In Chap­ter XII of “For Greater Things: The Sto­ry of Saint Stanis­laus Kost­ka,” the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es as Can­i­sius, rec­og­niz­ing Stanis­laus Kostka’s hum­ble dis­po­si­tion and ded­i­ca­tion, decides that for Stanis­laus to evade fur­ther dis­tur­bances from his fam­i­ly, it would be best for him to jour­ney to Rome and join the Novi­tiate there. He is promised a let­ter of intro­duc­tion to Father Gen­er­al Fran­cis Bor­gia and is to trav­el with two com­pa­ny mem­bers already bound for Rome. To pre­pare, Stanis­laus is fit­ted with decent cloth­ing by the col­lege tai­lor, replac­ing his worn tunic—undertaking the jour­ney with a sense of belong­ing and pur­pose, a con­trast to his pre­vi­ous­ly per­ilous trav­els.

Start­ing around Sep­tem­ber 20th, they trav­el by foot, tra­vers­ing through Bavaria, cross­ing the Tyrolese Alps, and enter­ing the plains of North­ern Italy, final­ly reach­ing Rome on Octo­ber 25th. The jour­ney is detailed with vivid descrip­tions of the chang­ing landscapes—from the tow­er­ing, snowy Alps to the fer­tile plains of Italy—and Stanislaus’s inter­ac­tions with his envi­ron­ment and fel­low trav­el­ers. Unlike his first soli­tary and stren­u­ous trek, this jour­ney is marked by com­pan­ion­ship, spir­i­tu­al com­mu­nion, and antic­i­pa­tion, mak­ing the long dis­tances and dif­fi­cult ter­rains more bear­able and even enjoy­able at times.

Upon arriv­ing in Rome, their recep­tion by Fran­cis Bor­gia is warm, and Stanislaus’s aspi­ra­tions are swift­ly real­ized when he is offi­cial­ly accept­ed into the Novi­tiate. His jour­ney to Rome not only con­cludes a phys­i­cal tran­si­tion from his home­land but also sym­bol­izes his spir­i­tu­al jour­ney towards a devout com­mit­ment to the Soci­ety of Jesus. The chap­ter encap­su­lates his tran­si­tion into a life ded­i­cat­ed to his faith, marked by the start of his novice­ship and his inte­gra­tion into the com­mu­ni­ty that includes notable fig­ures such as Claude Acqua­vi­va, adding a lay­er of sig­nif­i­cance to his arrival and the com­pa­ny he would keep dur­ing his novice­ship.

This phase of Stanislaus’s jour­ney is reflec­tive of his growth, not just in geo­graph­ic terms but in his spir­i­tu­al and per­son­al devel­op­ment, as he moves clos­er to his call­ing, sur­round­ed by com­pan­ions and guides who appre­ci­ate and rec­og­nize his virtues and poten­tial, set­ting the stage for his con­tri­bu­tions to the Soci­ety of Jesus and the impact his lega­cy would have on the faith and beyond.