Peter Faber, SJ (, ) (13 April 1506 – 1 August 1546) was a Savoyard Catholic priest, theologian and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, along with Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. Pope Francis announced his canonization in 2013.

Life

Early life

Faber was born in 1506 to a peasant family in the village of Villaret, in the Duchy of Savoy (now Saint-Jean-de-Sixt in the French Department of Haute-Savoie). As a boy, he was a shepherd in the high pastures of the French Alps. He had little education, but a remarkable memory; he could hear a sermon in the morning and then repeat it verbatim in the afternoon for his friends. At first, he was entrusted to the care of a priest at Thônes and later to a school in the neighboring village of La Roche-sur-Foron.

In 1525, Faber went to Paris to pursue his studies. He was admitted to the Collège Sainte-Barbe, the oldest school in the University of Paris, where he shared his lodgings with Francis Xavier. Xavier, Faber, and Loyola all became roommates at the University of Paris and are all recognized by the Jesuits as founders of the Society of Jesus.

Jesuit preacher

thumb|upright|Saint Peter Faber, S.J.

Faber was the first among the small circle of men who formed the Society of Jesus to be ordained. Having become a priest on 30 May 1534, he received the religious vows of Ignatius and his five companions at Montmartre on 15 August.

Upon graduation, Ignatius returned to Spain for a period of convalescence, after instructing his companions to meet in Venice and charging Faber with conducting them there. Leaving Paris on 15 November 1536, Faber and his companions rejoined Loyola at Venice in January 1537. When war between Venice and the Turks prevented them from evangelizing the Holy Land as they planned, Faber possessed the gift of friendship to a remarkable degree. He was famous not for his preaching, but for his engaging conversations and his guidance of souls. He crisscrossed Europe on foot, guiding bishops, priests, nobles, and common people alike in the Spiritual Exercises.

As a lone Jesuit often on the move, Faber never felt alone because he walked in a world whose denizens included saints and angels. He would ask the saint of the day and all the saints "to obtain for us not only virtues and salvation for our spirits but in particular whatever can strengthen, heal, and preserve the body and each of its parts". His guardian angel, above all, became his chief ally. He sought support from the saints and angels both for his personal sanctification and in his evangelization of communities. Whenever he entered a new town or region, Faber implored the aid of the particular angels and saints associated with that place. Through the intercession of his allies, Faber could enter even a potentially hostile region assured of a spiritual army at his side. As he desired to bring each person he met to a closer relationship through spiritual friendship and conversation, he would invoke the intercession of the person's guardian angel.

Called to Spain by Loyola, he visited Barcelona, Zaragoza, Medinaceli, Madrid, and Toledo. Faber's body was initially buried at the Church of Our Lady of the Way, which served as a center for the Jesuit community. When that church was demolished to allow for the construction of the Church of the Gesù, his remains and those of others among the first Jesuits were exhumed. He used a process known as equipollent canonization, which dispenses with the standard judicial procedures and ceremonies in the case of someone long venerated. Faber is regarded as one of Pope Francis' favorite saints. A few weeks earlier, Francis had praised Faber's "dialogue with all, even the most remote and even with his opponents; his simple piety, a certain naïveté perhaps, his being available straightaway, his careful interior discernment, the fact that he was a man capable of great and strong decisions but also capable of being so gentle and loving". Francis gave further thanks for Faber's canonization when he celebrated Mass in Rome on 3 January 2014, at the Church of the Gesù, and made reference to him in a list of Jesuit priests associated with devotion to the Sacred Heart in his 2024 encyclical letter on this subject, Dilexit nos.

Legacy

The Saint Peter Faber Jesuit Community at Boston College is a residence for Jesuits in formation.

Creighton University confers the Blessed Peter Faber Integrity Award on a student, faculty or staff member who is involved in activities that promote integrity, social justice, peace, and religious, racial, and cultural harmony and is able to inspire and lead others to distill their values and integrity.

Saint Peter Faber House at Gonzaga University is an extension of the University Ministry office reserved for preparing retreats and further developing University Ministry programs.

The Faber Center for Ignatian Spirituality was adopted as a ministry of Marquette University in November 2005.

The Peter Faber Chapel serves as the central space for the University of Scranton's Retreat Center at Chapman Lake, about 30 minutes north of Scranton, PA.

The St. Peter Faber conference room in Loyola Hall at Manresa House of Retreats, Convent, Louisiana, is the location where men on retreat are directed through the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola

The School of Business at Australian Catholic University is known as the Peter Faber School of Business.

Faber Hall at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York, is a residence hall and administrative building.

It was announced in Publishers Weekly on 26 October 2016 that Loyola Press has contracted Jon M. Sweeney, the author of The Pope Who Quit and other historical books, to write a new narrative life of Saint Peter Faber.

References

Sources

  • William V. Bangert, To the Other Towns: A Life of Blessed Peter Favre, First Companion of St. Ignatius Loyola (Ignatius Press, 2002)
  • Encyclopædia Britannica, Peter Faber
  • Pope Francis on Peter Faber, August 2013
  • Giuseppe Boero, The Life of the Blesed Peter Favre of the Society of Jesus, First Companion of St. Ignatius Loyola (London: Burns and Gates, 1873)