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St. Francis Borgia | October 10 | The Liturgical Year | Dom Gueranger · Vox Liturgica

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  Vox Liturgica: The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger, Saint Francis Borgia, Vanity of vanities and all is vanity. No argument was needed to impress this truth upon the saint of today when the coffin was opened, which contained all that Spain had admired of youth and loveliness, and death suddenly revealed to him its awful reality. O ye beauties of all times, death alone never dies. It invites itself to your dances and pleasures. It assists at all your triumphs.
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  It hears promises said to be eternal, and how quickly it can scatter your adorers. A few years, a few days, perhaps even less, and all your borrowed sweetness will be decaying in the tomb. Enough of vain phantoms. Enough of serving mortal kings. Awake, o my soul.
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  Such was Francis Borgia's reply to the teachings of death. The friend of Charles the fifth, the great lord unequalled for nobility, fortune, and brilliant qualities, quitted the court as soon as possible. Ignatius, the soldier at the siege of Pampeloona, beheld at his feet the Viceroy of Catalonia, begging to be protected against the honors which pursued him even under the poor habit of a Jesuit, which was now his glory. The church relates his life in the following lines, Francis, fourth Duke of Gandia, was the son of John Borgia and of Joanna of Aragon, granddaughter of Ferdinand the Catholic. He passed his childhood in his father's house in wonderful innocence and piety, but appeared still more admirable when he showed himself a pattern of Christian virtue and austerity, first at the court of the Emperor Charles the fifth, and afterwards as Viceroy of Catalonia.
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  He was charged to convey the body of the Empress Isabel to her sepulchre at Granada. Seeing the horrible change in her features, he understood how fleeting are all earthly things and vowed to renounce everything as soon as possible and devote himself to the service of the King of Kings. From that day forward he made such progress in virtue that in the midst of overwhelming occupations, his life was a faithful copy of religious perfection so that he was called the miracle of princes. On the death of his wife Eleonora de Castro he entered the Society of Jesus that he might therein be more hidden on account of the vow which closes the door to ecclesiastical preferment. Many princes followed him in embracing a severe manner of life and Charles the fifth himself did not hesitate to acknowledge that his advice and example had led him to abdicate the throne.
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  Francis devoted himself to the exercises of a penitential life and macerated his body by fasting, iron chains, and rough hair shirt, long and bloody disciplines, allowing himself very little sleep. While at the same time he spared no effort to conquer himself and to gain souls. His great virtue caused Saint Ignatius to appoint him commissary general for Spain and soon afterwards against his will he was chosen by the whole society third general of the order. In this position his prudence and holiness endeared him both to popes and to temporal rulers. He founded and enlarged many houses of his order and introduced the society into Poland, the islands of the Atlantic, Mexico, and Peru and sent apostolic men into other regions who spread the Catholic Roman faith by their preaching, their labors, and their blood.
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  He had a most lowly opinion of himself always calling himself the sinner. This humility led him to persistently refuse the Roman purple which was more than once offered him by the Pope. Filled with contempt for himself and the world, he delighted in sweeping away dirt, begging alms from door to door, and serving the sick in hospitals. He devoted many hours every day to heavenly contemplation spending sometimes eight or even ten hours in prayer and genuflecting in adoration a 100 times in the day. He never omitted saying mass while he was offering the divine victim or preaching the heavenly ardor which consumed him betrayed itself by the radiance of his countenance.
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  He knew by heavenly instinct where the most holy body of Christ hidden in the Eucharist was kept. Saint Pius the fifth appointed Francis companion to Cardinal Alessandrino in an assembly for uniting the Christian princes against the Turks. Although his strength was almost exhausted he undertook this journey in obedience. But on the way he happily closed his life as he had wished at Rome in the sixty second year of his age in the year of salvation 1572. By Saint Teresa who had often sought his advice he was called a saint and by Gregory the thirteenth a faithful servant of God.
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  Finally after many great miracles he was canonized by Clement the tenth. O Lord Jesus Christ, the pattern and reward of true humility, we beseech thee that as thou didst make blessed Francis a glorious follower of thee in the contempt of worldly honor, so thou wouldst grant us to be partakers of the same imitation and glory. Such is the prayer the Church offers through thee to her divine spouse in the collect of the day. She knows that the saints always have great power with God, but especially when they would obtain for their devout clients the virtues they themselves more particularly cultivated when on earth. How precious is this prerogative in thy case, O Francis, for it concerns the virtue which attracts God's grace in this life and wins such glory hereafter.
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  Since pride has hurled Lucifer into the abyss and the self abasement of the son of God has led to his exaltation above the heavens, humility, whatever men may now say, has lost nothing of its inestimable value. It is still the indispensable foundation of every durable edifice, spiritual or social, the basis without which the other virtues even charity, the queen of them all could not subsist a single day. Therefore, o Francis, obtain for us this humility thoroughly convince us of the vanity of this world's honors and false pleasures. May the holy society, which thou after Saint Ignatius did surrender still more valuable to the church, cherish this spirit of thine so that it may deserve more and more, the esteem of heaven and the gratitude of earth.