Bl Diego de San Vitores (Oct. 6)

Blessed DIEGO DE SAN VITORES
Priest, Martyr
October 6

Đọc Tiếng Việt

Diego Luis de San Vitores, Apostle of the Marianas, was born of a noble family in Burgos, Spain, on November 12, 1627. On July 25, 1640, not yet 13 years old, he entered the Society after overcoming his family's opposition. (Originally named Diego Jerónimo, he renamed himself Diego Luis, after St Aloysius, whom he admired.)

Diego was ordained on December 23, 1651, and longed for the missions of China or Japan, but his first assignments were to teaching. In 1659 he was finally missioned abroad, but to the Philippines. He left Spain for Mexico City in 1660 and worked there in parishes, preaching in the streets and visiting hospitals until able to get a ship bound for the Philippines in 1662.

Arriving in Manila on July 10, he spent 3 months studying Tagalog, then served as novice master and later as dean of studies at the university, while also engaging in missionary work in outlying areas. His great desire, however, was to evangelize the Ladrones Islands ("Islands of Thieves"), where his ship had stopped off on its way to Manila. In 1664 he wrote a letter to King Philip IV of Spain encouraging the king to open a mission there. The king approved and Fr San Vitores was asked to head it.

In 1667 Diego first traveled back to Mexico City to receive the royal authorization and subsidy from the viceroy. Crossing the ocean again with 5 other Jesuits, ha landed on Guam June 16, 1668. (That year the islands were renamed the Marianas in honor of Queen Mariana of Austria, who sponsored the mission after Philip IV's death in 1665.)

Diego already knew the language, and a shipwrecked Spaniard who had been living on Guam for 30 years facilitated access to the chief of Agaña, where the Jesuits made their headquarters. The chief was one of his first converts and the mission flourished with 13,000 baptisms in 6 months. San Vitores also evangelized the large islands of Saipan and Tinian, while others went to the smaller islands.

In 1670, Fr Luis de Medina was killed on Saipan, the first Jesuit martyr of the Marianas. Fr San Vitores's turn came on April 2, 1672. On entering the village of Tumon with a lay companion, he heard cries of a newborn baby in the hut of Matapang, who had been one of his converts. When Diego offered to baptize the baby, Matapang threatened to kill him and went off to seek the help of a friend named Hirao. Meanwhile, the mother was afraid the baby might die, so Diego baptized it. On his return Matapang thrust a spear into the layman's chest, while Hirao split Diego's head down to neck with a cutlass. Both bodies were taken out by canoe and dumped into the sea.

Diego Luis de San Vitores was beautified by Pope John Paul II on October 6, 1985.

"He worked tirelessly at the first evangelization of the Marianas, undaunted by calamities and the violent deaths of some of his companions. As Superior he also gave himself unselfishly to taking care of the needs of his brothers and comforting them in the difficult situations in which they had to live." (P-H. Kolvenbach, AR XIX [1985] 320).

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