Introduction St Francis Xavier, native of Navarre in Spain was born in 1502. Co-founder of the Jesuits with St Ignatius, he roomed and studied with Ignatius and the other first Jesuit, Pierre Favre in Paris. He might have said: ‘I took a while to get it right. Didn’t like Ignatius, didn’t like Favre too much. But we were thrown together, and amazing how you change your views of people after a while. I looked for pleasure, for success, a bit of money. For a while it was all great, but then it palled. I knew somewhere there must be a bit more. A canon’s stall in Navarre? Is that what I really wanted? ‘Something about their prayer got me. They got struck on God. And asked me to do the same. The change was slow to let diving love in – that’s what I have to offer. The
slow process of conversion. ‘And then the work. I wanted to go to the untouchables, the sick, the children. The poor.
He never got to China, his heart’s desire, but his heart was always in the right place – close to his God all his Jesuit life.
Always on our journeys we did that…and that
He teaches us: That it’s worth throwing in your life
also is what I have to offer you. Look for the needs
with the love of God, receiving it and trying to share it,
of people and do your best to meet them.
and that what you try to do in the service of God bears
‘Be patient with others, as God and Ignatius
fruit somewhere, sometime.
were patient with me.’ About St Francis Xavier: I like his energy, his prayer,
Fr Philip Fogarty’s lively account of the life and
his integrity in a good cause, and that all he wanted
journeys of St Francis Xavier keeps the memory of a
was AMDG – for the greater glory of God.
great saint alive; he also puts his life in the context of
And that he got some things wrong. He was not a successful missionary in numerical terms, nor in his methods at the beginning of his work, but his legacy
how we might be influenced by him. Read on and be encouraged by his life, as he was by St Ignatius!
of missionary and gospel zeal has endured over the
Donal Neary SJ, 2012
years. He did what was asked and did so passionately.
Parish Priest, St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street, Dublin
Chapter 1: The Early Years The scene was Paris in the 16th century. The young Francis Xavier, born in 1506 in the Spanish kingdom of Navarre in Spain, stood listening to his roommates, one Ignatius of Loyola and Peter Favre, a Frenchman, all university students in the college of Sainte-Barbre. This Ignatius, Francis thought to himself, this captain from Loyola, was a strange man. He never seemed to be ashamed to be down in the streets with the poorest of the poor, even though he had to plod along with one of his legs shorter than the other. Ignatius had been wounded in a siege of the Spanish city of Pamplona and afterwards, hearing that his leg had been badly set, had ordered the surgeons to break and re-set it again. He had suffered this agony hoping to find himself straight-limbed afterwards because he was so vain about his appearance. But now, with his shortened leg, he could
be vain no longer. Instead of pursuing a career in the army or in court, he now set himself the task of serving God, and had come to Paris with the idea of studying for the priesthood. Francis was tall, lithe, handsome, vain, and a good athlete. Like all students he was constantly short of money. He felt that it was highly desirable that a man like himself should be able to move about society without having to worry about such trivialities as income, expenditure and the like, and he was constantly begging money from his family. He was now on the verge of finishing his studies and had a good job offer in Pamplona so he would have to beg for money no longer. Francis watched Ignatius and Favre chatting, men who had given up worldly ambitions, and decided to devote themselves completely to God’s service. Now the three of them were nearly at the parting of the ways. His friends, men he loved deeply, would soon go one way while he went off to Pamplona. Would 5
there be friends there as true and tried as his two companions, he wondered. Suddenly he felt alone. Why was it so, he asked himself. Was he not as generous as they? Had not Ignatius reproved him again and again for his generosity which tended to extravagance? If Ignatius, a lame little man, with the best part of his life behind him, could attempt great things for God, what held Francis back? Then he realised the reason for his discontent. His great ambitions did not satisfy his heart. Ignatius and Favre had known more happiness in giving than he had in gaining, and they gave what cost them most: they gave themselves. Wholly and with generous hearts they had given to God their hearts and minds, their capabilities and their limitations. They held nothing back. Francis found himself reflecting on how he spent many hours drinking and singing with other students in the local taverns. He had tried his luck with dice, played tricks on the inn keepers
and the street musicians. Yet he had not remained altogether unaware of his inner self. Somehow he knew that if God called him he would respond. But suppose there was no call. Now, as he listened to his two companions, he wondered how a person heard God’s call. Ignatius turned to Francis. ‘What are you thinking my friend?’ ‘A strange thing’, Francis answered, ‘one I doubt any philosopher has ever answered or been able to answer. How does a man come to God?’ ‘Saint Augustine answered that question centuries ago,’ Ignatius replied.’ ‘We come to know God by love: to go to God, a person needs but to love.’ Peter Favre went off to visit his family in 1533 and Ignatius, now alone with Francis, was able to break down Francis’ resistance. There is a tradition that Ignatius put this Gospel question to him, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ Ignatius realised that Francis
‘Do not put on solemn airs when you speak with the people,’ he wrote to the Jesuits who followed him to the Far East, echoing his own practice. ‘Be very lowly and modest in all your dealings with others. Learn to pardon and support their weaknesses very patiently, reflecting that if they are not good now, they will be some day.’ 7
was on the verge of giving in to God. He was moved by the fact that this brave man, his dear friend, was already lowering his ambitions in order to give everything to God. From a worldly point of view Francis would be giving up more, far more, than Ignatius or Favre, and Ignatius loved him for his generosity. In addition to Francis, Ignatius won four other students to his way of thinking; they now numbered seven, and all were of the same mind and heart. They shared Ignatius’ interest in going to the Holy Land, and committing themselves to God. The group met on August 15, 1543, in the chapel of Saint-Denis in Montmartre, to pronounce vows of poverty and chastity, and of going to the Holy Land to convert Muslims in the Middle East, or, failing this, to carry out the wishes of the Pope in Rome. Francis and Ignatius began their study of theology in 1543, and then in March 1553, Ignatius had to return to his homeland because of ill health. Before his departure, however, all agreed
to meet in Venice in 1557 to prepare for their journey to Jerusalem. On November 15, 1536, Francis and the companions left Paris for Venice, arriving the following January. Ignatius was waiting there for them. They spent two months working in Venice hospitals and then headed off to Rome to request Papal permission for their pilgrimage. Then they returned to Venice where Francis, Ignatius, and four others were ordained on June 24, 1537. Feeling insufficiently prepared to celebrate their first Masses, they dispersed to several cities. Francis went to
Monselice, near Padua. He went, as it were, into the desert; the desert in his case being an old ruin on a desolate hill above the city. There, in solitude and silence, in cold and hunger, he spent forty days preparing for his first Mass. During those days Francis was often tempted to give up. During the summer nights, the sounds of music and partying wafted up from the town below. He would reflect, ‘What harm to go down for an hour and join the fun?’ Even more serious temptations would come to him. ‘Ignatius may be wrong. This idea of sending priests all over the world may be just a new heresy. Become a Cistercian or a Carthusian. Prayer and silence are what you need. Why fritter away your life and intellect when you could be a contemplative monk? You could restore the great houses of prayer to their original fervour.’ Such temptations hounded him all the time as he prepared for his first Mass.
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