The Franklin Files

CHAPTER VII

SYSTEM WHICH MUST BE EMPLOYED WITH WIDOWS AND METHODS OF DISPOSING OF THEIR PROPERTY.

1. It will be necessary to inspire her to continue to persevere in her devotion and the exercise of good works and of disposition, in not permitting a week to pass, to give away some part of her overplus, in honor of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Virgin and of the Saint she has chosen for her patron; giving this to the poor of the Society or for the ornamenting of its churches, until she has absolutely disposed of the first fruits of her property as in other times did the Egyptians.

2. When the widows, the more generally to practice their alms, must be given to know with perseverance, their liberality in favor of the Society; and they are to be assured that they are participants in all the merits of the same, and of the particular indulgences of the Provincial; and if they are persons of much consideration, of the General of the Order.

3. The widows who having made vows of chastity, it will be necessary for them to renew them twice per annum, conforming to the custom that we have established; but permitting them notwithstanding, that day some honest freedom from restraint by our fathers.

4. They must be frequently visited, treating them agreeably; referring them to spiritual and diverting histories, conformable to the character and inclination of each one.

5. But that they may not abate, we must not use too much rigor with them in the confessional; that it may not be, that they by having empowered others of their benevolence, that we do not lose confidence of recovering their adhesion, having to proceed in all cases with great skill and caution, being aware of the inconstancy natural to woman.

6. It is necessary to have them do away with the habit of frequenting other churches, in particular those of convents; for which it is necessary to often remind them, that in our Order there are possessed many indulgences that are to be obtained only partially by all the other religious corporations.

7. To those who may be found in the case of the garb of mourning, they will be counselled to dress a little more agreeable, that they may at the same time, unite the aspect of mourning with that of adornment, to draw them away from the idea of being found directed by a man who has become a stranger to the world. Also with such, that they may not be very much endangered, or particularly exposed to volubility, we can concede to them, as if they maintained their consequence and liberality, for and with the Society, that which drives sensuality away from them, being with moderation and without scandal.

8. We must manage that in the houses of the widows there shall be honorable young ladies, of rich and noble families; that little by little they become accustomed to our direction and mode of life; and that they are given a director elected and established by the confessor of the family, to be permanently and always subject to all the reprehensions and habits of the Society; and if any do not wish to submit to all they must be sent to the houses of their fathers, or to those from which they were brought, accusing them directly of extravagance and of glaring and stained character.

9. The care of the health of the widows, and to proportion some amusement, it is not the least important that we should care for their salvation; and so, if they complain of some indisposition, we must prohibit the fast, the hair cloth girdle, and the discipline, without permitting them to go to church; further continue the direction, cautiously and secretly with such, that they may be examined in their houses; if they are given admission into the garden, and edifice of the college, with secrecy; and if they consent to converse and secretly entertain with those that they prefer.

10. To the end that we may obtain, that the widows employ their utmost obsequiousness to the Society, it is the duty to represent to them the perfection of the life of the holy, who have renounced the world, estranged themselves from their relations, and despising their fortunes, consecrating themselves to the service of the Supreme Being with entire resignation and content. It will be necessary to produce the same effect, that those who turn away to the Constitutions of the Society, and their relative examination to the abandonment of all things. We must cite examples of the widows who have reached holiness in a very short time; giving hopes of their being canonized, if their perseverance does not decay; and promising for their cases our influence with the Holy Father.

11. We must impress in their souls the persuasion that, if they desire to enjoy complete tranquillity of conscience it will be necessary for them to follow without repugnance, without murmuring, nor tiring, the direction of the confessor, so in the spiritual, as in the eternal, that she may be found destined to the same God, by their guidance.

12. Also we must direct with opportunity, that the Lord does not desire that they should give alms, nor yet to fathers of an exemplary life, known and approved, without consulting beforehand with their confessor, and regulating the dictation of the same.

13. The confessors must take the greatest care, that the widows and their daughters of the confessional, do not go to see other fathers (i.e. non-Jesuit priests) under any pretext, nor with them. For this, we must praise our Society as the Order most illustrious of them all; of greater utility in the Church, and of greater authority with the Pope and with the princes; perfection in itself; then dismiss the dream of them, and menace them, that we can, and that we are no correspondents to them, we can say, that we do not consent to froth and do as among other monks who count in their convents many ignorant, stupid loungers who are indolent in regard to the other life, and intriguers in that to disorder, &c.

14. The confessors must propose and persuade the widows to assign ordinary pensions and other annual quotas to the colleges and houses of profession for their sustenance with especially to the professed house at Rome; and not forgetting to remind them of the restoration of the ornaments of the temples and replenishing of the wax, the wine, and other necessaries for the celebration of the mass.

