St Francis Xavier: An Incredible Man between Universality and Particularity

(Peter Paul Rubens 1577-1644 The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier)

Today, the 03rd of December the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St Francis Xavier (1506-1552). He is the patron of Catholic Church in India and its Missions.  The Jesuits in India have named their institutions in larger number with Xavier than Loyola who is their founder. Xavier’s popularity is immense and adorable because of the person he was and his significant work in making Jesus Christ known in the continent of Asia. 

St Francis Xavier is incredibly a fascinating figure among the saints the reformation period ever produced.  He had a short life of 46 years, that too only 10 years as a missionary.  He was such a successful missionary because of one reason; he had only one experience that is a deeper encounter with God. He came to know Christ very profoundly when he did the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. The repeated words of Ignatius of Loyola who was Xavier’s roommate while studying in Sorbonne University in Paris made a difference infinitely: “For what shall profit a man, if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mathew 16:26.)

Perhaps, we could learn at least three significant things from the life of St Francis Xavier.

I

Firstly, Xavier’s incredible fascination for the person of Jesus and his Church. Often it is cited that after St Paul, Francis Xavier should be considered as the most successful missionary among the non-Jews. Barely 43 years after the arrival of Vasco de Gama - the founder of sea route to India from Europe - Xavier found himself on the shores of India at the young and vibrate age of 36 years. Coming from a formidable rich and noble family of Xaviers’ in Navarre (His family home and castle is still intact even today in Spain), he was ready to eat the spicy food, live and work in tropical climate of Asia without any difficulty. His labour of evangelization brought to Christ hundreds and thousands of souls. Often, it is quoted that at the end of the day he had absolute no energy to raise even his shoulders as he had exhausted his strength in baptizing people both young and old.  

Today, we religious nuns and priests go though a long modern spiritual and human formation with a wide variety experiences like village experience, hospital experience, earn and live experience, slum experience, and in recent years regional juniorate, regional theologates, etc. Thus hoping that our formation will be holistic and wholesome and we would be able to speak the language of the people. In fact, the formatters believe that these experiences would make the formees who would be future torchbearers of Christ more effective and efficacious. Probably, we should think very critically whether such a formation has helped in anyway better to walk the talk of Jesus our Lord and master, without a deeper encounter with our Lord. 

II

Secondly, Xavier was a man with a great mind. Coming from a highly educated culture of his time, Xavier should have landed in the jobs of Catholic hierarchy like bishop or cardinal. That is what people did in his time as carrier in the church after studying in prestigious universities. In fact there were very few such universities in Europe like Bologna, Sorbonne, Oxford, Heidelberg and Padua. (You may read the kind of education Xavier went through here) Instead of getting stuck in Europe and in its priestly aristocracy, Xavier found his karma bhumi in a far away country India, later on the shores of Indonesia, Japan and China. Interestingly, the teachers in Sorbonne had groomed Xavier as heir to the faculty of Divinity. Young student Xavier was so good in his studies, he gave tuition to Ignatius of Loyola who had practical difficulties in mastering erudite Latin as he was already in his late 30’s. 

Today, in our world in general and in our church in particular, careerism seems to be the encouraging factor in the life of clerics and religious beginning with their religious orders or congregations and dioceses. Longing for power and prestige overtly or covertly could be noticed very vividly. Unfortunately many tainted guys seem to be taking the places of positions and authority in our church. The recent scandals involving many bishops, priests, nuns and even consecrated lay people support already burglary attitude in our church.  Only a good and sound mind would produce good and holy ideas and actions.

III

Thirdly, Francis Xavier put people first in his ministry as a priest and religious. Writing to Ignatius of Loyola, who was Xavier’s superior, Francis famously noted, “it often comes into my mind to go round all the Universities of Europe, and especially that of Paris, crying out everywhere like a madman, and saying to all the learned men there whose learning is so much greater than their charity, "Ah! what a multitude of souls is through your fault shut out of heaven and falling into hell!" Would to God that these men who labor so much in gaining knowledge would give as much thought to the account they must one day give to God of the use they have made of their learning and of the talents entrusted to them! . . .” (Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome, 1543) 

As the first provincial of Jesuits in India, Francis Xavier spent hardly any time in Goa, instead he was out in the field. Out of his 10 years in Asia (1542-1552), he must have spent a large part of his life probably 7 years in the seas, travelling from one place to another.  He never bothered about his position, either as scholar or intellectual, or provincial or papal delegate. Xavier was one among the people with a bell in one hand and Crucifix in another giving out the message of Jesus. He had no protocols, no garlanding, no reading of honourary letters in the missions or churches. Every minute that he had was spent for the people. He didn’t even have time to write letters to Ignaitus his boss in Rome. Often Ignatius admonished his brother to write to him about what was going on in the mission field. 

Today, we are stuck with protocols here in India especially in our churches, orders and congregations. Everything has to be moved according to the protocols beginning with the bishop to a sacristan in our parish. As Pope Francis said in his Chrism homily in 2013, often we have become managers or functionaries, perhaps managers of our schools, colleges and hospitals. Odour of the sheep has remained just out there in sheep sheds. How many of our bishops visit the families, sick people’s homes during the pastoral visit to the parishes? Could we stop garlanding, shawling our bishops, provincials and reading long honorary letters instead they could spend their time listening to our parishners, the problems that they are going through? 

One of the beautiful things that our four Catholic bishops in Russia do is not to follow any protocols. There is no garlanding, shawling, or reading letters of honour. Life is tough there. We should think about Xavier in us. So that, we move beyond those protocols. Unnecessarily we have complicated our lives in a complicated world. Perhaps we have to blame our lay people too in this regard as we have made the bishops and clergy habituated to this redundant middle age practices. Jesus’ life was simple. Let the simplicity and sobriety of Xavier be ours too. Thus we could be effective instruments in the vineyard of our Lord.    

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

03 December 2019

Feast of St Francis Xavier