternities attend these, and afterward visit the altars. On Sundays there is preaching to the Cafres, blacks, creoles, and Malabars—who through a sense of propriety are called Morenos, although they are dark-skinned. The sermon is in Spanish, and the greatest difficulty of the preacher is to adapt his language to the understanding of the audience. Various poor Spaniards also attend these sermons, as well as other people, of various shades of color, of both sexes.
Every Sunday certain fathers are sent to preach at the fort or castle, to the soldiers and the other men who live there. The Christian doctrine is chanted through the streets, and in the procession walk the boys of the school; it ends at the royal chapel, where some part of the catechism is explained, and a moral sermon is preached to the soldiers who live in their quarters in order to mount guard. The doctrine is explained at the Puerta Real and at the Puerta del Parián, and there is preaching in the guard-room—where there is a large attendance, not only of soldiers, but of the many people who, on entering or going out from the gates, stop to hear the word of God. Another father goes to the royal foundry, in which the galley-slaves live, where there is such a variety of people—mestizos, Indians of various dialects, Cafres, negroes of different kinds, and Sangleys or Chinese—that exceptional ability and patience are necessary in order to make them understand. Other fathers go to the college of Santa Isabel and the seminary of Santa Potenciana, where they give addresses and exhortations to the students of the former, and the women secluded in the latter. Others go to the prisons of both the ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions, in order that the prisoners may obtain the spiritual food of the doctrine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays there is in our church a Miserere, with the discipline [i.e., scourging]; a spiritual book is read to those who are present, and at least once a week an exhortation is addressed to them.
Such is, in general, the distribution of work for our college at Manila in Lent, and therein are engaged nearly all the men in the college, whether priests or students; and in times when there is a scarcity of workers I have seen some helping at two or three posts, and not only ministers and instructors thus occupied, but even the superiors, and men of seventy years old, to the great edification of the community. At Lent is seen in Manila that which occurred at the destruction of Jericho, where, when the priests sounded around the city the trumpets of the jubilee, the walls immediately gave way and fell to the ground. Thus in Manila do the Jesuits surround the walls, calling to every class of people with the trumpets of the jubilee and offering pardon; and at the sound, through the grace and mercy of the Highest, the lofty walls of lawlessness, vice, and crime, fall in ruins. And even the presence of the ark is not lacking to this marvelous success, for it is not to be doubted that the Blessed Virgin, most merciful mother of sinners, aids us with her intercession. [Our author here relates various instances of miraculous aid from heaven, and other edifying cases.]
[Fol. 13:] Father Juan de Torres, with another priest and a brother, went from the college of Manila to conduct a mission at a place which is called Cabeza de Bondoc,[7] about sixty leguas from Manila, in the bishopric of Camarines—the bishop of Nueva Cazeres at that time being his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Diego de Guevara, of the Order of St. Augustine. As soon as that zealous prelate took possession of his see, he began to ask for fathers of the Society, in order that, commencing with the Indians who were already peaceable who reside in Nueva Cazeres, they might establish missions and continue their instructions in other villages which he intended to give them. But the Society, who always have showed due consideration to the other ministers in these islands, not attempting to dispossess them from their ministries—although not always have we found them respond in like spirit—thanked that illustrious prelate for his kindness, without accepting those ministries; and in order that he might see that [the cause of this action] was consideration for the ministers, and not the desire to escape from the labor, Ours consented to conduct a mission in Bondoc, the difficulty of which, and its results, are explained by that prelate in a letter which he wrote to Father Torres, in which he says: “I find that it is true, what was told to me in Manila, when I gave that mission-field to the Society, and I mention it with great consolation to myself; and that is, that it was the Holy Ghost who inspired me to give it—for I see the fruits which are steadily and evidently being gathered therein. For in so many ages it has been impossible to unite those villages, and the Indians in them were regarded as irreclaimable; and now in so short a time those villages have been united, and the Indians, [who were like] wild beasts, appear like gentle lambs. These are the works of God, who operates through the ministers of the Society—who with so much mildness, affection, and zeal are laboring for the welfare of those people.” Great hardships were suffered by those of the Society in these missions, and for several years that ministry was cared for by Ours, until it was entrusted to the secular priests.
The mission of Bondoc gained such repute in the island of Marinduque, distant more than forty leguas from Manila, that its minister, who was a zealous cleric, wrote to the father rector at Manila asking him very humbly and urgently to send there a mission, from which he was expecting abundant fruit. So earnest were the entreaties of this fervent minister that a mission was sent to the said island; it had the results which were expected, and afterward the Society was commissioned with its administration. In nearly all the ministries of secular priests the Society was carrying on continual missions, at the petition of the ministers or at the instance of the bishops.... The Society was held in honor not only by the bishop of Camarines, but equally by his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano, a son of the great Augustine and most worthy archbishop of Manila. That most zealous father Lorenzo Masonio preached to the negroes who are in this city and outside its walls, according to the custom of this province, which distributes the bread of the gospel doctrine to all classes of people and all nations. And that holy prelate deigned to go to our church, and, taking a wand in his hand, as the Jesuits are accustomed to do, he walked through the aisle of the church, asked questions, and explained the Christian doctrine to the slaves and negroes. The community experienced the greatest edification at seeing their pastor so worthily occupied in instructing his sheep, not heeding the outer color of their bodies, but looking only at their precious souls—for in the presence of God there is no distinction of persons.
[Fol. 22:] The island of Malindig—named thus on account of a high mountain that is in it, and which the Spaniards call Marinduque—is more than forty leguas from Manila, extends north and south, and is in the course which is taken by the galleons on the Nueva España trade-route.[8] There Ours carried on a mission with much gain, at the instance of its zealous pastor, who was a cleric; and in the year 1622 this island was transferred to the Society by his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Miguel Garzia Serrano, the archbishop of Manila, who was satisfied by the care with which the Society administers its charges, and desirous that his sheep should have the spiritual nourishment that is necessary for their souls—for it was exceedingly difficult for him always to find a secular priest to station there, on account of the distance from Manila, the difficulty of administering that charge, and the loneliness which one suffers there. The Society gladly overcame these difficulties for the sake of the spiritual fruit which could be gathered among those Indians; and our ministers, applying themselves to the cultivation [of that field], went about among those rugged mountains—from which they brought out some heathens, and others who were Christians, but who were living like heathen, without any spiritual direction. They baptized the heathens and instructed the Christians; and, in order that the results might be permanent, Ours gradually settled them in villages which they formed; there are three of these, Bovac, Santa Cruz, and Gasan, and formerly there was a visita in Mahanguin. The language spoken there is generally the Tagálog, although in various places there is a mixture of Visayan, and of some words peculiar to the island. God chose to prove those people by a sort of epidemic, of which many died; and the fathers not only gave them spiritual assistance, but provided the poor with food, and treated the sick. This trouble obliged them to resort for aid to the Empress of Heaven, to whom they offered a fiesta under the title of the Immaculate Conception, during the week before Christmas, with great devotion; and the Virgin responded to them by aiding them in their troubles and necessities.