St. Francis Xavier (San Francisco Javier or Xavier in Spanish) was born on 7th April, 1506, at Javier Castle, near Sangüesa, Navarre, Spain. He is considered to be the greatest Roman Catholic missionary of the modern era who was actively involved in the establishment of Christianity in India, the Malay Archipelago and Japan.
His three qualities are noteworthy in today’s modern world.
Enthusiasm: He was known to have conducted his life’s work with great vitality and zeal.
Passion driven achievement: Francis set high standards for himself and had ambitious plans for the future. He was a man of quick perception and sound judgment. Francis conducted His work in the spirit of magis; a Latin term meaning “more” and used by Loyola to underscore good character in service to others.
Openness to the influence of others: How He related to others as well as himself goes beyond enthusiasm and passion. Francis was known to be a charismatic man. He had a “dashing and robust personality” and has been described as “astounding”, “decisive”, “cheerful”, “vivacious”, “practical”, “prudent”, and a “keen, ambitious” boy in school. Today, He would be described as a “peoples person”.
Early life and education
Francis was born in Navarre, northern Spain, at the family castle of Xavier, which has Basque as its native language. He was the third son of the President of the Navarre Kings council, whose kingdom later fell to the Crown of Castile in 1512. Francis grew up at Xavier and got his early education there. He was destined for an ecclesiastical career, as was the case with younger members of the nobility and in 1525 he journeyed to the University of Paris, which was the theological centre of Europe, to begin his studies.
In 1529 he came into contact with Ignatius of Loyola, a Basque student, who was assigned to room with Francis. Ignatius was 15 years Francis’s senior and a former soldier who had undergone a profound religious conversion and was at that time gathering about himself a group of men who shared his thoughts. Ignatius, through his persistence won over the initially recalcitrant Francis. Francis was among the group of seven who vowed to a life of celibacy and poverty- in imitation of Jesus Christ , at a chapel in Montmartre, Paris, on August 15, 1534. He committed to vows as one of the first seven members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, under the leadership of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
They solemnly promised to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and afterwards to dedicate themselves to the salvation of believers and non-believers alike. Francis then performed a series of meditations lasting about 30 days, known to us as the Spiritual Exercises, which were devised by Ignatius based on his own experience of conversion and to guide an individual toward greater generosity in the divine service of God and mankind. They embedded in Francis the motivation that carried him through the remainder of his life and prepared him for his subsequent recurrent mystical experiences.
Mission to India
After all the members of the group had completed their studies, they reassembled in Venice, where Francis was ordained as a priest on June 24, 1537. They tried to get approval for passage to the Holy Land for more than a year, but in vain. The seven, along with fresh recruits, then went to Rome to put themselves at the disposal of the Pope. In the meantime, as an outcome of their care of the afflicted and preaching throughout central Italy, they had become very popular and many Catholic princes sought their religious services. One among them was Portugal’s King John III, who desired diligent priests to minister to Christians and to evangelize the citizenry in his new Asian territories. As illness prevented one of the two originally selected for the task from departing, Ignatius designated Francis as his replacement. On the very next day, March 15, 1540, Francis left Rome for the Indies, travelling via Lisbon. Pope Paul III formally recognized the followers of Ignatius as a religious order in the following year, as the Society of Jesus(Jesuits).
On May 6, 1542, Francis disembarked at Goa, which was the centre of Portuguese activities in the East, whereas, his associates had remained behind to serve in Lisbon. A major part of the following three years he spent on the southeastern coast of India, among the Paravas who were simple and poor pearl fishers. About 20,000 of these Paravas had been baptised seven years earlier, primarily to secure Portuguese assistance against their enemies; however, since then, they had been neglected. Francis managed to translate into Tamil a small catechism with the assistance of interpreters, He then travelled untiringly from community to community enjoining and confirming them in their faith. His apparent goodness and strong conviction helped him overcome the challenges of verbal connectedness. Subsequently the Macuans of the southwestern coast informed of their desire for baptism, and after giving them concise instructions he baptized 10,000 Macuans towards the end of 1544. He foresaw that the schools he had planned and pressure from the Portuguese would keep them steadfast in the faith.
Later in 1545, he got news of opportunities for the spread of Christianity, and got attracted to move to the Malay Archipelago. After several months of evangelizations among the mixed populace of the Portuguese commercial centre at Malacca (now known as Melaka, Malaysia), he relocated to set up missions among the Malays and the headhunters in the Spice Islands (Moluccas). In the year 1548 he returned to India, where more Jesuit priests had arrived and joined him. In Goa, the College of Holy Faith, established several years previously, was handed over to the Jesuits. Francis began to develop this institution into a centre for the instruction of indigenous priests and catechists for the Diocese of Goa, which expansed from the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern fringes of Africa, to China.
Japan- “the best people yet discovered”
Francis’s mind was subsequently fixated on a land reached by Europeans only five years earlier- Japan. His interactions with Anjirō, a Japanese man, in Malacca, who was profoundly interested in Christianity, had shown that his people were cultured and civilized. On August 15, 1549, a Portuguese ship with Francis, the recently baptized Anjirō, and several of his companions reached the Japanese port of Kagoshima. His first letter from Japan, which was printed no fewer than 30 times before the turn of the century, unveiled his exuberance for the Japanese as, “the best people yet discovered”. In Japan, he became increasingly conscious of the necessity to adapt his methods locally. His impoverishment that had won over the Paravas and Malays frequently repelled the Japanese, so he discarded it for a deliberate display when it was called for. In late 1551, Francis decided to return temporarily to India,as he had not received any communication since his arrival in Japan. He left to the tending of his companions five communities of about 2,000 Christians in Japan.
On returning to India, he got immersed in the administrative affairs as the superior of the newly created Jesuit Province of the Indies. In the meanwhile, he realized that the means to conversion of Japan lay through China; as the Japanese looked up to the Chinese for wisdom. Francis never made it to China, as he died of fever on the island of Sancian (Shangchuan, off the Chinese coast) on December 3, 1552, as he attempted to secure entrance into China, which was at the time closed to foreigners.
His Legacy
Modern scholars have dispelled many of the legendary stories linked with St. Francis Xavier and have also fended-off several of his critics. A recent estimate put the figure of those baptized by him at approximately 30,000, as against the 10,00,000 asserted by Baroque exaggeration. Francis had to struggle with language wherever he worked and did not have the gift of lingua ascribed to him. He is rightly credited for his sentiment that a missionary must adjust to the language and customs of the people he evangelizes, he was an initiator and advocated an educated native clergy, however, his initiatives were not followed by many of his successors.
Some scholars believe that he always provided for the continued pastoral care of the communities he had founded, however, some critics maintain that he abandoned them after baptism. As a matter of fact, Francis is believed to have made considerable efforts instructing those that were baptized hastily by others. The areas he evangelized in India have remained predominantly Catholic till the present day. Vigorous and prolonged persecution during the 17th century did destroy the missions he founded in the Moluccas and Japan but only after thousands had died as martyrs.
Francis died on December 3, 1552 on Sancian Island(now Shangchuan), China, aged 46 years. He was canonized on March 12, 1622; and his feast day is celebrated on December 3. Even before his death, Francis Xavier was considered as a saint. In 1927 he was named “Patron of all Christian missions”.
– Rodney D’Silva