Risen Jesus, Fish and Flock

(Photo courtesy: Jean-Mark Arkalian)

Listen to my audio homily

The Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of the Easter, John 21: 1-19,  where Jesus appears to seven disciples and the special final conversation with Peter, the Apostle, is really fascinating and intriguing.  The experience of the disciples of the Risen Jesus has something concretely to say to us in recognising the presence of God and of Jesus in our daily lives.  To be an authentic and genuine disciple of Jesus it's not just to be "holy" or to be good but to have courage and boldness when the call comes to do uncomfortable and difficult things including ready to suffer.  Thus sharing the suffering of Jesus we also share in his glory eternal. 

Basically two things happen in the gospel narrative: Firstly, Jesus' appearance to his 7 disciples while fishing by the Sea of Tiberias.  Secondly, Jesus having an intimate talk with Peter and giving a job of leading Jesus' mission with other disciples on this earth. 

Disciples are back from Jerusalem to their native land of Galilee, from the city of God to the city of man, from the mountain of Calvary to the plateau of Galilee, from following the Rabbi Jesus to fishing in the sea.

Disciples being back in their homeland, Galilee, who loved fishing, go back to fishing, their first job, back to ordinary business.  Looks like they have forgotten their skill as nets are empty in spite of whole night's labour and waiting.  There they meet Risen Jesus in ordinary things, just like Jesus had called them for the first time, so too now, Jesus makes an appearance to them in person.  However, for the moment in a different form after three years, since he met them mending their nets.  Jesus meets them in the things they liked to do most, that is, fishing. 

But the meeting with Jesus is now different from the last time.  All the 7 disciples on the boat are frustrated, disappointed because they caught nothing.  Desolated.  depression is surrounded them after what has happened in Jerusalem.  Whole night has been spent in the boat and now terribly tiered. The weariness has led them to silence.  Hunger and thirst is eating their forlorn spirits.  Their bodies are longing for sleep and rest.  Hopelessness has surrounded in every inch of their boat, in a sense the world is closed.  A deep sense of emptiness in their hearts and minds because their nets are empty;  they are still waiting.  In this drudgery and messiness the Risen Jesus meets them.  Don’t you think it must have been such a beautiful experience to them? 

Jesus also meets us in the things that we like most. The things that we do with great faith and consolation.  Disciples had forgotten the words of Jesus: "Without me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5).  When we forget God, God remembers us and comes close to us.  All the more, Jesus is present in those things that brings good for ourselves and others

In the symbolism of the gospels, the boat and those in it represent the church, the community in Christ.  And it is this “beloved” disciple, who is particularly close to Jesus, who can recognise his presence.  We too are called to lead others, and recognise God's presence and lead many more to him. 

The second incident that takes place in that episode is Risen Jesus asking Peter a very touching question, an intimate question: "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"

Probably we do not like to hear a repeated question from our close friends or from the person whom we love most.

Firstly, that is emotional, and carries a sense of suspicion and apprehension. Moreover, this puts the person in awkward position. 

Secondly, Jesus is asking a very serous question of following him; checks Peter's faithfulness.  It is a reminder to Peter that he may not fail again.  He was reluctant when Jesus wanted to wash his feet.  He had denied Jesus  already 3 times when he was caught by the elders and chief priests.  Peter had already said to Jesus that even his other 11 disciples disowned him yet he would not.   He would give his life to his master. Jesus also knows the earlier episodes of catching fish and when he recognised  Jesus he had jumped into the sea, tried to imitate Jesus by walking on the water but failed miserably and was sinking and Jesus had saved him (Matthew: 14:30).  

The first call of Peter at the Sea of Galilee while casting the net along with his brother Andrew becomes a reality now with those words of Jesus "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." (Mt 4:18-19).  And now he has to "Feed my lambs" (John 21: 15-19). Peter's call turns into transforming leader giving a spirited leadership to his discouraged brothers and frustrated followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Easter experiences make the disciples bold, strong and faithful. There is nothing that can deter them or destroy their new found enthusiasm.

