December 3, commemoration |
|
| Position: |
missionary TJ |
| Death: |
1552 |
| Patron: |
Navarre (since 1622), India (since 1748); Jesuits, spreading the faith (since 1904), all missionaries (since 1927), people from the Catholic press, sailors, tourism (since 1952); invoked for a happy death, against a devastating storm and against a plague epidemic |
| Attributes: |
Indians, Jesuits, baptism of natives, cross, lilies, flames (flaming heart), torches |
CURRICULUM VITAE
He came from Navarre, Spain. He spent his youth during the political struggles for independence, during which his native castle also fell. While studying in Paris, he met Peter Faber and Ignatius of Loyola, who became his fellow brothers in 1534 when the Jesuit order was founded. He was a priest from 1537, and from 1541 he zealously and successfully preached the gospel in India, Ceylon, the Moluccas, and Japan. He died at the age of 46, on the island of Sancian, on his way to China.
CV FOR MEDITATION
HIS PROGRAM WAS THE SALVATION OF SOULS
He was born on 7 April 1506 in the castle of Javier (Xavier) in the Basque part of the Kingdom of Navarre in northeastern Spain, as the youngest of five siblings. The four older ones were Magdalena, Anna, Miguel, and Juan. During his childhood, there were fights for independence between Basque Navarre on the one hand and Spain and France on the other. His father, Juan de Jasso died at that time and the fortifications of their castle were demolished during the fighting. Miguel and Juan joined the fighting. In 1521, 50 km northwest of Javier in Pamplona, Ignatius of Loyola (d. 31 July) also fought against the Basques, who was hit in the leg by a cannonball here on 20 May and who later had a significant influence on Francis’s life.
Spain took over Navarre in 1524, when Francis was 18 years old, causing the Xaviers to lose a significant portion of their property. That year, both brothers returned, and the following year, Francis went to university in Paris. He had a lively and fiery nature, was ambitious, had above-average intelligence, and was also tolerant. From the beginning of his second year of university studies, he lived with the quiet, melancholic student Peter Faber (died 1 August). They are said to have complemented each other quite well, due to their contrasting personalities. Peter often tempered Francis’s sharper expressions with his prudence. An older, disabled student, Ignatius of Loyola, joined these two in the autumn of 1529. Francis was very slow to make friends with this new roommate, but they eventually united around the ideals that led to the founding of a new order.
In 1530, Francis obtained the academic title of Master, equivalent to today’s Doctor of Philosophy, and became an associate professor and director of a university college. Four years later, on August 15, 1534, he came to the Chapel of St. Dionysius in Montmartre, Paris, with Peter Faber, four other companions, and Ignatius of Loyola to found the Jesuits under his leadership. They took a vow to live in poverty, chastity, and service to souls in the Holy Land or to be at the disposal of the Pope as the vicar of Christ.
In the autumn of the same year, Francis held spiritual exercises under Ignatius’s guidance, and the salvation of souls became his life’s program. In 1535-1536, Francis studied theology and prepared for the sacrament of priesthood, which he received with his companions in June 1537 in Venice, and had his primogeniture in Vicenza.
In Venice, he and Ignatius were housed in a hospital for the terminally ill, providing them with the necessary services. Caring for these patients was, among other things, a matter of self-control and self-denial.
Due to tensions between Venice and the Turks, it was not possible to continue the planned journey to the Holy Land, and therefore the members of this religious group dispersed for a short time to the university cities of northern Italy (Francis went to Bologna). There they preached and provided various spiritual services until April 1538, when they met in Rome to cooperate with Ignatius in apostolic and charitable work. Their goal was papal approval of the Society of Jesus. Pope Paul III approved it orally in 1539 and in writing on 27 September 1540.
At the beginning of 1540, Portuguese King John III had already asked Ignatius to send his brothers to the Indian missions. With the Pope’s approval, he dispatched Francis Xavier along with the Portuguese Simon Rodriguez. Francis left for Lisbon in mid-March, where he arrived in June after the ships had sailed, and it was necessary to wait out the winter there. In the meantime, they preached in the city and cared for the sick. King João then decided to keep Rodriguez in Lisbon, and Francis was appointed apostolic nuncio to the East by Pope Paul III and received four letters of recommendation for the rulers there. With them and two assistants, the Italian P. Paolo Camerino and the not-yet-ordained Portuguese Fr. Mantillas, he set off for India. The journey from Lisbon to Goa on the west coast of India lasted from 7 April 1541 to 6 May 1542.
In the first stage of the journey, they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and, after about five months, arrived in Mozambique on the coast of Africa. Here, they had to wait out the winter and were able to continue by sea only in February. After an arduous journey, during which he was accompanied by seasickness and was constantly at the service of sailors, soldiers, convicts, slaves, and other various passengers, he began to care for the sick in Mozambique despite his exhaustion and illness.
Goa, a former Portuguese colony in India, became Francis’ first base in the country. He began his work in the city’s hospital with those who had also arrived from elsewhere. He slept on the floor next to the most seriously ill patients so that he could be ready to serve their needs.
After five months, he was sent south to Cape Kanyakumari. The natives there made their living by fishing for pearls and spoke Tamil. Francis had the basic prayers of the Church and the Ten Commandments translated into this language for them. He only began to learn Tamil with great difficulty, and then, as in the streets of Goa, he would ring a bell to call for catechism classes. He tirelessly spoke about God to children and adults.
From there, he also wrote to Ignatius in Rome about his activities: “I persistently went around the villages and washed all the children who had not yet been baptized with holy baptismal water. I thus purified a tremendous number of children who could hardly tell their right hand from their left. However, these children would not let me even pray the breviary, nor even eat or sleep, until I had taught them a prayer. And then I understood that they were the ones to whom the kingdom of heaven belonged… Many people in this area do not become Christians simply because there is no one available to convert them. And so the thought often crosses my mind that I should go around all the academic institutions throughout Europe—and especially the University of Paris—and shout everywhere like one deprived of one’s senses, to rouse those in whom there is more learning than love with the cry, “How terrible is the number of those who, through your fault, do not get to heaven and are rushing to hell!”
He then lived among the inhabitants of the Moluccas (now part of Indonesia). It is said that in one month, he baptized up to 10,000 Indians. In early 1545, he sailed to Malacca and then on to the island of Amon. From there, after a three-month stay, he went to the island of Ternate. After completing this journey, which he considered his duty as the Apostolic Nuncio to the Far East, he learned of Japan’s existence. In Goa, he distributed tasks to new missionaries of the TJ and in August 1549, on the junk of a Chinese sailor, he sailed to the shores of Japan. He set out on foot for Miyako, where he encountered ridicule and failed to reach the emperor. However, within two years, he had converted at least five hundred Japanese people to the Christian faith. On his return, he expected the conversion of China, which would also contribute to the spread of Christianity in this country. In November 1552, he sailed to the island of San Juan near Canton. Here, starving and feverish from hypothermia, he died on December 3rd at the age of 46.
He was beatified on October 25, 1619, by Pope Paul V, and canonized on March 12, 1622, by Pope Gregory XV.
RESOLUTION, PRAYER
