The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55: 1637-38; 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
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55: 1637-38; 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
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
The Recollect fathers Fray Benito de San Jose, Fray Francisco de San
Jose, and Fray Clemente de San Nicolas having been assigned, with
three other companions, to the village of Binangonan, established
the first house and church, with the title of San Guillermo; and two
religious remained there. Afterward they went to the village of Baler
and established a convent, under the patronage of St. Nicholas of
Tolentino. The third was the village of Casiguran, with the advocacy
of our father St. Augustine. The fourth was established in Palanan,
with the title of Santa Maria Magdalena. The discalced Augustinians
resided for forty years in those convents founded on the coasts of
the Pacific, exclusively consecrated to the service of God, and the
sanctification of their neighbors, and they attained both objects
with great spiritual advantages.
We had religious there of pure virtue, who were imitating the virtues
of the dwellers in the desert. From those missions went forth our
father Fray Bartolome de la Santisima Trinidad, son of the convent
of Madrid. He lived much retired from intercourse with men; and when
he was elected provincial, in the year one thousand seven hundred
and one--at which time all said that he was a person unknown in
Manila--Archbishop Camacho uttered these words: "The election of the
discalced Augustinians has been and is, properly, an election by God
and by the Holy Spirit." While so great advance did the missionaries
on the opposite coast make in their own sanctification, not less
was the gain in the vineyard entrusted to their care. They made many
Aetas and heathen children of the Catholic church, and directed those
souls along the paths of eternal life. They had the special glory
of numbering, among those whom they directed, some privileged women
endowed with the gifts of heaven, and raised by the spirit of God to
a height of Christian perfection which confounds our lukewarmness in
His service. One of these was Sister Juana de Jesus, a native of the
village of Binangonan de Lampon, [142] an oblate nun of our order,
who elevated herself with the steps of a giant, even to the greatest
and most complete purification of her spirit, by her abstraction
from worldly affairs, by her heroic practice of all the virtues,
by her fervent daily communion, and by the most lofty contemplation
and the most clear vision that God vouchsafed her of the mysteries
of our holy religion.
In the lamentable period of the missions between the years one
thousand six hundred and ninety-two and one thousand seven hundred
and ten, when no religious came to us from Espana, our Recollect
family was obliged to abandon this territory which it had in trust,
for the lack of evangelical laborers. That action was taken in the
provincial chapter of one thousand seven hundred and four, and the
missions above mentioned, which we had served for more than forty
years, were returned to the Franciscans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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