Saint Peter Faber

Saint Peter Faber was a priest from Savoy, the first companion of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and the first priest in the group from which the Society of Jesus grew. He crossed Europe, often on foot, preaching the Gospel and guiding people through the Spiritual Exercises. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on August 1, the day of his death.

He was born on April 13, 1506, at Villaret in Savoy, into a well-to-do peasant family. As a boy he tended his father’s sheep, but he longed to study and began attending school in Thônes and later in La Roche. In 1525 he left for Paris to study. At the College of Sainte-Barbe he shared a room with Francis Xavier, and soon Ignatius of Loyola joined them; at Ignatius’s side Peter found his vocation.

On May 30, 1534, he was ordained a priest. On August 15 of that year, at Montmartre, he celebrated the Mass during which he made vows together with Ignatius and five other companions. When Ignatius left for Spain, Peter was the guide and confessor of the group in Paris, and in 1536 he led it to Venice. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land proved impossible, so in 1538 the companions placed themselves at the disposal of Pope Paul III, who entrusted Peter with teaching Sacred Scripture at the Sapienza University in Rome.

From 1539 onward he traveled constantly at the pope’s command. In Parma he preached, served the poor and the sick, and founded the Confraternity of the Name of Jesus. In 1540 he was sent to Germany for the religious talks at Worms and then to the imperial diet at Regensburg. He concluded that the division would be healed not by disputes but by the renewal of the life of the clergy and the faithful. He worked in Speyer, Mainz, and Cologne; in Mainz in 1543 he gave the Spiritual Exercises to the young Peter Canisius, who soon entered the Jesuits. He was also active in Spain and Portugal. From 1542 he kept a spiritual diary known as the Memoriale.

Benedict XVI called him a modest, sensitive man with a profound inner life, who had the gift of making friends with people from every walk of life. Pope Francis admired in him his simple piety, his careful discernment, and his readiness to dialogue with everyone, even the most remote and his opponents. He said that Peter was capable of great decisions and at the same time was gentle and loving.

In 1546 the pope summoned him as a theologian to the Council of Trent. In July Peter arrived in Rome, worn out by work and illness, and he died there on August 1, 1546, at the age of forty. His remains were later moved to the Church of the Gesù, where they can no longer be identified in the common tomb.

Pius IX confirmed his cult on September 5, 1872, which amounted to beatification. On December 17, 2013, Pope Francis extended this cult to the whole Church and inscribed him in the catalogue of saints by equivalent canonization, and on January 3, 2014, he celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in the Church of the Gesù.