St Francis Xavier

ST FRANCIS XAVIER

Francis Xavier was born in Spain’s Basque country in 1506 and, despite only a rudimentary education, crossed the Pyrenees to go to the University of Paris. He graduated in the company of other Spaniards who, under Ignatius of Loyola, would be the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Ordained in 1537, Fr Francis Xavier was chosen to be a missionary to the East Indies where the Portuguese had settled in the Indian colony of Goa. The Pope had given him the title of Apostolic Nuncio - a diplomatic insurance policy as he and another young Jesuit were sailing out into unchartered missionary territory.

Francis Xavier landed in the Indian Portuguese colony of Goa in 1542 to begin a missionary journey that would last ten years. Goa was nominally Christian but the Portuguese settlers were lax and undisciplined - marriages were rare and seldom stable and there was little respect for the native Indian women. The ethnic Indians were considered ‘low class’ and treated like slaves. Francis Xavier was determined to change peoples’ attitudes, just as he was concerned with the poor, the lepers and those in prison. There was much to be done. Those who honour St Francis Xavier during this Novena will share his concern for the importance of stable married life, the dignity of the incurably ill and the welfare of those In our overcrowded prisons.

From Goa, Fr Francis Xavier travelled south to work among the Tamil pearl-fishers, converting many to the Christian faith. From India he sailed further East, spending time catechising in the Malaccas (1545) New Guinea and the Philippines (1546 - 1547). From 1549 - 1551 he worked in Japan. He had never been a gifted linguist but managed always to learn enough of the native languages to compile booklets of basic prayers and the essentials of the Faith. In 1551 St Ignatius of Loyola made his friend Francis Xavier the first Provincial of the new Jesuit Province of India and the East.

This, together with the title ‘Apostolic Nuncio’, was important when he met the powerful Japanese Mikado because neither of them “lost face” by the meeting. In fact the Mikado offered Francis Xavier his Imperial protection, and on one occasion the use of a disused Buddhist Temple for any purpose the Jesuit missionary saw fit. Slowly bur surely the Christian faith was being introduced to men and women in the East.

In 1552 Francis Xavier set off for China with a young Chinese convert called Anthony. They never arrived. Francis Xavier caught a fever and on the island of Sanchian, on 3 December 1552, he died. His body was eventually returned to Goa. He had travelled thousands of miles and converted hundreds of thousands. With inadequate funds, little cooperation and help, he won many to Christ by his example, his life and his enthusiasm. He was canonised in 1662 and proclaimed Patron of the Indies, Apostle of Japan and, in 1927, Patron of all Foreign Missions.

Francis Xavier was a man of his time: his practice of mass ‘indiscriminate’ baptism is now seen as inappropriate. No one could fault his enthusiasm, his hard work, his life of prayer and apostolate - the twin pillars of the Norbertine vision, which is why he is honoured in one of our annual Novenas. He was a lone European voice in an alien culture yet the seeds of the Gospel he sowed continue to bear fruit in our own day. His prayers for people will help us all to be missionaries in our own way in our own place.