15. If they do not make relinquishment of their property to the Society, it will be made manifest to them, on apparent occasion in particular, when they are found to be sick, or in danger of death; that there are many colleges to be founded; and that they may be excited with sweetness and disinterestedness, to make some disbursements as merit for God, and in that they can found his eternal glory.

16. In the same manner, we must proceed with regard to princes and other well doers, making them to see that such foundations will be made to perpetuate their memory in this world, and gain eternal happiness, and if some malevolent persons adduce the example of Jesus Christ, saying, that then he had no place to recline his head, the Society bearing his name should be poor in imitation of himself, we must make it known and imprint it in the imagination of those, and of all the world, that the Church has varied, and that in this day we have become a State; and we must show authority and grand measures against its enemies that are very powerful, or like that little stone prognosticated by the prophet, that, divided, came to be a great mountain. Inculcate constantly to the widows who dedicate their alms and ornaments to the temples, that the greater perfection is in disposing of the affection and earthly things, ceding their possession to Jesus Christ and his companions.

17. Being very little, that which we must promise to the widows, who dedicate and educate their children for the world, we must apply some remedy to it.

CHAPTER IX

UPON THE AUGMENTING OF REVENUE IN THE COLLEGES.

1. We must do all that is possible, because we do not know if bound with the last vow of him, who is the claimant of an inheritance, meanwhile we do not know if it is confirmed, to not be had in the Society a younger brother, or of some other reason of much entity. Before all, that which we must procure, are the augmentations of the Society with rules to the ends agreed upon by the superiors, which must be conformable: for that the Church returns to its primitive splendor for the greater glory of God; of fate that all the clergy shall be found animated by a united spirit. To this end, we must publish by all methods, that the Society is composed in part of professors so poor, that are wanting of the most indispensable, to not be for the beneficence of the faithful; and that another part is of fathers also poor, although living upon the product of some household property; but not to be grievous to the public, in the midst of their studies, their ministry, as are other ordinary mendicants. The spiritual directors of princes, great men, accommodating widows, and of whom we have abundant hope, that they will be disposed at last to make gifts to the Society in exchange for spiritual and eternal things, that will be proportioned, the lands and temporalities which they possess; for the same, carrying always the idea, that we are not to lose the occasion of receiving always as much as may be offered. If promises and the fulfillment of them is retarded, they are to be remembered with precaution, dissimulating as much as we can the coveting of riches. When some confessor of personages or other people, will not be apt, or wants subtility, that in these subjects is indispensable, he will be retired with opportunity, although others may be placed anticipatedly; and if it be entirely necessary to the penitents, it will be made necessary to take out the destitute to distant colleges, representing that the Society has need for them there; because it being known that some young widows, having unexpectedly failed, the Society not having the legacy of very precious movables, having been careless by not accepting In due time. But to receive these things, we could not attend at the time, and only at the good will of the penitent.

2. To attract the prelates, canonicals and other rich ecclesiastics, it is necessary to employ certain arts, and in place procuring them to practice in our houses spiritual exercises, and gradually and energetically of the affection that we profess to divine things; so that they will be affectioned towards the Society and that they will soon offer pledges of their adhesion.

3. The confessors must not forget to ask with the greatest caution and on adequate occasions of those who confess, what are their names, families, relatives, friends, and properties, informing their successors who follow them, the state, intention in which they will be found, and the resolution which they have taken; that which they have not yet determined obtaining, having to form a plan for the future to the Society. When it is founded, whence directly there are hopes of utility; for it will not be convenient to ask all at once; they will be counseled to make their confession each week, to disembarrass the conscience much before, or to the title of penitence. They will be caused to inform the confessor with repetition, of that which at one time they have not given sufficient light; and if they have been successful by this means, she will come, being a woman, to make confession with frequency, and visit our church; and being a man, he will be invited to our houses and we are to make him familiar with ourselves.

4. That which is said in regard to widows, must have equal application to the merchants and neighbors of all classes, as being rich and married, but without children, of that plan by which the Society can arrive to be their heirs, phyif we put in play the measures that we may indicate; but over all, it will be well to have present, as said, near the rich devotees that treat with us, and of whom the vulgar can murmur, when more, if they are of a class not very elevated.

5. Procuring for the rectors of the colleges entrance for all the ways of the houses, parks, groves, forests, lawns, arable lands, vineyards, olive orchards, hunting grounds, and whatever species of inheritances which they meet with in the end of their rectory; if their owners pertain to the nobility, to the clergy, or are negotiators, particulars, or religious communities, inquiring the revenues of each one, their loads and what they pay for them. All these dates or notices they are to seek for with great skill and to a fixed pout, energetically yet from the confessional, then of the relations of friendship, or of the accidental conversations; and the confessor meets with a penitent of possibles, he will be placed in knowledge of the rector, obtaining by all methods the one conserved.

