St Francis Xavier

St Francis Xavier, often acclaimed as the greatest apostle since St Paul, is also a most lovable, approachable, dynamic, eminently charming man.

Ignatius Loyola met him at the Paris University and was quick to recognise the spiritual potential in this immensely popular, highly intelligent, gifted sportsman - an all-rounded personality.

Loyola and Xavier were both of noble background but impoverished. Initially, Xavier ridiculed the voluntary poverty of Loyola and his deep spiritual aspirations. Xavier, with all his gifts of mind and body, was profoundly ambitious to help restore the family estate shattered in recent wars and ultimately became Spanish ambassador to France! But Loyola saw immense spiritual potential.

Heart speaks to heart and a great heart is quick to recognise, even under veils, its companion. And so Loyola worked for four years and ultimately Christ's grace prevailed over Xavier's worldly ambitions.

He consented to join Loyola's small group of future Jesuits and years later Loyola commented: 'Xavier was the toughest clay I ever moulded'.

A repugnance for the sacrifices of the priesthood - poverty, chastity, obedience, etc. - is inevitable in any man, especially a young man of such vitality, personality and potential as Xavier, but Christ had his ambitions for Xavier, infinitely surpassing and transcending his wildest dreams, as will be seen later.

Mission to India and beyond

Soon after the formation of the Jesuit Order, the King of Portugal asked Loyola to send missioners to India and so Xavier was chosen. What an heroic sacrifice to leave his beloved Europe and its culture and plunge into the unknown India - but Xavier did it with typical love and courage and in April, 1541, he embarked for India.

He was 35 and it was his birthday. Fr Martindale SJ described the journey most poignantly:

'Thirty-five blunt-nosed vessels, of which one in ten used to flounder, sailed for India, not reaching it till May of next year, after a ghastly voyage.

'The emigrants were the very scum of Portugal. Francis was for two months continuously seasick - the very food, the very water, putrefied. Francis sacrificed all, his food, his clothes, his cabin, to the panic-stricken, cursing, murderous and promiscuous throng. They wintered at Mozambique and by then he was surrounded by an adoring troop of soldiers, sailors, slaves and natives. 'Impossible, I fear, even to suggest to you what his work became when he reached Goa. Europeans were the worst enemies of themselves, of the natives and of their faith.

'From 1542 to 1544, he made 13 times - always seasick - the six hundred mile journey to Cape Comorin and back. In a world of dysentery and malaria, he made some 30,000 converts by 1545.

'And be sure his work has lasted! Then came Ceylon; then sensuous Malacca ... thence to the Spice Islands, west of New Guinea. He pursued the low Papuan type of natives into their mountains.

'There were the headhunters of Borneo, the cannibalism and hideous immoralities of Ceram - nothing quelled his hope. Thrice shipwrecked, shaken to bits by travelling, often starving, attacked by the Mohammedans and hiding in the bush.

Call to Japan

Then he foresaw Japan. Before going there, he studied the language; studied too the Japanese religions; translated St Matthew's Gospel into Japanese and learnt it by heart. Yet in Japan, more than anywhere, he seemed to fail - his whole life seemed to him failure; yet there, more than anywhere else he was, in fact, successful.

'He arrived after a real Gethsemane of fear; he was vibrantly sensitive and his courage was true courage, just because he feared both what he foresaw and above all, the unknown.

'He left about 2000 Christians behind him, seed, however, of an immense Church, often all but annihilated by persecution.

'At last he left for China in 1552 but no trading vessel would take him to the land into which it was death for such a one as he to enter.

'In November, alone with a Malabar servant, he fell ill. Bled and re-bled, he passed into delirium. All alone, except for the servant and the companio
nship of Christ Crucified, Francis Xavier died.'
Evelyn Waugh, converted to the Church by an English Jesuit, has written most eloquently about the Jesuit martyr, St Edmund Campion and Xavier.

'Francis Xavier lived in an age of great adventurers. In England we incline to regard our Elizabethan sea-dogs as unique national heroes.

'The Portuguese went first and further and among those fierce and fearless men, Francis Xavier was pre-eminent in daring and endurance.
'In him renaissance exuberance coexisted with medieval faith - faith like a meteorite - compact, impermeable, incorruptible! Xavier's great love
'But there was another component which belongs to no period of time - an insatiable love for his fellow beings. Love raised him to the altars of the Church and love keeps him alive in the hearts of his devotees today.

'The most perfect gift love could bring was Christian truth. That was the single, irresistible motive force that drove him across seas wide open to piracy, through forts seething with sin and disease, along bare inland tracks devoid of food and shelter, to wherever he could find a foothold and a hearing.

'Ten years were the total span of his stupendous mission. His mission lay wherever there were souls to be saved - the colonists, their slaves and prisoners.

'All were in his charge and his methods were as diverse as the peoples. He dined with the luxurious and laughed them out of their excesses.

'He lay nightlong beside the dying in the crowded and stifling hospitals hearing confessions and whispering comfort. He had the gift of tongues which springs from love and burns its way into the mind without the intermediary of words. He was possessed by the Word.'

From the testimony of his many contemporaries, Xavier emerges as a most loving, warm, compassionate man, obsessed with the love of Christ, his incomparable leader, as God, saviour and brother, and from him - all humanity.

All saints are great 'lovers' but Xavier had that added charism of irresistible charm which helps to explain the prodigious numbers of his conversions.

He rightly attributed the radical orientation and sublimation of his life to Ignatius Loyola. From India, Xavier wrote to Loyola: 'Father of my soul, deserving of my deepest veneration'.

A seeming failure
So humble was he that he considered himself a failure in India and asked Loyola to recall him. But he died before a reply could reach him. A 'failure'!

As Waugh observed - '10 years were the total span of his stupendous mission' - four of which were spent on horrible, primitive ships in most dangerous seas.

Like Christ, he did die an apparent failure, almost alone, on the coast of China, dreaming of yet further conquests.

And so, from afar, we humble mortals must feel compelled to salute this imperial man.

Imperial - yes, because his vision and zeal were boundless, seeking to conquer ever more empires for Christ.

This most lovable, most gifted man whose vaulting ambition as a young man was to become Spanish Ambassador to France died sated with spiritual glory and heroic achievement, universally acclaimed an immortal hero, probably the greatest apostle since St Paul and patron of all missions.

Xavier's message

What is Xavier's message to us today?

Be a witness to Christ wherever we are; follow his call, overcoming natural human repugnance and put no limits to Christ's love and power to achieve prodigies in us as he did for Xavier, once the debonair, proud, ambitious, worldly young man whom Loyola prayed for so desperately.

Such are the marvels of divine grace in the human soul.