1. Is Jesus present in our endeavours?
2. Has the Lord’s presence made a difference in our lives?
3. Am I ready to long for Jesus and embrace him in my frustrations, desolations, disappointments, emptiness, weariness, sleepiness, hopelessness, depression, tiredness, loneliness, hunger and thirst, waiting and fatigue? 

A prayer to live by

Perhaps we could finish with the words of a prayer of Cardinal John Henry Newman (slightly adapted), which beautifully expresses what we have been considering:

Dear Jesus,

help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.

Flood my soul with your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly

that all my life may be only a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me

that every person I come in contact with

will feel your presence in me.

Let them look up and see,

not only me, but also Jesus.”

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

06 May 2019

Easter Homecoming

I wish you a happy Easter!

We are the Easter People. Alleluia is our song. Easter brings us peace individually and joy as a community. Having walked for forty days with the Lord and having accompanied him in his passion, suffering and death in the Holy Week, now we are participating in the joy of the Resurrection of Our Lord. 

"The earth itself is our home" wrote Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner. "In his death the Risen Christ has become the heart of this earthly world, the divine heart in the innermost heart of the world… we do not need to leave her, for the life of God dwells in her. When we want both the God of infinity and our beloved earth – when we want both for our eternally free home, there is but the one path." It is this, in coming home to ourselves we come home to our world. 

That is the meaning of the Easter homecoming – it is a coming home to the divinity in ourselves in an earth that is now established as our true home, because it is the home of God. Our homeland is not in a faraway heaven any more: it is to be found at our own neighbourhood. 

The journey of Easter is a journey of salvation. This happens here and now. We are part of this bigger picture of God's rising from the world which he created. The Incarnation meets its fullness in the Resurrection of Our Lord. The man who walked length and breath of of Israel continues to walk in the entire cosmos taking the whole creation unto himself. So that the creation could see the glory of God. Being the image and likeness of God we are led into that glory we can attain once again the likeness of God because the treachery of sin and power of evil have been destroyed once and for all. Now, we can see God of light, truth and life face to face along with heavenly beings of angels and seraphim's. 

This Easter has made us once and for all the partakers of divine nature. Let this Easter Season help us to discover the divine goodness that carry with us here on earth and spread the fragrance of it to each and every person around us. My Easter prayer for you comes from the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins: “Let Him Easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

23rd April 2019

The Power and Significance of Condolence Messages

Often, everything that happens to you is an experience in itself.  In recent years, I’ve been becoming aware about the things that are happening within me and around me.  In other words, I have become sensitive to things, situations, actions, events and incidents.  Probably my own health crises must have added to my already existing nature of being quick to recognise or give words or expressions to such feelings, emotions and movements of the heart. 

A very recently, when my mom passed away I understood the significance of messages of condolence. To accept the passing away of my mom was extremely difficult because we were very intimately connected.  Every second day she would call me over the mobile in the last two years and we would speak for quite a few minutes.  In fact, I learnt the skill of killing the time over the phone through my mom. A great teacher, indeed!

Each condolence message brought a unique message and received with a particular feeling.  It also depended on my relationship with the person, my friendship, acquaintances, etc. 

One thing was common in all, that is, every message brought me consolation and a sense of belonging to a human family where pain is shared by all.  I also found that those who called me over the telephone were brief, cordial, and included a touch of spiritual warmth.  Most of the messages  by e-mail, WhatsApp consisted a sense of prayerful wishes of comfort and support. 

Fr George Griener, SJ, who was my academic guide, mentor and friend while I was pursuing my studies in Berkeley, CA, US  sent me something from Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner,  a part of prayer  which had helped in his own life.  This made me ponder and meditate over the mystery of life. 

"Prayer to the God of the Living" By Karl Rahner

I should like to remember my dead to you, O Lord, all those who once belonged to me and have now left me.  There are many of them, far too many to be taken in with one glance.  If I am to pay my sad greeting to them all, I must rather travel back in memory over the entire route of my life’s journey….

