The Church celebrates the life and work of Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) today. St. Paul, writing so many years earlier, could easily have had someone like Francis in mind when he wrote to the Church in Corinth, ‘I thank God that you have been enriched in so many ways, especially in your teachers and preachers; the witness to Christ has indeed been strong among you so that you will not be without any of the gifts of the Spirit.’ Francis is second only to St. Paul in the numbers of people he brought into the faith.
What made Francis a saint? Like so many other saints he had an unpromising start. He was born into an ambitious aristocratic family and he thought a lot of himself. While all his brothers became soldiers he decided to become famous as an academic. He was proud of his success and unpleasantly vain. When he met Ignatius Loyola, a former soldier, in Paris he could not help making fun of Ignatius’ pious poverty and lack of worldly ambition. Francis lusted after the fame and fortune proper to his influential family.
Ignatius reacted to Francis’ disagreeable lack of good manners by applauding his lectures and by sending him students. Once, when Francis had been too careless with his money and found himself in debt, Ignatius lent him money. Francis slowly began to re-evaluate his life, manners and attitudes. He found he had to take Ignatius seriously. His ideas about true nobility were called into question. The crunch came when Ignatius asked Francis, “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” He couldn’t give a sensible answer.
When Ignatius Loyola formed the Society of Jesus, now called Jesuits, in 1534, Francis was one of the first seven members. Now that period of history was one of great exploration and the expansion of European interests into the rest of the world. The Church was keen to spread the faith along the trade routes in much the same way as St. Paul had followed the trade routes around the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire. Francis was sent east where his holiness and reputation as a miracle worker hindered his missionary activity so much he had to move frequently. In one year he planted the seeds of the Church in the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, so successfully that by the 1560s there were 10 000 Catholics there and by the 1590s there were almost 60 000.
In 1547 Francis met Anjiro, a Japanese man, who confessed his reasons for running away from Japan. He was wanted for murder. As part of his confession he told Francis all about the customs and history of his country. He told him that the people of Japan would ask him many questions and that they would watch him carefully to see how his life matched his teaching. They would definitely expect Francis to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
The Japanese government allowed Francis a lot of freedom as they saw how he became Japanese to the Japanese. He had a great respect for the life and culture of the people he met where their values fitted in with living a Christian life. Unfortunately his converts’ enthusiasm for preaching against idolatry went too far for the authorities to tolerate and Francis had to retreat to Goa in India. He planned to go to China next but died before he could fulfil that ambition. He was 46.
His legacy is felt today. The Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church says this about newly formed Churches, “From the customs and traditions of their people, from their wisdom and their learning, from their arts and sciences, these Churches borrow all those things which can contribute to the glory of their Creator, the revelation of the Saviour’s grace, or the proper arrangement of Christian life.” These words could have been written by Francis himself. He is a saint, that is an example for other Christians to follow, because of his persistence in overcoming the faults of his character and his determination to live out the Jesuit motto, “For the greater glory of God”.
Author: C B Whittle