Saint Francis Xavier

St. Francis Xavier was born on April 7, 1506 AD, in his mother's family castle near Sangüesa, in the kingdom of Navarre. His father, Juan de Jasso, was president of the royal council of Navarre. His mother, María de Azpilcueta, was the sole heiress of the house of Azpilcueta and of the castle where he was born. He took his surname from the castle through her family, so that the name would not die out.

He was the youngest son of a large family, and he surprised his relatives by preferring study to war. In his boyhood, men posted by the Castilian governors guarded the house for three months. After his father died, he lived on at the castle with his mother, who supported him as her son.

In 1525 AD St. Francis Xavier went to the University of Paris and entered the Collège de Sainte-Barbe. He shared lodgings and studies with St. Peter Faber, a Savoyard, and the two became close friends. St. Ignatius of Loyola, an older student already planning a new religious order, later came to lodge at the same college.

St. Peter Faber agreed to the plan without objection, but St. Francis Xavier resisted. On August 15, 1534 AD, he and six companions, St. Ignatius among them, vowed at Montmartre to go to Jerusalem or else to put themselves at the Pope's service. Afterwards he answered his brother Juan, who had complained about him, writing that St. Ignatius had helped him with money and kept him from bad company.

In November 1536 AD the companions walked from Paris to Venice, begging their food on the way. St. Francis Xavier was ordained priest at Venice on June 24, 1537 AD. In 1540 AD King John III of Portugal asked for men to send to the Indies.

When Nicolás de Bobadilla, one of the men chosen, fell ill, St. Ignatius sent St. Francis Xavier instead. He sailed from Lisbon on April 7, 1541 AD, his thirty-fifth birthday. He landed at Goa on May 6, 1542 AD, thirteen months after leaving Lisbon.

At Goa, St. Francis Xavier lived in the hospital and heard the confessions of the sick and the prisoners. In October 1542 AD he sailed south to the pearl fisheries to work among the Paravas, taking two young clerics as interpreters. In June 1544 AD, Christians fleeing raiders were hiding on the rocks off Cape Comorin, dying of hunger and thirst.

On June 20 he set out from Manapad by night with twenty boats to reach them. Strong winds kept him from reaching the Cape. Late in 1544 AD, on the Travancore coast, he baptized the fishing villages, more than ten thousand people.

On January 1, 1546 AD, St. Francis Xavier sailed from Malacca for the Moluccas. At Amboina he found seven Christian villages and baptized the children who had not been baptized. When the Portuguese at Ternate refused him a boat to the Isles of the Moor, he said he would swim there if he had to.

According to longstanding Catholic Tradition, a crab carried back to shore a crucifix he had lost overboard in a storm. In July 1547 AD, back at Malacca, he met a Japanese man named Anjirō. He wrote to Rome that he sensed he or another Jesuit would go to Japan within two years.

On August 15, 1549 AD, St. Francis Xavier landed at Kagoshima, the home of Anjirō, now baptized Paul of the Holy Faith. Paul's relatives took the newcomers in and became Christians. On September 29, St. Michael's Day, the lord of the land received St. Francis Xavier. The lord told him to take good care of the books of the Christian law.

In December 1550 AD he set out on foot in winter for Meaco, the capital. He found the city wrecked by war and fire, and could make no headway there. Through 1551 AD he preached in other cities and founded the first Christian communities, with Yamaguchi at their centre.

In April 1552 AD St. Francis Xavier left Goa with his companions, bound for China; the viceroy had named Diogo Pereira ambassador to the Chinese court. At Malacca the captain, Dom Álvaro de Ataíde, stopped the embassy. Only then, for the first time since he had left Portugal, did St. Francis Xavier make known that Pope Paul III had named him papal nuncio to the Indies.

Even so, the captain would not let the embassy sail. St. Francis Xavier went on without it and reached Sancian, an island off the Chinese coast, in late August. There he waited each day for a Chinese merchant who had agreed to take him into Canton. He fell ill with fever and died in a poor hut on the island in December 1552 AD, with Antonio, his Chinese companion, beside him.

On February 17, 1553 AD, before the Portuguese ship left Sancian, his coffin was opened. The body was found whole and fresh. In 1554 AD it reached Goa and was placed in the church of the College of St. Paul.

Pope Gregory XV canonized St. Francis Xavier at Rome on March 12, 1622 AD, together with St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Church keeps his feast on December 3. In 1747 AD Pope Benedict XIV named him patron and protector of the East Indies.