Jesuit Center of Ignatian Spirituality, Malta

Blessed Favre is the least known of the three Jesuit saints whose anniversaries we are commemorating this year. In fact probably most people have never even heard about him. A pity, because he is a lovable character, and has a message for us today. If I were to summarize this message I would describe it as follows: Favre was a very interior man, in close touch with the Holy Spirit working in him, and with his great capacity to love others. He was a first-class Jesuit as far as accompanying others on their journey to God, and helping them in their discernment.

Favre was by nature a very introspective person. Perhaps because of this, he fell victim to scruples when he was a student at the Sorbonne. With Ignatius’ expert direction, he was able to overcome them, though he remained meticulous all his life, and was also prone to depression.

This introspective element had a positive aspect: he was very attentive to his feelings and, applying the rules for discernment which Ignatius taught him, he could interpret which of these feelings were inspired by the Holy Spirit. During the last years of his life he used to take meticulous notes of these feelings, and so, in his Memorial we have a window into the secrets of his heart: his struggles, his triumphs, the graces with which he was blessed. We also have a good model of making discernment of spirits in our everyday life.

His temperament, his sense of inferiority, and his bouts of depression caused him many sufferings. “I was very sad and afflicted to realize that of all my contemporaries I was by far the one who succeeded the least.” Yet others had a high esteem of him. Francis Xavier, his best friend together with Ignatius, had great trust in his capacity to discern, so that he used to send him persons from whom he expected great things, to make the spiritual exercises under his direction. And when he heard of his death, Xavier used to call him “Saint and Blessed”, even attributing a miracle to his intercession, namely the fact that he escaped death in a terrible tempest on his return from Malacca.

But Favre also learned how to profit by his depressive moods to grow in grace. A touching example is related in his entry after the first of three Christmas masses. “At the first Mass, when I was feeling cold before Communion and was grieved that my dwelling was not better prepared, there came to me a somewhat lively spiritual movement. In it I received this answer accompanied by an interior feeling of devotion that moved me to tears. ‘This is what the coming of Christ into a stable means. If you were already very fervent, you would not see here the humanity of your Lord because spiritually you would correspond less to what is called a stable’. So I felt consoled in the Lord, since he condescended to enter such a cheerless habitation. For myself I wished it could have been better adorned so that I might find consolation in that, but I saw how our Lord was housed, and that consoled me.” [Memorial 197]

Similarly, on Passion Sunday he reflected how his bad moods somehow could serve as a share in the passion of Our Lord. So Favre could turn to advantage feelings that would otherwise have remained sterile and discouraging.

Like Ignatius and Xavier, Pierre had a great capacity for love. Though separated from one another by enormous distances, their love for each other never diminished. Pierre’s love embraced not only Jesuit companions. He had a great love for the Carthusians, and in fact was greatly influenced by them. His love embraced even Reformers who were wreaking havoc in the Church: we find him often praying for them. (Favre had the habit of praying to the angel guardians of these people, knowing that God had entrusted them to their care and protection.). Jeronimo Nadal, another prominent Jesuit of the first generation, wrote: “Especially in spiritual conversation he exercised a deep and strong influence. Every person who came into contact with him, though he showed no interest in spiritual things whatsoever, finally changed his attitude. Father Ignatius used to say: ‘Peter can strike water off a rock’”

During the few years between the foundation of the Company (1539) and his death (1546) Favre did not have a single permanent assignment. He was given missions which were usually interrupted almost as soon as they began - which was not easy for him. As he wrote to the Jesuit young priests in Coimbra, we have to practice blind obedience, and be ready, even while carrying out a mission given by obedience, to move on as soon as we are told to. This advice certainly came from his own painful experience.

As soon as he arrived in a place, he would start helping people in doing the spiritual exercises in daily life. Usually he would seek out influential people, so that they would have a multiplying effect. For example, when the Pope ordered him to be at the disposal of the Papal nuncio Cardinal Marrone at the Diet of Speyer in 1542, we read that the day after his arrival he began giving the exercises to his two Spanish court chaplains, the vicar general of Speyer, the dome choir-master and subsequently Cardinal Otto Truchsess.

I gather that in the last seven years of his life he had at least 8 different missions. But even though he felt to be a failure, and, it seems also disappointed that he could never finish a job, he made so many contacts and touched the lives of so many people, especially with his spiritual exercises and his spiritual guidance, that he certainly did a lot of good in the Church, not least by letting God shine out clearly onto others because of his openness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Especially for those who accompany others on their journey to God, Pierre Favre can be an excellent guide and example. His Memorial is a good commentary on Ignatius’ rules of discernment. Unfortunately, it does not make for easy reading, but those who can go through it (or at least, parts of it), might find it worth while the effort and time spent on it.

Questions to Ponder upon

Do you know what “Spiritual Exercises in daily life” mean?
What is individual spiritual direction?
Is there any need for it?
Do you know what “spiritual discernment” is?
Are you attentive enough to what goes on in your interior self?
How can introspection be a prayer not simply an egocentric look at myself?