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Francisco Xavier is one of the most exciting and adventurous figures of the 16th century. He travelled where few westerners had been: to India, to Malaysia, to Japan and to China. He undertook long and arduous voyages, risking everything to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to fisherman and farmer, emperor and king.
Francisco was born only a few miles from the birthplace of St Ignatius at Loyola. While students at the University of Paris, they became lifelong friends. Both were from noble and wealthy families, assured of comfort, success and fame. But Ignatius was already well on the road to being a pilgrim for God, devoting his life to helping souls.
At first this was not a calling Francisco shared. But Ignatius’ persistent and gentle taunting, “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his life?” eventually claimed Francisco as his ‘friend in the Lord.’ Joined by others at Paris, these first companions formed what would soon become known as the Society of Jesus, bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, ready to go wherever the need was greatest.
In 1539, King John III of Portugal asked Ignatius for two Jesuits to go to the flourishing Portuguese colony of Goa in India. Another man dropped out at the last moment and Francisco seized his opportunity to do greater things for God.
Francisco worked among the Christians of Goa but he was soon attracted to more challenging work among the pearl fishers of Cape Comorin at the very southern tip of India. Francisco learned Tamil, the local language, and translated the creed and prayers so that these people could hear Christ in their own tongue. This adaptation of the faith to the local language and customs was to become a hallmark of Jesuit missions.
Francisco spent seven years on the South India coast, constantly travelling, preaching the gospel, teaching, consoling, comforting, begging alms for the poor, and visiting the sick. During this time he sailed to Malacca in Malaysia and here met Anjiro, a Japanese man, who inspired him to forge further east to Japan, arriving in 1549.
The Japanese made a deep impression on Francisco. In them he found a spiritual awareness which, he believed, made them especially ready to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. He wrote to the Jesuits he had left behind in India, “May it please God our Lord to grant us a knowledge of the language so that we can speak to them of the things of God, for we shall then, by his grace, favor and assistance, produce much fruit.”
Francisco set out for China, seeking audience at the Imperial Court. If converting the Japanese meant first converting the Chinese, this is what he would do. He landed on Sancian Island in 1552 and there contracted a severe fever from which he died a few weeks later in sight of mainland China across a narrow stretch of sea.
Francisco Xavier was declared a saint with Ignatius, his great friend and fellow founder of the Society of Jesus, in 1622.
In ending, I like to thank all those who have made it possible to publish St. Francis Xavier - Pilgrimage of Grace.
Publisher
I would like to thank all for their contribution and for making it possible to publish St. Francis Xavier - Pilgrimage of Grace:
Francis D’Souza, Deputy Chief Minister, Goa, India
Teotonio R. de Souza
Dom Martin
Donal Neary sj www.gardinerstparish.ie
Kevin Knight New Advent
Michael Bell
Our Lady of the Rosary Library
The Jesuit Curia in Rome
Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome
Martyrs Museum Nagasaki
Harvard Art Museums
Abbey of Saint Joseph de Clairval, Dijon, France http://www.clairval.com
Macau Ricci Institute
DCSCM - Archdiocese of Goa and Daman
Publisher
IZZY Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
Image Credit:
Pages 9, 20 and 90
Donal Neary sj www.gardinerstparish.ie
Harvard Art Museums:
Cover Image and Page 31
Saint Francis Xavier by Schelte Adams à Bolswert after Peter Paul Rubens
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G489
Page 83
Madonna and Child Appearing to Saint Francis Xavier by Paulus Pontius
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall, R2102
Page 11
Madonna and Child Appearing to Saint Francis Xavier by Schelte Adams à Bolswert
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall, R2307
Page 76
Finding the Body of Saint Francis Xavier by Johann Jacob Frey after Carlo Maratti
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall, R3326
Page 38
Saint Francis Xavier Raising the Dead by Ignatius Cornelis Marinus after Peter Paul Rubens
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall, R519
Page 28
Saint Francis Xavier Dying by Nicolas Le Sueur after Lodovico Gimignani
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Horace M. Swope, Class of 1905, M9872
Page 34 and 35
Original Letter from St. Francis Xavier Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome
14 Foreword
16 Goencho Saib - A Saint for all Seasons
18 A man who dared and defied the unknown to validate God’s existence
20 Saint F rancis Xavier - Jesuit Saint
30 Saint F rancis - His Journey
34 Original L etter of Saint Francis Xavier
36 One of St. Francis Xavier’s Last Letters
38 The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier
52 SHOWCASING DEATH, Immortalizing faith . . .
56 Gonçalo Martins, SJ - A little known Jesuit backing Jesuit missionary works and the cult of St Francis Xavier
68 St. Francis Xavier - Confessor of the Society of Jesus
77 A Life of St Francis Xavier
82 Saint Francis Xavier, S.J. - Missionary
91 Jesuit Priest from Navarre,Spain
98 St. Francis Xavier - Indo-Portuguese Philately
104 T O THE NATIONS AND NATION: The Apostle of the Indies and the Apostle of Ceylon
Saint Francis Xavier Goencho Saib
7 April 1506 – 3 December 1552
Goencho Saib
A Saint for all Seasons
WO’GOA dedicates this special issue to St Francis Xavier to mark the ongoing decennial exposition of his relics, and to pay homage to Goencho Saib beyond commemorative decades.
What may appear to be a medley collection of views and qualities, represents the diversity of look and approach of Goans and nonGoans alike, people of different faiths, upbringing and nationalities in handling this saint who chose Goa as his permanent earthly abode.
WO’GOA does not wish to be critical of these approaches, but just appreciate the interest they demonstrate, thinking also of the varied backgrounds and interests of our readers. Not unlike the rich variety of food and sites that cover our pages, we have this other menu to satisfy the curiosity of those who care for the saint.
The contributors here remind us of the chronology that marked the life-events, missionary journeys and activities that make St Francis Xavier memorable to his devotees, admirers and also critics over the distant and recent times.
On behalf of WO’GOA, we wish to all a happy reading and reflection, and inspiration from St Francis Xavier, St. Joseph Vaz and other holy men of all faiths who sought to show us ways to go beyond our selves.
Teotonio R. de Souza
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
A man who dared and defied the unknown to validate God’s existence . . .
To date, a saint’s life is the only known transcript to God’s existence. Through the millenniums, we have had innumerable saints and transcripts vying with one another for supremacy and survival in time’s ever evolving manuscript. However, to Goa and Goans, St. Francis remains the most beloved transcript.
St. Francis did not bloom where he was planted, nor did he opt to be laid to rest amongst his aristocratic kith and kin in the Xavier Castle, Navarre, Spain. Instead, he died on the remote Island of Sancian – impoverished, bedridden and homeless. Thereafter, whether by divine intervention or circumstantial necessity, the Bom Jesus Basílica became his final resting place. In the process, Goa has become the epicenter of his spiritual and corporal legacy.
At each decennial Exposition, fervent attempt is made to further retrace or uncover his last footprints – imbedded in the Goan landscape more than four centuries ago. While the inevitable tsunami of change has irreversibly altered or disfigured the Goan landscape, the spiritual landscape –illumined by his halo – is virtually intact as evidenced by the swelling surge of pilgrims during each Exposition.
Dom Martin
St. Francis Xavier - Pencil on Paper (2006) (Dom Martin)
St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis Xavier walking in the courtyard of the university of Paris
Saint Francis Xavier - Jesuit Saint
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Just to get my direction straight, this is the kind of a Holy Hour from four to five, in other words I talk and then, you sing and pray and we close with Benediction. We spoke yesterday on St. Ignatius and the logical second Jesuit saint to speak about is St. Francis Xavier. He is sometimes called the second founder of the Society of Jesus, a totally different personality from Ignatius; a man who was very learned, intellectual, and in fact a university professor when Ignatius found him.
I suppose the first thing we should note is how remarkably different God’s grace is in different people and that God is no respecter of persons. He chooses those who cannot write like Ignatius and intellectuals like Xavier. Like Ignatius, he was born of the nobility; Ignatius of the Loyola family and Francis of the Xavier family. He was a faculty member of the University of Paris when Ignatius found him. Ignatius had no hesitation, once it was clear to him that Francis had a vocation, to keep hounding Francis to the point of making himself very unbearable. When he told Francis, I’m sure you’ve heard over the years, “Francis, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul.” Francis had everything, humanly speaking in his favor. He was young, intelligent, had a good position, highly respected, very influential and the prospect of advancement.
Ignatius realized that God’s grace has got to make the change in Francis, that he cannot do it alone, so he finally convinced Francis that he should make the Spiritual Exercises and that did it. For thirty days then, Xavier made the Exercises and it was, at least partly if not in large measure, the experience that Ignatius had with Xavier that convinced Ignatius that the Exercises, as we call them, there is a single main purpose to discover ones’ vocation. And over the years the Exercises are given either to people who need to find their vocation or those who have found it, to strengthen themselves in their vocation. This is not trivial when we think of all the retreats by now we’ve made. In other words, Francis convinced Ignatius that no less than he, Ignatius had found his vocation by making the Exercises, not for thirty days but for twelve months that others would profit at
least as much. In any case, the combination of Ignatius pursuing him and the Spiritual Exercises converted Xavier from a very worldly, though believing layman into one of the Church’s great saints. After his conversion, all his biographers tell us that he was very ascetical, that is very mortified – in food, in physical accommodations and very prayerful. And the phrase that I copied from the Latin text that I used, he became after his conversion, in rerum divinarum quantumplacone de fixus – he became fixed, rooted, set, in the contemplation of divine things. There’s more than just a superficial lesson in that there is no easy way to become a contemplative. The precondition for becoming a contemplative in the sense in which the Church understands, the precondition is detachment from creatures. You do not become fixed on God, to quote the Latin phrase, until you become detached from everything else but God. In any case he became, for a man as active as he was, a mystic and the mysticism was, you might say God’s reward for his giving up and the more he had promising him, the more merit he gained. Over the years I’ve told so many people: the more things you like or the more things you dislike, you’ve got the makings of a great saint. ‘Me?’ “Yes you.” ‘Father, you got me wrong.’ “I don’t have you wrong.” The more set you are in your ways – the more stubborn; the more comfort seeking – the more selfish; the more ambitious – the more naturally proud; the harder you have to practice chastity – the more lazy you are. Barring God’s extraordinary providence, in His ordinary providence, it’s those people … honest, last June 18 was thirty-five years in the priesthood … I’ve learned a lot. I could write from now for the next twenty years to share what I’ve learned, but one thing I’ve learned – the more attached a person is to creatures, the higher are God’s plan for that soul, because once that person gives in … (audio cut off for three counter numbers) …. He died in his early forties … one of my great models. People tell me I’m working too hard, but I’m still around. Xavier finished his earthly course years before – he wore himself out. So much for his European stay. When the Society of Jesus was organized he was one of the first members – that was in 1534 – he was not yet a priest; the only priest in the society, as we call ourselves, was Peter Faber who ironically has yet to be canonized; he’s only a blessed. And those who were laymen at the time have become saints.
In any case, shortly after the society was founded, Ignatius sent him to India. Ignatius said it was the most painful thing in his life – they were very close. Ignatius made a big sacrifice and in the ordinary course of providence I’m sure that Francis would have lived much longer had he stayed on in relatively comfortable Europe compared
to the impossible India. The reason he went to India is because the Pope, Paul III wanted somebody to go to India. There were Christians there you know from the time of St. Thomas, but what Christians. We’ll talk about them in a few minutes. He went to India … took months to get there … shipwrecked, quite a few people died on the way. He managed to get there alive.
I was a novice when I read my first life of Francis Xavier. With apologies for saying this but, it is worth mentioning. Francis lived a very austere life and he would wash his own socks on the way to India, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Once known if I’m in a convent my socks disappear. I’ve had to hide them (laughter) so I decided before my first vows, this must be one of the conditions for becoming a saint, there are others of course, but one is washing your own socks. When he got to India, I suppose he thought he would have a lot of trouble interesting the Pagans in Christianity – no trouble at all, eager, hungry to hear about Jesus, Mary and Joseph. All these troubles he wrote back to Ignatius came from the Christians, including their priests. Here’s one quotation. Speaking of these people, Christians—centuries of Catholic ancestry, but not instructed in the faith, hear that? Here’s one of Xavier’s statements to Ignatius back home. “All they know is that they are Christians, that’s all they know about the faith. There is nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s law and, Sisters, you can say that about millions of Catholics today. The situation is horrendous, so much so that the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s sisters whom I teach in the Bronx ... once I was giving them a conference in Chapel – I teach them every week in a classroom outside of Chapel then every other week we have a conference in Chapel – when I mentioned the missions and missionaries in one of my conferences and somebody laughed and we’re … (I mean among the sisters) so I asked, “What are you laughing at?” You know, we’re friends, so they said, ‘Father, listening to you, you would think that India is a mission country. Do you know that when we come to the United States we are sent to the missions. Mother Teresa considers the United States a paganized country – sobering, isn’t it? – but I’m afraid true. So that’s what Xavier met in India and not only were they ignorant, but their bad example, Xavier complained, was the hardest obstacles he had to overcome in convincing the Pagans that Christianity is a noble religion. Noble? Look at those Christians in Angola. In other words, he had to shield his converts from exposure to the Christians so they wouldn’t be scandalized and the deeper he went into the interior and the farther the Pagans were from Christianity, the more and better converts he made. Sad, isn’t it? But again, I’m afraid, sadly true of
so much of our own country. The husband of a very dedicated woman in Philadelphia – good Presbyterian – his wife was hoping that he would become a Catholic we met, husband and I just a good Christian. His wife of course, and family he brought up Catholic – exemplary, but what I see of Catholics turns me off.
In any case, the single greatest obstacle to evangelization, and Xavier proved it, is a bad conduct of Christians. The single biggest obstacles to vocations to the priesthood is priests who are not what they should be. The single biggest obstacle to vocations to religious life is religious who are not what they should be. The mail I got today from New York was about what’s going on in one New York community. It seems they had just hired a notorious communist to help teach the community.
Xavier was a very zealous man. In other words, for him the way to Heaven is to convert others and bring souls to Heaven with you. He took literally Christ’s words to go and preach the Gospel to all nations. He was about as far away from Spain as you can get, when further than India he would be coming back to Spain and again a deep lesson for us. The need of souls having the Gospel preached to them and the pity that so often you don’t find zealous people to proclaim Christ. Francis Xavier wrote many letters to Europe begging for missionaries. His letters written to Europe were written some of them to his own confreres, especially St. Ignatius. He wrote letters to his former associates at the university and he begged for missionaries. Among the statements over the years that I have quoted and lectures I have given, Xavier said, “It is your speaking of those who were Catholics in Europe but we’re not concerned about the salvation of souls, say outside of Europe. It is your laziness – this is a direct quotation from Xavier – it is your laziness that is preventing so many souls from reaching Heaven and of going to Hell.” In other words, a lot of people are so smug and satisfied in their situation that the idea of going to preach the Gospel, especially in this case in a foreign land was if not unthinkable, was certainly not attractive. Many people answered his letters. Remarkably, Xavier who was no theologian in the ordinary sense of the word though he was a very intelligent person, what we have of his writings is mainly one volume of his letters and I’m sure he never intended them to be published. They are so out-spoken, so critical of people who’s lack of zeal as he kept telling them, is keeping souls from reaching Heaven. You might say that the spirituality of Francis Xavier is the spirituality of a missionary. Xavier was blessed in many ways by God to help him convert the souls that he was trying to bring to Christ. We know that he spoke to people who had many different dialects and languages. Father John, they called him, who is staying with the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence on Austin Ave. (it’s
from Carola, that’s So. India and just within the confines of his own home region) there are some twenty languages spoken. In other words, Xavier as he traveled couldn’t possibly master these tongues so one of the things that God did was to give him the gift of tongues in the sense that he could talk one language and many would understand what he was saying.
Xavier very soon began to work miracles. It must be twenty years ago … if I can find a copy I will have you read it – it’s my defense of the miracles of St. Francis Xavier. It seems that somebody wrote a life of Xavier, very learned life, but was not so sure that Xavier worked all those miracles attributed to him. Well, my Jesuit temper rose. I’m very seldom aroused, but I was – they were genuine miracles and let nobody say the contrary including several people raised from the dead. In other words, his phenomenal success in converting souls was helped by the Holy Spirit. He came as a stranger into a strange land. The few words that he learned were as nothing compared to the languages that he would have needed to speak the language of the people; God then supplemented his ignorance of the languages by having him gifted with working miracles. Realizing that the future generation had to be converted to the faith and trained to know their religion from childhood, he concentrated on bringing children around him. He would go into a village ringing a bell – I’m not sure what kind of a voice he had, but he would sing. Well, any man walking down the street ringing a bell and singing would attract a crowd of children and he would teach them to sing along with him and the songs that he taught them were their catechism lessons which he had them memorize. It is no wonder then, and we don’t have exact figures, there’s no way of telling. He was a missionary for only ten years, in ten years he wore himself out – great, wonderful! St. Francis Regis, John Francis Regis, died in the confessional about the same age as Xavier, wonderful! In any case, we are sure that he baptized, personally, over one hundred thousand people. Biographers are not sure how many were eventually baptized, some say several hundred thousand, we are sure of at least a hundred thousand that he personally baptized. Now if you divide a hundred thousand in to ten years, that’s ten thousand a year, just the baptizes and we don’t have evidence that he took them into I would say the Jehovahs’ Witness or some of the Baptist’s baptize their people by dipping them into water. He poured the water. If nothing else he would have been exhausted from just the sheer baptizing.
Xavier was not satisfied with preaching the Gospel in India. In ten years he met enough converts … he figured I would better to go on so he went to Japan. All told he evangelized eight nations; India, Japan, and six other countries that of course by now had been largely absorbed by the
communists in China and Vietnam. His great desire was to evangelize the people of China and as you know he died on December the 2nd looking at China and wishing that he would live to get into the mainland of the country and to preach the Gospel to them, but he never made it. In other words, he died looking at China from his death bed. That’s the life of a great man. Very different from Xavier and now just a few features of his spirituality.
The first feature is what I would call his intellectual humility. Ignatius was very humble, but he didn’t have to call it an intellectual humility for obvious reasons. He was humiliated during the years that he sat on the hard benches learning grammar with the children who we know made fun of him. Xavier was a great mind, a very gifted intellect. The lesson I think for us in our country especially, is an important one. My job has been teaching, at least they would consider themselves intellectuals. All I know is the one virtue they all desperately need is humility. And we are living in that kind of a country. We’re all infected by this disease or at least even if the disease is arrested, we’re all prone to it. It’s in the air we breath, it’s in everything we touch. In other words, the hardest thing for the human person to submit to God is the mind, and the more gifted a person is the harder it is to make that submission – we’re forever questioning, and questioning and questioning. Until now we have some sixteen volumes of Karl Rahners; pray for him that before he dies he might acknowledge the Popes’ authority in moral matters – he does not accept it. The most learned and disastrous denial of Humane Vitae of Paul VI is by Karl Rahner and he has never retracted it. His sixteen volumes … he’s got a few pious works which are nice … good reading on Our Lady, the Sacred Heart – beautiful; that’s before he lost his … I hope something slipped in his mind rather than his faith. But the books, all these other books are called theological investigation. My eye! That’s not the purpose of theology to investigate, to investigate what? You believe, you submit! It enters my mind when I was a child, I must have told you, I told you people so much I’m afraid of repeating myself. Sister, then her name was Gorgonia, did I tell you? fifth grade … we were talking about intellectual humility, whatever I was doing I was doing it. And she called out to the back of the room, “Johnny (that’s me) stop showing off.” I don’t mind my telling you – I’ve got to keep watching it constantly. Some people show off with their works of art or the multimillionaire who took me through twenty miles of gardens. He had lost his faith and as we were driving along slowly through his palatial estate, this is all for my pleasure, all for my pleasure – he was showing off. So I can wax eloquence on his intellectual humility, I keep cutting down on my vocabulary. I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but one thing that I’ve learned, at least in the last ten years, when I go over a manuscript for publication what simpler word can I substitute for one that’s in the manuscript now and I still find
in print and I’m embarrassed and I think to myself, ‘Johnny, stop showing off.’ I wouldn’t tell this except to friends. Do you know what I’m saying? Whatever we’ve got we want to show off; we’re afraid that somebody is liable to miss it. I watch young women combing their hair on the plane. Like while I was on the stage, I won’t dare imitate – our Lord is protecting me. First, humility and especially humility in whatever we’ve got, to watch it. If we don’t parade, we don’t vote, we don’t in plain English, show off. Xavier buried himself in the wilds of India. There was just no possibility, they wouldn’t appreciate ... in fact, he had to babble like a child in trying to make sense of a language he didn’t know. Okay, first feature.
Second – Union with God. Xavier by all accounts, was a very busy person. He slept little (that’s before they had blood pressure gauges) whatever he died of it was inevitable. He was just living too busy and exhausting a life. Now the lesson there is a good one. I’m speaking to you who don’t have that much physical work to do, that’s not your vocation – you’ve got some to do and do that. You are mainly to pray and the sacrifice of just living, there are six of you. For any one of you, all you have to have is the other five in the community and you don’t have to read a book about sacrifice. And I don’t even have to know, all I have to do is know human nature. I’m better off, I’ve got sixty-one others, we’ve got sixty-two in New York in the community, that makes it easier, you know that? I know some of my confreres choose their tables, I can see. There’s a seat next to me, they don’t sit there, they go else where, okay. That’s human nature. In other words there’s enough seats to go around.
