José de Anchieta
1534-1597 16th century Feast day: June 9
Learning the language of those you are sent to; writing where there is no paper.
Who was José de Anchieta?
Born in the Canaries, a Jesuit sent to Brazil at nineteen, he learned Tupi, wrote its first grammar, and with his companions founded the villages that became São Paulo and Rio. A voluntary hostage for five months among the Tamoio to secure a peace, he composed on the sand of the beach a long Latin poem he then kept by heart. His life also belongs to the colonial enterprise he served, and whose coercion his writings at times justified.
In their own words
Believe, dearest brothers, that although in these parts there is a lack of outward things, Our Lord, to whoever wills them so, gives by his love much inward joy.
Make yourselves a great heart, for you will have no place to stay meditating in your recollections, but in the midst of iniquity and by the rivers of Babylon.
The medicines are labours, and the better the more they are conformed to Christ.