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| After the October 12, 1897 typhoon. The walls of the façade, two meters thick, partly collapsed and the roof of the church was torn off by the force of the wind. The entire church is filled with debris. The nipa hut next to the convent is the temporary church constructed three days after the catastrophe. |
After
the visit of Jesuit Vice-Provincial Diego Garcia to the mission, he remarked
that the missionaries cheerfully endured the difficulties and privations in so
far as food, lodging and medical care was concerned. He told Gov. Tello when he returned to
Manila, that he had lived in five provinces of the Society both in Europe and
America, but in none of them had he seen such poverty as in the Leyte missions.
The 16 Jesuits stationed there had no other means of support except the 800
pesos and 800 fanegas[i]
of rice given them as their annual stipend by the encomenderos, for in
accordance with the policy of the Society they accepted no fees whatever for
Masses, marriages and burials. Out of this income they had managed to feed and
clothe themselves, build and furnish their houses, pay and feed the bearers and
rowers when they went about on their missionary expeditions, and support the
dozen or so boys who lived with them in each house and were being trained as
catechists.[ii]
However,
the love of God and the zeal for souls have often been able to impart a
surprising elasticity to the most tenuous of means, and so it was in this case.
It was surely an echo of what the missionaries themselves told Garcia when he
added in his report to the general that
‘…these
hardships are not really as formidable as they appear. The climate is hot but
healthy, provided one lives temperately; the poisonous vermin rarely do harm to
Europeans; and a readiness to rough it makes the difficulties of travel, the
dangers at sea, the unpalatable food and the poor lodgings bearable. Without
this readiness, of course, those who are sent here will hate this kind of
life.’
The
‘residencia’
Having
completed his tour of inspection, Garcia summoned all the missionaries of Leyte
to a conference in Palo. The conference began on 6 January 1600 with 26 Jesuits
attending, lasting for almost a month during which daily meetings were held.
Garcia began by promulgating the decrees of the fifth general congregation and
commenting on the more recent ordinances of the fathers general. He then announced
an important communication which had recently been received from Rome. The
Jesuit Fr. General Aquaviva was worried that that the missionaries might have
spread themselves too thinly over a wide territory, a concern Chirino had
express in his letters. In particular,
Garcia questioned the wisdom of assigning Jesuits in small groups of two
or three to isolated mission stations, thus depriving them of the safeguards of
community life. So he directed that no new mission stations be opened for the
time being, and that the missionaries in
existing stations be withdrawn to a few central residences, each of which
should consist of not less than six members. The towns deprived of a resident
priest could be taken care of from the central residence by the missionaries
going out in pairs at regular intervals on a circuit of the surrounding
district. Hence the birth of the residencia.[iii]
[i]
In the
old system of Spanish measures, 1 fanega was divided into 12 celemines and is
equivalent to 56.4 litres. This last equivalence varied from place to place but
was generally of between 53 and 56 litres for most provinces.[ http://www.historiaviva.org/cocina/medidas_v2-ing.shtml]
[ii]
Op cit, de la Costa, p 182
[iii]
Ibid, p. 183
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