St. Peter Faber COLLECTION (M 051)

For a man credited with many firsts and one of its three co-founders, St. Peter Faber (1506-1546) is not terribly well known outside Jesuit circles. At first, he was sole college roommate of St. Francis Xavier at the University of Paris. The men were later joined by St. Ignatius Loyola, a former soldier who was fifteen years their senior. St. Peter was St. Ignatius’s first recruit to his nascent Society of Jesus (Jesuits) embracing the Spiritual Exercises; St. Francis, who was intent on an academic career, proved a tougher sell. St. Peter was the first Jesuit priest, being ordained on 30 May 1534. As such, he celebrated the Mass at Monmartre in the underground Chapel of the Martyrs on 15 August later that year during which the first Jesuits took their religious vows. (It is his role as priest that is emphasized in the image here: St. Peter is dressed for Mass in a red chasuble and is about to distribute Holy Communion. The red chasuble, however, is an example of artistic license: the liturgical color of vestment for the Feast of the Assumption is and was white. The Saint’s facial features conform to contemporary portraits and his pose to several engravings and paintings that memorialize the event.) After Loyola himself, Faber was the most esteemed of the early Jesuits especially in spiritual matters. After the congregation was placed at the disposal of the Pope and its Rule confirmed six years later in 1540, St. Peter tirelessly crisscrossed Europe on foot preaching and teaching in Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Spain as a kind of ‘home’ missionary if you will. His writings exhibit a deep devotion to the angels and the saints. Brought down by a fever and worn out from his labors, St. Peter died in Rome on 1 August 1546, reportedly in the arms of St. Ignatius himself. On 17 December 2013, Pope Francis declared Peter Faber a saint by a process known as ‘equipollent canonization’, a process that dispenses with standard procedures and ceremonies in the case of someone long venerated. St. Peter Faber is the Pope’s favorite Jesuit. + Feast: August 1 (August 2 among the Jesuits)