Union with God is absolutely necessary if we’re going to do anything great for God. In other words, it’s not just your being here in Chapel. It’s not just whatever you’re doing or for those who are more actively engaged as surely I am and it took the doctor to tell me to stay put and thanks to your sister nurse, I … that was a contum cuntum, by the way, which I promptly applied. I called up the doctor, he said, “that’s a warning, Father.” ‘You think I should go to Philadelphia on Saturday. I’m to speak to the profession class, 6:30 Mass with Cardinal Quovare(?) I think better not, okay – and I’ve got video taping to do.’ “Don’t do it.” In any case, the more busy we are no matter what we’re doing the more we’ve got to be united with God and for that there’s no substitute. Having a prayer book in front of you is not necessarily being united with God, in case nobody told you. There’s no gimmick; there’s no trick; there’s no course on where that you learn, it might help, but … union with God means exactly what it says. What part of us must be united with God, don’t forget this – our will, all right, our will! In the nature of things this is Xavier’s great lesson. No matter what else we may be doing and we may have to be engaged and you name it what activity where our minds cannot be, say, thinking of God. He knows that, but whether the mind is consciously aware of God
or not … (who could finish this sentence … it depends on what translation you use). It’s from the Old Testament. “While my body sleeps … (who could finish that sentence) … my heart is awake.” Where the biblical word for ‘will’ is heart, all right? Even when we’re asleep, because we’re doing it out of conformity with the will of God our heart is awake. In other words, it is not what we do that matters, it’s why we do it for Him. That’s the second lesson.
Third – obedience. His going to India was an act of obedience and a hard act at that. He was sent as apostolic nuncio, the Pope’s representative, great! But he was the only Jesuit in India. He thought he joined a community and there was no community. He was superior, subject, provincially he was everything – though after ten years things improved, by that time he was ready to be rewarded for his sacrifice. How many times I thought of Xavier in the five years I taught at a state university, living – I found the Neuman Chaplin who was willing to have a priest live with him – why I was living outside the community for five years – that’s why the Jesuits (pardon me for saying this, I feel I’m a good Jesuit even though I’m in Lake Villa and living, shall I say, among or near to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood). You know what I’m saying? In other words our spirituality – this is Ignatian spirituality because it didn’t drop from the Heavens, of course the inspiration came from God – it had to be worked out in practice. Here Xavier worked it out in practice. There is one statement of Ignatius that Xavier obeyed to the letter, here’s how it reads, and we’re still reading it, “Ours (it’s always capitalized, that’s us, Ours this and Ours that) Ours should be ready to travel to various places wherever there is hope of God’s greater glory and the good of souls.” For Xavier, go to India, and for me, Lake Villa. If I was in another tradition, I couldn’t do it or I shouldn’t do it. In other words, we may do work, and this is what Xavier did in obedience – he even separated himself from the community that he dearly loved and all the advantages and benefits. One thing that I don’t tell you is missing, my daily confession, which I miss.
Fourth feature, and the last one. With his great love of God, he wrote that famous prayer, I hope you have it somewhere. “O deus ego amote”--O God, I love thee. Somewhere it should be among the Church’s approved prayers. When some fifteen years ago I was asked by the American provincials to put together a prayer book for Jesuits, I naturally put in that prayer of Xavier. Yet with his great love for God, Xavier was always a realist, he never lost sight of Heaven and of Hell. That is not unimportant. In other words, let’s never think we have graduated from being motivated by the desire of being rewarded by God for our good works and being motivated by the fear of God’s justice if we lose His friendship. It’s no wonder he was made the Church’s universal patron of the missions and when Pius XI came along, you know what he did – he added the Little Flower. He is the model of apostolic zeal and she is the model of apostolic prayer. St. Francis Xavier, pray for us. In the name of the Father and of Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Born in the Castle of Xavier near Sanguesa, in Navarre, 7 April, 1506; died on the Island of Sancian near the coast of China, 2 December, 1552. In 1525, having completed a preliminary course of studies in his own country, Francis Xavier went to Paris, where he entered the collège de Sainte-Barbe. Here he met the Savoyard, Pierre Favre, and a warm personal friendship sprang up between them. It was at this same college that St. Ignatius Loyola, who was already planning the foundation of the Society of Jesus, resided for a time as a guest in 1529. He soon won the confidence of the two young men; first Favre and later Xavier offered themselves with him in the formation of the Society. Four others, Lainez, Salmerón, Rodríguez, and Bobadilla, having joined them, the seven made the famous vow of Montmartre, 15 Aug., 1534.
After completing his studies in Paris and filling the post of teacher there for some time, Xavier left the city with his companions 15 November, 1536, and turned his steps to Venice, where he displayed zeal and charity in attending the sick in the hospitals. On 24 June, 1537, he received Holy orders with St. Ignatius. The following year he went to Rome, and after doing apostolic work there for some months, during the spring of 1539 he took part in the conferences which St. Ignatius held with his companions to prepare for the definitive foundation of the Society of Jesus. The order was approved verbally 3 September, and before the written approbation was secured, which was not until a year later, Xavier was appointed, at the earnest solicitation of the John III, King of Portugal, to evangelize the people of the East Indies. He left Rome 16 March, 1540, and reached Lisbon about June. Here he remained nine months, giving many admirable examples of apostolic zeal.
On 7 April, 1541, he embarked in a sailing vessel for India, and after a tedious and dangerous voyage landed at Goa, 6 May, 1542. The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the sick in the hospitals. He would go through the streets ringing a little bell and inviting the children to hear the word of God. When he had gathered a number, he would take them to a certain church and would there explain the catechism to them. About October, 1542, he started for the pearl fisheries of the extreme southern coast of the peninsula, desirous of restoring Christianity which, although introduced years before, had almost disappeared on account of the lack of priests. He devoted almost three years to the work of preaching to the people of Western India, converting many, and reaching in his journeys even the Island of Ceylon. Many were the difficulties and hardships which Xavier had to encounter at this time, sometimes on account of the cruel persecutions which some of the petty kings of the country carried on against the neophytes, and again because the Portuguese soldiers, far from seconding the work of the saint, retarded it by their bad example and vicious habits.
In the spring of 1545 Xavier started for Malacca. He laboured there for the last months of that year, and although he reaped an abundant spiritual harvest, he was not able to root out certain abuses, and was conscious that many sinners had resisted his efforts to bring them back to God. About January, 1546, Xavier left Malacca and went to Molucca Islands, where the Portuguese had some settlements, and for a year and a half he preached the Gospel to the inhabitants of Amboyna, Ternate, Baranura, and other lesser islands which it has been difficult to identify. It is claimed by some that during this expedition he landed on the island of Mindanao, and for this reason St. Francis Xavier has been called the first Apostle of the Philippines. But although this statement is made by some writers of the seventeenth century, and in the Bull of canonization issued in 1623, it is said that he preached the Gospel in Mindanao, up to the present time it has not been proved absolutely that St. Francis Xavier ever landed in the Philippines.
By July, 1547, he was again in Malacca. Here he met a Japanese called Anger (Han-Sir), from whom he obtained much information about Japan. His zeal was at once aroused by the idea of introducing Christianity into Japan, but for the time being the affairs of the Society demanded his presence at Goa, whither he went, taking Anger with him. During the six years that Xavier had been working among the infidels, other Jesuit missionaries had arrived at Goa, sent from Europe by St. Ignatius; moreover some who had been born in the country had been received into the Society. In 1548 Xavier sent these missionaries to the principal centres of India, where he had established missions, so that the work might be preserved and continued. He also established a novitiate and house of studies, and having received into the Society Father Cosme de Torres, a spanish priest whom he had met in the Maluccas, he started with him and Brother Juan Fernández for Japan towards the end of June, 1549. The Japanese Anger, who had been baptized at Goa and given the name of Pablo de Santa Fe, accompanied them.
They landed at the city of Kagoshima in Japan, 15 Aug., 1549. The entire first year was devoted to learning the Japanese language and translating into Japanese, with the help of Pablo de Santa Fe, the principal articles of faith and short treatises which were to be employed in preaching and catechizing. When he was able to express himself, Xavier began preaching and made some converts, but these aroused the ill will of the bonzes, who had him banished from the city. Leaving Kagoshima about August, 1550, he penetrated to the centre of Japan, and preached the Gospel in some of the cities of southern Japan. Towards the end of that year he reached Meaco, then the principal city of Japan, but he was unable to make any headway here because of the dissensions then rending the country. He retraced his steps to the centre of Japan, and during 1551 preached
in some important cities, forming the nucleus of several Christian communities, which in time increased with extraordinary rapidity.
After working about two years and a half in Japan he left this mission in charge of Father Cosme de Torres and Brother Juan Fernández, and returned to Goa, arriving there at the beginning of 1552. Here domestic troubles awaited him. Certain disagreements between the superior who had been left in charge of the missions, and the rector of the college, had to be adjusted. This, however, being arranged, Xavier turned his thoughts to China, and began to plan an expedition there. During his stay in Japan he had heard much of the Celestial Empire, and though he probably had not formed a proper estimate of his extent and greatness, he nevertheless understood how wide a field it afforded for the spread of the light of the Gospel. With the help of friends he arranged a commission or embassy the Sovereign of China, obtained from the Viceroy of India the appointment of ambassador, and in April, 1552, he left Goa. At Malacca the party encountered difficulties because the influential Portuguese disapproved of the expedition, but Xavier knew how to overcome this opposition, and in the autumn he arrived in a Portuguese vessel at the small island of Sancian near the coast of China. While planning the best means for reaching the mainland, he was taken ill, and as the movement of the vessel seemed to aggravate his condition, he was removed to the land, where a rude hut had been built to shelter him. In these wretched surroundings he breathed his last.
It is truly a matter of wonder that one man in the short space of ten years (6 May, 1542 - 2 December, 1552) could have visited so many countries, traversed so many seas, preached the Gospel to so many nations, and converted so many infidels. The incomparable apostolic zeal which animated him, and the stupendous miracles which God wrought through him, explain this marvel, which has no equal elsewhere. The list of the principal miracles may be found in the Bull of canonization. St. Francis Xavier is considered the greatest missionary since the time of the Apostles, and the zeal he displayed, the wonderful miracles he performed, and the great number of souls he brought to the light of true Faith, entitle him to this distinction. He was canonized with St. Ignatius in 1622, although on account of the death of Gregory XV, the Bull of canonization was not published until the following year.
The body of the saint is still enshrined at Goa in the church which formerly belonged to the Society. In 1614 by order of Claudius Acquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus, the right arm was severed at the elbow and conveyed to Rome, where the present altar was erected to receive it in the church of the Gesu.
One of St. Francis Xavier’s Last Letters
(To Francisco Perez in Malacca)
Through the mercy and kindness of God our Lord, the ship of Diogo Pereira, and all of us who sailed on it, arrived safely in this harbor of Sanchoâo (Sancian), where we met many other merchant ships. This harbor of Sanchoâo is thirty leagues from Cantâo (Canton). Many merchants of the city of Cantâo come to this Sanchoâo to trade with the Portuguese. The Portuguese diligently treated with them to see if any merchant from Cantâo would be willing to take me. All made excuses, saying that they would be placing their lives and their possessions at great risk if the governor of Cantâo learned that they had brought me with them; and because of this they were unwilling to take me at any price on their ships to Cantâo.
It pleased God our Lord that a distinguished man, a resident of Cantâo, offered to take me for two hundred cruzados in a small boat in which there would be no other sailors except his sons and servants, so that the governor of Cantâo would not, through the sailors, come to know who was the merchant who had brought me. He further offered to keep me hidden in his house for three or four days and to take me from there one morning before dawn to the gate of the city with my books and baggage so that I might go at once from there to the house of the governor and tell him how we had come to go to where the king of China is, showing him the letter which we received from the Lord Bishop for the king of China, and telling him how we have been sent by His Highness to proclaim the law of God.
According to what the people of the land tell us, the dangers which we shall incur are two: the first is that the man who takes us, after he has been paid the two hundred cruzados, will leave us on some deserted island, or throw us into the sea, so that it does not come to the knowledge of the governor of Cantâo; the second is that if he takes us to Cantâo, and we come before the governor, he will give orders that we be tortured or be put in prison, since it is such a strange thing and there are so many prohibitions in China that anybody should go there without a pass from the king, since the king so strongly forbids strangers entering his land without his permit. Besides these two dangers, there are’ others much greater which do not affect the people of the land, and which would take too long to recount, although I will not omit to mention a few.
The first is to cease to hope and confide in the mercy of God, since it is for His love and service that we are going to manifest His law and Jesus Christ, His Son, our Redeemer and Lord, as He well knows. Since through His holy mercy, He gave us these desires, to distrust His mercy and power now, because of the dangers in which we could see ourselves for His service, is a much greater danger (for if He is served more, He will protect us from the dangers of this life) than the evils which can be inflicted upon us by all the enemies of God, since without God’s licence and permission, the devils and their ministers cannot harm us in any way.
And we must also strengthen ourselves with the saying of the Lord that says: “He that loves his life in this world will lose it, and he who loses it for the sake of God will find it,” which is in keeping with what Christ our Lord also says: “He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”
We, considering these dangers to the soul, which are much greater than those of the body, find that it is safer and more secure to pass through bodily dangers than to be caught in spiritual dangers before God. We are consequently determined to go to China by any way whatever. I hope in God our Lord that the outcome of our voyage will be to the increase of our holy faith, no matter how much the enemies and their ministers persecute us, since “if God is for us, who will be victorious over us?”
When the ship leaves this port of Sanchoâo for Mallaca, I hope in God our Lord that it will bear news of how we were received in Cantâo, since boats are always coming from Cantâo to this port, through which I shall be able to write about what we have experienced from here to Cantâo, and what the governor of Cantâo did to us.
Alvaro Ferreira and Antonio China were always ill on their voyage; now, through the mercy of God, they are feeling better. I have discovered that Antonio is of no use as an interpreter, since he has forgotten how to speak Chinese. A certain Pero Lopez, who was a slave of Antonio de Lopez Bobadilha, who died in the siege of Mallaca, offered to go with me as an interpreter. He knows how to read and write Portuguese, and he also reads and writes Chinese to a certain extent. He offered himself to go with me with great courage and readiness; God will reward him in this life and in the next; commend him to God our Lord that He grant him the gift of perseverance.
When we arrived in Sanchoâo, we built a church; and I said Mass every day until I became ill with fevers. I was sick for fifteen days; now, through the mercy of God, I have recovered my health. There has been no lack of spiritual labors such as in hearing confessions and visiting the sick, and reconciling enemies. From here I do not know what else to tell you except that we are firmly resolved to go to China. All the Chinese whom we have seen, I mean distinguished merchants, show that they are happy and eager for us to go to China, since it seems to them that we are bringing a law written in books which will be better than what they have, or because they are pleased with what is new. They all show that they are much pleased, but no one is willing to take us because of the dangers which they might incur.
Written in Sanchoâo.
The church of Our Lady + and the college, if it should belong to us, and all that belongs to the Society of Jesus will remain with Padre Vicente Viegas. Give it to him with your own hand and leave him a copy of the donation which the Lord Bishop gave of the house of Our Lady to the Society of the name of Jesus, so that neither the vicar nor anyone else should have anything to do with the church of Our Lady except Padre Vicente Viegas. And so you will earnestly ask Padre Vicente Viegas on your part and mine that he be willing to accept this burden for the love of God until the rector of Sâo Paulo should provide for some person to come to stay in Mallaca. And if it seems good to you that Bernardo should remain with him, he should remain to instruct the children.
I am waiting each day for a Chinaman who is to come from Cantâo to take me. May it please God that he come as I desire it, for if by any chance God does not wish it, I do not know what I should do, whether I should go to India or to Siâo, so that from Siâo I might go in the embassy which the king of Siâo sends to the king of China. I am writing you this so that you may tell Diogo Pereira that if he has to go to China and has some way of writing to me in Siâo, that he write to me, so that we meet there or in some other port of China. Keep a close friendship with Diogo Pereira both in Mallaca and in India, recommending him first of all to God; and then assist him in every other way you can, since he is so great a friend of the Society.
May Christ our Lord give us His help and favor. Amen. From Sanchoâo, today, the twenty-second of October, 1552.
Wholly yours in Christ,
Francisco.
(From Francis Xavier, His Life, his Times, by Georg Shurhammer, SJ, vol. IV, pp.627 – 629)
The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
December third of this year will mark the fourth centenary of the death of St. Francis Xavier. Among the glories of the saint which need to be vindicated at the present time are the miracles which four centuries of tradition have identified with his name. Rationalist criticism has consciously singled out the supernatural phenomena reported in the story of his life. The argument is that if you can eliminate divine intervention from the life of “one of the most noble and devoted men” in the history of the Church, you logically eliminate the same from the Church as a whole. Even Catholics have been influenced by this criticism. Thus, according to a recent writer, “It is a myth he (Xavier) possessed the gift of tongues. Indeed about the only language he ever learned to speak and write with reasonable facility was Portuguese. It is a myth also that he was a great worker of miracles. His miracles were his patience, his generosity, his consuming love of Christ his Divine Master, his limitless trust in God.” [1]
History of the Controversy Over Xavier’s Miracles
While the miracles of St. Francis Xavier “have always been a grievous eyesore to Protestant polemics,” the first significant attack on their genuinity was made in England just two hundred years ago by a Dr. Douglas, later Anglican Bishop of Salisbury. In 1752 he published the “Criterion: or Rules by which the true miracles of the New Testament are distinguished from the spurious miracles of Pagans and Papists.” His avowed purpose was to disprove the phenomena wrought in the Catholic Church and of demonstrating that “the miracles ascribed to Popish saints are forgeries of an age posterior to that they lay claim to.” [2] To illustrate his thesis, he gives the example of Francis Xavier who among Papist believers is regarded as a wonder-worker, but in reality was nothing of the kind. In proof of this, he offers what he calls “conclusive evidence that, during thirty-five years from the death of Xavier, his miracles had not been heard of. The evidence I shall allege,” he says, “is that of Acosta, who himself had been a missionary among the Indians. His work, De Procuranda Indarum Salute, was printed in 1589-that is, above thirty-seven years after the death of Xavier; and in it we find an express acknowledgment that no miracles had ever been performed by missionaries among the Indians. Acosta was himself a Jesuit, and therefore from his silence we may infer unexceptionably that between thirty and forty years had elapsed before Xavier’s miracles were thought of.” [3]
During the next hundred years, Douglas was followed by a series of Protestant divines who repeated his charges against the miracles in St.
Francis’ life. Among others, Le Mesurier, Farmer, Roberts, Greer, Venn and Hoffman all appealed to the “generation of silence” after Xavier’s death as clear proof that his reputation as a thaumaturgist was a pure fraud. Douglas and his imitators were refuted by John Milner in his Vindication of the End of Religious Controversy, published in l825. [4]
Before the end of the century, the opposition shifted to America where, in 1891, Andrew White, first president of Cornell University, published two articles against Xavier’s miracles in the Popular Science Monthly. He was answered the same year by the Jesuit, Thomas Hughes, in two issues of the Catholic World. White came back five years later with his two volume History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, in which he renewed the claim that there are no genuine miracles in the history of Christianity-and rested his case on a close analysis of the reported miracles in the life of St. Francis Xavier. White’s theory was that so-called Christian miracles are only “legends of miracles (which) have grown about the lives of all great benefactors of humanity.” In post-Apostolic Christianity there are “very many examples which enable us to study the evolution of legendary miracles.” So many, in fact, that a careful scrutiny of all of them is impossible. In lieu of this, White prefers to “select but one, which is chosen because it is the life of one of the most noble and devoted men in the history of humanity, one whose biography is before the world with its most minute details-St. Francis Xavier.” [5] The conclusion is obvious: if the miracles recorded in his life can be shown to be legendary, then no other record of miraculous phenomena in the life of any Christian saint can be accepted as true.
In the meantime, the Bollandists were busy assembling the available data in the controversy, and in 1897 they published a thorough refutation of Andrew White and his predecessors. The opposition never answered the rebuttal. But unfortunately, where the refutation remained hidden in the Analecta Bollandiana, the adversaries continued to publicize their “exposè” as incontestible truth. The present study, therefore, is intended to bring the issue back to where it stood fifty years ago, in the field of authentic history. The method will be to follow the Bollandists in answering the American critic who had gathered together all the arguments ever brought against the miracles of St. Francis Xavier.
Xavier’s Silence About His Own Miracles
The first and basic argument of the critics is the absence of any reference to miracles in the writings of Francis Xavier. “During his career as a missionary,” we are told, “he wrote great numbers of letters, which were preserved and have since been published; and these, with the letters of his contemporaries exhibit clearly all the features of his life…. No account of a miracle wrought by him appears either in his own letters or in any contemporary document.” [6]
Logically, this objection covers two arguments: first, how explain Xavier’s silence about his own wonder-working powers, if he really possessed them; and secondly, the silence of contemporary historians, friends of the saint and his own religious brethren. These latter were not mute on the subject through any “evil heart of unbelief.” On the contrary, they were “prompt to record the slightest occurrence which they thought evidence of Divine favor.” [7] Yet not a word did they say about Xavier’s working miracles.
