Saint Who?
Saints Who Fostered Vocations to the Priesthood
Saint Francis Borgia
Priest and religious († 1572)October 10
Francis Borgia came from a powerful and influential Spanish family. He lived an intensely holy life in the midst of enormous political responsibility. He was surrounded from childhood by caregivers chosen for their virtue. He served at the imperial court, where it is said he never spoke ill of others or indulged in vices. He married Eleanor, a lady-in-waiting of the empress, with whom he had eight children.
After Eleanor died, Francis made provision for his children and estates and entered the Jesuits. Saint Ignatius of Loyola appointed him the order’s commissary general of Spain. In this capacity, he founded Spain’s first Jesuit novitiate as well as a number of schools. In 1565, he was chosen to lead the entire order.
When he was, as he said, “smitten with the sword of responsibility,” he addressed his fellow Jesuits, begging them to offer to God the “fruits of obedience, humility, and patience,” to give their neighbors “the oil of mercy and the other remedies,” to forget their own differences and “begin a new life, destroying the old man and raising up the new, so that the simplicity, obedience, charity, and humility of the primitive Society may be revived in our hearts.” The Jesuit order expanded under his leadership and he is sometimes called its second founder.
Heavenly Father, through the intercession of
Saint Francis Borgia, strengthen those you call
from the world to your service.
