Giving thanks for the faith of St. Francis Xavier
SPREADING THE LIGHT OF FAITH ACROSS THE VASTNESS OF ASIA. — DE SOUZA
Who is the greatest missionary in the history of Christianity? No question about that. Saul of Tarsus set out for Damascus to persecute the infant Church, and became Paul the Apostle, its greatest herald, along the way.
He would explain why he launched himself — at the cost of beatings, stonings, shipwrecks and imprisonments, to say nothing of his final martyrdom — on constant missionary journeys throughout the ancient world. It is because without missionaries the faith will wither and die. God himself, we might say, is at stake.
“How can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent?”
That’s the Letter to the Romans. The missionary, etymologically from the Latin, is the one who is sent. Sent to do what? To preach that those who hear might believe and call upon God, encounter him, experience his love and love him in return, and accept his gift of salvation.
St. Paul was the greatest Christian missionary. A credible claim to second- place belongs to St. Francis Xavier who, from his 1542 arrival in Goa to his death 10 years later off the coast of China, carried on an immense missionary activity, preaching the Gospel to hundreds of thousands in the most astonishing of circumstances.
On Tuesday, we celebrated in Goa the feast day of St. Francis Xavier. Francis arrived here with the Portuguese explorers and the establishment of the Portuguese colonial headquarters in Goa made it his base of evangelical operation. After his death on Dec. 3, 1552, near China, he was buried, exhumed, transferred, buried again, and then brought to Goa about a year later. The corpse was miraculously incorrupt, like a man sleeping. It remained in that state for decades in Goa. In the early 17th century the arm was removed and brought to Rome, causing the desiccation of the body, though not its decomposition. It remains that way to this day, despite spending some 400 years exposed to the open air before being enclosed in a silver and glass case in the 1950s.
It is not for the wonders of his body that one comes to Goa to celebrate Francis Xavier, but for the good of the pilgrim’s spirit. Francis was sent to the Indies by his friend and co-founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola. When Ignatius sent Francis off, he knew that he would likely never see him again. And he didn’t. The parting words were thus chosen with care: Ite Inflammate Omnia — Go and set the world on fire.
Francis did, spreading the light of faith across the vastness of Asia. Those of us Catholics from Goa — now in a diaspora all over the world — trace our roots in the faith to the preaching of Francis. In God’s providence, it is because he was sent, because he preached, that we believe.
Life is the greatest of the natural gifts, for which everyone owes his parents an immeasurable debt of gratitude. But the greatest of the supernatural gifts is the faith, by which salvation comes, by the grace of God.
Not everyone receives the gift of faith from his parents. Some receive it despite them. But in my case, faith in Jesus Christ, love for His Church, was passed on to me from my parents. They got it in turn from their parents. And so it goes back, nearly 500 years to our ancestors in Goa.
To be in Goa for the feast of St. Francis Xavier is to give thanks. For what exactly? Really for everything. Without the Catholic faith, without the Goan culture built upon it, the story of my family, my story, would never have been written. To be here is to give thanks for everything we have in this world, and the promise of eternal salvation in the next.
The principal feast day Mass — one of 13 on the grounds of the Bom Jesus basilica where Francis lies — had more than 10,000 pilgrims at it, the conclusion of nine days of countless Masses. My family is not the only one who knows that without Francis bringing the flame of faith to these shores, we would not have seen the kindly he light of Christ.
The missionary call is valid in every age of the Church’s life, from Paul to Francis to today. The Church’s very existence is for the mission. Yet today, the acids of relativism and skepticism and nihilism in the culture around us have seeped into the Church, and there are not a few influential voices who have abandoned any real sense of mission. The best they hope for is an encounter, in which the gifts of the other are appreciated, but the gift of faith is neither offered nor shared.
Many who admire Pope Francis are of this mindset. But not Francis himself, who from his first days as pope has stressed that every Christian must be a missionary disciple. Pope Francis, like St. Francis Xavier, is a Jesuit. He took his papal name in honour of St. Francis of Assisi. It would have been better if he took it honour of Francis Xavier. One feels that way in Goa, on our great patron’s feast.