…The true procession of my life however consists only of those bound together by real love, and this column grows shorter and more quiet, until one day I myself will have to break off from the line of march and leave without a word or wave of farewell, never more to return.

That’s why my heart is now with them, with my loved ones who have taken their leave of me.  There is no substitute for them, there are no others who can fill the vacancy when one of those whom I have really loved suddenly and unexpectedly departs and is with me no more.  In true love, no one can replace another, for true love loves the other into that depth where is he uniquely and irreplaceably himself.

Therefore when death has trudged through my life, each of those who have departed has taken something of my heart with them, indeed often my whole heart.  Anyone who has really loved and still loves finds life changed, even before death, into a living with the dead.  For could the one who loves forget his or her dead?  And if someone has really loved, then his ‘forgetting’ and ‘having exhausted his tears’ is not the sign of being comforted again, but of the ultimacy of his mourning, the sign that a piece of his own heart has really died with the dead person and now is living dead, and therefore can no longer weep…..”

Karl Rahner, Prayers for a Lifetime¸ included from his earlier collection, Words Spoken into the Silence, composed when he was 34 years old.

- Olvin Veigas

31 March 2019

4th Sunday of Lent

Mother and Her Absence

One of the things that I noticed in my own life quite recently is that how the passing away of your dear one affects your life without its many expressions.  When my mom left this world on the 7th of February 2019, I was with her holding her.  Even though, her passing was so quiet, peaceful and graceful, she had come to that stage with a lot of pain and suffering, leaving her with many questions which she did not hesitate to share.  One of such questions was, “why God is not taking me from here?”  

The serenity with which my mom breathed her last left in me, too, a grace, a sense of thankfulness and peace.  I said to myself, mom has done everything she had to do in this world as God’s beautiful creation, moreover, she has taught me what I am.  Through her suffering I too learnt what that suffering is.  Offering oneself to God was the only way out in all the suffering.  Nothing else.

(With mom on my Ordination day 28 Dec 2008) 

I experienced the great pain of my mom’s passing after 30 hours; the day of her funeral.  I could not control myself the grief and inner sorrow.  The very thing that came to my mind again and again was, now on I will not see mom and will not hear her voice again.  I will not have her phone calls which I did every alternate day.  I will not have her presence henceforth to make me comfortable at home whenever I reach my native place. 

At a fairly young age, I left my country because of the kind of life I chose, that is to be a Jesuit and to be "sent".  On my rare home visits from abroad to my family home were full of joy.  Mom prepared the dishes that I would not get elsewhere.  She made a special point to ask. She prepared pickle for me so that I could carry to Russia and have sometimes at my meals; this was also appreciated by my fellow Jesuits in Moscow.  Probably, in the life of a priest and the kind of life he lives as a consecrated person and single either his mother or sister become very dear and near to him.  Certainly, I am not immune to that mystery of life.  Perhaps the attachment that I have towards my mom will be part of my life let I take any vow of renunciation.  Nevertheless, I should turn to a Church Father to whom his mother meant a lot in his life, not only bringing him forth into this life temporal but also praying for him so that he too becomes part of her faith and life of salvation.

Very interestingly St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, talked to her son at her deathbed on the island of Ostia regarding her funeral: “Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be.” (Confessions IX, 11).

This is what St. Augustine writes about his mother after many years of her death in his book “Confessions”:  “And when we were at the Tiberine Ostia my mother died.  Much I omit, having much to hasten.  Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things concerning which I am silent.  But I will not omit anything that my soul has brought forth as to that Your handmaid who brought me forth—in her flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in her heart, that I might be born to life eternal.  I will speak not of her gifts, but Yours in her; for she neither made herself nor educated herself.  You created her, nor did her father nor her mother know what a being was to proceed from them.” (Confessions IX, 8)

Furthermore, the good son, Augustine enumerates the virtues of his holy mother: “She had been the wife of one man, had requited her parents, had guided her house piously, was well-reported of for good works, had brought up children, as often travailing in birth of them (cf. Galatians 4:19) as she saw them swerving from You.  Lastly, to all of us, O Lord (since of Your favour Thou sufferest Your servants to speak), who, before her sleeping in You, (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:14) lived associated together, having received the grace of Your baptism, did she devote, care such as she might if she had been mother of us all; served us as if she had been child of all.” (Confessions IX, 9).