Relative to the missionary’s silence about himself, the Bollandists call this observation at least naive, which “shows how little the American writer understood the character of Xavier. For as much as the former professor of Ste. Barbe had previously sought for human glory, so much did the disciple of St. Ignatius now seek to bury in profound oblivion the marvelous works that were wrought in and through him by God. The last person we should ask about Xavier’s miracles is Xavier himself-as evidenced from the answer which he gave on one occasion when asked if he had raised someone from the dead.” [8] According to Orlandini, a contemporary, Francis blushed deeply and cried out against the idea, saying, “And so I am said to have raised the dead!” [9] It is significant that White deleted this episode from his treatment of the subject in 1896. Five years before, in the Popular Science articles, he quoted the story from Orlandini, but only to call it a “subsidiary legend” which the Jesuits invented to explain away Francis’ silence about his thaumaturgic powers. Meantime his attention had been called to such arbitrary handling of facts to sustain a preconceived theory. Moreover, the same Orlandini is witness again to explain the discrepancy between Xavier’s reticence about himself and the glowing accounts of those who knew him. “He writes about his own affairs sparingly and dryly, while at the same time very much is written about him, profusely and copiously, both by people in the world and by members of the order.” [10]
Alleged Silence of Contemporary History
More serious, however, is the second argument of Andrew White, namely, that “no account of a miracle wrought by him (Xavier) appears…in any contemporary document.” The Bollandists’ answer is devastating: contemporary accounts are filled with references to Xavier’s miraculous powers. Among others, and by no means exhaustive, are the following, all from authentic documents written before December, 1551:
Gaspar Barze, in a letter dated December 13, 1548, wrote of Francis Xavier to his brethren in Portugal, describing what happened at Goa when on one occasion the missionary was delayed in returning from Cape Comorin: “Suddenly the rumor was spread that Master Francis had died…. His friends were deeply grieved at this news and said among themselves, ‘Though it should cost us 30,000 cruzados, we will see that
he is canonized.’ Then they began recounting the miracles, the very great miracles, which he had worked while living in their country. I will not describe them to you because it is not fitting that we should talk about these things, except to God, to render Him thanks for granting such graces.” [11]
In a letter of Francis Perez to the Fathers at Coimbra is reported the double prophecy which Xavier had made at Malacca. The first was his certain foreknowledge of a victory of the Christian armada over the Pagan Moros, hundreds of miles away, contrary to all expectations, and at the very hour when the victory was won. The second was his correct prediction of the exact time when a certain man, named Arausio, would die. Perez’ letter is not dated, but the context clearly shows it was written during Xavier’s lifetime. [12]
In 1545, John Vaz, licentiate in theology and a companion of Francis Xavier in the Indies, on his return to Rome narrated a series of prodigies which the saint had performed. [13]
Another clear reference to the miracles of Francis Xavier occurs in a letter written in 1548 from Travancore. “In whatever town Francis stops, wherever he even passes by, he acquires such renown as can scarcely be believed. I do not wish to write about the things which he does; so sublime that I do not trust myself adequately to describe them on paper. The life of Master Francis has created such a stir that his name is celebrated through all India. . . . How I should like to narrate in detail all the wonders which are related of Master Francis; believe me, my failure to do so pains me more than it does you. But I assure you in confidence that God is working through his means such marvelous things as may not licitly be the subject of idle conversation.” [14]
There were not wanting sceptics in Portugal who refused to accept the glowing accounts of Xavier’s miracles until confirmed, as they said, by impartial witnesses. A letter sent from Lisbon in 1548 tells how these critics were silenced on one occasion. “Dining recently with the ambassador of the emperor,” writes the Jesuit correspondent, “I there met Francisco Guzman, Don Pedro de Meneses and two other knights who had just returned from India. They spoke with such admiration of our Blessed Father (Xavier) that it was clear the Lord had inspired them so to speak, in order to manifest in that distinguished company the truth about the marvelous deeds which His Divine Majesty works through His good servant, and in order to put to confusion the few incredulous listeners who were present.” [15]
Among other contemporary witnesses was the famous Don Fernando Mendez Pinto. Leaving Lisbon for the Indies in 1537, he arrived at
Malacca in January, 1547. “There,” he says, “we found the Reverend Father, Master Francis Xavier, superior of the Society of Jesus in India. Only a few days before he had arrived from the Moluccas with a great reputation for sanctity. People call him ‘the saint,’ on account of the many miracles which they have seen him work.” [16]
This seems sufficient, the Bollandists observe, to negative the assertion of an absolute silence of contemporary history. “Even the few extracts we gave, prove abundantly that, while still living, the Apostle of the Indies enjoyed among his brethren and fellow-workers a well merited reputation for miraculous power. Naturally we do not find in the letters of the missionaries from India and Japan more than a fraction of all the miracles which the juridical inquiry was later on to reveal. But are we on that account to conclude to the evolution of a legend ?” [17]
An extant letter penned at Goa by a Jesuit Superior shortly after Francis’ death shows how unjust is the accusation of developing a Xavier legend imputed to his brethren and later biographers. It also helps to explain the relative reticence among Jesuits on the subject of St. Francis’ miracles while he was yet alive. “As regards the death of our Father Francis,” wrote Balthasar Diaz, “there are many people in this city who have lived with him in different places and have seen him do and say among the pagans such things as were evidently supernatural and equal to those which we read in the lives of the saints. Persons of great integrity have come to ask me why we do not begin a formal investigation and gathering of testimony of all these things, with a view to having him canonized. However, because I felt that this should be undertaken by someone duly authorized, and also for personal reasons, I did not wish to begin the inquiry on my own authority.” [18]
Evolutionary Theory of Xavier’s Miracles
Against the assumption that Francis Xavier worked no miracles during his lifetime, the opposition was faced with the mass of contrary evidence in all the known biographies and panegyrics of the saint. To explain this away, the theory of legendary development was constructed. Said the critics: “It is hardly necessary to attribute to the orators and biographers generally a conscious attempt to deceive. The simple fact is, that as a rule they thought, spoke and wrote in obedience to the natural laws which govern the luxuriant growth of myth and legend in the warm atmosphere of love and devotion which constantly arises about great religious leaders in times when men have little or no knowledge of natural law, when there is little care for scientific evidence, and when he who believes most is thought most meritorious.” [19]
Fortunately, for the purpose of refutation, Andrew White illustrates what his school means by “the luxuriant growth of myth and legend” regarding
Xavier’s miracles. He takes three biographies of the saint, by as many Jesuits, and points to the accumulation of miracles from the first to the second to the third.
First, “in 1588, thirty-six years after Xavier’s death, the Jesuit Father, Maffei, who had been especially conversant with Xavier’s career in the East, published his History of India, though he gave a biography of Xavier which shows fervent admiration for his subject, he dwelt very lightly on the alleged miracles.”
Secondly, “six years later, in 1594, Fr. Tursellinus published his Life of Xavier. . . . This work shows a vast increase in the number of miracles over those given by all sources up to that time.” Where previously the saint was represented only as curing the sick, now he is credited with “casting out demons, stilling the tempest, raising the dead and performing miracles of every sort.”
Finally, “in 1682, one hundred and thirty years after Xavier’s death, appeared his biography by Fr. Bouhours; and this became a classic. In it the old miracles of all kinds were enormously multiplied, and many new ones given. Miracles few and small in Tursellinus became many and great in Bouhours. In Tursellinus, Xavier during his life saves one person from drowning, in Bouhours he saves during his life three; in Tursellinus, Xavier during his life raises four persons from the dead, in Bouhours fourteen; in Tursellinus there is one miraculous supply of water, in Bouhours three; in Tursellinus there is no miraculous draught of fishes, in Bouhours there is one . . . and so through a long series of miracles.” [20]
The Bollandists easily dispose of this objection. First regarding the apparent discrepancy between Maffei and Tursellinus, “it is idle to make a comparison on this point . . . because the two biographers had an entirely different purpose in view.’Others,’ says Maffei, ‘recounted his (Xavier’s) infallible predictions and miracles-many more, indeed, than we have touched upon, hurrying on, as we have done, to fulfill another purpose.’” [21]
His purpose was to give a History of the East, addressed to Philip II of Spain, and to review the progress of Portuguese colonization up to that time. As a matter of fact, Maffei stops at least three times in the course of his narrative to follow St. Francis Xavier alone, and devotes some forty-eight pages to his voyages and achievements. When he comes to the saint’s funeral at Goa, he apologizes for not saying more on the subject. Moreover, since the canonical process investigating the virtues and miracles of St. Francis began at Goa in 1556, a mass of evidence had been collected by 1588, so that Maffei was more than justified in not describing “the infallible predictions and miracles” which others had
already recounted.
About Tursellinus, it is interesting to note, say the Bollandists, “the change in attitude which Dr. White takes in 1891 and in 1896. In 1891, when the first articles on St. Francis Xavier appeared in the Popular Science Monthly, Tursellinus was taken as the point of departure for the evolution of the legend; and Dr. White asserted that Tursellinus’ life contained ‘scarcely any miracles.’” [22] Meantime Thomas Hughes had refuted this assertion by showing with documentary evidence that Tursellinus “at the genesis of the myth” actually gives an account of no less than fifty-one reported miracles worked by Francis during his life in the East. [23] Consequently, in 1896, the saint’s critic replaces Tursellinus with Maffei, as heading the legend. And instead of “scarcely any miracles,” Tursellinus now “shows a vast increase in the number of miracles over those given by all sources together up to that time.” [24]
Bouhours wrote his biography in 1682, in which he is supposed to have “enormously amplified and multiplied” the miracles attributed to Xavier by earlier biographers. The implication is unwarranted, and that on two scores: because it assumes that “Bouhours, writing ninety years after Tursellinus, could not have had access to any new sources,” and because it confuses the miracles worked by St. Francis during his own lifetime with those worked after his death, but through his intercession.
The objection is made that “Xavier had been dead one hundred and thirty years, and, of course, all the natives upon whom he had wrought his miracles, and their children and grandchildren, were gone.” [25] Therefore, it is argued, Bouhours drew on his imagination to improve on Tursellinus. In reality, Bouhours had a wealth of information, juridically accredited, to which Tursellinus had no access because it was not yet accumulated. As noted before, the canonical investigation into Xavier’s life and miracles began at Goa in 1556, and was not completed until 1616, at Pamplona. Xavier was beatified in 1619, and canonized in 1623. In the interval, literally hundreds of persons gave their sworn testimony to having personally experienced, or seen, or received from trustworthy witnesses, an account of certain extraordinary phenomena worked by Francis Xavier. The bare summary of this testimony covers 506 pages in the Monumenta Xaveriana. Indicative of the first hand character of the information are the following attestations, taken in sequence, from the Episcopal Process held at Cochin in 1616:
A merchant who testified that he was ninety-eight years old, had known Francis Xavier since his eleventh year, and had been his servant companion on various journeys, among other phenomena related how on one occasion the missionary saved the crew of a ship on which he was sailing. They had been without fresh water for three weeks and were near
death of thirst. Francis ordered a quantity of sea water to be brought up, blessed it, and gave them to drink. The water was perfectly fresh. [26]
A widow, over eighty years old, testified to the sudden cessation of the plague, the day that Xavier’s body was brought to Malacca. She was fifteen years old at the time. For weeks before, many people had been dying of the plague every day. But from the day the body touched port, not one person died of the disease, which simply disappeared. [27]
The next was also a widow over eighty, who, among other things, testified that when she was only eleven years old she saw and heard the missionary. He was already then regarded as a saint, and “great miracles were universally (communiter) attributed to him.” [28]
The following four witnesses gave their ages as 120, 75, over 70, and over 100-and so on, down the process, which in this one city numbered sixty-three sworn testimonies, mostly from persons who had lived and worked with Francis Xavier.
However, it was not only that Bouhours had more evidence at hand than was available to earlier biographers, but many of the phenomena which he relates occurred not during Xavier’s life but after his death. So there could be no question of previous biographies narrating events that had not yet taken place. In the Bull of Canonization alone, there are listed and detailed eight miraculous events, attested as having been worked through the intercession of St. Francis after 1552. They are, in order: restoration of limbs withered since birth; resuscitation to life of a child about to be buried; sight to a blind man; a leper healed; bleeding internal tumor cured; cancer of the breast healed; ulcerous legs restored to normal; and a blind paralytic instantly recovering sight and the use of his limbs. [29]
St. Francis Xavier’s Gift of Tongues
Among the miracles attributed to Francis Xavier, his reputed gift of tongues is especially called into question. “Throughout his letters,” say the critics, “Xavier constantly dwells upon his difficulties with the various languages of the different tribes among whom he went. He tells us how he surmounted these difficulties: sometimes by learning just enough of a language to translate into it some of the main Church formulas; sometimes by getting the help of others to patch together some pious teachings to be learned by rote; sometimes by employing interpreters; and sometimes by a mixture of various dialects, and even by signs.” So much for history. Now the legend. “But during the canonization proceedings at Rome, in the speeches then made, and finally in the papal bull, great stress was laid upon the fact that Xavier possessed the gift of tongues.” [30]
This criticism was a particularly unhappy one, since it had already been
made and disposed of at the process of canonization three centuries before. The whole account is given by Benedict XIV in his treatise on Heroic Virtue:
At the Roman investigation into the life of Francis Xavier, a certain theologian, Jacob Picenino, argued against Xavier’s supposed gift of tongues by quoting those passages in his letters where he tells how much effort he expended in learning the language of his prospective converts. Picenino was answered by Cardinal Gotti, who defended Xavier’s gift of tongues by making two distinctions: It is not only consistent with the operations of grace, but required that a person use all the human means at his disposal to achieve a given end. In the instance, it is a positive argument in favor of the charisma that Xavier should have studied and otherwise made an effort to acquire a new language, since not to have done so would have been imprudence, not to say presumption.
Authentic sources do not say that St. Francis possessed the gift of tongues early in the apostolate. This would be consistent, said the Cardinal, with what happened in the case of the Apostles, upon whom the gift of tongues was divinely bestowed, not immediately when they were called by Christ, but only after the descent of the Holy Ghost. [31]
Moreover, as appears in the Acta of the Canonization, there was no claim that the charisma in question was either a permanent or constant possession. Ultra-conservatives, quoted by the Bollandists, would reduce to perhaps two occasions when St. Francis was understood by different people in their own language: once at Travancor and again at Amanguci. The Bull of Canonization seems to favor this position, when it says, “Sometimes (quandoque) it happened that when he was addressing a gathering of people from different nations, each listener understood him in the language in which he was born.” [32]
On the other hand, the report of Auditors of the Rota favors the opposite opinion. “Xavier,” it says, “was illustrious for the gift of tongues, for he spoke with elegance and fluency the languages, which he had never learnt, of different nations, to whom he went for the sake of preaching the Gospel, just as if he had been born and bred among them; and it happened not infrequently, that while he was preaching, men of diverse nations heard him speak each in his own language.” [33]
The Mind of the Church on Xavier’s Miracles
To answer non-Catholic criticism of Xavier’s miracles, it is enough to appeal to the evidence of contemporary history. But Catholics have also another norm by which to pass judgment in the matter-the declarations of ecclesiastical authority. Here the evidence is most conclusive. For every official statement of the Church on the subject credits the Apostle of the
Indies with thaumaturgic powers that are not only considered real, but so extraordinary that, with the possible exception of Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua, they are unique in the history of Christian hagiography. Thus in the Brief of Beatification, issued in 1619 by Pope Paul V, he declares that “Francis Xavier, during his life as a priest, was endowed by the Lord with many and outstanding (multis et eximiis) gifts of virtue, of grace and of miracles.” [34]
In the Allocution of 1622, when Gregory XV in a private Consistory proposed to the Cardinals that Francis Xavier should be canonized, he said: “In as much as holiness of life, a reputation for miracles (claritudo miraculorum) and the desires of the people concur in their judgment on this remarkable man, the true Apostle of the Indies, it is expedient that he should be raised to the honors of sainthood.” [35] The Cardinals who assisted, individually, gave their judgment, in writing, on whether Xavier should be canonized. Their votes are only a paragraph each, some less than fifty words, yet all of them, and mostly in explicit terms, refer to his claritudo miraculorum as a sure sign that the Holy Spirit desires His servant to be honored as a saint.
According to Cardinal a Monte, “He shone with the splendor of many miracles.” [36] And Bandini, “He drew the hardened hearts of men to the true faith by innumerable miracles.” [37] Cardinal Ginnasii, “By the power of God, he healed the sick, raised the dead, spoke with the gift of tongues.” [38] Cardinal Millini, “He was resplendent with so many and such great miracles that I believe he may without hesitation be entered by Your Holiness in the catalog of the saints.” [39]
In the Bull of Canonization issued by Urban VIII on August 6, 1623, the miracles of St. Francis make up the bulk of the nineteen pages, in folio, of the papal document. Regarding the phenomena which happened during the saint’s life, the Pope says, in general, that “He was found worthy to be richly endowed with apostolic charismata; the evidence of his apostolate being manifested... in signs and prodigies and powers.” [40] Then follows a careful description of eighteen miracles in the life of St. Francis which the Church accepted as authentic:
Omitting those already mentioned, the first phenomenon noted in the document was the gift of rapture. While celebrating Mass, Xavier was often so rapt in ecstasy that those in attendance could with difficulty rouse him back to normal consciousness. [41]
At other times during the Holy Sacrifice, he was seen raised from the ground a cubit and more so that “while seeing the greatness of the miracle, the people might acknowledge the sanctity of the servant of God.” [42] After his arrival in the Indies, one of the “more outstanding prodigies which
he wrought for the edification of the faithful,” occurred when a mob of pagan Badages made a surprise attack on a Christian village, intending to kill the inhabitants. But the mob was put to flight when Francis went out to meet them, accompanied by a mysterious figure whose majesty and splendor terrified the assailants. [43]
At Comorin, when the pagans were not moved by his words, Xavier asked that a tomb which had been sealed the day before should be opened. Then indicating that this would be a sign of God’s approval of Christianity, he called to the body to rise. The dead man came to life, with hundreds of natives embracing the faith as a consequence. [44]
In the same city on another occasion, Francis healed a beggar with ulcerous legs when in a burst of heroism he drank the putrid water in which the running sores had been washed. [45] Also in east India, Xavier brought back to life a young man who had died of a pestilential fever, and was being carried to the cemetery. [46]
In the city of Combutura, a boy had fallen into a deep well and drowned. His body was later brought up to the surface. Francis prayed over the dead child and then, “taking it by the hand, ordered it in the name of Jesus Christ to rise. Immediately the boy returned to life.” [47]
In Japan, a merchant, blind for years, was given back his sight when Francis recited the Gospels and made the sign of the cross over his head. [48]
On one occasion, a small crucifix which the missionary had lost in the ocean was restored to him by a sea crab when he reached the shore. [49] Again out at sea during a storm, the landing boat of the ship on which he was sailing was torn from its mooring and lost in the waves. Three days later, in answer to Xavier’s prayers, the boat floated back to the ship and rested alongside the hulk, ready for landing, as though nothing had happened. [50]
As examples of his prophetic powers, Francis predicted the fate of two ships sailing out of port-that one would be destroyed in a storm and the other, a smaller and older vessel, would reach its destination in safety. At another time, as he arrived at the altar for Mass, he suddenly turned to the people and asked them to pray for the soul of a wine merchant who had just died, at a distance of twelve days’ journey away. He also promised a generous benefactor that God would reward him by telling him the time of his death. Years later, in apparent good health, the man was suddenly forewarned and died in the peace of God. [51]
Since his canonization in 1623, a series of new honors has been conferred
on Francis Xavier by the Holy See, culminating in his declaration in 1922 as the heavenly patron of all Catholic Missions. And consistently the Roman Pontiffs, in their letters and decrees, have emphasized in a singular way his extraordinary gift of miracles and prophecies.
Thus Alexander VII, shortly after Xavier’s canonization, authorized the following insertion to be made in the Roman Martyrology for the third of December: “. . . the Apostle of the Indies was conspicuous in the number of infidels he converted to Christ, and in the greatness of his miracles, especially in raising the dead to life and in the spirit of prophecy.” [52]
And more recently, Pope Pius XI, on the third centenary of St. Francis’ canonization, described the “Heavenly Patron of the Propagation of the Faith” as one who, “in the interest of souls, many times traversed vast expanses of land and sea, was the first to bring the name of Christ to the nation of Japan, suffered many dangers and underwent incredible trials, administered the saving waters of Baptism to countless souls, and performed innumerable miracles of every kind (infinita omne genus portenta).” [53]
In the light of all the evidence, therefore, scientific as seen in the canonical processes, and authoritative as shown in the statements of the Church, it is impossible to deny to Francis Xavier the title which posterity has given to him, of “the wonder-worker of modern Christianity.” The miracles which he worked, the Bollandists conclude, are disconcerting only to those who deny the supernatural. To anyone else, they are a fulfillment of Christ’s promise to His disciples: “In My name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak in new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands upon the sick and they shall get well.” [54]
[1] For personal reasons, it seems better not to identify the author of this statement.
[2] Quoted in Milner’s Vindication of the End of Religious Controversy, Letter XXII, Philadelphia, 1825.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Milner shows that Douglas falsified the testimony of Acosta. The latter is not only not silent on Xavier’s miracles, but expressly says that, “So many and such great signs are reported of him by many, and those proper witnesses, that hardly so many are reported by anyone except the Apostles.” Ibid.
[5] White, Andrew D., History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, New York, 1908, II, 5.
[6] Ibid., p. 6.
[7] Ibid., p. 8.
[8] Analecta Bollandiana, Bruxelles, 1897, XVI, 57 f.
[9] Orlandini, Historia Societatis Iesu, lib. VIII, n. 29.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Selectae Indiarum Epistolae, Florentiae, 1887, Epist. XI, p. 54.
[12] Ibid., Epist. XV, p. 73.
[13] Ibid., Epist. III, p. 6.
[14] Ibid., Epist. IX, p. 38.
[15] Monumenta, Historica S.I., Epistolae Mixtae, Vol. I, Epist. 172, p. 559.
[16] Figuier, Bernard, Les Voyages Adventureux de Fernand Mendez Pinto, Paris, 1628, p. 1037.
[17] Analecta Bollandiana, XVI, 60.
[18] Selectae Indiarum Epistolae, Epist. XXXVIII, p. 182.
[19] White, op. cit., p. 21.
[20] Ibid.,pp. 14 ff.
[21] Analecta Bollandiana, p. 61.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Catholic World, Sept., 1891, pp. 840 f.
[24] White, op. cit., p. 14.
[25] Ibid., p. 17.
