The Peter Faber Project

Are you self-critical? Naïve? Sometimes depressed? He’s your guy.

Peter Faber, SJ. 1506-1546

In sports, a gifted but seriously flawed young player is often called a “project.”  That’s the point guard prone to turnovers, the wide receiver who drops too many passes, the talented pitcher with control problems.  It’s the coach’s job to unlock the player’s potential.  It’s a “project,” calling for patience, a long-term perspective, lots of practice, many failures, and a keen sense of when to correct and when to encourage.

Peter Faber was one of Ignatius’s projects.  Faber was a brilliant but introspective and timid young man prone to self-doubts and bouts of depression when Ignatius moved into his boarding house at the University of Paris in 1530.  In the roommate lottery, Faber hit the jackpot.  Ignatius took him under his wing and helped him find his way to serve God.  Faber became a founder of the Jesuits and a great preacher and reformer.  He was beloved.   He’s the Jesuit that other early Jesuits esteemed the most after Ignatius himself. 

Faber never got entirely free of his depressive tendencies. In fact his aptitude for self-criticism became one of his strengths.  “Be most prompt to accuse yourself of your own defects,” he wrote.  He did so readily, and publicly.

One day he spent six hours waiting for a young man to show up for an appointment. He became quite annoyed; the guy had already missed two appointments. Faber felt disrespected. His valuable time was being wasted. Then the Lord reminded Faber of a couple of things. “You, Peter, have calmly waited hour after hour for great noblemen and princes to see you. You didn’t complain. You looked forward to the favors you were likely to receive.” The Lord went on, “How often have you made me wait for you? I stand next to you, ready to speak, ready to love you, and you are busy with other matters. You don’t want me to be annoyed. So treat this young man as I treat you, with compassion, and understanding, and patience.”

Another time he grew annoyed by the work he was doing in the household of a nobleman. He was spending most of his time with the servants and children; he thought he should be doing something more “important.” Faber saw the pride in this attitude. He saw that hearing the confessions of servants was just as important as counseling princes, and he decided he could be satisfied spending the rest of his life with the lowly ones. He didn’t; he counseled the rich and famous, the movers and shakers, but he kept company with the inn keepers and servants and tradesmen as well. He wrote: “God is certainly ready to esteem more highly the labor you have devoted to one utterly forsaken man than anything you will have done for the emperor.”

Faber was allergic to judging others.  One of his friends, a monk named Gerhard Kalkbrenner, said Faber had “no wish to have zeal for the execution of God’s justice.”  He would rather offer excuses for other people’s sins than to dwell on them, and he would “bring to God’s attention any good he may have observed in the persons.”

Faber deplored the rancor and bitterness he saw in relations between Catholics and Protestants.  He said, “if we want to be of help to our opponents, we must be careful to regard them with love, and to banish from our own souls any thought that might lessen our love and esteem for them.” Faber was talking about Protestants; sixteenth-century Catholics were supposed to fear and hate them. Yet Faber was saying that his fellow Catholics needed to regard them with love.

What’s the contemporary equivalent? Terrorists, muggers, rapists? How about crooked competitors: people who cheat and lie and bully? Maybe start with something easier, like politicians you loathe. Faber says: Treat them with genuine respect and love. You can’t fake this kind of love; it’s not just being polite when you want to throttle the person you’re talking to. It’s real love that has to come from the heart.  

When he declared Faber a saint in 2013, Pope Francis mentioned “a certain naïveté perhaps.” Perhaps.  Francis also cited Faber’s "dialogue with all, even the most remote and even with his opponents; his simple piety, 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.”

Are you looking for a motto for your T-shirt?  Here’s one from Faber: Everywhere there is good to be done.

Here’s another: Always serve Christ the Lord with gladness.