Meet Saint Francis Solano, a man who possessed the gift of spreading joy and converting crowds.
Newsdesk (24/07/2022 20:15, Gaudium Press) Francisco Sánchez Solano Ximénez was born in the Catholic Spain of the great overseas expeditions and was baptised on 10 March 1549 in the Parish Church of Montilla. His parents, Mateo Sánchez Solano and Ana Ximénez, were highly respected, not only for their noble blood, but above all for their virtues.
Gifted with a recollected and contemplative temperament, he used to amuse himself by observing nature at length, enchanted by its beauty. Due to a rare musical sensibility, his favourite pastime was feeding the melodious birds found in the gardens of the house with crumbs and singing with them. He thus began to “train himself a voice that would sing of God’s greatness to the barbarous indigenous nations”.
However, such serenity of spirit did not mean indolence of character. Whenever he saw any disagreement among the children, or even between adults, he would seriously admonish the contenders and always succeeded in reconciliation. He had a singular influence on the people with whom he lived: his presence was enough to quiet bad inclinations, vices lost their dynamism and souls felt inclined to virtue.
Franciscan Priest
When he felt the religious vocation in his soul, he immediately identified it with the Franciscan charism, which he had seen mirrored in the friars of the Convent of San Lorenzo in his city. He was greatly attracted by the idea of becoming a disciple of the Poverello of Assisi, for whom he nurtured a lively enthusiasm. He made his religious profession in that convent on 25 April 1570.
To deepen his studies he was sent to the Convent of St Mary of Loreto. Ordained a priest in 1576, on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, he had to return to Montilla three years later due to the death of his father. During his stay in his hometown, he performed miraculous cures on some sick people. The news of these miracles soon spread through the town, leading the people to acclaim him as a saint. Then began one of his greatest battles, which he fought to the last breath: not to allow himself to be attributed the praises due to God.
The gift of communicating joy
He held positions of authority in various convents, as prior and master of novices, and was a constant invitation to holiness for the other religious. Very faithful to “Lady Poverty” and an enraptured admirer of the reflections of the divine perfections found in creatures, he acted in all circumstances like a perfect son of St. Francis of Assisi. Just as he was uncompromising with himself in his corporal penances, he would not tolerate any of his subordinates showing sadness for serving God. He had the precious gift of communicating to them “the taste, the joy of holy things” and he did the apostolate “of joy in struggle, of joy in seriousness, of joy in suffering, of enthusiasm”.
The people perceived the excellence of these virtues, so that when the holy friar went out into the street to beg for alms, the passers-by surrounded him, vying for the privilege of touching his habit or receiving his blessing.
In order to get rid of these demonstrations, he asked to go and evangelize the “Indies”. He was delighted to be assigned to a mission in the province of Tucumán, in the New World, where he embarked on 13 March 1589.
However, due to a shipwreck and other setbacks, he landed some months later in Paita, Peru, and only arrived in Santiago del Estero, capital of the province to which he was destined, on 15 November 1590, after a long and arduous journey, beginning his life as a missionary at the age of 41.
Apostle in the New World
In the towns of Socotonio and Magdalena, where he was sent as a preacher, he learned the complicated dialect Tonocoté in less than a fortnight. He spoke it with impressive fluency, expressing himself more perfectly than many natives. In addition to this facility, Providence gave him the same gift that was given to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost: in some of his sermons, speaking to Spaniards and Indians of different dialects, everyone understood him, each one in his own language.
Nothing stopped him from winning souls for Christ. He exposed himself to great risks, going in search of the natives who lived in the forests and, either to nourish their faith or to help them in their material needs, he worked miracles wherever he went. Among countless other prodigies, he made springs spring up in desert places, tamed ferocious animals, cured the sick, provided food in times of scarcity.
However, without the shadow of a doubt, his greatest miracles were those that took place within souls: “Father Solano loved the Indians, he spoke to them in their language and they responded, converting by the thousands”.