American Ecclesiastical Review Vol. 127, October 1952, pp. 248-263
[26] Monumenta Xaveriana, Processus Cocinensis, II, 449.
[27] Ibid., p. 451.
[28] Ibid., p. 453.
[29] Ibid., Bulla Canonizationis, pp. 716-22.
[30] White, op. cit., pp. 19 f.
[31] Pope Benedict XIV, Heroic Virtue, London, 1852, III, 225.
[32] Monumenta Xaveriana, p. 710.
[33] Pope Benedict XIV, loc. cit.
[34] Monumenta Xaveriana, Breve Beatificationis, p. 680.
[35] Ibid., cta in Consistorio Semipublico, p. 687.
[36] Ibid., p. 688.
[37] Ibid., p. 689.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid., p. 690.
[40] Ibid., Bulla Canonizationis, p. 705.
[41] Ibid., p. 708.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid., p. 710.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid., p. 711.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., p. 713.
[50] Ibid., p. 712.
[51] Ibid., pp. 713 ff.
[52] Ibid. Elogium S. Xaverii Inserendum Martyrologio Romano, p. 727.
[53] Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XIV, 1922, 632 f.
[54] Mark 16:17 f.
SHOWCASING DEATH, Immortalizing faith . . .
by Dom Martin
Death is an awful thought, lachrymose indeed! Yet, at each wailing knell, there is no dearth of pall bearers, seafarers or wayfarers. Nor of artists and artisans, metamorphizing the dead into an opiate for the living. Or of truly motivated relatives, checking the obituary columns on their Blackberry phones in hourly increments for those, whose desired demise, will make these the beneficiaries of their life insurance policy or Last Will. Therefore, from the sublime to the banal, we are all here for a purpose for which our existence came to be necessary until death commutes our life sentence on earth!
In the household of a pauper, the deceased lays in a state of exacted pathos, precisely as death articulated, or grief pontificated. The affluent, however, have the means to engage the services of a mortician and give their beloved dead an imaginary halo and a Giorgio Armani suit. In the case of St. Francis Xavier, the onus is on posterity to give his death a histrionic reincarnation at each decennial Exposition.
Scrolling time back to 1964 – I recall as a 9th grader – being privately intrigued by a metal fabrication at the Don Bosco Trade School in Panjim. What was worked on resembled a cradle (see sketch below) and it instantly belabored me with two conundrums? One: it was logistically oversized for an infant. Two: I was too timid to give my curiosity marching orders to pester Bro. Joseph -- who ran the workshop – into giving answers. Nevertheless, during recess-break, I would religiously engage my curiosity on the progress of that metal contraption, until one day it had simply moved out of the shop.
Like any insignificant cloud in the sky, I too eventually moved on, initially by pledging my life to God and enlisting in a seminary. At the end of the second year, I was consecrated as a gargantuan misfit and discharged. Left temporarily on my own, I trudged my way to a Benedictine monastery, where I effortlessly acclimatized my corpus to the perpetual drill of 8 hours work, 8 hours prayer and 8 hours sleep. It was during one such repetitious cycle that I succumbed to the revelation that if a single picture is worth a thousand words, then a single artist is worth a thousand preachers!
This revelation was also concurrent with an inherent impulse to be a writer, but I was too dull-witted at the time to quiz the revelation on as to how many artists a single writer might then be worth? Instead, propelled by that swirling revelation, I left the monastery and embarked on the path of palette and pen only to end up making a lucrative career of neither! My state of slump had largely to do with having come born into this world with an unchartered compass in my mouth. In other words, my so called compass had all the navigational reference points except that the needle was seemingly predestined to remain in a state of unremitting comatose, – pointing south!
In retrospect, had I persevered on in the monastery, might I have had a shot of making it in the Vatican’s reserve list of proposed saints, the one that is referred to only when there isn’t any candidate meeting the canonization criteria for ten centuries in a row? The postulation in my instance being that in the monastery, I had devised my own ingenious technique to inflict maximum corporal discomfort and pain. This was conveniently accomplished by inserting everyday odd-size objects (hairbrush, soap bars, lotion bottles, small rocks, etc) between the threadbare bedsheet and the mattress of my bedding. In so doing, I maintained a tortuous communiqué between mind and body, not to mention the inability to have a good night’s sleep!
Was my own version of a Guantanamo type torture worth it? The Abbott would not have had an answer as we were in a contemplative order, where “silence” was the official dialogue. My orthopedic surgeon, whom I have been consulting with regard to a miscellany of spinal deformities and other aberrations, lent a commiserative ear but remains adamantly unconvinced of any correlation. And each time he draws out his scalpel I go into a self-induced convulsion, as though struck by the Holy Spirit and am now miraculously whole again. To be frankly blunt, I prefer entrusting my complex spinal surgery in the hands of a divine surgeon like our Goencho Saib, even though he is one-handed. Perhaps, His Grace, the Archbishop of Goa with whom I am on most pleasant terms, upon reading this piece might initiate a reserve list on a local level. That way, if the Goa Archdiocese is someday called upon to recommend a Goan in whose name a mid-size Basilica is to be constructed on Monte de Boa Vista in Guantanamo, the Archdiocese would not be caught napping or come up empty-handed.
As to other would be saint-enthusiasts, a congenial caution. Do not prematurely embark on the path to sainthood unless a) your potential sanctity is solicited by the powers above; b) you have a Vatican approved
GPS to a valid, unoccupied address in heaven, and c) you can gain the confidence of at least one accursed soul who can use your sanctity as an elevator to get from purgatory to heaven!
The foregoing notwithstanding and empathetically piteous as it may all add up to, I still wasn’t about geared to behead hope, or trade trespasses for absolution in the confessional, or toss my life’s defunct compass into the Mandovi river. I was already of the acquiescence that I had been downgraded to a retired failure – fully authorized to loiter through the alleys of optimism. Fortuitously however, the mailman also happened to lose his way in one such alley, whereupon, he handed me a postcard from the late Fr. George D’sa, Rector of the Bom Jesus Basilica, requesting me to see him by the speed of the next available caminhão.
It was still the era where communication by phone was a rarity, and anyone who owned a phone undoubtedly also owned a car and a mundkar or two. That meant the affluent were able to arrive in Church ahead of the rest of the faithful trekking on foot or via bullock carts, and thus, ensured their self-anointed place in the front pew. As I was blessed with neither, I had to make my destination to Old Goa via ferry and in the only caminhão that kept its rickety schedule, whether it was bellowing steam from under the hood and out the front or spewing dark plumes out the rear.
At that meeting, Fr. George displayed the 1964 Exposition panels which consisted of the intonation, “Pray for Us”, inscribed in several Indian dialects, and pointing to a metal contraption circumvented by empty panels, he urged me to come forth with something more powerful to showcase the 1974 Exposition. And there, I once again found myself standing before the very same metal contraption/cradle which ten years earlier, as a 9th grader, I was left confounded as to its purpose. It’s purpose was intelligibly twofold: a) serve as a vehicle for the bearers of the sacred coffin as it makes its processional journey from the Basilica to the See Cathedral and b) further serve as a pedestal upon which to lay the coffin in ecclesiastical state during the course of the Exposition.
Overwhelmed with the prospect of producing something of this significance at such short notice – i.e., three days before the onset of the Exposition – I left the Basilica but not before striking a deal with St. Francis: “Provide me with the inspiration and I’ll come through”. And when I peered at my life’s compass, it was as if the hand of milagre had finally come unglued and jump-started the comatose needle! This time, it was pointing north – at the heavens! Rightly so, as in the time-interval it took the caminhão to get me to the ferry and the ferry ferried me across the Mandovi River, I had already conceptualized the images depicting St. Francis Xavier’s biographical life in eight panels.
Gonçalo Martins, SJ - A little known Jesuit backing Jesuit missionary works and the cult of St Francis Xavier
Teotonio R. de Souza
Men trained in the school of Spiritual Exercises, the Jesuits make it their profession to channel the most unseemly means “for the greater glory of God” – Ad majorem majorem Dei gloriam. They assume as foundation of their activities that all things are created to be used to praise, reverence and serve God the Creator of the universe. The use is guided in practice by another principle, defined as tantum quantum in the Jesuit jargon, meaning insofar as it helps to attain the goal. Magis, or excellence in performance, as another ideal impressed on every member.
Such training of Loyola’s men generally succeeded in producing, if not pioneers, at least dedicated footsloggers in any job entrusted to them, always arousing extreme reactions from their contemporaries. Uncritical admirers and hostile critics abound, and they have given rise to many a myth that depict Jesuits as a breed of supermen or a band of sinister elements.
Soon after the establishment of the Order, the Jesuits fanned out far and wide. Francis Xavier initiated the history of their achievements in the East almost exactly 462 years ago, when he set his foot on the Goan shore on 6th May 1542. The paulistas, as the Jesuits in Asia came to be known after their headquarters in the college of St. Paul in the old city of Goa, distinguished themselves by their zeal in direct conversion-drive, as well as by their equally zealous involvement in literary and scientific pursuits, in politics, and in trade, until the Portuguese Minister Marquis of Pombal conceived his plan of reviving the sagging fortunes of the Portuguese empire by depriving the Jesuits of their power, wealth and right to exist.
The history of the Jesuit involvement is intimately bound up with the history of the social, economic and political formations of their times and of the places where they functioned. Hence, its importance needs no labouring. The religious and academic contribution of the Jesuits has been subject of many studies and publications; their participation in diplomacy and politics has lent to somewhat less investigation; but their financial transactions and involvement in trade have evoked more conjectures than proportionately satisfying well-documented works.
Instead of opting for one more institutional study of the Jesuits in Portuguese India, this present life-sketch of Fr. Gonçalo Martins seeks to bring alive and personify the structures that he represented and within which he
functioned. The performance of many individual Jesuits has already found place in written history, but most such writings belong to hagiographical nature. Gonçalo Martins is likely to be an easy victim of devil’s advocate, and as such a most unlikely candidate for sainthood, even though he may have provided the material wherewithal for many Jesuits to aspire towards it and to attain it. He does not figure in the “edifying letters” of the Jesuits. This is understandable because of the nature of his work as procurator of the missions and of the Queen of Portugal, and occasionally as diplomatic envoy of the Portuguese government in Goa. All this did not fit in the normal scope of the “edifying letters” of the Society, even though he enabled others to perform for ‘edification’. The discreet silence which the Society of Jesus always maintained regarding the activities that could invite easy criticism and misunderstanding from the outsiders is generally what has lent to more myth-making and what makes it difficult for the historians who have to depend on reliable evidence to study the activities of personalities like Gonçalo Martins.
It is hoped that this little bio-sketch which I began tracing as a young PhD researcher in 1977 with an article entitled “A pious Hindu commemorates in marble the activities of the Paulists in Kumbarjua” (Goa Today, Marchpp. 13-14), was followed by a more developed portrait in Vol. 5 of Mare Indicum (July 1993, Lisboa). It now gets some additional brush strokes based upon some new findings during my very recent visit to Goa. It is an ongoing effort to help unveiling the “mysterious., not necessarily less edifying, aspect of Jesuit history, and will simultaneously throw some more light on certain events in Indo-Portuguese history with which Gonçalo Martins was closely connected. As reported by his contemporary Jesuit in Goa, Fr. Manuel Godinho in 1663 in a shorthand sketch of the Estado da India: “From the oldest to the youngest, rare are the persons who perform their duty. Of zeal for the service of the crown there is little. Portuguese exploits are scarce. Graft in administration has flourished, the martial spirit has faded; valour is non-existent and cowardice is rampant. It is not surprising if in such a context of laxity and lassitude, corruption and venality, the activity of this Jesuit seeking to harmonize God and Mammon had to find intense resentment on the part of lay rivals and prudent silence on the part of his co-religious.
Personal background
Gonçalo Martins hailed from the northern Portuguese province of Minho. Even though his village of Santiago de Poiares in the concelho of Ponte de Lima lay in a fertile area on the bank of river Neiva, he seems to have shared the trend of the Minhotos to migrate for better prospects, particularly when the empire still offered attractions overseas. We have examples of his contemporary Minhotos who displayed notable capacity for adaptation, integration and success in Asian milieu. Alvaro Reis de Távora had served with distinction for over seventeen years in the carreira da India. His son Antonio de Távora served in the coastal fleets
of western India and settled in Goa as a casado, playing an active role in the administration of Goa municipality and the Holy House of Mercy. He was writing to his father in Viana do Castelo in 1596 suggesting that his younger brother, a law-student, could come and make a fortune as a judge or crown attorney in India. Francisco Branco d’Araujo was a native of Ponte de Lima and came out to India few years after Gonçalo Martins in 1623, and traded substantially from his base at Cochin till its capture by the Dutch in 1663.
Besides the fact that he was born in 1599, and had an old mother living till 1654 at least, I could ascertain next to nothing about the family background and the early life of Gonçalo Martins. Possibly he came from a modest family, and could not have belonged to “new Christians”, because inspite of substantial involvement in business transactions and familiarity with .new Christian businessmen, he was never accused of being one even by his most vocal critics. I presume that Conçalo Martins left for India as an ordinary soldier and arrived in Goa in May 1620 by the carrack Guia after wintering in Moçambique, or in mid-December of the same year by Penha de Franca which witnessed heavy mortality on board in the calms of Guinea. The young man could not have been immune to the shock of this ordeal. On arrival in Goa most of the surviving crew and passengers had to be hospitalized, and the soldiers could look forward to their recovery only as a prelude to fresh trials that were their lot in India. Along with normal financial constraints, recurring epidemics during many preceding years, posed a serious threat to the lives of the city inhabitants, particularly of the Portuguese not adapted to the new climate. The Jesuit annual report of 1620 describes the havoc caused by the epidemic among the old and young of the Society of Jesus. Among the victims was the Goa-based Jesuit historian Sebastião Gonçalves, another native of Ponte de Lima.
It was a common feature to find soldiers seeking the security of a monk’s cowl or a Jesuit gown in Portuguese India. There were regular administrative complaints about it, but little was done to remedy the situation by providing security to the new arriving soldiers. Many of them were often kids (meninos) who were generally forced into vagrancy and its accompanying problems. While justifying the admission of some such boys into the Society of Jesus, the Provincial of the Jesuits, Fr. Alvaro Tavares was writing to the Government that from more than 700 soldiers that came from Portugal in 2 ships of the carreira in 1630 not more than a hundred survived. Most had died after arrival, many had gone to serve the neighbouring kings, and a few had entered the religious life.
In the Jesuit fold
We do not know what may have been the experience of Gonçalo Martins, but we find him in the Jesuit fold before the end of 1620. There is a
difference of one year in various Jesuit catalogues of the time in computing his years in the Society, some suggesting that he joined in 1621. The problem is solved if first probation during the closing days of 1620 is not counted as entitling him to actual membership or .adscriptio in the Society.
Owing to recurring attacks of epidemics and heavy mortality among the inmates of the old college of St. Paul located in a low-lying area of the city, the Jesuits had shifted their Novitiate house by the end of the 16th century to the hillock of Our Lady of Rosary in the vicinity of the Augustinians. The Augustinians and their lay well-wishers in the municipal council had tried their best to stall the Jesuit move. However, just as the Jesuits had their way with the establishment of the Church and the Professed House of Bom Jesus, they also stood their ground on this occasion. Goncalo Martins must have spent his first years in the Society of Jesus at this place and continued his studies at the adjacent S. Paulo o Novo or St. Rock. From 1624 to 1627. We are sure that he was still busy with the study of humanities, and at the end of this term the Society had already made its first assessment of his temperament and talents: “Aged 28, healthy, 5 years in the Society, mediocre intelligence, judgement and prudence; no experience; choleric temperament; talented for administration.”. Such candid assessments of its men are meant in the Society of Jesus as aids to ensure good government by choosing right man for the right job, while in the early stages of training the candidate is shown his selfportrait (speculum) to help him grow in humility and seek ways of selfimprovement.
In Moçambique and Chaul
The available information continues to be desultory and we get to know very little regarding the movements of Gonçalo Martins during several years that followed: We find him already as priest in 1633 at the college of Moçambique where he was teaching grammar. It is not clear how long he remained here, but he retained his love for this mission for the rest of his life, and he did not spare efforts to procure resources for its upkeep. Following the martyrdom of his namesake Dom Gonçalo de Silveira in an early attempt of the Jesuits to convert the ruler of Monomotapa (Zambezi region), the Jesuits had once again undertaken the work in this region only in the beginning of the 17th century. Fr. Gonçalo had a first-hand experience of this mission-field and could appreciate its needs better when he took charge as procurator of the mission later in life.
On 18th May 1636 Gonçalo Martins was admitted to the Society of Jesus as a permanent member in the grade of spiritual coadjutors. Around this time he seems to have held the posts of Minister of the Jesuit house in Chaul and of Procurator of the Province of Japan. In either capacity it could have been a task only for one who could hope against hopes to
perform satisfactorily and obtain results. The sultanate of Ahmednagar was in shambles and it had been handed by its Mughal masters to Adil Shah of Bijapur. There was military pressure on Chaul and the Portuguese did not get whatever tribute they were paid earlier by the Melique. The new understanding between the Dutch and the Adil Shah, the proximity of the Dutch base at Vingurla, the regular Dutch blockade of Goa and their threatening surveillance of the neighbouring waters, had reduced the trade-based resources of Chaul to a precarious situation. Owing to the Portuguese inability to control the sea from Diu, in 1634 a new customs checkpost was set up at Chau1. This anticipation proved to be also a necessity once the Dutch blockades of Goa bay forced the vessels feeding the carreira da India to visit Bassein and Chaul for loading and unloading operations. The increased officialdom seeking private fortunes on a larger scale could have only increased the tension that was already a permanent feature in these settlements of the Northern Province between the lay officials and settlers on the one side and the Jesuit administrators of the same settlements on the other side.
Chaul had the privilege of sending annually a trade ship to Moçambique, and it is quite likely that during his stay in Moçambique Goncalo Martins had already established links that he would exploit later as Minister of the Jesuit house in Chaul. It is known that Jesuits were involved in East African trade in various forms, including as commission-agents for the friends and patrons of the Society of Jesus. Thus, for instance, Nicholas Buckeridge, a factor of the East India Company, tried in July 1651 to open direct trade with Mocambique, but was told by the Jesuit rector there that he must first pay him 1000 crusados on behalf of the owner of these voyages in Goa.
We read also in the instructions left by a Jesuit Provincial superior during his visitation of the colleges of Mocambique and Sena in 1674 that Jesuits should not participate in the smuggling of gold and other trade items of Africa to help their lay friends. There seems to have been little corrective effect of such admonitions, because a century later the rector of Moçambique was still acting as commission-agent for Mhamai Kamat business family of Goa. It is not surprising therefore if the Jesuits at Chaul were becoming serious rivals to its lay settlers and officials who wanted their own pick of the gold and ivory that arrived from Moçambique. The opposition to the Jesuits had become intense by 1641, but the viceroy Count of Aveiras was unwilling to relieve the rector of Chaul from the res¬ponsibility for the administration of the place. He was convinced that it could not be entrusted safely to the lay officials. However, the local resistance grew so violent that in December end of the year the town councillors forced their way into the Jesuit residence and bolted away with the safe in which the moneys of the town administration were kept. The viceroy responded with judicial inquiry and entrusted the Franciscans by way of compromise.
There is nothing than can be said definitely about the activities of Gonçalo Martins in Chaul, but there are indications that he maintained friendly or business association with the viceroy Count of Aveiras who is known to have been making a distinction between the Dutch as State enemies and the Dutch as personal friends. It is very likely, as Prof. C.R. Boxer has suggested, that Jesuits were his com¬mercial partners, particularly in Macau trade. The fact that Gonçalo Martins was appointed by Count of Aveiras in 1644 to act as administrator of cinnamon share belonging to the Royal House of Braganças confirms the unofficial interests of the viceroy.
President Fremlen and his Council at Surat, for instance, had informed their superiors at London a couple of years earlier (1642) that the Jesuits at Goa were the readiest and the ablest in extending help, including the purchase of cinnamon. We know that Gonçalo Martins was already based in Goa in 1641, and he had as much friendly relations with the commander of the Dutch fleet blockading Goa as did the viceroy Count of Aveiras in 1644. Goncalo Martins, in his letter of 4th December 1662 reminded the Dutch viceroy Maetsuyker that they had met at Goa when the latter had negotiated the truce with the viceroy Count of Aveiras and had spent a night at the Jesuit College of St. Paul.
While he was stationed at Chaul, Gonça.lo Martins was also acting as procurator of the Japan province of the Society of Jesus. It coincided with the period when this flourishing mission, described as “la flor de la harina desta India. (The cream of the Indian missions)” had been drowned in blood in the wake of Shimabara rebellion (1638-40). The mission depended on Macau trade for its temporal sustenance, but with this checked, it had to survive on limited income it had from certain crown and papal subsidies, plus on the revenue of some landed properties in the Northern Province of the Estado da India. The job of Goncalo Martins as procurator of Japan province must have been to administer these revenues and invest them as profitably as possible for assisting the brethren in distress. Probably, Goncalo Martins was sufficiently acknowledged by them as a good administrator and as imaginative enough to find the best avenues of investment. This is obvious from the confidence that was placed in him by his superiors, and from the requests that he received from various quarters to find benefactors for them. He was always willing to oblige, even when he had no official responsibility for that mission region. His response also made clear the spirituality underlying his motivation. He mentions more than once in his correspondence to the Superior General or to the crown that he needs nothing for his personal benefit. He expresses his sadness for not having been chosen to work directly in the mission fields and wishes to share in the merits of his missionary colleagues by assisting them through ways open to him.
