The Feast of St. Francis Xavier will be celebrated in Goa, India, this Saturday. That special yearly observance commemorates and honors Xavier and his remarkable Christian missionary activity (see this link). He died 470 years ago, on December 3, 1552.
I have mentioned Xavier several times in my blog posts through the years, the first being on Aug. 15, 2009, my twelfth post on this blog started the previous month.
Francis Xavier was born in 1506 in what is now northern
Spain. When he was 19, he enrolled in Paris University, the world’s premier
university at the time.
While a student in Paris, Xavier became friends with Ignatius
of Loyola, and he became one of the seven original members of the Society of
Jesus (the Jesuits) started by Ignatius on August 15, 1534.*
Xavier became one of the most famous Jesuits of all time in
spite of his early death only eighteen years and a few months after the
formation of that new Roman Catholic order. Further, he became one of the most
effective Catholic missionaries of all time, even though he served only 10½
years.
Xavier’s missionary work began on May 6, 1542, when after a
treacherous sea voyage of several months he disembarked in Goa, the center of
Portuguese activity in the East. He worked there with considerable success for
about three years.
For the next three years, Xavier engaged in missionary work
in what now is the country of Malaysia. It was there that he met Anjirō, a
Japanese fugitive, who accompanied him when he returned to Goa.
Xavier was the first Christian missionary to reach Japan.
With Anjirō as his interpreter and guide, Xavier left Goa in April 1549,
and exactly four months later, on August 15, set foot in Kagoshima at the southernmost
part of the Japanese island of Kyushu.
For a little over two years, Xavier engaged in energetic
missionary work—and struggled with the Japanese language, which he reportedly
called the “Devil’s language,” designed to keep the Gospel out of Japan.
His contact with the Japanese Emperor in Kyoto proved
disappointing, but he then had considerable success in what is now Yamaguchi
Prefecture at the southern tip of the major island of Honshu. He also enjoyed a
measure of success in what are now Nagasaki and Oita Prefectures on Kyushu.
Surprisingly, Xavier didn’t think he was particularly successful
in Japan, but he established the work for other Jesuit missionaries there and scholars
have estimated that more than 300,000 people in Japan converted to Christianity
over the next fifty years.
Xavier is widely known and respected in Japan to this day. I have been to the St. Francis Xavier Memorial Church in Yamaguchi (see here for a picture) and have seen the statue of Xavier in downtown Oita City (pictured below).
Xavier’s impressive legacy is well worth noting. While
still in Japan, Xavier longed to go to mainland China and to evangelize there.
After a short visit back in Goa, in April 1552 Xavier set
off for China. In late August, he arrived at Shangchuan Island, less than nine
miles from the mainland, but he was not allowed to enter the country that was closed
to foreigners. As he waited and waited, he grew ill and then died on Dec. 3.
His remains were taken back to Goa where they are preserved
in a silver casket within Bom Jesus Basilica there.
Xavier’s dream of entering China and meeting the Emperor was
fulfilled by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was born less than two months
before Xavier died.**
Xavier was canonized 400 years ago, in March 1622, and in
1927 he was named the Roman Catholic patron saint of all missions.
He is justly credited for his idea that missionaries must
adapt to the customs and language of the people they evangelize, and for his
advocation of an educated native clergy.
Partly because of Xavier’s emphasis on education, the
Jesuits founded many universities around the world.
In the U.S., currently there are 29 Jesuit universities,
including Xavier University in Cincinnati and Rockhurst University here in
Kansas City, where I had the distinct privilege of teaching for 17 semesters
from 2006 to 2014.
_____
* See my Oct.
25, 2013, blog post titled “In Appreciation of Ignatius and the Jesuits.”
** See my blog
article about Ricci posted last month on Oct. 10.
Note: While teaching at Rockhurst U.,
I sometimes showed my classes part of a DVD titled “Xavier: Missionary &
Saint.” That 2006 PBS documentary is now available for viewing (here) on
YouTube.
Thanks for the reminder of the work of Francis Xavier.