There is nothing more to add. St. Augustine speaks for us all.

- Olvin Veigas

25th March 2019

The Feast of Annunciation

Empowerment of Women and Their Protection - Speech in Kannada

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My untiring, ever smiling mom- Lethisia Veigas

Mom on her golden marriage day

My mom Lethisia (Rodrigues) Veigas (1944-2019), aged 75, passed away in our family home in Kalyaradda of Badyar Parish after having lived 56 years of married life with my dad Athus Veigas on 07 February 2019.  She leaves behind her husband Athus Veigas and half a dozen children, Raphael, Marcel, Philip, Fr Jerome SJ, Sr Irene BS and Fr Olvin SJ. 

My mom was a person of simplicity and amicability.  With a broad smile she won the hearts of all our Hindu neighbors, Muslim customers in our shops, Christian faithful in our parish and a large band of relatives.  Mom was very active in the parish life of Badyar Church.  Bring a member of the “Sodality of Our Lady of Sorrows” and the “Third Order of Franciscans”, she was actively involved in its activities either in the parish level or deanery level along with her husband, Athus.  She was so much attached to the Church and its community life. When she had to forgo going to Mass on Sundays to a parish because she had to be with me in an apartment in Ernaculam/Kochi taking care of her sick priest son, she felt something missing, even though her son did private Masses for her.  For her relationship meant a lot.  It had to be lived actively in a practical way.  Sunday’s was the day she looked forward as she could meet her contemporaries and others.  She would often express her dissatisfaction of being unable to be with her parishioners especially when her health deteriorated in the last few months.

Mom’s end came in a very powerful way symbolising how her deep faith in Christ and devotion to Rosary could bring such a happy death.  I had reached home around 6.30 in the evening of 07th February 2019 from Bangalore.  After spending an hour and half with mom, we decided to say the family Rosary. Just as mom was so well disposed to evening prayer in everyday of her life, on this day  she ended her earthly life during the evening prayer at 8.30 PM. 

Mom was a woman of great faith and prayer.  She was the one who taught us all the first Christian prayers and prepared for first communion.  She had a beautiful voice.  Her voice could be heard so well in every prayer meetings and other liturgies of the Church.  I have recorded some of the old Christian hymns and other folkloric songs while planting the paddy and could be found on YouTube.

Mom loved to have friendship with all.  She made no difference whether a person is rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim. She kept up the friendship by meeting them or inquiring about them often.  The number of our neighbors or acquaintances of our family came to visit her in the last two months while she is bedridden is simply amazing.  Practically everyday we had visitors to her in spite of our house being far away from the town. 

Mom was a learner, in fact an active learner.  In 1979, we got our first 5 HP Cooper diesel motor pump to irrigate our land and with that dad established a small rice mill.  She learnt the skill of turning on the wheels of this heavy machine in starting it and then working on the “Huller” (rice mill).  In one hour, the Huller would prepare 120 kilos of rice. The speed at which the things had to be worked out during that process is simply treacherous and would put the person’s stamina, energy and patience into check.  Mom would do this work singlehandedly as all of us her six children were in the school and our senior grand parents at home.  Mom had the amazing capacity and curiosity to learn.  Even though, she had finished only the 5th grade schooling in her village school in 1956, she  learnt quickly to manage the digital mobile system which is purely in English. 

Mom & dad on their golden marriage day in 2013

Mom was a generous person. Just like the saying in the Bible that it is in giving that one finds more joy and not in receiving, so too, Mom, experienced true joy in giving.  Dad being a bit disciplinarian, for anything and everything all of us went to mom for permissions or things that we wanted from dad.  Whoever came to our home seeking some material assistance or saw someone needed her help, she was always ready to listen and help.

