Xavier, Francis
XAVIER, FRANCIS (1506–1552), cofounder of the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), missionary, and saint. Francisco de Jassu y Xavier was born in the family castle in the kingdom of Navarre (now northern Spain), the fifth and youngest child of noble, wealthy, and pious Catholic parents. His early education took place at home and under the tutelage of local priests. In 1525 the keen, ambitious student left home permanently, bound for Paris. A handsome, slender, athletic youth, about five feet four inches tall, he was noted then, as throughout his life, for his cheerful and vivacious personality. At the University of Paris, Xavier gained a master of arts degree in philosophy in 1530, taught this subject for several years (1530–1534), and then studied theology until 1536.
During his years at the university, Ignatius Loyola, a fellow student since 1528, became an increasingly important influence on Xavier, and by 1533 Xavier had become one of his disciples. In 1534 Xavier made the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Ignatius and on August 15 he joined Ignatius and five other students in a chapel in Montmartre, a district of Paris, where all of them vowed to lead lives of apostolic poverty, to labor for the salvation of their neighbors, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and to place their services at the disposition of the pope. Together with three other students who joined the group when it renewed its vows a year later, these men were the ten founders of the Society of Jesus.
Beginning the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Xavier left Paris in November 1536 with eight of his companions and, traveling by foot, reached Venice nearly two months later. Ignatius met them there. In Venice, Xavier, along with Ignatius and four other companions, was ordained a priest in June 1537. War with the Turks ruled out a voyage across the Mediterranean to Palestine, so in 1538 Xavier went to Rome and there shared in the discussions that led to the founding of the Society of Jesus. Until his departure from Rome in 1540, he served as secretary of the new religious order.
When the pious King John III of Portugal put out a call for missionaries, especially for the care of recently converted Paravas (Bhavatas) in southern India, Xavier left Rome for Portugal, traveling overland to Lisbon in the entourage of the Portuguese ambassador. While awaiting the annual departure of the India fleet, Xavier performed various priestly tasks in the city and at the royal court. His ship set sail in April 1541, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and wintered in Mozambique, where Xavier's two Jesuit colleagues remained. After further stops at Melinde (Malindi, in modern-day Kenya) and the island of Socotra (off the coast of modern-day Somalia, where Xavier had to be dissuaded from remaining), the voyage ended in May 1542 in Goa, a district on the west coast of India and the main Portuguese center in that country.
Until the end of the rainy season in September, Xavier ministered to the Portuguese and native Christians in Goa. Accompanied by three native helpers, he then sailed to the southern tip of the continent. For the next three years his apostolate was centered in Malabar and Travancore, the coastal regions northwest of Cape Comorin; in the regions northeast of the cape as far as São Thomé (modern-day Madras); and on the neighboring island of Ceylon. Much of his ministry consisted of instructing the thousands of Parava pearl divers and fishermen who had been converted to Roman Catholicism around 1535 but whose religious knowledge remained minimal. Spectacular numbers of conversions were made: Xavier reported baptizing over ten thousand villagers in Travancore in one month.
In September 1545 Xavier sailed from São Thomé to Malacca, a Portuguese settlement on the Malay Peninsula; then to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in the East Indies, where his main concern was the native Christians, left without clergy in the Portuguese centers of Amboina and Ternate; and then as far north as the Moro Islands. He returned to Malacca in June 1547 and to Goa in March 1548. After further work along the Fishery Coast he returned to Goa once again. In April 1549 he set sail with three Japanese converts and two fellow Jesuits to inaugurate the Christian mission in Japan. When he departed from Japan for Goa twenty-seven months later, he left behind some two thousand converts. Hoping to initiate a Christian mission to China, he took ship from Goa in April 1552, but he was not allowed to disembark on the Chinese mainland. After three months of fruitless waiting on the desolate island of Sancian (near Canton), he died on December 3 following a brief illness. His incorrupt body was taken in 1554 to Goa, where it is still enshrined and greatly venerated.
Xavier is ranked among the greatest missionaries in Christian history. His numerous far-ranging journeys were not those of a spiritual adventurer, restlessly seeking new fields to conquer. He served not only as missionary but also as apostolic nuncio and Jesuit superior, with the duty of investigating mission possibilities in areas then little known to Europeans. He was both a pioneer and organizer of the Jesuit missions in the Far East, intent on obtaining suitably trained European co-workers. He was eager to supply mission stations with churches, schools, and personnel and to be kept informed about them. Both his actions and his writings show practicality, prudence, and sound spirituality. His success was promoted also by his exemplary apostolic zeal, his personal holiness, and his ability to mix easily with persons of all classes, races, and beliefs. In addition, he was a man much devoted to prayer, a mystic. Unlimited confidence in God, his most basic spiritual trait, freed him from discouragement in the face of obstacles and reverses. These characteristics, together with his reputation as a wonder-worker, led Christians, Muslims, and pagans alike to refer to him as "the holy father," and "the great father." Since his death, he has been venerated as the ideal missionary and, as such, has inspired thousands to devote their lives to spreading the gospel far afield. In 1622 he was canonized, and in 1927 he was designated by Pius XI as patron of all missions. His annual liturgical feast is celebrated on December 3.
Jesuits.
Bibliography
The critical edition of the letters and other writings of Xavier that supplants earlier, defective editions is Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scripta, 2 vols., edited by Georg Schurhammer and Joseph Wicki (Rome, 1944–1945), published as volumes 67 and 68 of Monumenta historica Societatis Iesu. Applicable bibliographies include Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu (Rome, 1932–) and Bibliographie sur l'histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1901–1980, 7 vols., by László Polgár (Rome, 1982–). A readable, brilliantly written biography, the one most widely read in English, which has also been translated into several languages, is James Brodrick's Saint Francis Xavier, 1506–1552 (New York, 1952); it should be studied with some caution, however, because of questionable accuracy in its characterizations of Xavier. The Life and Letters of Saint Francis Xavier, 2d ed., 2 vols. (1881; reprint, London, 1927), by Henry J. Coleridge is useful still because of its translation into English of all the letters of Xavier, although the collections of letters used by Coleridge have now been superseded by that edited by Schurhammer and Wicki. Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, 4 vols., by Georg Schurhammer (Rome, 1973–1982) is the definitive biography by the leading authority on Xavier, the result of decades of study. Schurhammer's Saint Francis Xavier: The Apostle of India and Japan (Saint Louis, Mo., 1928) and Margaret Yeo's Saint Francis Xavier: Apostle of the East (New York, 1932) are both good, popular biographies.
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