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Illustration: Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Goa (1610), by André Reinoso
POPE FRANCIS Catechesis 13 Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 17 May 2023
Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 13. Witnesses: St. Francis Xavier
‘Francis Xavier went to the Far East, because he was full of apostolic zeal’
2nd Corinthians 6:14
The love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that the one has died for all; therefore all have died. He died for all, so that those who live might live, no longer for themselves but, for the one who for their sake died and was raised for them.
So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Continuing our journey of catechesis with some exemplary models of apostolic zeal…
Let us remember that we are talking about evangelization, apostolic zeal, spreading the name of Jesus, and there are many women and men in history who have done this in an exemplary way.
Today, for example, we choose, St. Francis Xavier: he is considered, some say, the greatest missionary of modern times.
But it is impossible to say who is the greatest, who is the least, because there are so many hidden missionaries who are doing much more today than St. Francis Xavier.
And Xavier is the patron of the missions, like St. Teresa of the Child Jesus.
But a missionary is great when he goes. And there are many, many, priests, laity, sisters, who go to the missions, also from Italy and many of you.
I see, for example, when they tell me the story of a priest as a candidate for the episcopate: he spent ten years in the mission in that place. That is great: to leave your homeland to preach the Gospel.
It is apostolic zeal. And this we need to cultivate it very much.
And when we look at the figure of these men, these women, we learn.
And St. Francis Xavier was born into a noble but impoverished family in Navarre, northern Spain, in 1506. He went to study in Paris – he is a worldly, intelligent, good young man. There he met Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius made him do the spiritual exercises and it changes his life. He left his entire worldly career to become a missionary. He becomes a Jesuit, he takes vows.
Then he became a priest, and went to evangelize, having been sent to the Far East.
At that time missionary journeys to the East were a sending to unknown worlds.
And he went, because he was full of apostolic zeal.
Thus began the first of a large group of passionate missionaries of modern times, willing to endure immense hardships and dangers, to reach lands and meet peoples with completely unknown cultures and languages, driven only by the very strong desire to make known Jesus Christ and his Gospel.
In little more than eleven years he would accomplish an extraordinary work. He was a missionary for abot eleven years. Ship journeys in those days were very hard, they were dangerous. Many died on the way from shipwrecks or disease.
Today, unfortunately, they die because we let them die in the Mediterranean…
Xavier spent more than three and a half years on the ships, a third of the entire duration of his mission. On the ships he spends over three and a half years, to go to India, then from India to Japan.
Arriving in Goa, India, the capital of the Portuguese East, the cultural and also commercial capital, Xavier set up his base there, but did not stop there.
He went to evangelize the poor fishermen of the southern coast of India, taught catechism and prayer to children, baptized and cared for the sick.
Then, during a night prayer at the tomb of the Apostle St. Bartholomew, he felt he had to go beyond India.
He left the work he had begun in good hands and sailed boldly for the Moluccas, the farthest islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
For these people there were no horizons, they went beyond…
These holy missionaries had courage!
Even today, if they do not go by boat for three months, they go by plane for 24 hours but it is the same. You have to go there, and you have to walk many kilometers, you havbe to go into the forests.
And Xavier, in the Moluccas, gives the catechism in verses in the local language and teaches how to sing the catechism, because it is easier to learn with singing.
We can understand his feelings from his letters.
He writes: “Dangers and sufferings, accepted freely and only for love and service of God our Lord, are treasures rich in great spiritual consolations. Here in a few years one could lose one’s eyes from too many tears of joy!” (20 January 1548). He wept with joy as he saw the Lord’s work.
One day, in India, he met a Japanese man, who told him about his distant country, where no European missionary had ever been.
And Francis Xavier had the apostle’s restlessness, to go further, and decided to leave as soon as possible, arriving there after an adventurous journey on the junk of a Chinese. The three years in Japan were very hard, because of the climate, the opposition and the ignorance of the language, but here too the seeds planted would bear great fruit.
The great dreamer, Xavier, understood, in Japan, that the decisive country for the mission in Asia was another country: China. With its culture, its history, its greatness, it exercised de facto dominance over that part of the world.
Even today, China is a cultural center, with a great history, a beautiful history.
So he returns to Goa and shortly thereafter he embarks again, hoping to enter China.
But his plan fails: he dies at the gates of China, on an island, the small island of Sancian, off the Chinese coast, waiting in vain to to land on the mainland near Canton.
On December 3, 1552, he died in total abandonment, with only a Chinese man beside him to watch over him.
Thus ended the earthly journey of Francis Xavier. He had aged, how old was he? Eighty already? No…
He was only forty-six years old, he had spent his life in the mission, with zeal.
He left cultured Spain and arrived in the most cultured country in the world at that time, China, and died in front of the great China, accompanied by a Chinese man.
All a symbol!
His intense activity was always linked to prayer, to union with God, mystical and contemplative.
He never left prayer because he knew that strength was there.
Wherever he went, he cared for the sick, the poor and children.
He was not an “aristocratic” missionary: he always went with the most needy, with the children who were most in need of education, catechesis, with the poor, with the sick: he went right to the frontiers of help where he grew in greatness.
The love of Christ was the force that drove him to the farthest ends, with constant fatigue and danger, overcoming failures, disappointments and discouragement, indeed, giving him consolation and joy to follow him and serve him to the end.
May St. Francis Xavier, who did this great thing, in so much poverty, and with so much courage, give us a little of this zeal, this zeal to live the Gospel and to announce the Gospel.
To the many young people today who have a little restless and do not know what to do with this restlessness, I say: look at Francis Xavier, look at the horizon of the world, look at the peoples in so much need, look at so many people who suffer, so many people who need Jesus.
And go, have courage. Even today there are courageous young people.
I think of many missionaries, for example, in Papua New Guinea, I think of my friends, young people, who are in the diocese of Vanimo, and all those who went to evangelize in the footsteps of Francis Xavier.
May the Lord give us all the joy of evangelizing, the joy of spreading this beautiful message that makes us and everyone happy.