At Mission headquarters
Gonçalo Martins spent last three decades of his life in Goa, which was the administrative headquarters of the Estado da India and where every Religious Order had its headquarter to mobilise resources and to provide training and organisational facilities for their missionary works. Although Gonçalo Martins had already acquired confidence in his job and made significant impact with new foundations in Moçambique and Chaul, his range of action extended far from Goa. He could more easily keep in contact with the various mission fields and also assist the benefactors in whatever way he could.
Writing to Fr. General in January 1649 he expressed his willingness to help Agra mission through friends in East Africa who had already offered help for foun¬ding colleges in Moçambique, Chaul, Sena and Diu. He also referred to his efforts in finding a benefactor to finance the Kanara mission. That same year he brought to Goa his East African benefactor Bartolomeu Lopes. Even though all care was lavished on him, he died and was buried with much honour and with the loba e barrete of a Jesuit lay brother.
One important benefactor that Gonçalo Martins discovered and cultivated in Goa was Baltazar de Veiga, a Cristao Novo and prominent businessman and diamond merchant in Goa. He and his son, João de Prado, were significant contributors to Jesuit mission needs, not just with outright endowments, but also by trading for the Jesuits in the China-Japan sector. When Baltazar de Veiga was arrested by the Inquisition along with several other leading businessmen of Jewish origin in 1644, Fr. Gonçalo Martins did not disown his friend and benefactor. He was sad that some of his Jesuit colleagues had changed their attitude towards him, though most superiors, with the exception of Fr. Jerónimo Lobo, had not been affected by the development. When he died on January 14, 1659, he was interred in the sacristy of Born Jesus in Old Goa. Baltazar de Veiga had borne all the expenses of building and furnishing this still extant beautiful piece of art. Gonçalo Martins had drawn his last will which provided among many other charities, 4,000 patacas as an endowment for the China viceprovince of the Society. One can see a graveyard with an epitaph topped by his coat-of-arms dedicated to him in the sacristy. Little visible is also a small stone indicating a closed entrance to the sepulchre of this great benefactor.
Controversial figure
Conçalo Martins was the most outstanding Jesuit in Goa during the seventeenth century. There are other individual Jesuits who figure in the State papers and Jesuit correspondence from time to time, but Gonçalo Martins held the stage for a long period of time. There is nothing to incriminate him as a bad religious, but his passion and inventiveness at
raising funds won for him dedicated friends and enemies in the highest quarters in the business and political quarters
In 1644 Count of Aveiras had put him in charge of administering the cinnamon share of the royal house of Braganças. Possibly this only irritated D. Filipe Mascarenhas more. He already had a running battle with the Jesuits while he was in Ceylon. The viceroy questioned the Jesuit title for the many land properties they had in Goa and elsewhere in the Estado. The Jesuits had to resort to courts to uphold their rights, but they also used their influence higher up. Since Goncalo Martins was directly responsible for the material affairs of the Society, he took the matters to the crown in a long representation describing the hatred the viceroy harboured and exercised against the Jesuits in India, depriving them of the means of training men for missions by taking away the properties belonging to the College of St. Paul and the novitiate. He refers also to calumnies being promoted to depict the Jesuits as traitors and enemies of national interests. He further represented that the viceroy was instigating individuals with bribe and intimidation to harass the Jesuits and to discredit them.
It appears from at least one known instance that Gonçalo Martins invited direct retaliation from the viceroy, and that too in an area that could put him at odds with the crown. There is an accusation from Gregório Simões de Carvalho, superintendent of Goa customs house. He justifies why he had to break open the stores housing the cinnamon of the house of Bragancas in the absence of Fr. Goncalo Martins. This appears in a letter from the crown to the viceroy ordering an inquiry and mentioning that according to the superintendent of the customs house the said religious (Gonçalo Martins) was far exceeding his duties and was causing problems for the officials of the customs house and collection of revenues. The same letter requires that the viceroy should warn the said religious through his Provincial superior so that no further allegations of that nature are in future reported against him.
Another viceroy who could not stomach the ways of Goncalo Martins was Antonio de Mello de Castro who continued to check into the revenues of the Jesuits. These were the times the Public Treasury was more and more depleted as a result of the setbacks the Portuguese had been experiencing at the hands of the Dutch since the capture of Malacca and more recently of Ceylon and the Malabar. Also the Nayaks of Bidnur had deprived the Portuguese of their hold over the pepper and rice supplies of Kanara. The viceroy were therefore resentful of the continued hold of the Jesuits in the midst of the State ills. The Jesuits had been the most difficult to be subjected to extortions in the name of donativos that the State was used to demanding from the religious and charitable institutions from time to time to meet State needs. Against this background one may understand better the attitude of this viceroy who was hard pressed to find finances to
keep the empire alive. He is reported to have said that the Jesuit Fathers in Portugal and Castile were Fathers of the Company of Jesus, but the Jesuit Fathers in India were the Fathers of the Dutch East India Company.
Antonio de Mello de Castro (1662-66) had strong differences with Gonçalo Martins over his allegedly rough handling of the Municipal councillors regarding the contract of grain supplies and over hinterland trade across the island of Cumbarjua. He believed that price rises in Goa were largely the result of too many middlemen, and the Jesuits were accused of being in league with lay officials in engrossing trade in food items in Salcete and in the Northern Province.
Gonçalo Martins had purchased the island of Cumbarjua from a high government official, André Salema, in July 1665. His inventiveness as Father of Christians thought of discouraging the Portuguese from entertaining the nautch girls in the capital city by inviting them to Cumbarjua where he taxed them. The Hindus also had the problem of celebrating their weddings publicly in the Portuguese territory. Goncalo Martins licensed the public celebration of such weddings in his island. Apparently he also permitted movement of goods from and to the mainland through the island for less customs duties than the ones payable at the official checkposts. He knew what he was investing in when he paid a hefty 26,010 xerafins for acquiring the island. They also brought large tracts of land under cultivation in the island for paddy and coconut plantations yielding an annual income of 7,000 xerafins in the 18th century. They had also set up kilns for baking lime and manufacturing roof tiles. We read in the license-books of the Goa Municipality that tiles sold in the market should conform to the Paulist standard. This goes to prove the industriousness of the Jesuits that became legendary and even led to creation of local native myths about them.
On diplomatic missions
While Gonçalo Martins had no opportunity to go on missions of direct evangelisation, he was called upon more than once to go on diplomatic missions in the service of his government to the neighbouring native rulers. Using the missionaries as political agents was not a new practice in the Portuguese Estado, and the missionaries in the courts of the native rulers were generally required to serve as resident envoys. At least that was more obviously the aim of the Jesuit missions to the Mughal court or to the Peking court. The other best candidates for such missions have always been the businessmen whose interests usually cross the national boundaries. If Gonçalo Martins was called upon three times in emergency situations to undertake diplomatic missions, that was because he combined in himself the qualifications of a religious and a businessman.
In 1653, Sivappa Nayak of Ikkeri had already pushed the Portuguese
out of Basrur and Camboly on the Canara coast. He was continuing the pressure on them in Honawar and in Mangalore. The Nayak was well aware of the relentless war that the Dutch had been waging to throw the Portuguese out of Ceylon. The Nayak was not disinterested in selling his quality pep- per to the Portuguese, and he knew their dependence on his rice supplies. That is where he was pressing them to buy more pepper from him at a higher price. When the siege of Honawar reached an unbearable stage and the garrison had to survive literally on rats and cats. That is when the Goa government decided to send Fr. Gonçalo Martins to the fort of Honawar where the Nayak had agreed to meet him. He was given plenipotentiary powers to come to a reasonable deal. He was to be accompanied by Ramogy Sinay Kothari, a horse-dealer, as official interpreter. However, on reaching Honawar Goncalo Martins was told by the contact man of the Nayak that he was ill and no meeting could take place. Apparently the Nayak was determined to put an end to the Portuguese presence as he did before he died a few years later.
Within a year’s time in 1654 troubles were brewing closer at home at Goa’s borders with Bijapur. Adil Shah had not yet reconciled himself to the loss of Bardez and Salcete Provinces of Goa, and around this time a native Goan brahmin and Propaganda-trained and consecrated Bishop Matheus de Castro Mahale had made Bicholim his base of apostolate and political intrigues to throw the Portuguese out of Goa. He also had established contacts with the Dutch in Vingurla… Matheus de Castro had led Adil Shah into believing that all circumstances were ripe for pushing the Portuguese out of Goa with a little nudge by the forces of Adil Shahi: The Dutch attacks, the wars in Canara, recent overthrow of the viceroy of Goa in a local coup, and the disenchantment of many Goan natives with the Portuguese rule were all suggesting the timeliness for a limited military operation as sufficient for driving the Portuguese out of Bardez and Salcete. That is how the Adil Shah made a military attempt while seeking simultaneously diplomatic ways of cession of the two provinces or payment of a tribute by the Portuguese in lieu of cession. This political development was preceded by a careful plan by the Adil Shah through his court favourite Yakut who had been appointed Havaldar of Konkan and ambassador to Goa.
This man of slave origin had become very friendly with Gonçalo Martins, and their friendship seems to have had secret business interest for its foundation. Apparently, dealing in diamonds was involved, particularly a very rare blue balais which Baltazar de Veiga had in his possession and Adil Shah was determined to acquire it. There are many unclear and incomplete references to this matter in the proceedings of the Goa State Council, while the seventeenth century traveller Manucci has an interesting piece of a story suggesting that Gonçalo IV had appropriated for himself a rare stone which Yakut, a favourite of Muhamad Adil Shah
aand the royal jewel keeper, had only pawned with him in order to borrow money for expenses of his m treatment in Goa. Even though Manucci is ususally to be treated with caution for his gossip-mongering tendencies, there seems to be some truth in his story. It is quite possible that following the cure of Yakut by an ex-medical man cleric Joao P Mourato through the mediation of Gonçalo Martins to whom alone the cleric was willing to oblige. , the grateful Bijapuri courtier may have revealed to Gonçalo Martins and to his jewel-trading friend Balthazar Veiga all about the jewels of the Bijapuri ruler, including about balas (rose-coloured spinel ruby) acquired by the Adil Shah in 1653 that can be found listed and described by Tavernier. Manucci gives the value of it as 20,000 xerafins, and even this does not seem far from the truth, because a balais encrusted in a ring was sent to Adil Shah as a gift purchased by the State from Balthazar de Veiga for 18,000 xerafins or 15,000 patacas through Malik Yakut, who had made it a precondition for confirming the peace treaty which Gonçalo Martins had signed with the Adil Shah followimg the cessation of hostilities and after the Adil Shah was convinced that the Portuguese could effectively resist any force to recover Bardez and Salcete. Was the gift only a face saving way of returning what belonged to the Adil Shah, or was it truly a substitute tribute to please the ruler of Bijapur at a time when the Portuguese could hardly bear such diversionary military engagements? In any case Gonçalo Martins killed two birds with one stone: He had gained perace for the Estado and had struck a good business deal in favour of his friend and benefactor Baltazar de Veiga. That was more or less the amount that he got from him to build and furnish his sacristy of Bom Jesus.
His third and last diplomatic mission was just after the government of Antonio de Mello de Castro had accused him in a most disconcerting manner as mentioned above. Fr. Goncalo Martins was above petty reactions, and he responded to the request of the new State authorities to visit Raigarh for settling peace agreement with Shivaji following his attack on Bardez in 1667 in pursuit of desais that were reluctant to accept the suzerainty of Shivaji over them in South Konkan bordering Goa. Shivaji blamed the Portuguese for giving them shel¬ter, which they actually did while pretending neutrality and inability to control their movements. Fr. Gongalo Martins fared well in his mission, so much so that a letter of the viceroy reporting the matter to the crown described how Fr- Goncalo Martins had acted with such prudence, selflessness and good manner that he could bring back without further delay all the prisoners including the subjects of the Estado as well as many subjects of the Adil Shah who claimed to be Portuguese subjects. He also brought back all the cattle that was taken away and even more.
Left for better prospects
When some information was being sought many years later in the archives of the Goa Province about the legacies of Baltazar de Veiga it was reported by the new Procurator of the province and successor of Gonçalo Martins that he only had some loose papers with him. He declared his inability to trace back any more details and Fr. Torcato Parisiani had not handed over to him any book of accounts left by Fr. Gonçalo Martins, even though he had been asked by the Provincial Fr. Antonio Botelho to take charge of all the belongings of Fr. Goncalo Martins after he died. The same Procurator further reported that Gonçalo Martins had shown to him all his books of accounts two days before he died, to convince him that everything was in order. Since Fr. Parisiani was away at the moment, and there was great secrecy about the matters, he feels unable to report any more details. He suggests that Rome could in the meantime follow the information sent there by Gonçalo Martins with respect to suffrages for the dead benefactors.
The last time Gonçalo Martins figures in the catalogues of the Society of Jesus is in 1667. The next surviving catalogue for 1673 does not record his name any longer. He is listed in the catalogue of the dead of the Society of Jesus on 2nd February 1669. The only other reference to him is dated 28th July 1683 when his successor Fr. Theotonio Rebello as procurator of the island of Cumbarjua is being accused of certain abuses in some public quarters and the Provincial writes in his defence to the General of the Order. His letter begins: “Fr. Gonçalo Martins, who has gone for a better life (emphasis is mine) for over 15 years now, was once in charge of Cumbarjua island...”
To conclude, Fr. Gonçalo Martins is just one of the Jesuit fund-raisers, who got financiers like Baltazar de Veiga and Augsburg-born banker Ferdinand Cron, to contribute generous funds to brighten the halo of saintly Francis Xavier. Gonçalo Martins had joined the Society of Jesus just on the eve of the canonization of the saint. Among the many secrets that Gonçalo Martins may have taken with him we could imagine that he invoked frequently the assistance of the St Francis Xavier for the success of the great responsibilities entrusted to him by the Society of Jesus and by the State during the last three decades of his life spent in Goa. We can presume and conclude that he was discreet in his dealings as suggested by the initials PGM in the monument with an image of St Francis Xavier in front of Bom Jesus church and dated 1666. It is covered daily by devotees with marigolds before they enter the Church of Bom Jesus to pay homage to the saint. The inscription on the monument suggests that Padre Gonçalo Martins dedicated it as his expression of grateful farewell to the saint before he died three years later.
St. Francis Xavier Confessor of the Society of Jesus
by Father Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876
St. Francis Xavier,--the great Apostle of the Indies, as he is called in the Bull of his canonization--the celebrated Thau maturgus of the 16th century, the irreproachable witness of the truth of our holy religion, the ornament of the Society of Jesus, and of the entire Catholic Church,-was of royal lineage, and was born of illustrious parents, at the Castle of Xavier, in the kingdom of Navarre. Having passed his childhood, he was sent to the University of Paris, to study the liberal arts, for which he evinced an especial inclination. He applied himself so diligently and made so much progress, that he was not only created Doctor of Philosophy, but also appointed to instruct others in that science. All his aim was to gain honors and to become great in the eyes of the world. His father intended to recall him home after some years, but his sister, who was Prioress in the Convent of the Poor Clares at Gandia, and had the reputation of being a Saint, knew by divine inspiration the great work for which her brother was destined by the Almighty, and persuaded her father not to insist on his return, saying, in a prophetic manner, that Francis was chosen to become the apostle of many nations.
Whilst Xavier was teaching at Paris, St. Ignatius came to the same city to finish his studies. Knowing, by divine inspiration, how much good Francis, who was so highly gifted by the Almighty, would be able to do for the salvation of souls, he sought the friendship of the young Professor, and gradually showed him the emptiness of all temporal greatness, and drew him from his eagerness to obtain worldly honors by repeating the earnest words of Christ: “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” These words of our Saviour, coming from the lips of a St. Ignatius, so deeply pierced the heart of Xavier, and made so indelible an impression, that he became entirely converted. Taking St. Ignatius as his guide, he followed his precepts, and after having most fervently gone through the “Spiritual Exercises,” he resolved to devote himself, with Ignatius, to the greater glory of God. On the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, in the year 1534, Ignatius, Xavier, and five others, made a vow in the Church of Montmartre; at Paris, to consecrate their lives to the salvation of souls. Soon after, Xavier, by the order of St. Ignatius, went with some of these zealous men to Italy.
At the very beginning of this journey, which was to be performed on foot, Xavier gave a striking proof of the ardor of his spirit. Before his conversion he had been a great lover of dancing and gymnastic exercises; and so greatly excelled in them, that he had taken great pride in these accomplishments. To punish this vanity, he tied his arms and ankles so tightly with small knotted cords, that he could not make the least motion without pain. After the first day’s march his pains became so intense that he swooned away and was forced to reveal the cause. The cords had cut so deep into the flesh that they could hardly be seen. The surgeon who was called, declared that a painful operation was necessary to cut the cords out of the flesh. Xavier and his companions not wishing to be delayed on their way, prayed for aid from on High; and on the following morning they found not only the cords broken, but all the wounds entirely healed. Having given due thanks to the Almighty for this miracle, they continued their journey.
At Venice, Francis spent two months in the hospital, nursing the sick most tenderly. While there it happened that he found, among the sick, one who was suffering from a loathsome ulcer. Xavier felt a natural repugnance to approach the poor patient, but, recollecting the maxim of St. Ignatius, “Conquer thyself,” he unhesitatingly went to the sick, embraced him kindly, and putting his lips to the ulcer, cleansed it of all offensive matter. As a reward for so heroic a victory over self, God restored the sick man’s health, and took from St. Xavier all repugnance to the most hideous forms of disease. Two months after this he was ordained priest, and said his first holy Mass, amid a flood of tears, after having prepared himself for it by forty days of solitude, many prayers, austere fasting and other penances. At Rome, whither he was called by St. Ignatius, he preached for a time with great success. It was at this period that John III., King of Portugal, requested the Pope to send him six of the disciples of St. Ignatius, for the Indies. St. Ignatius, on account of the small number of his followers, gave only two, Simon Rodriguez and Nicholas Bobadilla; but as the latter fell ill just before the time appointed for setting out, Francis Xavier, whom heaven had selected for this mission, was sent in his stead.
No tongue can tell the joy with which the Saint received this news, which fulfilled what had been shown him, years before, in a mysterious dream. It had appeared to him, in his sleep that he had a Negro on his shoulders, whom he was obliged to carry, and that he was so fatigued as to sink to the ground under his burden. He then awoke and found himself in truth covered with perspiration and extremely tired. He was soon prepared for his journey from Rome to Lisbon, whence he was to sail for the Indies; and having received from St. Ignatius valuable instructions, and from the Vicar of Christ the papal blessing, with the powers of an Apostolic Nuncio, he
set out with his companion, Rodriguez, carrying nothing with him but the crucifix on his breast, his breviary under his arm, and his staff in his hand. At the holy house of Loretto, where he stopped on his way, he commended his important mission to his divine Mother, and begged with childlike trust for her motherly assistance. Feeling in his heart that his prayer had been heard, he was greatly comforted, on leaving this blessed spot.
After a wearisome journey, he at length arrived at Lisbon, where he took up his lodgings at the hospital, instead of going to the royal palace, where rooms had been prepared for him. Whilst awaiting an opportunity to depart for the Indies, he employed his time so usefully in hearing confessions, giving spiritual instructions, and serving the sick, that the king desired to retain him and his companion in Lisbon, and even wrote to that effect to St. Ignatius. But the Almighty, who had ordained that St. Francis Xavier should become the Apostle of the Indies, inspired St. Ignatius to suggest that Simon Rodriguez should remain in Lisbon, and Xavier be given to the Indies. Hence the Saint embarked with two other priests, whom he had received into the Society of Jesus. Nine hundred persons were in the same ship, many of whom became sick during the long voyage. Xavier became invaluable to them; he nursed the sick day and night, solicitous for their bodily as well as for their spiritual welfare, while he preached daily to those who were well, and led them by kind discourses to a Christian life. He continued these exercises of his charity and zeal at Mozambique, in Africa, where the vessel remained during the winter. His brief rest at night he took upon a coil of rope, or on the bare floor. He landed at Goa, the capital of the Indies, thirteen months after having sailed from Lisbon. Although a large portion of India had formerly been converted to Christ by the holy Apostle St. Thomas, the Christian religion had almost entirely perished by reason of wars and invasions and through the commerce and association of the inhabitants with the Turks, Saracens, and heathens. The Portuguese, also to whom a great part of the land was now tributary, were in their conduct rather heathens than Christians.
St. Xavier began his apostolic labors at Goa, which still preserved the memory of a celebrated prophecy, spoken by Peter of Covillan, of the Order of the Holy Trinity, in 1497, just before he was killed with arrows by the Indians. “In a few years,” said this holy man, “there will arise, in the Church of God, a new religious Order which will bear the name of Jesus. One of the first priests of this holy Order will penetrate into the Indies, and convert to the true faith most of its inhabitants, by expounding to them the Word of the Lord.” This memorable prophecy was fulfilled by the arrival of St. Xavier, and by the events which afterwards took place. A still more
ancient prophecy of the arrival of St. Francis will be related on the 21st of this month, in the life of the holy Apostle St. Thomas.
But to return to the apostolic labors of St. Xavier; he began, as well at Goa as at other places, by converting the youth. With a little bell in his hand, he went from street to street, and gathered the children, who ran after him in crowds. Leading them to the church, he explained to them the Christian doctrine, taught them prayers and songs, and told them to repeat at home what they had learned. Some of them he sent with his rosary to the sick, that the touch of it might, by the power of God, heal them. Some children proved little apostles and brought their own parents to the Saint that he might instruct and baptize them. Others brought him the idols of their parents or neighbors and broke them to pieces, or cast them into the fire, while others again sought the new-born children that they might not die without being baptized. When the young were sufficiently instructed, he turned his attention to the adults. To the Christians he spoke of penance and of leading a Christian life; to the infidels, of the truth of the Christian faith. He passed the whole day in giving instruction, nursing the sick, baptizing, hearing confessions, and other apostolic labors; his zeal was so great that more than once he forgot to eat or to drink, for the space of three or four days. He gave the greater part of the night to prayer.