His unique instrument of piety and apostolate, the violin, was an inseparable complement of an original and effective method of evangelization, which consisted in interspersing his preaching with lively melodies, sometimes played with bow and strings, sometimes sung with his beautiful voice.
Overwhelmed, the natives opened themselves to the action of grace and soon the corollary awaited by the apostle emerged: the desire to receive Baptism. The same voice that had attracted them through the art of music and taught them the truths of the Faith, fulfilled the highest of its purposes by administering the Sacraments. Thus the precious talents entrusted to the good and faithful servant yielded a hundredfold, and gradually the light of the Church spread throughout the region, overcoming the darkness of paganism.
After years of fruitful apostolate, he received the order in 1595 to go to Lima and found a new Franciscan convent there. Always docile to his superiors, he promptly obeyed.
“I am going to play for a very beautiful damsel”
The capital of Peru was experiencing a great religious flowering and those years saw the blossoming of souls who would later be venerated throughout the world: Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo, Saint Rose, Saint Martin de Porres and Saint John Macias.
The newly built cloisters of the new Franciscan foundation, christened with the name of Our Lady of the Angels and today known as the Convent of the Discalced, became the home of this chosen one. There Father Francisco Solano would deepen his union with God. Without neglecting his duties and apostolic works, the saint lived a life of recollection and prayer in this blessed place, where his ecstasies and raptures of love for Jesus and the Blessed Virgin intensified and became ever more frequent.
Often, late at night, music played by him on the violin would resound in the deserted church. Once he said to a religious man he met in the corridor on his way there: “I’m going to play for a very beautiful maiden who is waiting for me”.
The friar, intrigued, hid himself behind the sacristy door the next evening and was able to contemplate this scene: after praying for a long time before the high altar, the friar violinist offered a brief, lively concert to the Eucharistic Jesus; he then went to the altar of Our Lady and there not only played other music, but, while singing an enthusiastic hymn to the glories of the Virgin Mother, he began to leap and dance with great grace and elegance.
In fact, it was at the feet of the “Cause of our Joy” that the holy Franciscan found comfort in his sufferings and strength to practice virtue, as he himself confided: “In this house I have my entertainments and all my consolation, because I communicate to a Lady who is the relief of my sorrows, the joy and glory of my soul”.
An Historic Sermon in Lima
The population of Lima, where he spent the last years of his life, was the object of his apostolic zeal, which was manifested above all in his preaching. These, so effective in converting thousands of Indians, had no less significant effect on the people of Lima.
The history of that country records the sermon he delivered on the 21st of December 1604, which gave the city an analogy with the biblical Nineveh, moved to penance by the words of the prophet Jonah. To the crowd gathered in the Plaza de Armas, the holy friar exhorted repentance and conversion, censuring bad habits and recalling the justice of God, who often punishes men with catastrophes in order to correct and save them.
The sermon had a deep impact on souls. The churches had to remain open all night because of the huge crowd of the faithful seeking reconciliation with God. In the cathedral, “such was the number of people eager to go to confession that three or four penitents knelt at the confessors’ feet at the same time, without caring that some heard the faults of others.
A great number of the inhabitants abandoned their bad habits forever, proving how much the effect of that sermon was not an ephemeral outburst of fervour.
The Promise of a Great Future
At the news of his death on the 14 of July 1610, the people flocked to the monastery, and it was necessary to change his habit four times, because the people, not content with just touching his hands and feet, cut off pieces of his clothing to keep as relics.
A man capable of moving multitudes to conversion and of being moved by the song of a bird, gifted with a highly contemplative spirit and at the same time a promoter of daring missionary activity, Saint Francis Solano has left an example of a life that spans the centuries, like a promise of a great future for America.
If Providence wanted to send us an apostle of such magnificence to sow the first seeds of the Gospel in these lands, how many other souls of equal or greater stature would She not raise up in the bosom of the New World in the centuries to come to continue the work so brilliantly begun?
Text extracted, with adaptations, from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel, n. 127, Jul 2012.
Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
