| Jesuit
Journeys
Winter 2006
Ignatian Spirituality:
The enduring legacy of St. Francis Xavier
By Hector D’Souza, SJ
 To
be at the Javier
Castle in the
Basque region
of Spain on Dec. 3 was
surely a grace. Mass was
celebrated there with the
archbishop of Pamplona,
Jesuit Fr. General Peter-
Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, his
assistants, and all the Jesuit
Provincials of the world.
Beginning this day and
throughout 2006, Jesuits all over the world are celebrating
the triple Jubilee year marking the births of St. Francis
Xavier (April 7, 1506) and Bl. Peter Faber (April 13, 1506)
and the death in Rome of St. Ignatius (July 31, 1556), the
most important trio of the Jesuit Family that founded the
Society of Jesus.
I am a Jesuit today because of St. Francis
Xavier, and
this is no exaggeration. Xavier and the missionaries
who followed him brought faith to the Konkan Coast of
southwest India in the 16th century.
History tells us that Xavier traversed
this land on his way to Kerala before
going on to Tamil Nadu. The traditions
left behind by Portuguese rulers are still
strong in our part of the country.
I am told that when my grandparents
had no children for the first five
years of their marriage, they made a
pilgrimage to Goa, where the Body of
St. Francis Xavier is preserved. Behold
their prayers were heard, and they
named their first-born Francis Xavier.
My dad had such a great devotion to
St. Francis that every evening, after
our family Rosary, we had to a pray
to him. I attribute my vocation partly
to St. Francis Xavier who is venerated
and held in greatest esteem in my
birthplace.
St. Francis Xavier, SJ
(1506-1552)
Born Francisco de Jaso y Azpilcueta, St. Francis Xavier
came from an aristocratic family that lived in the Basque
region of Spain, near the French border.
He set out at 19 for the University of Paris, where he
studied, taught philosophy, and planned a career as a
professor. While furthering his studies in theology, Xavier met
Ignatius of Loyola, who also sprang from Basque nobility.
Along with Ignatius, Peter Faber, and four others, these
original companions of Jesus bound themselves by a vow
at Montmartre in August 1534 and formed the Society of
Jesus. In October 1538, Pope Paul III confirmed the order and
Ignatius was chosen as the first superior-general. He soon
sent his companions as missionaries around Europe to create
schools, colleges, and seminaries.
Xavier devoted much of his life to missions in remote
countries. He left Lisbon in April 1541 and reached Goa, India,
the capital of the then Portuguese colonies, on May 6. There
he preached in the street, worked with the sick, and taught
children catechism ringing a bell to call the children as he
walked through the streets. Animated and endowed with great linguistic gifts, Xavierwas a tremendously successful missionary for 10 years
in India, the East Indies, and Japan. He tolerated the most
appalling conditions on long sea voyages, enduring extremes
of heat and cold. Wherever he went he would seek out and
help the poor and forgotten. He traveled thousands of miles
and saw the greater part of the Far East. His efforts left a
significant impression upon the missionary history of India,
and by pointing the way to East India to the Jesuits, his work
is of fundamental significance with regard to the history of
the propagation of Christianity in China and Japan.
Xavier died Dec. 2, 1552 on Sancian Island, off the coast of
China, never having reached the mainland.
A traveler in life, Xavier’s body also moved about after
death first buried on a Shangchuan Dao beach and then
removed in February 1553 and temporarily buried in St. Paul’s
church in Malacca on March 22. An open grave in the church
now marks the place of that burial, as the body was moved
again in April before being shipped to Goa in December 1553.
The body, having resisted extensive decay, is now in the
Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, where it was placed in a silver
casket on Dec. 2, 1637. The silver casket is lowered for
public viewing only during the public exposition which occurs
for 6 weeks every 10 years, the most recent of which took
place in 2004. There is a debate as to how the body could
have remained incorrupt for so long. Some say that Francis
Xavier was mummified. Other say the condition of the body is
a miracle.
Xavier and Ignatius were both canonized in 1622.
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What makes Francis unique to us? It is
his presence.
First of all, the ‘incorrupt body’ of the saint
is still with us
at Goa in the Basilica of Bom Jesus. It is much more thanthe
body. It is the spirit of the saint, the ‘daring’ of
the
person of Francis Xavier. The amazing stories about the
life of this holy man began circulating when his body was
brought from Sanchuang Island in 1554. They have been
told and retold again and again over the years and are still
prevalent today. Tales of his adventures and heroic life still
captivate the imagination of the young minds. St. Francis
Xavier is immortalized and the passion for him as a saint
has expanded the more we come to know about the man.
I was proud of the saint as a boy and as I grew. Later,
as
a Jesuit, when I visited Goa to “venerate” his
holy remains,
I too felt the calling of the Master. When I had to make
a
decision to go to the missions in Nagaland in northeast
India bordering China, I imagined myself carrying with
me the legacy of Xavier and the challenge he left for his
successors to make the Asian mission possible.
Fr. Kolvenbach describes Xavier as a missionary who “
stopped at nothing to proclaim the Good News at the top
of his voice.” He was haunted by an urgency to do so.
The
daring in the man took him all the way to Japan. Most
likely he was travelling most of the time from 1540 until
his death in 1552, resting as little as possible, driven
by the
thought of having the whole of Asia to evangelize.
He was a man of his times. The theology of his day
projected the notion of Greco-Latin
paganism onto the Hindus and
Buddhists. Today we maintain a
different perspective – one that says
our evangelization should involve
respect for other consciences and
cultures who have been visited before
us by the Holy Spirit, and so are
already graced by God’s presence.
Yet Xavier’s visionary intuition in his
1549 instructions to Jesuits working
with the fishermen and other people
along the coast of Travancore, urged
them to have a compassionate presence
among the masses they encountered
in the villages. He instructed them
to “visit those who are sick, strive
to make yourselves loved by these
people, for then your work will be
much more effective.” Xavier was fully
aware that personal encounter supposes inculturation,
though such a concept was not of his times. He advised
that Jesuits should speak to the slaves, the settlers, and
the servants in simple language, while at same time engaging
in conversation with the scholars of Japan and China – thus
establishing the undying principle of Jesuits to be all things
to all people. Xavier is often depicted
in paintings showing a heart
on fire with a zeal for helping souls – hence his appeal
to
young men to join in his desire to bring the Good News to
all the nations. In his dogged missionary activity, Xavier,
in his own way, reaffirms his call to this day. His famous
exhortation of February 1548 ends in this way: “Once
again I recommend firmly that you endeavour to make
yourselves loved in the villages that you visit or where
you
stay, by good works and kind words, so that you are loved
by all and never detested. In this way you will produce
more fruit.…”
Today we carry on Christ’s mission in ways that stress
love. Love is the way and the means and the mode.
We proceed without imposing our will or insisting on any one
way of life. We respect each person and the
actions of the Holy Spirit that have preceded us. This
spares us the anguish Xavier felt to save souls from
damnation. Today we do not identify the Gospel with a
particular theology – rather it transcends all cultures.
Only one person was present when Xavier, betrayed by
merchants and abandoned by those whom he trusted, died
on a small island with the China coast within his sight but
not his reach. Now, 450 years after Xavier’s death,
there are
5,656 Jesuits in 38 Asia/Oceania countries. In this region
with hundreds of cultures, the spirit of Xavier lives on.
The
great traditions and the spiritual heritage of Asia beckon
us to speak anew about the Kingdom of God in ways that
allow the people we meet to understand and open their
hearts to the way of our Lord.
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