Peter Faber

Ignatius began his course of philosophy at Saint Barbe under the rectorship of the very Gouvea who but lately had been so hot against him.

He shared a room with Peter Favre, a young Genevan who had begun life as a shepherd boy on the Swiss mountains, and whose brilliant intellectual gifts had brought to Paris where he had already taken his doctor's degree.

He undertook to help Ignatius with his studies, and it was not long before the Spaniard realized that his young companion was destined to do great work in the world for God.

Pure and holy in the midst of surroundings that were often neither the one nor the other, he needed only the spiritual guidance of Ignatius to bring out all that was latent in his sweet and noble nature.

Failing the chance of apostolic work in the Holy Land, they would go at a given time to Rome and place themselves at the Pope's service.

Meanwhile they were to pass the time in prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, and study of the two books that were to remain always dearest to the heart of Ignatius, the Bible and the Imitation of Christ.

By these vows the seven companions bound themselves before the altar in the crypt of the chapel of St. Denis at Montmartre on the feast of the Assumption 1534, the Mass being said by Peter Favre, the only priest amongst them.

Such was the foundation of the Company of Jesus.

After making this promise, all these untimely devotions ceased to disturb him, and he quietly pursued his studies.

He was at this period a friend of Peter Faber and Francis Xavier, whom he afterward led to the service of God by giving them the exercises.

During the last years, he was not persecuted as at first.

Speaking of this to him one day, Dr. Fragus remarked that he was surprised that no one molested him.

Our guardian angel protects us in danger.

We just had the feast this past Friday of St. Peter in Chains.

And this story is accounted in the Acts of the Apostle when Peter was imprisoned and he was delivered by an angel.

In the book of Daniel, Daniel was kept safe in the den of the lions.

And also the story of the three young men who were put in a furnace were protected from fire.

In Europe, when the Saxons entered a church dedicated to St. Boniface, two angel warriors appeared in wondrous beauty and strength.

An angel protected St. Ambrose and his church when the Empress Justina demanded that he give over the Arian, that he give to the Arian heretics a basilica, and he was able to repel this with the help of angels.

Finally, Blessed Peter Faber, one of the founders of the Jesuit order and a missionary, brought many souls to God by his work in Germany.

following year, he moved to a college called Saint-Barb.

His two roommates were a young Savoyard mountain man named Pierre Favre, who was studying for the priesthood, and a Basque nobleman, 15 years his junior, named Francisco de Yazo y Azpil Cueta.

History remembers him as Francis Xavier.

Inigo, by then in his late 30s, did with them what he did with everyone.

countless mothers, many others who have been named blessed or venerable by the church.

Among these, not to mention the glorious name of St. Francis Xavier, Blessed Peter Favre, or Faber, and St. Francis Borgia, with whom we are already familiar, are to be counted St. Peter Canisius, the brilliant disciple of Favre, who lived so long and unwittingly in Germany, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Stanislaus Koska, two young saints whose beautiful lives have been an inspiration to many of their own age.

St. Edmund Campion, our famous English martyr, beloved by all, whose brilliant talents won the admiration of Queen Elizabeth, was later to sign his death warrant.

St. John Auguste, the gallant Scotch martyr, whose last word on the way to his cruel death was a blessing in exchange for a curse.

After making this promise, all that devotion which came to him out of time left him, and he went on quietly with his studies.

At this time, he associated with Master Peter Faber and Master Francis Xavier, both of whom he later won for God's service by means of the exercises.

At that stage in his course, they did not harass him as before.

With reference to this, Dr. Frago once told him how he marveled that he went about so peacefully without anyone giving him trouble.

They vow not to accept promotion within the church, but despite this, they have over the centuries become extremely influential within the Roman Catholic Church.

Famous Jesuits include Francis Xavier and Peter Faber, and three of my own personal heroes, Teilhard de Chardin, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Gerard Hughes.

The basis of Jesuit life is the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.

This is a collection of practical, wise instruction and prayer from someone who's done it and knows the pitfalls such as boredom and a wandering mind and over-scrupulousness and pride and all that kind of thing.