Saint Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier was a priest of the Society of Jesus, one of the first companions of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and a missionary who preached the Gospel in India, the Moluccas, and Japan. The Church honors him as patron of the missions. His liturgical memorial falls on December 3.

He was born on April 7, 1506, at the castle of Javier in Navarre, in the north of present-day Spain, into a noble family. In 1525 he left to study in Paris. At the College of Sainte-Barbe he met Peter Faber and then Ignatius of Loyola. He was thinking of a university career and for a long time resisted Ignatius’s influence, but in the end he joined his companions.

On August 15, 1534, at Montmartre, he made vows together with Ignatius and five other companions. From this group grew the Society of Jesus, approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. Francis was ordained a priest on June 24, 1537, in Venice. When King John III of Portugal asked for missionaries for India, Nicholas Bobadilla, who had been chosen to go, fell ill, and Ignatius sent in his place Francis, whom the pope named apostolic nuncio. On April 7, 1541, Francis sailed from Lisbon.

After thirteen months of travel, on May 6, 1542, he reached Goa in India. He lodged in the hospital, visited the sick and prisoners, and called the children to catechism by walking the streets with a bell. Then for two years he worked among the Paravas, poor pearl fishers on the southern coast of India. He taught them prayers and the truths of the faith in their own language. He baptized so many people that, as he himself wrote, his arms ached with fatigue.

From 1545 to 1547 he preached the Gospel in Malacca and the Moluccas. In Malacca he met a Japanese man named Anjiro, from whom he heard about his homeland. On August 15, 1549, he landed with his companions at Kagoshima; they were the first missionaries to preach Christ to the Japanese. Until 1551, despite his difficulties with the language, Francis founded the first Christian communities there.

In Japan he came to understand that China, then closed to foreigners, was of key importance for the mission in Asia. In 1552 he set out from Goa and reached the island of Sancian (Shangchuan) off the coast of China, not far from Canton. While waiting for a chance to cross to the mainland, he fell ill. He died there on December 3, 1552, at the age of forty-six, abandoned by almost everyone; only one Chinese man kept watch beside him. His body was later taken to Goa, where it rests in the Church of Bom Jesus.

Pope Paul V beatified him on October 25, 1619, and Gregory XV canonized him on March 12, 1622, together with Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Teresa of Ávila, Saint Philip Neri, and Saint Isidore the Farmer. In 1904 Pius X declared him patron of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and on December 14, 1927, Pius XI proclaimed Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus patroness of the missions on an equal footing with him.