| VEN. LUIS DE LAPUENTE (ALSO, D'APONTE, DE PONTE, DUPONT). |
| Born at Valladolid, 11 November, 1554; died there, 16 February 1624.
Having entered the Society of Jesus, he studied under the celebrated Suarez, and
professed philosophy at Salamanca. Endowed with exceptional talents for
government and the formation of young religious, he was forced by impaired
health to retire from offices which he had filled with distinction and general
satisfaction. The years that followed were devoted to literary composition.
Though not reckoned among Spanish classics, his works are so replete with
practical spirituality that they claim for him a place among the most eminent
masters of asceticism. Ordained priest in 1580, he became the spiritual director
of the celebrated Marina de Escobar, in which office he continued till his
death. In 1599 he devoted himself with great charity to the care of the
plague-stricken in Villagarcia. Of remarkable innocence of life, he not only
avoided all grievous sin, but bound himself by vow, some years before his death,
to avoid as far as human weakness permitted even venial faults. Besides a
mystical commentary in Latin on the Canticle of Canticles, he wrote in Spanish:
" Life of Father Baltasar Alvarez"; "Life of Marina de
Escobar"; "Spiritual Directory for Confession, Communion and the
Sacrifice of the Mass"; "The Christian Life" (4 vols.), and
"Meditations on the Mysteries of Our Holy Faith", by which he is best
known to English readers. This last work has been translated into ten languages,
including Arabic. A few years after his death, the Sacred Congregation of Rites
admitted the cause of his beatification and canonization.
Henry J. Swift From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright © 1913 by the Encyclopedia Press,
Inc. Electronic version copyright © 1996 by New Advent, Inc. |
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