Monday,
12/3/12
On this day in 1552 St. Francis Xavier at age forty-six died on
the Portuguese island of Macau where he had been held up trying to get into
China. Xavier, a Basque word for a new house, was the castle in which he was
born. As a proud Basque student in Paris he was greatly annoyed with the
Spanish students who attached themselves to the limping old ex soldier Ignatius
of Loyola, but after sitting on the edge of the group listening to Ignatius, he
gave himself completely to the old soldier’s holy approach to life.
It was a few years before Francis was born that Pope Alexander
had assigned the converting of the Western hemisphere to Spain, and of the
Eastern hemisphere to Portugal. In 1540 King John of Portugal chose Francis to
be the Apostolic Nuncio to the Far East. After a year’s journey, Francis
arrived at Goa, the Portuguese colony in southwestern India. There for a time
he was busy baptizing and teaching the illegitimate children of the Portuguese
colonists. But, since his position as Apostolic Nuncio demanded wide travel,
over ten years he preached in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Celebes; eventually
making his way to southern Japan. The language was too difficult for him, but
his sincerity got through to people, and he prepared the way for four other
Jesuits who labored there with success for many years.
As he was dying on Macau Francis followed a practice that had
been his all along. In sending off his last official report he
knelt down to write to Ignatius.
The lovely Burmese sisters caring for the old people at our St.
Catherine Laboure Manor belong to the Sisters of St. Francis Xavier. So, this
is their feast day, and we thank them for coming from the other side of the
world to empty bedpans here.
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