As soon as he had converted the inhabitants of Goa, he went to Cape Comorin, and into the kingdom of Travancore. In the latter he baptized ten thousand persons with his own hand; and in the former he baptized so many, that on some days he was too much fatigued to raise his arm. Many of the idolatrous priests, called Brahmins, were convinced of their error and converted to the true faith, when they had seen four dead persons raised to life at the Saint’s prayer. Many languages were spoken in these countries, all differing widely from one another; but Xavier, like the Apostles, had the gift of tongues from God. He sometimes spoke, in one language, to people of various tongues, and all understood him. At other times he preached to people in their own language, without having learned it. This rare gift, combined with the many miracles which he wrought wherever he went, made his name so celebrated in the Indies, that the inhabitants of several islands came to him and requested him to instruct them in Christianity.
The indefatigable missionary travelled from one island to another, from one country to another; for, to work and to suffer for the honor of God and the salvation of souls was his greatest joy. Never was his labor so wearisome, or his suffering so great that he did not wish it might be greater.
This was proved by the words which he spoke one night in his sleep, when he was shown the great labor and suffering that awaited him in the Indies: “Still more, O Lord! Still more,” cried he; “more work, more care, more suffering.” At Meliapor, he visited the tomb of the holy Apostle, St. Thomas, and passed many nights there in prayer. At Malacca, one of the principal cities of the East, he converted a great many Mahommedans, Jews and heathens. One woman at this place had an only daughter, whom the holy man had baptized, together with the mother. The daughter died, and was buried. Three days later, the mother came to the Saint, and begged him to pronounce the name of the Lord over her dear child. Xavier, having offered a short prayer, said to her: “Go, thy daughter lives.” The mother went, and, with the assistance of others, she opened the grave, and found her daughter living.
From Malacca he visited several islands, some of which were inhabited by cannibals. He had no fear of death, as it was his greatest desire to give his blood for the faith of Christ. It happened that the ship on which he had sailed was in great danger. The Saint, taking his crucifix, dipped it into the raging sea. The storm immediately abated, but the crucifix dropped from his hands, and sank. This loss grieved the holy man; but his sorrow was changed into great joy, when, on landing on the island of Baranura, he saw a lobster come ashore, with the crucifix in its claws. Whilst the Saint thus wandered from one island to another, St. Ignatius, sent more laborers into the vineyard of the Lord. Xavier distributed them among the different countries of India, so that the work he had begun might be continued, whilst he sought more distant regions, in which he might plant the true faith. One single priest and one lay brother accompanied him to Japan, where the Christian faith had never been preached.
Much more space than we can give would not be sufficient to relate the labors which he took on himself, the dangers he encountered, the many miracles he wrought on the possessed and the infirm, and the number of people whom he converted. Yet he was not satisfied with what he had done in the Indies and Japan, but resolved to penetrate into China, in order to preach there also the word of Christ. Before doing so, however, he thought it advisable to return from Japan to the Indies, to make provision for the future prosperity of the Church in the Japanese Empire, as also to prepare himself for a successful mission in China.
During this voyage, there arose so terrible a storm that a small sloop, belonging to the ship in which Xavier had embarked, and fastened to it
with a strong cable for greater security in those tempestuous seas, was torn away by the violence of the wind. No one could doubt that the sloop would founder, and that the fifteen souls on board of it would perish. Those who were in the ship were all in the greatest distress; but Xavier consoled them, and said: “In three days the daughter will return to the mother,” that is, the sloop to the ship. His prediction was fulfilled, to the infinite amazement of all on board. But still more amazing was the fact that the fifteen persons that were in the sloop unanimously declared that Xavier had been constantly with them, and had steered the boat and comforted them. From this it was concluded that the holy man, by the omnipotence of God, had been present in two places at the same time. No sooner had he arranged everything most wisely in the Indies, than, accompanied by one lay brother, he went on board of a ship which sailed to the island of Sancian, thirty miles from the coast of China. The crew and passengers had much to suffer, on this voyage, as their supply of fresh water was exhausted. In this emergency, the Saint ordered some barrels to be filled with sea-water, and, having said a short prayer, invited the sailors to drink it. The water was found sweet: and the distress of the travellers was at an end.
The indefatigable missionary at last reached Saucian, and saw from afar the shores of the great empire into which he was determined to enter, although he was well aware that to all foreigners the entrance was forbidden, under pain of death. But here, by the unsearchable decree of God, his labors were to end. While Xavier was arming himself for new conquests in new lands, it pleased the Almighty to call him to receive his reward for the hardships he had already suffered, and the work he had already performed. Like the great Prophet and Law-giver, Moses, he saw, from a distance, the land which he was not permitted to enter. God had reserved it for the successors of St. Francis to bring the knowledge of the true faith into China.
On the 20th of November, 1552, the Saint was taken sick with a severe fever, and at the same time, had a revelation of his approaching end. He was bled, but so unskilfully, that his pains were greatly augmented. Lying in a miserable hut of interwoven branches of trees, alone and forsaken, in abject poverty, without any bodily comfort, he was undisturbed and calm, having always desired either to give his blood for the Lord, or to die in poverty. Although he was grieved that the former was denied him, he felt consoled by the deprivations of the latter, in the knowledge that it was the will of the Almighty. His eyes were continually raised on high, or
fastened on the crucifix, which never left his hand. It was touching to hear him, even in the delirium of his fever, pronounce the holy names of Jesus and Mary, and the short prayers to which he had been accustomed in his days of health: Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me! Mary, show thyself a mother! O most holy Trinity!”
At length, having gazed for a time, with deep devotion, on the crucifix, he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and gave his great soul to his Master, saying: “In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped: I shall not be confounded forever!” His death took place on a Friday, the 2d day of December, 1552. He had spent ten years in the Indies, Japan, and other pagan countries, for the salvation of souls. In this manner, the Apostle of the Indies gloriously ended his laborious life, after having travelled, barefoot, more than a hundred thousand miles, for the love of God, and for the salvation of the souls of men; having preached the Gospel in more than a hundred kingdoms and islands; having brought kings and nations into the fold of the Church, and baptized, with his own hands, so vast a number of converts, that Gregory XV., in the Bull of the Canonization of St. Francis Xavier, says that the Saint saw his spiritual children multiplied like the stars of heaven. His holy body, clad in priestly robes, was laid in a coffin, and covered with lime, that the flesh might be rapidly consumed, so that the bones might be brought back to the Indies. But after two months and a half it was found incorrupt, and exhaling the most delicious fragrance; and was taken back, with every manifestation of honor, to Goa, in the Indies, where it remains to this day, in a state of perfect preservation.
Wherever the ship, which bore the holy remains, landed, a great number of miracles were performed; especially at Malacca, which was immediately freed from a raging pestilence. The right arm, with which this great Apostle had baptized so many thousand persons, was, some years afterwards, severed from his body, and brought to Rome, where it is still kept in great honor. Whoever, even superficially, considers the above facts, will hardly be able to conceive how one man, in so short a space of time, was able to perform so great an amount of work. His indefatigable zeal to save souls, the holiness of his life, the heroism of his virtues, as also the special gifts that God conferred upon him, accomplished what, humanly speaking, was impossible.
Among the special gifts must be mentioned the gift of tongues, of which we have spoken above; as also that of prophecy, of which many examples are found in his life. The gift of working miracles he seemed to possess in
an unlimited degree, so that he was sometimes called the God of Nature, and is justly styled the Thaumaturgus of modern times. Twenty-five dead persons were recalled to life by him, in testimony of the truth of the religion which he preached. It would be no easy task to find anyone, in the last three centuries, whom the Almighty endowed with such graces as He bestowed on St. Francis Xavier. He had chosen him as an Apostle for many nations. Wherefore, as Pope Urban VIII. said, He bestowed on him all the gifts that distinguished the Apostles. “Xavier,” says this Pope, “was a truly holy and divinely chosen Apostle of new nations; and God made him celebrated throughout the whole world by miracles and prophecies.” “He has not done less than the Apostles of Christ,” says Gregory XV. The miracles of St. Francis ceased not at his death, and many occur yet in all parts of the world, when his intercession is invoked with piety and confidence. Whole books are filled with accounts of them.
And now we should say something of the heroic virtues of our Saint; but space is wanting. We can only advise our readers to peruse the fuller biographies of this Saint, where they will find an account of his burning love to God, his purity of conscience, his devotion to the Saviour, his self-abnegation, his veneration for the Blessed Virgin and other Saints, his heroic patience, his austerity towards himself, his deep humility, and lastly, his zeal in leading souls to heaven. I will only add here that even several non-Catholic authors speak in high terms of the Saint, and not only extol his zeal, but also relate the miracles he performed. “If Xavier had been of our religion, we should esteem him another St. Paul,” writes Baldaeus. And again: “Who is his equal in performing miracles?” Others speak of him in the same manner. When the heretics saw that the praise of St. Xavier reflected favorably on the Society of Jesus, some of them, in the last century, pretended to doubt that he had been a member of the Society, and others openly maintained that he had not. This untruth, which is in direct opposition to the evidence given by so many historians, found its way even into the minds of some Catholics. To refute it, we have only to read, without speaking of the bull of canonization, the letters of St. Xavier to St. Ignatius and other Jesuits, which furnish a hundred proofs that he always lived in the Society of Jesus, and died in it. Let us only read the Roman Martyrology, which says: “In the island of Sancian, the memory of St. Francis Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, Apostle of the Indies, who was highly celebrated on account of converting the heathens, and his great gifts and the miracles he wrought.”
A Life of St Francis Xavier
by John McHugh
Francis Xavier was born in the Castle of Xavier, in Northern Spain on April 7th 1506. He was born into a noble family and was the youngest of five children, two girls and three boys. His Father died when Francis was aged nine.
From his childhood, Francis would have been familiar with both the Spanish and Basque languages. He received his early education at home in the castle with his mother and the parish priest probably being his only teachers.
In the late summer of 1525, Francis left home to pursue his studies at the University of Paris. He would never return home and would never see his family again. In fact, for the next eleven years, Paris would be his home.
In Paris he enrolled in the College of Sainte-Barbe. In March 1530, upon completing his philosophical studies, he received a Master of Arts degree. Then from 1530 until 1534 he was an instructor in philosophy in the College of Beauvais, and from 1534 to 1536 a student of theology.
It was here, in the college as a student, that Francis met two other students who would have a huge influence on his life, Pierre Favre and Ignatius of Loyola. In 1526 Francis Xavier met Pierre and they became college roommates and friends. In 1529 they were joined by Ignatius of Loyola, who was then just new to the college.
Ignatius had been a former soldier and but was now devoting his life to God. He was 38 when he arrived in Paris with a view to improving his religious formation. He had already written a little book, based on his personal experiences, which he later called the Spiritual Exercises. From the outset, Pierre Favre was impressed by Ignatius’ good and spiritual way of life. Initially however, Francis Xavier did not take too kindly to Ignatius, even though Ignatius often came to the financial assistance of Francis, who, as a student, liked to live as a noble and lived much beyond his means.
Ignatius however had seen the potential that lay hidden beneath Francis’
worldly ambitions. It is written that Francis heard a constant refrain from Ignatius: “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but lose his own soul”(Matt. 16:26).
Francis Xavier was slowly and eventually won over by Ignatius of Loyola and the two would become life long friends and would found the then new religious order, the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits).
In Paris, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier and Pierre Favre were joined by four others: Simon Rodriguez, Jaime Laynez, Alphonso Salmeron and Nicolas Bobadilla. Together these seven companions were united in wanting to spread the Gospel and devoting their lives to the service of God.
They decided that they would take vows of chastity and poverty and then make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On August 15th 1534 (the feast of the Assumption), in the chapel of Montmartre near Paris, these seven companions made their vows. This was an important step in the foundation of the Society of Jesus.
Francis Xavier was later ordained a priest in Venice on June 24th 1537. He was then 31. He said his first Mass on September 30th of that year and according to those present he did so with tears in his eyes. He was indeed a very prayerful man. He prayed frequently and was often found deep in prayer. This was a quality that remained with him throughout his life.
Because of a war between the Turks and Venice, Francis and his companions were unable to begin their journey to the Holy Land. They went to Rome and offered their service to the Pope, Paul III.
At about this time, the King of Portugal made a request to the Pope for priests to minister to the needs of the growing number of subjects in the Portuguese overseas colonies. The Pope was hesitant. He was aware of the danger involved in treacherous nature of the sea-routes to the Portuguese colonies in the East. The Pope eventually agreed to send two priests but he left the choice of whom to Ignatius and his companions. Ignatius, finally but with some reluctance, called upon Francis Xavier to go to India.
In 1540 Francis traveled from Rome to Lisbon. Here he spent a year, living at a hospice and helping to care for the sick there, visiting the poor, and visiting those in prison. Finally, in 1541, Francis Xavier set sail on his first missionary journey to India.
Francis Xavier left Lisbon on April 7, 1541(his 35th birthday), together with two other Jesuits on board the Santiago and in a fleet of five ships. The seas were rough and the conditions difficult. Francis spoke of the voyage later in a letter to his companions in Rome: ‘…I was seasick for two months and I was sorely tired for forty days off the coast of Guinea both because of the oppressive heat and the lack of winds.’
From August of that year until March 1542, Francis remained in Mozambique because of the dangerous seas during wintertime. During his stay there Francis cared for the sick and the dying. He sail for Goa, leaving his two companions in Mozambique to care for the sick. He reached Goa, India, the capital of the then Portuguese colonies, on May 6th 1542.
Because it was the monsoon climate, Francis was forced to spend the next four months in Goa. Finally in September he was able to travel to the Fishery coast in Southern india were had originally intended to go at the request of the King.
From his base at the Hospice in Goa, Francis commenced his missionary work. During the course of a normal day, he would be nursing the sick, comforting the dying and administering the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. He would then visit the prisons where he often counselled the inmates to repent for their sins of the past and change their way of life. He would then meet the children and teach them to pray. Similar classes were also held for adults. Francis was well known in the city as the priest who called upon the people of the town to prayers - by walking around the streets and ringing the bell. After celebrating Sunday Mass he would go to the Home for the Lepers on the outskirts of the city. There again he would administer the Sacraments to the lepers.
Francis preached in Portuguese and his words had to be translated into Konkani, the native language of Goa. He attempted to overcome this language barrier by setting-into-tune most of the common prayers and teaching. Francis was known as a cheerful and good humoured man. Witnesses reported that ‘he did everything with great joy… and cheerfulness…always very joyful and pleasant with a smile on his face; in this manner he used to deal with all, whether good or bad…always smiling with everybody, especially with those who lived badly…’.
At the end of September, as soon as the sea became navigable after the
monsoon, Francis Xavier left Goa for the Fishery Coast in Southern India. He returned to his base in Goa and back to the Fishery Coast several times. In October 1543, after a year spent on the Fishery Coast, he returned to Goa. At this stage, he learned that the Society of Jesus had been formally approved by the Pope and that Ignatius had been elected general and that his companions had taken solemn vows. Francis himself took his own vows before the bishop of Goa. Francis now became superior of India. In September 1545, Francis Xavier set sail for Malacca in present day Malaysia. He used the same missionary methods he had developed in Goa and perfected in South India. He journeyed from Malacca to the islands of the Pacific Rim. It was a series of treacherous sea voyages. The land was not so safe either but he continued tirelessly and bravely.
On one of his journeys in these islands, he is known to have lost his crucifix during a storm. The distress which he experienced was intense but short-lived as his crucifix was found the next day - attached to a crab which was coming ashore. For the Jesuit and those with him at the time, it was nothing short of a miracle.
He returned to Malacca, where in 1547 he was introduced to Anjiro, a Japanese man who had sought refuge with the Portuguese and was christened as Paolo. This new convert expressed a strong desire to meet with this Francis Xavier, a priest all Malacca was talking about. With his moderate knowledge of Portuguese, Paolo impressed him. This was ‘a man who wanted to know more about the faith’. Paolo convinced Francis that the Japanese would turn to Christ if they were convinced that Christians practiced what they preached. Francis made up his mind. He was going to Japan.
He returned to Goa in 1548 and formally took over teaching at the College of the Holy Faith in 1548. This college trained priests from all over Asia and the eastern seaboard of Africa. These ‘natives of distant lands’ travelled back to their homelands to carry on the work of the Church.
Francis Xavier reached Japan on July 27, 1549, but it wasn’t until August 15 that he went ashore at Kagoshima, the principal port of the province of Satsuma, on the island of Kyushu. He was received in a friendly manner and was hosted by Paulo’s family until October 1550. From October to December 1550, he resided in Yamaguchi. Shortly before Christmas, he left for Kyoto, but failed to meet with the Emperor. He returned to Yamaguchi in March 1551. There he was permitted to preach by the daimyo, but not knowing the Japanese language he had to limit himself
to reading aloud the translation of a catechism.
Francis worked for more than two years in Japan spreading the gospel and founding churches and saw his successor-Jesuits established. He then decided to return to India. Back in India in1552 he also began to make preparations for his next journey. With the help of a merchant Diégo Pereira, an old friend from Cochin, Francis was going to China. On April 17 he set sail, with Diégo Pereira, leaving Goa on board the Santa Cruz for China. In early September 1552, the Santa Cruz reached the Chinese island of Shangchuan, 14 km away from the southern coast of mainland China.
Since the entrance of foreigners into China was strictly forbidden, Francis looked for someone who could take him to the mainland in secret. He found a Chinese merchant who, for a large sum of money, promised to do so by night, in hs own boat. But he failed to arrive as promised on November 19th . Two days later on November 21, Francis fainted after celebrating Mass. He became ill and over the next days his condition worsened. On the night of December 2nd and 3rd 1552 Francis Xavier died. His dying words were: In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum (‘In you, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded’.) He died on the island of Shangchuanon at the age of 46, without having reached mainland China.
Francis Xavier’s body, dressed in the vestments which he had used for celebrating Mass, was placed in a wooden coffin and buried on a beach of Shangchuan island. His friends then decided to bring his body back to Malacca. Wihen his grave was opened his body was found to be fresh and incorrupt. His body was then temporarily buried in St. Paul’s church in Malacca on March 22, 1553. An open grave in the church now marks the place of Francis Xavier’s burial.
On December 11, 1553, Xavier’s body was shipped to Goa. The body, having resisted extensive decay, is now in the Basilica of Bom Jésus in Goa, where it was placed into a silver casket on December 2, 1637. The silver casket is lowered for public viewing only during the public exposition which occurs for a duration of 6 weeks every 10 years, the most recent of which took place in 2004. There is a debate as to how the body could have remained incorrupt for so long. Some say that Francis Xavier was mummified, while others argue that the incorruptible body is evidence of a miracle.
Saint Francis Xavier, S.J. Missionary (1506
Navarre – 1552 Cina)
XDom
Antoine Marie osb.
avier, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Mt. 16:26). This warning of Our Lord’s was given to Francis Xavier by Ignatius of Loyola, who added these words: «Consider well that the world is a master who does not keep its promises. And even if it were to keep its promises to you, your heart would never be satisfied. But suppose that it were satisfied, how long would your happiness last? In any case, could it last longer than your life? And when you die, what will you take to eternity? What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?» Little by little, this maxim entered Francis Xavier’s heart and deeply marked it. Thus began a process that would make him one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.
More than a passion
Francis was born on April 7, 1506, at Xavier Castle in Navarre, in northwest Spain. In 1512, his father had all his goods confiscated in punishment for having fought alongside the king of Navarre in a war against the Castilian throne; he died of grief in 1515. The next year, the Xavier fortress was dismantled and the family’s land taken. When Xavier came of age, the family was ruined. Under such circumstances, a military career did not attract him. Leaving his mother and his brothers in September 1525, never to see them again in this world, he went to the University of Paris, where he stayed at the College of Saint Barbara in the company of fellow students who, for the most part, had given themselves up to less than edifying lives. Nevertheless, among them were two men of exceptional piety, Pierre Le Fèvre and Ignatius of Loyola. The latter, originally from the Basque country bordering Navarre, for some time had been considering founding a holy work for the good of the Church. Having recognized the qualities of Pierre and Xavier’s souls, he tried to get them to share his spiritual ambition. So Ignatius led Pierre Le Fèvre in the Spiritual Exercises for thirty days. At the end of this retreat, Pierre was completely won over to the cause. Xavier was a more difficult case. It is true that, thanks to Ignatius’ and Pierre’s advice, he had already distanced himself from questionable friends and had rejected the unwholesome doctrines that followers of Calvin had introduced in Paris. But Xavier’s heart, proud and open to the appeal of worldly ambition, felt only disgust for the hidden life of renunciation that Ignatius advocated. Ignatius, a fine judge of souls, first
catered to Xavier’s feelings, who had become a professor of philosophy and aspired to a brilliant career and a large following. Ignatius found him so many disciples that Xavier saw him as a true friend in whom he could confide. Ignatius took advantage of this friendship to remind him of the vanity of the glories and benefits of this world, and their uselessness for eternal life. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Xavier, touched by the grace of God, made the Spiritual Exercises in his turn, during which he asked for «intimate knowledge of Our Lord, who has become man for me, that I may love Him more and follow Him more closely» (Sp. Ex. 104). From then on, he had only one passion: loving Jesus Christ and making Him loved by others.
Soon, the little group was joined by four other students. Ignatius then proposed to his six companions that they give themselves to God more completely and unite themselves to each other through the bonds of religious vows. On August 15, 1534, in Our Lady’s chapel at Montmartre, Pierre Le Fèvre, at the time the only priest in the group, celebrated the Holy Mass, during which all made perpetual vows of poverty and chastity with the promise that they would go to the Holy Land or commit themselves to the will of the Supreme Pontiff. As they waited to know the holy will of God, they gathered often to pray and encourage one another in the practice of virtue.
