The emphatic reaffirmation of the unshakeable faith of the Jesuits in the accomplishment of their mission is a recurrent narrative pattern in the cartas ânuas, which had, among their goals, the extolment of the very Company of Jesus and its work. The distinction given to the exemplary work of some Jesuit missionaries - like those found described in the necrologies inserted in the ânuas and in the biographies produced in various times - seems to indicate the reiteration of the virtuous conduct defined by Inácio de Loyola to the members of the Company of Jesus, as well as to those who sought the salvation of the body and the soul. Our purpose in this article is that of analysing the accounts about the "heroic acts of virtue" of missionaries present in the epistolary narratives, as well as in the biographies, highlighting the pedagogic function performed by this posthumous consecration.
Jesuits; martyrdom; necrologies; good death; posthumous consecration