I always learnt something new from my mom as well as my other four brothers and one sister.  We felt always happy to say something about her.  We enjoyed her good company as she got older and sicknesses made their home in her.  Whenever, we three religious, (Fr Jerome, Sr Irene and I) came home on home visit we had our dinners together in our ancestral home, then we would sit in our front portico of our home and enjoy the fun.  Henceforth, we will be missing this very greatly. 

Mom was a charming lady.  When I got terribly sick and had to receive treatment in almost solitary confinement so that I don’t get infection, mom stayed with me for 7 months.  These were the months I came to know really who the mom was, what a mother can do to a half alive son to rejuvenate.  Even though, mom knew nothing of Malayalam she would converse in Kannada with the neighbors of our apartment where we were staying. They understood her Kannada and my mom neighbour’s Malayalam.  Many said to me that even though they were staying there for quite many years, they did not know each other but mom within a short span of time had won their hearts with her enthusiasm and simplicity.  Within no time they had become her friends.  This is what baffled me so much. 

One of the most enticing thing that I saw in mom and admired for, is her ability and patience to suffer.  She suffered greatly as her health deteriorated over the years and the symptoms kept on increasing and multiplying. She bore everything in patience and forbearance.  She offered everything to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Surely, mother was a humble, distinct and unique person and now I’ll have to relive those wonderful moments that I spent with her. 

Dear  mai, goodbye for the moment,  but you will be always my mai and forever! (Mai=Mother in Konkani)

- Fr Olvin Veigas, SJ

08 February 2019

Feast of Saint Josephine Bakhita 

St Joseph Vaz: Man of God, man of people and man of the Church

In the context of public ministry of Jesus, “he went on doing good” as the scripture says, we could ask this question. Where did Jesus get so much energy and passion to preach the Word of God, to heal the sick, lame, and blind and go about teaching people from one place to another without much rest and leisure? One thing is prominent in the life of Jesus is that he was chosen to be the saviour of the world, he was conscious about his mission. Therefore, Jesus was clear about who he was. Hence he spoke for God, he meditated God in his life, he worked for God. Jesus lived in the spirit of God.  

Here we are in this shrine of St Joseph Vaz in Mudipu. A man committed to the Gospel, committed to God. Once a person gives himself to God then he has to live for God, he has to speak for God, he has to bring people to God. This is what Joseph Vaz did in his life.  I would like to place before you three aspects, which I believe are very prominent in the life of Fr Joseph Vaz.

The first one is: Joseph Vaz was a man of God. He came from a simple family in Goa. His parents gave him the faith in Jesus Christ. He was nurtured in that faith. And this faith made him to offer himself to God. In other words, he experienced God in his life. He could not contain this experience of God to himself. He wanted to share this faith with others.  To do so, he thinks that becoming a priest is an ideal way. Therefore he applies to the newly arrived Jesuits. Unfortunately, they do not receive him in their order. Finally, he joins the Oratorians order and becomes a priest. His heart was bigger than himself. His love for Christ and to share that faith he begins his intense pastoral life. He comes down to Gangolli, Kundapur, Mudipu in the Coastal Karnataka in order to preach the Gospel and to strengthen the already existing Christians here. He sees the problem in the Church. There were no priests or apostolic vicars in the coastal belt. He recommends the Church authorities in Goa to send the pastors to these places.  Christians were returning to their previous religion as there were none to guide them. There were problems in the Church of 17^th century in India especially the hierarchical politics of Pedro Vado and Propoganda Fide and colonialism. This does not disturb him but makes it a point to save the faith of Christians. Because, Joseph Vaz was a man of God.  While he was in the Canara he hears how the Christians in Sri Lanka are suffering under the Dutch, under persecutions. He did not remain silent or mute. He begins his journey. He hears the God’s voice that he should go to Sri Lanka and save the people of God.