6. The essential point to build upon, is the following: that we must so manage, that in the ends we gain the will and affections of our penitents, and other persons with whom we treat, accommodating ourselves to their inclinations if they are conducive. The Provincials will take care to direct some of us to points, in which reside the nobility and the powerful; and if the Provincials do not act with opportunity, the rectors must notice with anticipation, the crops (the field of operations) that are there, which we go to examine.

7. When we receive the sons of strong houses in the Society, they must show whether they will be easy to acquire the contracts and titles of possession; and if so they were to enter of themselves, of which they may be caused to cede some of their property to the college, or the usufruct (profit) or for rent, or in other form, or if they can come for a time into the Society, the gain of which may be very much of an object, to give a special understanding to the great and powerful, the narrowness in which we live, and the debts that are pressing us.8. When the widows, or our married devoted women, do not have more than daughters, we must persuade them to the same life of devotion, or to that of the cloister; but that except the endowment that they may give, they can enter their property in the Society gently; but when they have husbands, those that would object to the Society, they will be catechized; and others who desire to enter as religiouses in other Orders, with the promise of some reduced amount. When there may be an only son, he must be attracted at all cost, inculcating the vocation as made by Jesus Christ; causing him to be entirely disembarrassed from the fear of its fathers, and persuading him to make a sacrifice very acceptable to the Almighty, that he must withdraw to His authority, abandon the paternal house and enter in the Society; the which, if he so succeeds, after having given part to the General, he will be sent to a distant novitiate; but if they have daughters, they will primarily dispose the daughters for a religious life; and they will be caused to enter into some monastery, and afterwards be received as daughters in the Society, with the succession of its properties.

9. The Superiors will place in the channel of the circumstances, the confessors of these widows and married people, that they on all future occasions may act for the benefit of the Society; and when by means of one, they cannot take our part he will be replaced with another; and if it is made necessary, he will be sent to great distances, of a manner that he cannot follow understandingly with these families.

10. If we succeed in convincing the widows and devoted persons, who aspire with fervor to a perfect life, and that the better means to obtain it is by ceding ad their properties to the Society, supporting by their revenues, that they will be religiously administered until their death, conforming to the degree of necessity in which they may be found, and the just reason that may be employed for their persuasion is, that by this mode, they can be exclusively dedicated to God; without attentions and molestations, which would perplex them, and that it is the only road to reach the highest degree of perfection.

11. The Superiors craving the confidence of the rich, who are attached to the Society, delivering receipts of its proper hand writing whose payment afterwards will differ; not forgetting to often visit those who loan, to exhort them above all in their infinities of consideration, as to whom will devolve the papers of the debt; because it is not so to be found mention of the Society in their testament; and by this course we must acquire properties, without giving cause for us to be hated by the heirs.

12. We must also in a grand manner ask for a loan, with payment of annual interest, and employ the same capital in other speculation to produce greater revenues to the Society; for at such a time, succeeding to move them with compassion to that which they will lend to us, we will not lose the interest in the testament of donation, when they see that they found colleges and churches.

13. The Society can report the utilities of commerce, and value the name of the merchant of credit, whose friendship we may possess.

14. Among the peoples where our fathers reside, we must have physicians faithful to the Society, whom we can especially recommend to the sick, and to paint under an aspect very superior to that of other religious orders, and secure direction that we shall be called to assist the powerful, particularly in the hour of death.

15. That the confessors shall visit with assiduity the sick, particularly those who are in danger, and to honestly eliminate the other fathers, which the superiors will procure, when the confessor sees that he is obliged to remove the other from the suffering, to replace and maintain the sick in his good intentions. Meanwhile we must inculcate as much as we can with prudence, the fear of hell, &c., &c., or when, the lesser ones of purgatory; demonstrating that as water will put out fire, so will the same alms blot out the sin; and that we cannot employ the alms better, than in the maintaining and subsiding of the persons, who, by their vocation, have made profession of caring for the salvation of their neighbor; that in this manner the sick can be made to participate in their merits, and find satisfaction for their own sins; placing before them that charity covereth a multitude of sins; and that also, we can describe that charity, is as a nuptial vestment, without which, no one can be admitted to the heavenly table. In fine it will be necessary to move them to the citations of the scriptures, and of the holy fathers, that according to the capacity of the sick, we can judge what is most efficacious to move them.

16. We must teach the women, that they must complain of the vices of their husbands, and the disturbances which they occasion, that they can rob them in secret of some amounts of money, to offer to God, in expiation of the sins of their husbands, and to obtain their pardon.