Straight to the heart
On January 25, 1537, the first members of the Society of Jesus found themselves in Venice, but since the political situation made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land impossible, they decided to go to Rome to ask for the blessing of Pope Paul III. The pope welcomed them warmly and authorized them to be ordained priests; that ceremony took place on June 24, 1537. The little group then scattered to several cities in Italy. Father Xavier was sent to Bologna, where he devoted himself to teaching the poor, the sick, and prisoners. Not knowing Italian well, he spoke little, but with such conviction that his words went straight to the hearts of his listeners. At the end of 1538, the king of Portugal, John III, asked Ignatius to lend him some religious to evangelize India. Ignatius, with the Pope’s agreement, placed two religious at his disposal, one of whom was Francis Xavier, who was not given the news until the day before his departure, March 15, 1540. All he took with him was the habit on his back, his crucifix, a breviary, and another book.
After a journey of three months, Father Xavier arrived in Lisbon in the company of Simon Rodriguez. Both were received by John III, a truly pious man concerned for the salvation of souls. While waiting to leave for India, they devoted themselves to the care of souls in the capital of Portugal. Their apostolic devotion aroused such admiration in Lisbon that the king was asked to keep them in the country. Ignatius decided that Rodriguez
would stay in Lisbon; as for Father Xavier, he would leave for India. He left, in the company of three young confreres, on April 7, 1541.
At the time, the voyage from Portugal to India by the Cape of Good Hope was an adventure from which no one could be sure of coming out alive. If the ship didn’t sink, epidemics, cold, hunger, and thirst often decimated the passengers. On January 1, 1542, Father Xavier wrote to his brothers in Rome: «I have been seasick for two months; and all have suffered much for forty days off the coast of Guinea... The nature of the difficulties and labors is such that I would not have dared confront them for a single day, not for the whole world. Our comfort and hope in God’s mercy is growing continually, in the conviction that we lack the talent necessary to preach the faith of Jesus Christ in a pagan land.» On May 6, 1542, they reached Goa, on the western coast of India.
First method of prayer
Having received from the Pope full spiritual authority over the subjects of the Portuguese colonial empire, Francis Xavier arrived in India equipped with the title of «Apostolic Nuncio.» In Goa he found a Christianity confronted with the unedifying example of certain Europeans. Thanks to his zeal, even before the end of the year, Goa appeared quite changed. A good many souls were already walking in the way of perfection. Father Xavier encouraged them in the practice of meditation, according to the method that Saint Ignatius called the «first method of prayer» (Sp. Ex. 238248). This way to meditate consists of examining oneself with respect to the Ten Commandments, the seven capital sins, the three powers of the soul (memory, intelligence, will) and the five bodily senses. One asks God for the grace of knowing in what ways one has observed or transgressed His commandments, and for the help needed to correct oneself in the future. The bishop of Goa wished for Father Xavier to continue the great good that he was doing in the city, but the latter, driven by the Spirit of God, aspired to even greater conquests. Like the apostles, he burned with the desire to face dangers, sufferings, and persecutions to win as many souls as possible for Jesus Christ. The governor of Goa, who knew his zeal, was sympathetic and suggested to him the twenty thousand men in the Paravers tribe, hastily baptized eight years before on the shore of the Fishery, and who had since returned to their ignorance and superstitions. Father Xavier wrote in a letter to Saint Ignatius: «I am happy to go: enduring the strain of a long voyage, taking upon myself the sins of others, when I have quite enough of my own, living in the midst of pagans, suffering the heat of a burning sun, and all this for God; surely these are great consolations and cause for heavenly joys. For in the end, the blessed life for friends of the cross of Jesus Christ is, it seems to me, a life sown with such crosses. ... What happiness can equal that of living by dying each day, by crushing our wills to seek and find not that which will profit us, but that which will profit Jesus Christ?» The Christians he found on the shore of the
Fishery knew nothing of their religion. Father Xavier thus began with the rudiments of the faith: the sign of the cross accompanied by the invocation of the three Persons in God, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Salve Regina, the Confiteor.
This concern for passing on the rudiments of the faith is shared by the Church. In fact, in today’s world, marked by an overabundance of information and specialization in higher education, we see that the most simple truths, those that lead to eternal salvation, are not passed on. This is why the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, promulgated the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, «with its brevity, clarity and comprehensiveness, is directed to every human being, who, in a world of distractions and multifarious messages, desires to know the Way of Life, the Truth, entrusted by God to His Son’s Church» (Motu proprio for the approval of the Compendium, June 28, 2005).
«If the laborers were not lacking...»
Before this rich harvest of souls, and thinking of the immense good that could be done with the help of numerous workers, Francis Xavier turned to Europe, where many intelligent men were wasting their energies in occupations of little use. «Many times,» he wrote, «the thought occurs to me to go to the universities of Europe and shout there, like a man who has taken leave of his senses, to tell men richer in knowledge than in the desire to make good use of it, how many souls are, through their neglect, denied the glory of Heaven and are going to Hell! If, in studying the humanities, they also considered the account that God will ask of them, many of them, moved by these thoughts, would turn to the means, to spiritual exercises designed to give them true understanding and an intimate sense of the divine will, to which they would conform more than to their own inclinations, and they would say, ‘Here I am, Lord: what would You have me do? Send me where You will; if necessary, even to India...’ I almost wrote to the University of Paris that millions and millions of pagans would become Christians, if the laborers were not lacking...»
Caring about the soul
On April 7, 2006, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, archbishop of Madrid, during a Mass celebrating the fifth centenary of Saint Francis Xavier’s birth, explained the saint’s passion in these words: «Xavier cared about the soul: his soul and those of everyone, the soul of each human being. He cared about the ‘soul,’ because he cared about life: life in its fullness, life in happiness, eternal life. ... He cared about the salvation of man and because of that, his life consisted in using himself up so that every creature he met might know and make his own the truth that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16). Precisely because of the love he had for man, he desired that the greatest possible number
of peoples and individuals come to the Christian faith. This explains his tireless search for souls in the most remote places where the Good News of Jesus had not yet penetrated.»
So many did Francis Xavier bring to the faith each day that often his arms would be tired from baptizing. Overwhelmed with work, he was alone only during the night, much of which he would devote to his religious exercises and studying the local language. But God never abandons His servants. He flooded the missionary’s soul with heavenly consolations and gave him to a large extent the gift of miracles. At the end of October 1543, Father Xavier decided to return to Goa to look for reinforcements. There he learned – three years after the fact – that Paul III had approved the Society of Jesus and that Ignatius had been elected General. So he made his solemn profession, using the formula his Brothers in Rome had used.
Yet he knew that other countries were waiting for the Good News. He was perplexed—should he push on toward these distant lands, where the name of Christ was unknown to so many? He went to the tomb of Saint Thomas the Apostle to ask God to enlighten him. He stayed there four months (April-August 1545), helping the local parish priest, who would say of him: «In all things he led the life of the apostles.» «In the holy house of Saint Thomas,» wrote the missionary to the Fathers of Goa, «I have employed myself in praying continuously that God Our Lord might grant me to feel in my soul His most holy will, with the firm resolution to accomplish it. ... I have felt with great interior consolation, that it was the will of God that I go to Malacca, where several recently became Christians.»
After several months spent on the Malaysian peninsula of Malacca, where he did not fear to search out sinners where they lived—in the gambling houses and brothels—to put them on the right path, on January 1, 1546, he began a cruise of more than 2,000 km, in the course of which he evangelized a number of islands, in particular the isle of Morotai, where he risked his life amidst cannibal tribes. In a letter to his confreres in Europe who were worried about this adventure, he replied, «The souls of the isle of Morotai must be instructed and someone must baptize them for their salvation. I for my part have the obligation to lose the life of the body to provide my neighbor with the life of the soul. Therefore I will go to the isle of Morotai to help the Christians there spiritually, and I will face every danger, entrusting myself to God Our Lord and placing all my hope in Him. I wish, to the full extent of my small and miserable abilities, to experience in myself these words of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Lord: He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Mt. 10:39)».
Full salvation
The zeal of Saint Francis Xavier, who spent himself without counting the cost to proclaim the Gospel to thousands of souls, is a lesson and an example for our generation. It reminds us of the urgency and necessity of mission, in accordance with the teaching of John Paul II: «The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world a ‘gradual secularization of salvation’ has taken place, so that people strive for the good of man, but man who is truncated, reduced to his merely horizontal dimension. We know, however, that Jesus came to bring integral salvation, one which embraces the whole person and all mankind, and opens up the wondrous prospect of divine filiation. Why mission? Because to us, as to St. Paul, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph 3:8). Newness of life in Him is the ‘Good News’ for men and women of every age: all are called to it and destined for it. ... The Church, and every individual Christian within her, may not keep hidden or monopolize this newness and richness which has been received from God’s bounty in order to be communicated to all mankind» (Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, December 7, 1990, no. 11).
Japan ... and China
In December 1547, Father Xavier made the acquaintance of a Japanese nobleman named Anjiro, who had wandered for five years in search of a spiritual master who could give peace to his soul. «We discovered Father Francis,» Anjiro would relate, «in the church of Our Lady of the Mountain, where he was performing a wedding. I fell completely under his charm and gave him a long account of my life. He embraced me and appeared so delighted to see me that it was evident that God Himself had arranged our meeting.» In the course of their conversations, Father Xavier learned about Japan. When he found out that «the king, the nobility, and all the people of distinction would become Christians, for the Japanese are completely guided by the law of reason,» it was enough for him; he left for Japan.
Nevertheless, aware of his duties as Apostolic Nuncio, he resumed contact with India and returned to Goa, which he would leave on April 15, 1549 for Japan. The following August 15, he landed on Kagoshima, where he spent more than a year learning the Japanese language and customs. Toward the end of 1550, he left for the residence of the most powerful prince of Japan, then for the capital. There, a great disappointment awaited him—the king, who in fact was only a puppet, would not even receive him. Father Xavier nevertheless obtained permission from the prince to preach the Christian faith, and had the joy of welcoming several hundred conversions. But soon a revolution broke out, and the missionary had to leave. Having had no news from India for two years, he decided
to return to Malacca, where he arrived at the end of 1551. It was there that he received a letter from Saint Ignatius written more than two years before, naming him «Provincial of the East,» that is, for all the missions of the Society of Jesus from Cape Comorin, in southern India, all the way to Japan.
On April 17, 1552, the missionary took to the sea once more, this time headed for China. This voyage, the last one of his life, would strip him utterly and conform him to the suffering Christ. At the beginning of September 1552, he reached the island of Sancian, ten kilometers from the Chinese coast. The handful of Portuguese who had put into port there at the time greeted him with joy, building him a wooden hut and a little chapel made out of branches. Father Xavier immediately began to tend to the children and the sick, to preach, catechize, and hear confessions. Nevertheless, he sought to find a Chinese «smuggler» who would secretly lead him to Canton. Access to the shore of China was strictly forbidden. Anyone who dared to violate this prohibition was, if caught, doomed to torture and death. On at least two occasions, the missionary found a man who agreed to lead him there in exchange for a large sum of money. Each time, once the money had been received, the «smuggler» disappeared.
On November 21, Father Xavier celebrated his last Mass. As he came down from the altar, he felt himself weaken. He tried to return to the sea, but the rolling of the ship was unbearable for him. Taken back to Sancian, he spent the last days of his life half-conscious. Without medicine, and certain of his imminent death, he raised his eyes to Heaven and spoke with Our Lord or Our Lady: «Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me. — O Virgin, Mother of God, remember me.» As he was saying the name of Jesus, he breathed his last, at dawn on December 2, 1552. He was only forty-six years old. His body was taken back to Goa where it is still venerated by the faithful. Francis Xavier, canonized along with Ignatius of Loyola on March 12, 1622, is the heavenly patron of Catholic missions. When one considers the life of this giant of holiness, one is struck by the number of travails and sufferings he had to endure. His secret was a boundless love for Jesus. In the Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius had taught him to listen for the call of Christ: «It is My will to conquer the whole world and all my enemies, and thus to enter into the glory of My Father. Therefore, whoever wishes to join Me in this enterprise must be willing to labor with Me, that by following Me in suffering, he may follow Me in glory» (Sp. Ex., 95). In his obedience, Francis Xavier was «prompt and diligent to accomplish [Jesus’] most Holy Will» (ibid. 91). In turn, he gave himself fully, without counting the cost, to extend God’s kingdom on earth. May he obtain for us the grace to be like him filled with zeal for the eternal salvation of our neighbor.
St. Francis Xavier
Jesuit Priest from Navarre,Spain
7th April A.D.1506 – 2nd December A.D. 1552
Raised 10 from the dead
Most definitely to be included in this section are three great Jesuit missionaries, particularly St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), who is considered to have been the greatest missionary since St. Paul. He is known as the “Apostle of the Indies,” and the “Apostle of Japan.”
In about ten short years (1541-1552) Francis did the work of a thousand individual missionaries, spreading the Catholic Faith from Goa (Portuguese territory in western India), over South India, Ceylon, Bengal, Cape Comorin, the Moluccas, Spice Islands, Malacca, and through the China Sea to Japan where he died alone, except for one companion, a Chinese youth named Antiry, on the Japanese island of Sancian, waiting for a ship to China. On his journeys St. Francis Xavier converted hundreds of thousands, and the impact of his work lasted for centuries.
Those exotic lands were vastly different from the Basque country of his native northern Spain and the Xavier Castle on the fertile mountain slope overlooking the Aragon River. There in the Kingdom of Navarre, Francis Xavier had been born in 1506, the youngest of the six children of the Chancellor of Navarre, Don Juan de Jassu (a doctor of law), and the very beautiful Donna Maria Azpilcueta y Xavier.
Francis Xavier’s was a brilliant and attractive personality. As a student and lecturer at the great University of Paris, he came under the influence of St. Ignatius Loyola. Francis was among the first seven to take their vows in the fledgling Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatitus; he was later the last to make the famed Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. If Francis had remained in Europe and the universities he might have become famous as a great teacher or doctor of the Church, judging by the promise of his already brilliant accomplishments.
At that time it came about that King John III of Portugal asked the Pope to send six members of the new society to do mission work in Asia. He wanted them to leave in the royal galleon of the Governor of Portuguese India in April, 1541. Ignatius could spare only two Jesuits, and one of them, Bobadilla, became seriously ill with a severe fever at the last minute.
It was apparently with dismay on the part of both Ignatius and Francis that the latter became the substitute.
Then and there the history of the Church and its missions was changed by the workings of Divine Providence. So often it seems that there is a “sacrifice of brilliant talents”; the ability to teach metaphysics in university classes and the meticulously acquired knowledge of Greek and Latin give way to the simplest form of catechism, as a missionary instructs the children, pagans, and cast-offs of many distant places, returning again to language study as he struggles with the idioms of foreign dialects. But God knows what He is about.
Due to inclement weather it took the packed galleon of 900 passengers 13 months to complete its voyage. It arrived at Goa in May, the month of Mary, 1542. There St. Francis Xavier spent five months before traveling on to Cape Comorin. In Goa he preached, cared for the sick and for prisoners, taught children, and endeavored to bring Christian morality to the Portuguese there, particularly denouncing the concubinage which was so prevalent among them.
Besides his numerous cures, there were many other wonders on St. Francis’ life: gifts of tongues, predictions, bilocation, calming a storm at sea, and more. Francis had been “all things to all men”; he was known and loved (and sometimes hated) by great and small in all walks of life. Perhaps the greatest wonder of all is the fact that he baptized 100,000 with his own hand. That remarkable right arm is still preserved and venerated.
Apropos of miracles of raising the dead, Butler speaks of four such events which occurred in one period alone, according to the canonization process. Those four resurrections were those of a catechist bitten by a venomous snake, a child drowned in a pit, and a young man and a young girl dead of pestilential fever.
On the Fishery Coast, St. Francis Xavier worked enough miracles to fill a large volume. Once when he was about to begin Mass in a small church at Coimbatur, a crowd entered with the corpse of a boy who had been drowned in a well (perhaps the “pit” mentioned by Butler). His mother threw herself at the feet of St. Francis, who was also the one who had baptized this child. She implored him to restore the boy to life. Francis said a short prayer, took the dead child by the hand, and bade him arise. The child rose and immediately ran to his mother.
There was a pair of youths who accompanied Francis as catechists. During the night one of them was bitten in the foot by a “cobra da capello.” In
the morning the youth was found dead. Francis took some saliva from his own mouth, touched the foot of the poisoned catechist, made the Sign of the Cross over him, took him by the hand and bade him arise in the Name of Jesus Christ. The youth responded immediately and was able to continue the missionary journey at once. It was as simple as if he had just gotten up from sleep, instead of having been restored to life itself. This is probably the miracle of the “venomous” serpent given without details by Butler.
It is important to note that the chroniclers attribute to St. Francis other resurrections of the dead in that part of the country. Only the Lord knows how many Francis actually recalled from the dead in all his missionary life, laboring night and day. Large numbers could be expected when one recalls that he was the greatest missionary since St. Paul, and if one considers how many of the dead have been raised by other great missionaries.
Further, it is stated in the processes concerning Francis that one of the children he often sent among the sick in his name raised two dead persons to life. The Christian “children” of St. Francis worked many prodigies. One is reminded of the helpers St. Vincent Ferrer commissioned to continue working miracles for the multitudes during the times when the saint himself was exhausted.
The following miracle of St. Francis Xavier is recorded in the Relatio documented in the time of Pope Paul V. In the streets of Mutan, Francis met a funeral procession bearing the body of a youth who had died of a malignant fever. According to the custom of that area, the body had been kept for 24 hours wrapped in a shroud. Like Jesus with the widow of Naim, Francis pitied the bereaved parents; they pleaded with him.
The saint knelt down, raised his eyes to Heaven, and prayed to God for the lad’s life. Then he sprinkled the covered corpse with holy water and ordered the funeral shroud cut open. When the body was visible, Francis made the Sign of the Cross over it, took the youth by the hand, and bade him in the Name of Jesus to live.
The youth rose up alive, and Francis gave him to his parents in good health. The crowd marveled and praised the holiness of Francis. The youth’s parents and friends, in gratitude and memory of the deed, erected a great cross of the spot and held a festival there.
At another time, St. Francis was preaching at Quilon, near Cape Comorin in Travancore at the southern tip of India opposite Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
This was a seaport, a rough town where many Christians dishonored their name. Francis, while preaching in the Portuguese Church there, felt baffled and stymied by the wall of obstinacy he met in his hardhearted listeners.
Now it happened that a man had been buried in the church the day before. St. Francis stopped preaching; he prayed to God to honor the Blood and the Name of His Son and to soften the hearts of the congregation. Then he directed a few men to open the nearby grave of the man who had been buried the day before. He had prayed in tears, and now he accompanied his directions with the burning words of holy eloquence. He told the congregation how God was pleased even to raise the dead in order to convert them.
When they opened the tomb and brought out the body, it was already giving off a stench. On Francis’ orders they tore apart the shroud to find the body already beginning to putrefy. Francis expressed his desire that they should all take note of these facts. (They could hardly escape them!) Then the saint fell on his knees, made a short prayer, and commanded the dead man, in the Name of the Living God, to arise.
The man arose alive, vigorous and in perfect health! The onlookers were filled with awe. Those who needed it fell at the saint’s feet to be baptized, and a large number of people were converted because of this miracle. The two miracles above were accepted by the auditors of the Rota as resting on incontrovertible evidence from two witnesses, Emanuel Gago and Joam Audicondam, as well as from one “dead” person himself. These great miracles led almost the entire kingdom except for the king and a few of his countries to become Christians within a few months. And as Father Coleridge points out in his two-volume life of St. Francis Xavier, “We must take these miracles as but specimens.”
Why would God grant anyone the power to perform such great miracles? This becomes easier to understand when one appreciates the immense number of souls converted by St. Francis Xavier. Within about a year he had established up to 45 Christian communities in the area. It is hard to conceive of such mass conversions, whether by Francis Xavier or by any missionary apostle, without great and numerous wonders to testify to the truth of the apostle’s words. Our Lord used His own miracles as signs that testified to His Messaiahship and Kingdom. His wonders proved that He was, indeed, the Son of God sent by the Father. He ordered His disciples to work similar miracles with generosity, and promised that they would work even greater wonders than He had.
Man is inclined to measure miracles by his own limited standards and abilities. But for God, of course, the “great” and the “small” miracle are equally easy. Yet it somehow seems more wonderful when (as with Lazarus) someone who has been dead for days is raised, rather than one who has very recently died. But death is death whether it has lasted a minute or a week-and the wonder of restoration is equally marvelous in either case. At Malacca St. Francis Xavier worked a miracle for someone who had been buried for several days. When Francis was away from the town, the daughter of a recently baptized woman died. The mother had sought Francis everywhere while the girl was still ill. When this earnest parent learned that Francis had returned, she was full of the simple faith that Francis, whom she was convinced could have healed her daughter as he had cured people en masse could just as easily raise the girl from the dead. As Martha said to Jesus, “But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” Jn 11:22
When the mother found St. Francis she threw herself at his feet, and like Martha and Mary, exclaimed that if he had been there her daughter would not have died; nonetheless, nothing was difficult for God, and she knew that Francis, with his prayers, could return her to life. As Jesus had marveled at the faith of the Roman centurion and the Syropheomician woman, St. Francis Xavier marveled at the faith and confidence of this recent convert.
Since the mother seemed so worthy of such a favor, Francis prayed for God to grant her this consolation. Then he turned to the mother and told her to go to the grave; her daughter was alive. Hopeful, fearful, not disbelieving, but because Francis had not offered to come himself to the tomb, she answered simply that the girl had been three days buried. But St. Francis had measured her testing tolerance.