The second point is: Joseph Vaz was a man of people. He lived in a society in which castism was part and parcel of it. There were class structures. There were people who were part of the ruling class.  There were people belonging to various religions either in Canara or Sri Lanka like, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, etc. But he was a pastor of all. He never made any distinctions among the people. He was close to the King of Kandy. He even translated the book of herbal medicine from Portuguese into Sinhala, which would serve the people in Sri Lanka. He won the favours from the king in Kandy for his good deeds for all the people. People from other religions revered him; they protected him from Dutch who were persecuting the Catholics. Joseph Vaz was truly a man of people. He was people’s pastor. He nursed the sick and poor. He took care of people who were fallen to small pox.  He started hospices and clinics for people. In this context he showed through his life that we are supposed to unite people and not divide.      

The third point is: Joseph Vaz was a man of the Church. Why? He loved the Church so much, being a native of our land, India he understood that natives will do a better job in preaching Christ. He understood clearly the existing Church problem of not taking the natives into the religious order, and allowing the natives to become priests. Strangely, Church said it does not need them. But Christ needed them. So, he founded an Indian version of Oratorians. Through which he prepared men for the Church. He wanted to serve the Church better. This was a radical shift in the way he thought and worked for the Church. This in fact, is a revolutionary idea from his part.  In spite of the problems in the Church, he said that he needed a strong lay Church. In fact, Church needed him badly. Sadly, Church is still not a lay Church, lay oriented Church but a priestly centered Church, a clerical Church. He wanted people’s Church. Only when we become people oriented Church we can serve the Lord better and boldly. Certainly, Joseph Vaz was a man of the Church. He loved the Church more than any other.

Christ critiqued his religion, Judaism. He condemned the bogus practices of its priestly class and religious leaders like scribes and Pharisees. However, Jesus did not leave his religion. Until his death on the cross, he was a pure Jew. He worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He read the Tora. He did what a normal Jew would do. He had his strong foundations, roots in the Jewish religion. Joseph Vaz followed this Jesus as his model and faith in his pastoral and missionary life.

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

16 Jan 2019 

Feast of St Joseph Vaz

What is Christmas?

Christmas Message 2018

1. Christmas is an event that we Christians commemorate to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago in an obscure village called Bethlehem, of Palestine, under the Roman rule.

2. Jesus Christ is a focal point of our faith, and existence, moreover, gives us reason to celebrate that he is our Saviour and Master.  Jesus said, those who have seen me have seen the Father. 

3. The event of Jesus' coming into the world is to take us out of darkness and lead us to light, from untruth to truth and from death to life, in other words, as Jesus himself said, that he is the way, the truth and life. It’s the moment to start imitating.

4. Jesus' coming into the world is considered as a historical true event which happens in our own human history. Such an event is God becoming human to be part of our lives so that we become like him. It’s a story of our salvation. Christmas reminds us that we need to take seriously our life in this world as this would lead us to God once and for all. 

5. Christmas is a feast of life. It’s a festival of joy, peace, consolation, contentment, excitement, happiness, gladness. We are called to be partakers in this great event human story. Only God can give us the joy of living waters.

Happy Christmas!!!

- Olvin Veigas, S.J. 

22 Dec 2018

Three Takeaways From the Life of St Francis Xavier

What are the three takeaways from the life of St Francis Xavier on his feast day?

First of all, St Francis Xavier was a man of God.  Unfortunately, St Francis was thought to be a man of secular culture and carrier oriented man until he met Ignatius of Loyola.  Actually it is not so. Francis Xavier was a man of his times.  A man of his stature who is of noble birth would be looking normally during those times what the influential Catholic Church could offer him, a fine job in the hierarchical church.

If we go and see the Xavier Castle in Navarre, Spain there is a little place for prayer used by his family, a kind of chapel.  Here is a unique but large crucifix which was used by his family to pray daily.  Francis grew in this atmosphere of prayer and praying before the crucifix which still adorns the castle even today.

