Once Spain opened international history discovering the New World and filled it with its life and its institutions, not content with that, but its businessmen filled with discovery, conquest and missionary spirit looked up plus ultra (beyond) since no needlessly had broken the myth of the non plus ultra classic (not beyond). Tended the light in the same direction as Christopher Columbus, to the Land of spices, the glamorous world of China and Japan, and the "Islands of the West"
And their irresistible desire led them there, and took possession of a great number of islands, which they called the Philippines. Mexico, then New Spain, was in the middle of the road, between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, linking Spain to the west (the current eastern).
Fray Andres de Urdaneta, religious dweller of the Royal Convent of St. Augustine and the court of Mexico, was a mastermind and the ecclesiastical arm of the enterprise undertaken in November 1564 to take possession of the "Islands of the West" on behalf of King Philip II of Spain. With the trip, the "return voyage" and the possession of the islands, the "real consciousness" was taxed more. Therefore, from Fray Urdaneta's first expedition the barefoot Augustinian religious hermits, his brothers in religion, undertook the Christian evangelization of those countries.
But as the king understood that their responsibility was huge, he encouraged it by sending more and more missionary religious orders. In Monsoon, on September 5, 1585 he passed the Act XXV of Title XIV of the Laws of the Indies: "We commission the provincials not to stop or prevent the journey of the religious that with license wish to continue the conversion and doctrine Philippine Islanders." And in just proportion the king paid the expenses of transportation, handling and donated ornaments, chalices, and provided the wine for the Mass, and the oil lamp of the Blessed Sacrament the missionaries needed.
Towards 1577 the barefooted Franciscans went there, then the Jesuits, and right after the Dominicans, before the end of the sixteenth century. And at the start of the XVII century the Augustinian recollect barefoot. To these religious families must be added the secular clergy and people with "missionary spirit". The Carmelite scrambled to go, but could not.
Although later the prevailing view was to settle in the Philippines, even without getting to mission with great success in China, Japan and Oceania, at the beginning all of them went over there with the intention of opening the door to the east. The Jesuits, for example, considered it "an enterprise as worthy as the Society of Jesus".
To the natives of New Spain and the Spanish-born children in her (Creoles) were considered "soft in the faith" Catholic and possessed of a weak spirit that does not conform with the vigor of an enterprise of such magnitude as to evangelize so far and strange lands. It was thought that they had no "spirit of mission." There was the common idea that missionaries were only original Spaniards. This does not prevent some "novohispanos" from going, but the ordinary was from the reserve. This statement supports two points: 1) The Society of Jesus was certainly on or maybe the most open order with the most adventurous spirit, however, it came to take command of it, like the case of Father Claudio Aquaviva, in a letter dated Rome, 22 March 1603, that quoted this: "Let them not send any born in New Spain to the Philippines", 2) If the missions or "boats" or missionary groups were formed in Mexico, there would be no reason for founding missionaries hospices or hospices. It is logical that they were to house those who came from Spain.
In order to illustrate the ongoing process of a missionary in the Philippines, we can see the case of Father Francisco Colin (1592-1660). In 1623, while at Zaragoza in Spain, he asked for a license to the General of the Society of Jesus, Father Mutius Vitelleschi, to go to the Philippines and he granted it. Undoubtedly, also got permission from the king. In 1625 he went to Madrid and Seville for its purpose. On 18 July of that year he embarked at Cadiz with 25 other classmates. They arrived in Mexico on the 26th of October and were five months on this land. On March 26 of 1626 they sailed from Acapulco to the Philippines, the second part of the journey lasted three months, but sometimes it was stretched and even disastrous. On June 18th they came to the Islands and he left at once to assume the office of superior of the residence of the "beautiful island".
Consequently, the route of the missionaries needed accommodation, at least in southern Spain (Seville, Cadiz, Puerto de Santa Maria) in the Caribbean or the central coast of Mexico (Havana and Veracruz) and the coast on the Pacific Ocean (Acapulco). In this trajectory Mexico was a capital stage and hospices established here served among other things: 1) For the missionaries not to scatter in homes and monasteries, causing inconvenience to the orders and loading them with expenses or altering their community lives or their own, as the number of components of the "boatloads" varied, it could be twelve, fifteen, twenty, thirty or forty missionaries. 2) For the missionaries to rest from their long and painful transatlantic voyage, if they came alive; for them to revive their "missionary spirit" through life in community, for them to learn about the lands they were going to, in the meantime in the hospice lived religious people who had been there before; to prepare for another trip longer and more painful; and so if they repented they could return to Spain, but not stay in Mexico.
The last point of the set was very attended, in that the country enjoyed the praises sung by Bernardo de Balbuena in The Greatness of Mexico and therefore exposed the missionary to disorientation or getting lost, as he could be attracted, says a chronicler, "by the amenity of the Mexican sky or its sun" or be seduced, he wrote another, by "the attractions and incentives offered by the climate and customs of New Spain."
The care was not for naught, as the commissioner of an order came to the excess of "stealing" a missionary of another religious family in order to increase the number of missionaries in his "boat".
Passing by Mexican land, from Veracruz to Acapulco, stopping at the city and court of Mexico, was really tempting. So the barefoot Franciscans or Diegans took advantage of the evils by building convents in Puebla, Mexico, Cuernavaca, Taxco and Acapulco, but without voicing their intentions and "running" with the voice, and as a hospice for the barefoot, that passed on to the Philippines. It was with this muffler they were able to form the Province of San Diego de Mexico, "daughter" of the one of St. Gregory of the Philippines, so New Spain gave, provided and helped in training the Philippines and even received it back, including institutions.
The missions that were bound for the east were like an army of several forces of Catholic Spain, that had hospices in Mexico designed to support their business.
Hospices for missionaries of eastern Mexico form precious links of a chain stretched from Spain, who tied with great force Mexico to the Philippines and through them the entire east. For this to happen the continued parade of hundreds of men during centuries who gave their lives sometimes in very heroic ways and that lifted a gigantic cultural communication bridge with their attitudes, leaving as a sign of it hospices, which in the case of Mexico are true landmarks and artwork, although criminally butchered, by their nature and purposes they are part of the national treasure and therefore became the center for the study of languages and great economic movement, as it is logical that to support them this was very necessary.
In summary, these hospices are a great portion of the historic, religious and artistic heritage of the New World. They are distinguished by their uniqueness since there weren't many. But their main essence is found it in the declared intention of the Catholic Spain of the Golden Age, whom in reference to the east, was looking for that A solis usque ad occasum ortu Laudet nomen Domini (From sunrise to sunset be praised the name of the Lord).
SOURCE: ITAM LIBRARY, ESTUDIOS. filosofía-historia-letrasOtoño 1986 ALFONSO MARTINEZ. Hospicios de Nueva España para misioneros del Oriente
