1. A great saint and friend of mine saw me fly straight to heaven like a fireball when I died.
2. It took a long time, 467 years in fact, before I was canonized.
3. Another great saint and writer, a Doctor of the Church, always referred to me as “Saint,” long before I was raised to the altar.
4. I boarded with the saint I cited above in clue 1 and we both received our Master of Arts the same day from the same university.
5. I was ordained a priest in 1534 before I joined five others in a great company.
6. A few years later I led some of the company to Venice, then I went to Rome.
7. The pope sent me to Germany to convert the Lutheran heretics.
8. I found the Church in Germany to be so corrupt that, rather than argue with Protestants, what was needed was a reform of the Catholic clergy and lay faithful. God granted me many conversions.
9. I was then called to Spain having been summoned there by the founder of our company. Six months later the Pope Paul III called me to Rome.
10. Again I was sent to Germany and had much success in the reform of the Church. I regained back to the Church the whole city of Cologne by 1543.
11. While there I brought into our company another future Doctor of the Church, Saint Peter Canisius.
12. I was recalled to Spain and labored also in Portugal. In Spain I won another great saint into our company, Francis Borja.
13. Pope Paul III wanted to send me as his theologian to the Council of Trent in 1545, but my health would not allow it.
14. I died in 1546 in Rome in the arms of our company’s founder.
15. I am often quoted for a simple admonition: “Take care, take care,” I wrote to a friend, “never to close your heart to anyone.”
