Xaverian Missionaries

In the early part of the sixteenth century a young man, called Francisco, in English Francis, was sent by his noble parents to Paris to study at the Sorbonne University. He was only 19 years. The ambitious young man studied about 10 years at the Sorbonne, where he became Magister Artium. After reaching for three years at the College of Saint Barbara in Paris to earn his living. This was because at home, in Navarre, the war had taken its toll on the family finances.

That youth was then to become the future Saint Francis Xavier. Born in 1506 in Navarre, Spain, Francis was the youngest of six children, but not the best among them. Success, the ruin of many, and fame, the source of pride, followed him wherever he went. And surely they would have wrecked his future life, were it not for the holy and uncompromising friendly influence of a faithful companion of study: Ignatius of Loyola.
Francis, proud and passionate, tall and athletic, handsome and ambitious, was quite the opposite of his room-mate, Ignatius. Ignatius, who was 15 years older, looked on him with scorn and derision: He could scarcely set his eyes on him without making sport of his plans, a fellow Jesuit, Juan de Polanco, later said of Francis' attitude.

One day, when Francis was telling him about his plans for a great career, Ignatius quoted to him a popular passage from the Gospel of Matthew: What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and loses his own soul? (Mt.16:26). For Ignatius it was either the call of God or the call of the world. Which call would Francis answer? The latter call was sweet and alluring and was re-echoed by youth, pride, passion and temptations. Yet louder still there drummed in his ears the eternal question: What does it profit...?
Sincere, honest and intelligent that he was, big in mind and big in heart, Francis could not ignore that question: What does it profit...? He pondered upon it, and fearing not the radical changes the decision would make in his daily life, he answered it positively: The call of the world was rejected with disdain. The call of Christ was chosen with great joy.

On August 15th, 1534, on the Feast of the Assumption, Ignatius, Francis and five other men, in a little underground chapel in Paris (in Montmartre), took the vows. By so doing they made a radical break from the world, and consecrated themselves, all their life, all their time, all their energy, all their gifts and all their love to Christ and His Kingdom.

Armed with a papal decree naming him apostolic nuncio to Asia, Francis embarked for a 15 month long perilous long journey that was fraught with peril. Goa, in India was to witness the beginning of one of the greatest of all missionary journeys, one from which he would never return as he wrote to Ignatius before leaving: ...it will be by letter only that we shall be together.

Francis left Lisbon, Portuga1, on April 7th, 1541: it was his 35th birthday when he left to spread the Gospel in Asia. For eight years he traveled and announced the Gospel in India, Ceylon, Moluccas and Nalacca. By this time he had begun to receive information of the highly advanced kingdom of Japan, as yet unknown to Westerners. On August 15th, 1549, determined to make Japan his next mission field, Francis left Malacca for Japan. In a letter to Ignatius he recognized the sophistication of Japanese culture: It seems to me that we shall never find... another race to equal the Japanese. They are a people of very good manners...They like to hear things propounded according to reasons...

After about two years, long enough to establish several small groups of converts in Kagoshima and Kyoto in Japan, Francis set his eyes on yet another great, and as yet almost unknown, frontier: China. Francis returned to Goa to prepare his journey for China.

At that time China remained closed to foreigners. Nevertheless Francis believed that his journey to China would be the greatest prize of all his missionary activity. In his endeavors, Francis was pushed by two complementary ideas which are actually well rooted in every missionary’s heart. He drew the first from St. Paul's writings: Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel (1Cor. 9:16) and the second from his strong conviction that by evangelizing China, all the populations of Asia would soon convert to Christianity. Francis then reached Sancian Island (Canton) with the firm intention to land in China.

In 1552, after finally finding a ship to take him to China, Francis became seriously ill. His condition deteriorated, and so he was taken off the ship and left on the unpopulated Island of Sancian, near the Chinese coast. He was to die there at the age of 46 on December 3rd, 1552. He was burried on the Island, but a year later in 1553, his body was moved to the Church of Santa Naria in Malacca and then to Saint Paulo Church in Goa. His body was then reburied on December 3rd. Now St. Francis Xavier's body is at the Bom Jesus church in Goa. Francis Xavier was canonized in 1622 and in 1927 he was named, along with St. Thérèse of Lisleux, patron of foreign missions.
Needless to say, Francis Xavier occupies a very important place in the history of missions. Few missionaries, in our modern time, have attracted as much attention the like of which Francis created. Biographers, painters, writers have all tried to capture his inner soul in order to describe his extraordinary personality and his untiring missionary zeal. The French philosopher, A. Compte, who had taken away all the Saints from the calendar, as useless people, decided to spare Francis Xavier because he considered him a benefactor of humanity.