December 3 Francis Xavier, SJ b. 1506 d. 1552 c. 1622

Thommy and John

Good morning
I love you

December 3, 2008 – a beautiful bright, crisp, Carolina blue sky; chilly and a half on the way to the 0700 Mass, after a bagel at breuger’s. Now, after a few hours of preliminary work, piling up information for a project that’ll require more concentration than I have at the moment in the midst of noisy distractions – I’m easily distracted by other people’s noises, and other people seem to make their noises regardless of the need of others around them to do some concentrated work. Maybe I’ll go burrow into the bowels of uncg’s library to get this next phase accomplished…. Not much progress of late, anywhere….

Today is the feast of St Francis Xavier, SJ - - - one of THE biggies, period. And a saint I’ve been familiar with since earliest memories of faith and religion and saints. The name of the church across the street from Auntie’s and Mack’s – where we’d go to Mass on Sundays when visiting in Manhattan. F.X. ______ as a name was common when I was growing up. And this saint’s heroic story as founding member of Jesuits and his stupendous missionary work to East Indies and Japan – the residual effects are still rippling through the countries and our church in those countries…. Take a few minutes to say hi to this saint – get to know him - draw from him you own inspiration and let him be a source of your greater grace….


December 3
Francis Xavier b. 1506 d. 1552 c. 1622

It just struck me – I don’t think I was attentive to this before – Francis Xavier was only 46 when he died; and he accomplished his missionary work in only the last ten. Talk about cramming a lifetime into such a short period….

We don’t get anything of Francis Xavier’s early life from Catholic Online or the online version of Catholic Encyclopedia. Even in the pamphlet and books on him that I have there is very little spent on his pre-college life. Partly, I suppose, because of how much he did to get the Jesuits started and his missionary work. I regret that we don’t have more about the childhood of our saints. Something that we can relate to more personally. Kids are kids, for the most part.

And I know enough about the predictive validity of follow back research – i.e., start with how a situation ends, go back ‘to the beginning’ and then conclude that that beginning predicts, even causes, the outcome we started with. Follow back research is bunk – e.g., most heroine addicts used marijuana therefore the use of marijuana causes, increases the likelihood of, heroine use. That is a saleable proposition until we note that it is also true that heroine addicts used/drank milk…. So,

maybe starting with those canonized and going back to their childhood, we could say that their experiences with parents, their personal piety, the role of the church in their upbringing, etc. et al. would be guiding lights for us and our quest for saintliness. Wrong…. However, to see into a saint’s childhood, and how that childhood laid the foundation for subsequent saintliness – the good the bad the ugly of childhood being sorted out and coalesced into saintliness; well, that’s a story we might personally relate to….

I’m sorry I don’t have any of Francis Xavier’s childhood to start with here….

Francis Xavier was born in the castle of Xavier near Sanguesa in Navarre. The castle tells you something. And Navarre tells you some other things….

After completing studies in Spain, Francis Xavier entered the college de Sante-Barbe in Paris in 1525. This college, and the academe of Paris in General, was the hub of intellectual Catholicism in the sixteenth century – it was not a place for intellectual light weights nor a haunt of men who took life lightly…. Francis Xavier befriended Peter Favre here.

It does matter where you grow up. It does matter where you go to school – what places and positions you put yourself in [are put in]. Most importantly, it matters with whom you associate. The friendship of Xavier and Favre not only enriched them both but also led to the weaving of the tapestry that became the society of Jesus. Ignatius of Loyola was at the same college and was already planning the Society. First Favre then his friend Xavier joined Loyola in the formation of the Society. [maybe not unlike Andrew’s going to get Peter…] It does matter who your friends are; and how you follow them – or not.

Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Peter Favre, Lainez, Salmeron, Rodriguez, and Bobadilla made their first Jesuitical vows at Montmarte on August 15, 1534: poverty, chastity, obedience, and a special vow of obedience to the Pope: a Society dedicated to doing God’s will by doing what the Pope needed them most to do.

Francis Xavier completed his studies and taught at the university for some time. On November 15, 1536, Francis Xavier left Paris with his companions. His first stop was Venice where he attended the sick with zeal and charity. [Ministry to the sick, from the very beginning of the Jesuits, was an essential training stop as well as an integral service of the Order.