If we read his life, Francis was a man endowed with divine gifts and talents.  Unlike Ignatius of Loyola, we do not hear anything stupid or mischievous things from the early life of Francis.  Even though the Jesuit historians have given too much importance to the so called conversion experience of Francis under the guidance of Ignatius especially the line from the gospel "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" (Mt 16:26).  But in reality, Francis knew what he wanted, and would strive to achieve the thing that he wished to attain.

What built Francis was his various experiences either in the Xavier castle, or his early studies in Navarre, or his later life and study in Paris academia. Paris was known for its philosophical and theological studies and continues to be so even today.  From Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Erasmus, and others the tradition of wisdom, humanism and experience went hand and hand. “The unexamined life is not worth living”, the words of Socrates seems to have rung high in Francis’s ears.  Therefore he was ready for any ventures including listening to Ignatius of Loyola and doing Spiritual Exercises under him. Later we see Francis and his adventures as Missionary in India  and South East Asia.

Secondly, Xavier was s man of the Church and of Christ. Once he had experienced God very intimately in the Exercises and among his first companions, Xavier was ready to do anything for Christ and His Church.  No personal comforts and any other benefits attracted him to preach Christ. In his short life of 46 years, he spent 10 years a missionary in Asia.  It is believed that much of his time, to exaggerate a bit, he must have spent at least 7 years in voyages in the sea.  Francis Xavier is widely pictured with a cross in his hands, including during his final hours of his life in a little known island of Shangchuan, Taishan, which is overlooking China.  Holding Crucifix is a symbol of Xavier’s incredible faith that he had since his childhood in Xavier castle which continued until his death in a far away continent Asia.  In other words, Christ was his solace and master.

In his letter to Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, Francis dispatches a letter from India in which he puts so beautifully his amazing zeal for souls and heart full of fire to gain the souls for Christ.  "Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

  I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

  This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like – even to India".

Thirdly, Francis was a man of the world in other words, a man of people.  His heart was for the world but not in the world.  He never got stuck with Europe, its ideas and centrist working style but whole of the world.  I suppose his life of experience looked for something unique.  He quickly understood how important for the Church and for Christ to win three great civilisations of Asia, namely India, Japan and China.  To know these civilisations he was ready to embark on any sort of  tedious journeys or venture into dangerous risks.  His ardent desire was to bring Christ into those civilisations.  He looked something deep inside these cultures of the world.  Xavier did not conquer the world instead he tried to consent the world to embrace Christ and His Church.

One of the fascinating things we can see in Francis as a missionary is his popularity around the world. The early Jesuit reductions in Latin America bore his names. In Bogota, Colombia there is a huge Jesuit University called Javeriana.  A lot of Institutions and churches bear his name in all the continents of the world.  But probably not so much in Europe.  With my little experience in Italy I should say that I’m yet to trace an institute or Church honouring St Francis Xavier except his hand in our Jesuit Church Gesù, where an alter is dedicated to him.  Xavier was a man of the periphery in spite of coming from the centre of the world, that is Europe. Just like Jesus, Jerusalem did not embrace him but the outskirts of the Jerusalem.

Perhaps we can learn a number of things from his life. Francis lived beyond the rules.  He neither saw the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, nor the rule books of the Society.  For him the experience of Jesus was the rule book.

Xavier had a great autonomy to do things.  He appointed a very young Italian Jesuit Antonio Criminali (1520-1549) who was in his late 20’s as mission superior in Madurai mission and later was killed being the first Jesuit martyr in India in 1549.  He trusted his men with full confidence and support. When he realised that God was calling him to Japan, Francis set his foot.  Because he saw Jesus was calling him there.  Probably we should self critique today as Indian Jesuits.  Often we are stuck with rules and regulations and have given little space to the Spirit to work within us.  That is why we have become less enterprising and not ready for Christ’s missions but missions of our superiors or provincials.  If you are good at something and is ready to do fascinating things for Christ why not you give a try?  Probably we should do some self evaluation as we reflect on St Francis Xavier who is a role model in many of the things that we do today.  He is still relevant for our times in making Christ known in our world.

Olvin Veigas, SJ

03.12.2018

Feast of St Francis Xavier