She questioned St. Francis no further; with shining faith she ran rejoicing to the church where her daughter had been buried. At the burial place the mother, together with many other witnesses who had hurried there with her, had the stone raised from the grave. The dead daughter, buried three days, came out alive! As with the raising of Lazarus, no one could doubt the verity of such a miracle.
One must admire the tenacious faith of this newly converted woman. Such strong faith is seldom found. The great faith and wisdom of the apostle met and matched the faith of the mother, when he asked her to go to the tomb alone.
This power of raising the dead from a distance seems to have been a special charism of St. Francis Xavier. In Japan, at or near Cagoxima, a pagan nobleman lost his only daughter. He was greatly grieved. Some recent Christian converts, sympathizing with him, recommended that he seek help from the God of the Christians and the prayers of the “great teacher of the Portuguese.” The father went to St. Francis and cast himself at his feet. He was so choked with emotion he could not speak. But the saint understood.
St. Francis went into the little oratory where he offered Mass. His helper, Joam Fernandez, went along with him. After Francis prayed for a few moments he came out and told the anxious father to go, that his prayers were heard. That was all Francis said, so the nobleman turned homeward, hurt and grieved.
But on his way a servant met him and joyfully told him that his daughter was alive. Next, the girl herself came running and threw herself upon her father’s neck. She informed her father that when she had breathed her last breath, immediately two horrible demons had seized her. They were about to hurl her into Hell when two venerable men came to her rescue. The next moment she found herself alive and well.
When the girl’s father brought her to St. Francis Xavier’s house she identified Francis and Fernandez as her two deliverers. Father and daughter were subsequently instructed and baptized.
Another miracle occurred when Francis was on a ship, the Santa Croce, going to San Chan. A Musselman’s five-year-old son fell overboard at a time when the ship was running fast before the wind. It was impossible even to attempt to save him. The father had been in despair for three days when he chanced upon Francis on the deck. Francis somehow for the glory of God? Had not heard of the tragedy. He asked the father if he would believe in Jesus Christ if his child were restored. (A small child, overboard in the sea for three days, miles behind the ship, and Francis confidently asks such a question!) The man said he would believe.
A few hours passed, probably while Francis was praying. Suddenly the Musselman met his child, bright and joyous, running to him on the deck. The father and his entire family were baptized.
“For, Amen, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove;
and nothing shall be impossible to you.” Mt 17:19. The “mountain” may represent the great obstacle of unbelief to be overcome. A mustard seed is very, very small. Suppose one’s faith were the size of the watermelon seed …….Or a coconut …….?
In Japan at Cagoxima, Francis blessed the swollen body of a deformed child, making it straight and beautiful. And that expresses well the objective of the saints: to make all men straight and beautiful in the eyes of God. Among his later miracles, Francis raised to life a young pagan woman “of some quality” who had been dead a whole day. At Malacca he restored to life a young man, Francis Ciavos, who later became a Jesuit.
St. Francis Xavier died on December 3, 1552, at the age of 46. Before his burial, the coffin was filled with lime, two sacksful beneath, the body and two over it in order to hasten decomposition so that at some future time the bones could be easily transported to India. Ten weeks later, when the saint’s body was exhumed to be taken to Malacca, it was found to be perfectly incorrupt!
Only 12 years after he had first embarked on his missionary journeys, the body of St. Francis Xavier was brought back to Goa in veritable triumph. Around the saint’s body miracles were recorded every day of that autumn and winter.
When his remains were temporarily placed in the chapel of the college of St. Paul on March 15, 1554, several blind were cured, as also were paralytics, those with palsy, etc. Francis had been the special envoy of both the Holy See and of King John III of Portugal; on the order of the King a verbal process was made with the utmost accuracy, in Goa and in other parts of India; in it, accounts were taken of many miracles wrought through St. Francis Xavier.
Today the body of St. Francis Xavier is dry and shrunken, but there is no corruption. Many parts of the body, notably the right arm mentioned above, have been removed and sent to various places as most precious relics. In 1974-75 the body of the saint (in a glass case) was exhibited for viewing and veneration for a six-week period. Today it rests in a silver reliquary in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, India.
This article on St. Patrick is a chapter from Raised from the Dead, True Stories of 400 Resurrection Miracles, by Fr. Albert J. Hebert, S. M.
St. Francis Xavier Indo-Portuguese
Philately
Milind Kamat
You can’t miss him so easily!
While travelling in parts of Goa, one of the common signage to notice on the transport vehicles, particularly the buses, is the adornment of St. Francis Xavier’s name and/or picture. Fondly referred to as “Goencho Saib” (Goa’s patron) or Goencho Pai (Father of Goa), the carriers and passengers alike have faith in him being a “raknno” (guardian against evils or misfortunes).
Born Francisco de Jassu y Javier (in 1506), Francis Xavier was a co-founder of the” Society of Jesus”. Chartered by the King of Portugal - João III, he arrived in Goa (in 1542) and extended his missionary work to other parts of south India and Ceylon before embarking for Southeast Asia and Far East. En route, he died on Shangchuan Island on December 3, 1552. The date marks the “Feast of St. Xavier”. His body was transferred to Goa (in 1553) and has been placed at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in an intricately crafted silver casket by the local artisans. The casket depicts 32 significant scenes from the saint’s life. Xavier was canonized in 1622. (i) Over the past centuries, through the transition of “Incorruption” (1554) to “Commemoration” (1952), the worship of St. Xavier has been embedded in India’s religious and cultural ethos. (ii)
The first ever Exposition of St. Xavier’s holy relics in Goa was held in year 1782. The subsequent expositions continued in 1859, 1878,1890,1900,1910,1922,1931,1942,1952,1961,1964,1974,1984,1994 and 2004 (The ‘highlighted’ three were particularly important for postal history) (iii). The 1952 Exposition marked 4th death centenary of the Saint while the 1961 Exposition continued during the cusp period of “Operation Vijay” and lasted only for 19 days. Since 1964, the exposition is being organized after every 10 years. This year (2014) marks the 17th Exposition, beginning from 22nd November to conclude on 4th January, 2015, for a period of 44 days. (1952 was marked to coincide with the celebrations of a newly canonized Portuguese saint, John Britto, also with links to Indian mission field).
The cultural and economic influence of St. Xavier’s first stamp issue
Noted French artist Louis-Eugène Mouchon who was commissioned in 1898 to create an omnibus design of King D. Carlos’s stamp for the Portuguese colonies, chose the “Elephant head’ in the stamp’s design, symbolizing the then common “western” image of the orient.
The formation of first Portuguese Republic in 1910 forced a change to the postage stamps themes of the Correios Telégrafos e Telefones (CTT). This change steered an end to the monopoly of the monarchial “portraits”. Although, the subsequent designs of allegorical CERES - Goddess of Agriculture (1914) and of Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route (1925) did not resonate with Goa’s (and other enclaves’) local culture and customs.
In the year 1931, a visible change took place. A new set of 6 stamps (Denominations: 1 Real, 2 Reis, 6 Reis, 1 ½ Tangas, 2 Tangas and 2 ½ Tangas) was released to commemorate the 8th Exposition of St. Francis Xavier’s relics.
The set was designed by Crisnanata Vassu Naique, typographically printed on a plain paper at the India Security Press (Nasik) with 14 perforations. For the first time, a theme related to Goan tradition and an important festival (although arguably adopted), found representation on the colonial postage stamps. A special post-mark was also designed to record the ceremonial procession that carried the sacred relics from the Basilica of Bom Jesus to the See Cathedral for the eventual public “Darshan”.
A look into the Indian economic scene in the early 1930’s shows that Goan emigration was on a high rise, in search of alternate opportunities beyond borders. Almost 55 to 60,000 Goans had settled in British India as compared to Goa’s resident population of 500,000. (iv). In contrast to the severe economic struggles and apparently much lower number of letter writers, did it make economic sense for the colonial administration to print the Exposition stamps in 3,000,000 numbers with total face value
of Rupias 25,31,250 (i.e. equal to 52% of year 1928’s exports)? (v) The probable answer is the high popularity of Portuguese India’s postage stamps with overseas collectors; the expected large turnout of tourists for the Exposition and the rampant speculative buying (that also involved the government officials) in those days. The Exposition stamps set could have been seen as major revenue encashing opportunity, a saviour for the ailing economy.
St. Francis Xavier in subsequent thematic representations. With a wide choice of “themes” that a stamp collector can imagine to choose from, St. Francis Xavier could be an interesting theme to exploit. From an Indo-Portuguese philately perspective, St. Xavier featured on the stamp issues post 1931 Exposition. In 1946, a series titled “Motivos Historicos” (Historical Motifs) was printed on enamel paper. This had a 1 Real value stamp with St Xavier’s face and right hand. The same image was once used in 1948 for a series called “Vultos da India” (Celebrities of India), in different colour and shape with 1 Tanga value.
Year 1952 was of historical importance. Being the 4th death centenary of the Saint, the CTT issued a set of three new stamps, printed on enamel paper (Figure-6). These three designs depicted (1) the popular figure of the Saint – 6 Reis (2) the hand that blessed the faithful – 2 Tangas and (3) the silver casket at the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa which guards the sacred relics – 5 Tangas. In addition, 2 miniature sheets (Figure-7), 3 postcards and multiple First Day Covers were also released.
In 1952, the CTT also organized Goa’s first ever philatelic exhibition on a large scale. Probably it also served to reinforce the “Estado Novo” regime’s claim over Goa to create international awareness. The event was hugely successful where local participants displayed their exhibits. For the first time (and
the last) in the postal history of Portuguese India, a “se-tenant” strip comprising of 2 stamps (3 and 5 Tangas), coupled with a label in the middle was released in limited edition of only 3000 sheets, each sheet had 10 strips. The full sheet is today considered a rare artifact (Figure-8)
The post-colonial era
After her independence, India resorted to exerting diplomatic pressures on Portugal to negotiate the handover of its territories in India. However, during 1947 to 1960, India did not resort to to lay claims on Goa and other enclaves through her postal stamps publication. Post liberation, from 1961 to 1974 too, there was absence of Goa related theme(s) on India post’s stamp issues for unknown reasons. Finally, on 24th Dec, 1974, the Indian Post released a stamp on St. Francis Xavier (Figure-9).This was the first stamp that represented Goa’s tradition in independent India’s philately. The timing coincided with the 13th Exposition. It could be to mark the end of dictatorship in Portugal and restoration of treaty relations with India.
To conclude, St. Francis Xavier was a privileged theme in the Info Portuguese philately - in the colonial as well as in the post-colonial times! Let us see if this tradition is kept up.
Bibliography
i - Franco Mormando & Jill G. Thomas, Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Missions in the far east, 2006
ii – The Relic State St. Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India, Pamila Gupta
iii – Blogspot, Joegoauk
iv and v - Goa Migration Study, Frederick Noronha, 2008
Macau Ricci
TO THE NATIONS AND NATION:
The Apostle of the Indies and the Apostle of Ceylon
By: Teotonio R. De Souza
Ad gentes —” to the nations” — is the Decree of Vatican II on the missionary activity of the Church, and it is in the spirit of its teaching that an effort is made in this brief write-up to assess the missionary activity of St. Francis Xavier and Fr. Joseph Vaz. Hence, this is not the text, nor a summary of the two talks that I was invited to deliver to the interested public in Old Goa on 19th December 1984 by the Diocesan Exposition Committee. Those talks have rather provided me with a pretext to do this little exercise with avowedly pastoral intentions, and not for satisfying any “itchy” ears (if they can ever be satisfied) interested in hearing more about “myths”. The deliberate use of plural and singular in the title above is meant to translate in the language of the decree the differences in the missionary call of the “apostles “. As we read in the same document, “through the Holy Spirit, who distributes his charismatic gifts as he wills for the common good, Christ inspires the missionary vocation in the hearts of individuals.... For there are certain priests, religious, and laymen who are prepared to undertake mission work in their own countries or abroad, and who are endowed with the appropriate natural dispositions, character, and talents. These souls are marked with a special vocation”(Ad gentes, IV, § 23). Hence, any attempt at comparing their missionary activities on purely human grounds, needs to be complemented with an acceptance of the workings of the Holy Spirit that sustained his apostles and made them fruitful. It is important that we keep this in mind as we peep into the personalities and missionary achievements of St. Francis Xavier and Fr. Joseph Vaz. We cannot lose sight of the truth that there is only one mission, and that is the mission of Christ himself (Ad gentes, 1, § 5), and the only method is the one that Christ himself adopted:”poverty and obedience and self-sacrifice to death” (Ibid).
If the same decree on missions reco¬mmends that all students for the priesthood “should learn the history, aim, and method of the Church’s missionary activity, and the special social, economic and cultural conditions of their, own people”(Ibid., II, § 16) it is only to make them better aware of the incarnational method in the changing historical “ circumstances in which the mission is exercised” (Ibid., I, § 6).
Two Co-founders
In the persons of Francis Xavier and Joseph Vaz we have two cofounders of two religious bodies, namely the Society of Jesus and the Ora¬torians of Goa. They originated from distant lands: One a Spanish basque and a stranger to the culture of India and the East; the other a Goan brahmin of Salcete and better equipped to meet the cultural demands of the people to whom he preached the gospel. Both had Goa, the head¬quarters of the Portuguese empire, as their base of missionary activities. However, the time-interval between them was about a century and half, and the fortunes of the Portuguese empire differed as much: When Francis Xavier arrived in India (1542) the Portuguese power was almost at its zenith and the Portuguese gunboat was in a posi¬tion to terrorize the natives into conversion if the threats of hell or material allurements failed. Joseph Vaz had to operate in times (1681-1711) when the Portuguese .writ was no more respected in Kanara or in Ceylon. The Dutch commercial and religious rivals had wrested away the most prized spice-lands: clovelands of Moluccas, the cinamon-land of Ceylon, and the pepperlands of Malabar.
If Francis Xavier laid the foundation of the Church on a massive scale and reached nations till the Far East, Fr. Joseph Vaz has rightly been credited with the second foundation of the Church of Ceylon in a way that was no longer “foreign” to the people or to the rulers of that land. What¬ever the differences of their personal backgrounds, training, and operational contexts, these rather determined their approaches or methods of work than their zeal and intrepidity, which can hardly be brought into the area of comparison. Rightly enough six years after Joseph Vaz had died at Kandy the overseas councillors of the Crown of Lisbon had the following comment to make:”These missionaries (referring to the Oratorians of Fr. Joseph Vaz) proceed in such an exemplary way that only they and the Fathers of the Society of Jesus are the real missionaries and the fittest to convert the souls of the natives of Asia”. (Cf. C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, London, 1969, p.244)
Factors to be kept in mind
Francis Xavier’s personal experiences in a turbulent Paris, the conflicts of the Reformation in which the Society of Jesus was deeply involved, the special request of the Crown of Portugal for missionaries of the new Society to evangelize the newly established empire in the East; the powers of papal nuncio granted to Francis Xavier, and his quasisupreme powers as religious superior of the Jesuits in the East, all these factors need to be kept in mind while evaluating the missionary
attitudes of the man. Power and prestige that he balanced with his self-abnegation and self-sacrifi¬cing provides material for a very hard test to anyone trying a critical and fair assessment. While he had the ear of the highest political and religious authorities (though conveniently a deaf year was turned to him by the local Portuguese authorities!) Francis Xavier esteemed the company of the bed-ridden and inmates of hospitals as well as children and slaves. He felt more at ease (perhaps more spiritually comforted) in their company, and once he had gone to the extent of licking the sores of a leper to get all natural revulsion out of his system! All this however had not made him unearthly, he still remained subject to more than one weaknesses and prejudices of his surroundings and backgroupd. One such was his western superiority. In one of the last letters that he wrote from Sanchian to the Provincial designate in Goa, we read: “I greatly urge you to take very few into the Society of Jesus, and those whom you receive should be persons who are needed by the Society; and, as for the service of the house, see well if it would be better to take or buy same negroes” (Cf. G. Schurhammer, Francis Xavier. IV, Rome, 1983:p. 631). Fr. Alessandro Valignano, the great reorganizer of the Jesuit Asian Missions at the end of the 16th century wrote that the saintly Xavier “ realized with his spirituality and prudence how incapable and primi¬tive is the nature of this people in the things of God, and that reasoning does not make such an impression on them as does force. And for this reason he considered that it would be very difficult to form any Christian community among the Niggers, and much more difficult to preserve it, unless it was under the rule of the Portuguese, or in a region whither their power could be extended, as is the case with the sea-coast, where the fleet of His Highness can pass to and fro, dealing out favours or punishments according to what the people deserve”. Valignano added that the spectacular success of Xavier’s missionary methods near the Fishery Coast was largely due to his mixture of promises and threats (Cf. Valignano, Historia del principlo y progresso de la Campañia de Jesus en las Indias Orientales, ed. J.Wicki, Rome, 1944, pp. 69-71). Hence, we cannot fully absolve the great saint from appreciating carrot¬-and-stick methods, nor was he fully above cultural prejudices. His policy of keeping close to the coast never gave him an opportunity to get into contact with centres of Hindu culture in the hinterland. His quickness to pass judgement on Hindu culture can only be interpreted as impru¬dence, if not some superiority complex. His unusually favourable judgement about the Japanese makes one even think Francis Xavier was not above racial feelings or colour distinctions. While he made much of his little success in Japan, he was very despondent about the future of the Church in India. Whatever his powers of prediction may have been
during his life-time, times have shown him wrong in this regard: The Church of Japan has had a chequered growth, while he is with us to witness to a growing and flourishing Church! Perhaps the saints also nod at times!
Missionary Approaches
We have already referred to the only road that is open to anyone entering into the mission of Christ. What we call methodologies or missionary approaches are largely the adaptations that circumstances demand, particularly the circums¬tances of one’s personal make-up and the demands of the environment. Sexual distractions of Francis Xavier in Paris had ended when he witnessed the deadly effects of venereal disease on a senior com¬panion of his games. It had been such a traumatic experience that contact with a woman even in a dreamt led him to inflict on himself bloody injuries! The saint himself admitted later that God had granted him at that moment a special grace of preserving his virginity! (Schurhammer, op. cit., I, 727) There have been no lack of hints that Fran¬cis Xavier was a women-hater. But without going to such an extreme conclusion, we could definitely say that he did not put much trust in women. Among the many practical instructions that he left for the provincial-designate before leaving for China, we read: “Never blame the husband in public, even though he may be at fault, since women are so indomitable....” (Schurhammer, op. cit., IV, 544).
In the many small and detailed instructions that Francis Xavier conveyed in his written notes to Francisco Mansilhas, his Jesuit aide in the Fishery Coast, or to Fr. Gaspar Barze as mentioned above, we find a sort of resumé of what one may call the “methodology of St. Francis Xavier “. Much that he was advising others, he was striving to practise in his own life: Patience, cheerfulness, ever-readiness to serve the sick and the poor and the prisoners, preaching repentance, and above all to be constantly on the move. No surprise if he was always in a hurry and was a burn-out in ten years!
Joseph Vaz was no less in a hurry. We are told by Fr. Pedro de Saldanha, a close companion of Fr. Joseph Vaz in Ceylon: “I have never seen him inclined to take any rest except when he is indisposed and ordered to do so by obedience. He is very seldom in this church, but he is constantly going on mission tours. When his tours are over, he returns to this city of Candia and begins to visit the surrounding districts. This is a very toilsome work, as the city is situated in the centre of many hills and forests and mountain ranges... “He adds: “From the various servants who accompanied him in his long journeys I heard that they have never been able to keep pace with
Father Vaz, for he walks much and with great speed: a testimony I can endorse from my own experience of the journey I made with him from Potulao to Mantota “ (V. Perniola, The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, 1984, Vol. I: pp. 272-3) Apparently, all his energy came from rice boiled in water and his unlimited trust in Providence! If he lived longer than Francis Xavier in spite of leading an equally strenuous life we could humanly attribute it to his native constitution that could better withstand our Indian strains. From the first attack of dysentery on his arrival in Ceylon in 1987, through the gruesome trial of his physical resistance during the year-long epidemic ten years later, till his death that followed a long and painful abscess in an ear, he kept up his practice of visiting every single family of Ceylon at least once a year. Fortunately for him by 1705 his burden was shared by nine priests of his Oratory.
It is true that Francis Xavier died uttering: “In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded”. Joseph Vaz did not have to utter any such words. He was a living example of trust in God’s Providence. He always preferred the opinion of others to his own, and regarded it as the surest way of finding and doing God’s will. More than once he had to countenance opposition, changes and delays in the execution of his life-dream of assisting the Christianity of Ceylon. His experience was not different from that of the earlier Apostle: “For those who love God everything leads to good “. His formation in Goa, the years of apprenticeship in Kanara, the formation of the Oratory, were stages through which he was unwittingly led by Provi¬dence towards the ultimate mission that was reserved for him.
Joseph Vaz did not fail to reach his nation. It was a small nation compared to the Indies of Francis Xavier, but it was a hard nut to crack. Only a man in disguise, without fanfare of presti¬gious appointments, without foreign political patronage, unhampared by jurisdictional rivalries of Padroado and Propaganda, and backed by a group that was small enough not to attract unwanted publicity could be an apostle of Ceylon. Joseph Vaz fulfilled all these requirements.
While Francis Xavier made a good apostle for the Indies, only Joseph Vaz could be the right apostle for Ceylon. Unworthy as I feel of presenting any bird’s-eye-view of two missionary giants, this exercise of assessing them may at best be regarded as a worm’s-eye-view of someone who holds them in deep esteem.
XCHR, Alto de Porvorim.
Reprinted from Renovação / Pastoral Bulletin of the Archdiocese of Goa, Feb 15, 1985 with permissions of its editor and the author.