[Each Jesuit novice must complete a month’s service in a hospital. The New England Jesuit novices in the late 1960’s spent their month at Boston City Hospital serving a charity ward – there were actual wards then, t-shaped, bed after bed after bed ‘separated’ if necessary by a drawn curtain. Phil Chavannes, Paul Carrier, Jim (I’m blanking on Jim’s name at the moment) and I were together for December 1968. lots of stories from that month. Some of the stories were continued for the next few years. Our service at BCH, my experiences there, were and still are formative. I suggest that you consider volunteering for such an experience – for a month during your college time or for longer maybe as a source of personal growth after graduation.]

Francis Xavier was ordained, with Ignatius, on June 24, 1937. Francis Xavier joined Ignatius in Rome – including a period with Ignatius in drawing up the documents for the Society of Jesus which was approved by the Pope September 3, 1539.

John III, king of Portugal petitioned the Pope and Ignatius to send Francis Xavier to evangelize the East Indies. March 16, 1540 Francis Xavier left Rome for Lisbon, where he spent nine months evangelizing amongst both the royalty and the populace.

On April 7, 1541, Francis Xavier set sail for India: landing in Goa May 6, 1542 - - yep, over a year to semi-circumnavigate the world [and this less than 50 years after Christopher Columbus round tripped the new world to the west]. The Portuguese had settlements throughout the East Indies and the seeds of Catholicism had been sown – like the parable of the sower, some seeds had taken root and some had withered and some had been blown away altogether. Francis Xavier was sent to re-establish the faith as well as spread the word throughout the entire east…. The Chronicle of his ten years as the Missionary par excellence as well as the leading representative of Ignatius amongst the newly established and burgeoning Jesuits in the area is breath taking….

From May to October 1542, Francis Xavier spent in learning the language and the culture, preaching and, can you imagine, ministering to the sick. Francis Xavier would also go through the streets ringing a bell to invite the children to come hear the word of God – He would take them to a church and teach them their catechism…..

Having laid a foundation, including the establishing of missionaries and Jesuits-in-the-making, Francis Xavier moved on to the fisheries on the southern peninsula. Francis Xavier spent almost three years preaching to the people of western India – extending his, the Church’s, and [oh yeh] Portugal’s reach to Ceylon. The brief skimming across the work of Francis Xavier cannot give justice to the hardships [an understatement] he and him compadres encountered. The Portuguese who were there, especially the soldiers, were not exemplary Christians – how could this western/white man’s religion be sold when the power holders were not good never mind exemplar models of the faith? And the many petite kings throughout the regions who did not convert themselves, repressed any subject’s inclination to change sides. The typical stuff missionaries encounter – in spades!

In the spring of 1545, Francis Xavier went to Malacca – where he spent the rest of the year with spectacular and mixed results of conversion and compliance.

In early 1546, Francis Xavier went on to the Malucca Islands where he spent a year and a half preaching throughout the islands. He probably got as far as the Philippines!

Back on Malacca in mid 1547, Francis Xavier met a Japanese called Anger (Han-Sir) who sparked a zeal in the Jesuit to introduce Christianity into Japan. But first, Francis Xavier had to straighten out Jesuit affairs in Goa. [In the six years since he’d been in Goa, Ignatius had sent more Jesuits to Goa; many natives had also been accepted into the Order. They needed some additional Jesuititical umph.] In 1548, Francis Xavier sent missionaries to the centers of India. He established a novitiate in India and a house of studies. Then, in mid 1549, Francis Xavier, Brother Juan Fernandez, and the Japanese Anger who’d been baptized at Goa headed to Japan.

On August 15, 1549, Francis Xavier and his nucleus band of Jesuits landed at the city of Kagoshima, Japan. It took him a year to become fluent in the language – translating into Japanese, with Anger’s help, our articles of faith and the nuggets of a catechism. When Francis Xavier began preaching and converting, he [naturally] aroused the ill will of the bonzes who had him banished from the city. In mid 1550, Francis went into central Japan and got to some of the cities in the south, too. For about two years Francis Xavier planted the seeds of Catholic communities throughout the island country.

In early 1552, Francis Xavier returned to Goa. He discovered the Jesuit community there arguing amongst itself [not an uncommon challenge for the Order throughout its history – to the current day]. He, of course, ironed it out. Gotta take care of the inside of the engine as well as drive the car….

In April 1552, Francis Xavier laid the foundation for his efforts to go to China, the Celestial Empire. The Portuguese opposed his expedition. Francis Xavier worked with the Indian and Portuguese and finally got approval to set out for China. He made it to the island of Sancian near the coast of China where he took ill and died.


A rather boring litany/travelogue. I apologize for the absence of substance. The substance of his holiness. The realities of his miracles. All of which you now have to imagine…. Until I come back to Francis Xavier’s story with better sources for particulars….


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