ReplyDeleteThe first comments received this morning were from local Thinking Friend (and Catholic Sister) Marilyn Peot:
ReplyDelete"My goodness...what a wonderful sharing of Francis Xavier. Our parish church was St. Francis Xavier where I attended 8 years of school. Never did I hear anything like your history of this Jesuit. I recall the special statue in Church. Also, we got a free day on Dec. 3. But never did I know of the vastness of his mission. I remember one of the Sisters read us a special book about him. But never did I get the 'full scoop' which you presented this morning. Thank you for putting the spotlight on him. Truly a great missionary!
Thanks for your kind words, Marilyn--and for sending them so early this morning (6:15!). They were especially gratifying since you are a lifelong Catholic. I actually didn't know a lot about the Jesuits until after I started preparing for my first class at Rockhurst University in 2006, but I learned some about Xavier during my first years in Japan since he was the first Christian missionary there.
DeleteAnd here are comments from another local Thinking Friend David Fulk, whose son Davis attends Creighton University, a Jesuit school in Omaha, Nebraska. (I first knew Davis as a cute little red-headed boy who attended Second Baptist Church here in Liberty with his parents.)
ReplyDelete"Thanks for this post. I work with several people who are members of St. Francis Xavier at 52nd and Troost. They link his legacy/influence as part of why they go there.
"Mostly, I'm pleased Davis is at Creighton and under the care of Jesuits. He's so happy there. He's enjoyed the required theology course where he's learned much of this teaching. He really likes the Jesuit focus on social justice.
"Hurray for the Jesuits!"
Thanks for your comments, David; it was good to hear from you again--and I was happy to hear what you said about Davis. The course I taught at Rockhurst U. was one of the required theology courses, which seemed to some as a bit odd since I had been a lifelong baptist (small case intentional). But university classes are for education rather than indoctrination, and I was pleased at how I was able to enjoy good rapport with most of my Catholic students as well as the few Protestants who were in my classes. And, like Davis, I appreciate the Jesuit focus on social ethics and was able to emphasize that in my classes to some extent.
DeleteRegarding St. Xavier Church here in Kansas City (just a few minutes from the Rockhurst U. campus), I was sorry to see columnist (and Thinking Friend) Bill Tammeus's Nov. 26 post titled "Some trouble in the Jesuit world -- including in KC." (https://billtammeus.typepad.com/my_weblog/2022/11/11-2627-22.html)
Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky commented briefly (and extravagantly!):
ReplyDelete"Xavier merits such affirmation from another great missionary to Japan!"
Thanks, Dr. Hinson, for your extraordinarily kind words. But for most of us who served as missionaries in Japan in the last half of the 20th century, we suffered from no physical hardships whatsoever, and except for the ever-present language problem and the long separation from family members, we lived more comfortably than many of us would have lived in the U.S. But most of us suffered psychologically because of the lack of apparent "success," especially when we considered the tremendous success that Xavier and his fellow Jesuits had in the last half of the 16th century.
DeleteProbably largely for that reason, #27 in my book "Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now" (2018) is "The New Testament Word for Success is Faithfulness." (When I looked at that chapter just now, I was surprised that I had forgotten that I wrote some about Xavier in that short chapter.)
One of my missionary "sempai" (older colleague) who has lived in Louisiana for many years now, wrote,
ReplyDelete"I remember discussing St. Francis with Nobuo Watanabe, and he said Japanese were insulted by Xavier’s statement that the devil invented the Japanese language to keep the Japanese people from hearing the gospel. I still associate the Jesuits with the movement by the Catholic Church to irradicate Protestantism from off the face of the earth. Am I wrong in my association?"
Here is the response I sent my friend by email:
DeleteI have fond memories of Watanabe Nobuo-sensei, but I had not known that he, or anyone, had said they were offended by what Xavier reportedly had said about the Japanese language. I think they missed the point, though: I think Xavier was not criticizing the Japanese language as much as expressing his frustration of not being able to learn and to speak Japanese better since it was such a hard language for Westerners to learn. In my early years in Japan, I tended to agree with what he said.
The Jesuit order was founded during Luther's lifetime and was part of the counter-Reformation of the Catholics, and Xavier died only six years after Luther. And, of course, the Catholics were trying to protect the Church from those they considered heretics. But Xavier's work as a missionary was in the East where there were no Protestants at all.