Man on Mission: Life of St. Francis Xavier

MAN ON MISSION

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER

Dr. C. Drago S. J.

Bom Jesus Basilica

OLD GOA

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the author or publisher.

Copyright © 2015 Dr. C. Drago

Ebook edition

www.creativentures.in

PREFACE

This is a reader friendly version of UNTO THE INDIES (Life of St. Francis Xavier), by Fr. Luis Bermejo, S.J. whose scholarly work on the human side of the saint and his total commitment to historical truth are praiseworthy.

Fr. C. Drago S. J. has abridged it with the kind permission of the Author. We are immensely grateful to both of them.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Rector

Bom Jesus Basilica

Old Goa

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: Shadowy Beginnings

Chapter 2: The Luster of Learning

Chapter 3: The Company of Jesus

Chapter 4: A Sudden Appointment

Chapter 5: The Rome of the East

Chapter 6: Among the Pearl-fishers

Chapter 7: Rich Harvest, or Hasty Baptism?

Chapter 8: Discernment and Decision

Chapter 9: Malays and Malacca

Chapter 10: The Failure of a Loner

Chapter 11: Cannibals and Consolations

Chapter 12: Despondent and Depressed

Chapter 13: The Gathering of the Storm

Chapter 14: The Exotic Islands of Japan

Chapter 15: Morals in Monasteries

Chapter 16: Freezing Temperatures and Frosty Receptions

Chapter 17: Reviled and Rejected

Chapter 18: Dressed in Silk and Satin

Chapter 19: Dictatorial Dismissals

Chapter 20: Ignatius Disagrees

Chapter 21: Charmed by China

Chapter 22: Exalted

Chapter 23: Lights and Shadows

About the Author

Other Books

Introduction

Catholicism in India is forever linked with St. Francis Xavier. The church of Bom Jesus where his relics are, is visited by hundred of tourists every day. Thousands of pilgrims from all over the world flock to the shrine and pray for favours with great faith. He is also venerated as the ‘Goencho Saib’, the cardinal protector of Goa.

The best way to know a person is to study his diary, if there is one. Failing this, his private correspondence is the second best. Francis Xavier left us no journal of his internal struggles. But we have 130 of his letters into which he pours out his dreams and sorrows, his disappointments and achievements, his ambitious projects and his shocking failures.

In these letters he emerges as a matter of fact, blunt man, who is not much addicted to literary niceties. In spite of this, his letters have known a phenomenal editorial success in all languages. Up to the present, they have had no fewer than 50 separate editions. What attracted people to them was the unfeigned report of the missionary success and consequent conversions to Christianity. Within his Jesuit family, the letters had the tremendous effect of a veritable earth quake. His influence on the Society went beyond his grave.

The enthusiasm for Francis Xavier is also noticeable in the numerous biographies of the saint, that down the centuries have seen the light of day. The best known in the English speaking world are of J. Brodrick, the famed English Jesuit historian and especially that of G. Schurhammer, the scholarly German son of St. Ignatius. On the life of Francis Xavier, Schurhammer is by far the authority number one.

Francis Xavier is really a fascinating saint provided we contemplate lovingly the real Xavier, without artificial embellishments and arbitrary suppressions.

This biography does not quite tally with the exalted conception some have of Francis Xavier, which is gradually built up through many years of uncritical devotion to the saint. Some readers may not like it. In fact, these pages may produce in them strong negative reactions of puzzlement and even annoyance. They may strongly disagree with this presentation of the saint. They are of course perfectly free to hold their opinion and prove me wrong.

My guiding principle in writing this biography has been the strictest demands of truth. For, a biography of a saint not based scrupulously on truth is not worth writing.

CHAPTER 1

SHADOWY BEGINNINGS

The ancestral castle of Loyola is tucked away in a corner of the Basque country in Spain. Loyola is nestled in the middle of a valley and surrounded by a maze of rolling hills and fairly high mountains. In much of the spring and summer a bright emerald green dominates the landscape, whereas in autumn this verdant appearance takes on the pale, golden hue of dry, fallen leaves. The hills are blanketed by thick groves of chestnut trees and sturdy oaks. Much of the year the skies are laden with clouds, painting the entire landscape with a diffused, ash-grey colour. That is the country that saw the birth and witnessed the first youthful years of Ignatius of Loyola.

About fifty-five miles away to the southeast, as the crow flies one comes across another ancestral castle that of Xavier. It is a formidable structure surrounded much of the year, by a bleak, barren land. If the fields around Loyola are emerald green, those surrounding Xavier castle resemble rather an un-ploughed field, with no vegetation worth the name to break its brown monotony. Green valleys are seen to the north and south of this huge castle, but not in its immediate surroundings.

The castle of Xavier was erected three centuries before the birth of Francis Xavier and very little has changed since then. It is protected by the customary drawbridge and a waterless moat. On approaching the main entrance the visitor would catch sight of the coat of arms carved in stone, with the central panel displaying the half-moon distinctive of the Xavier family.

The fourteen different Basque communities living in the valley shared a common pasture and they took pride in paying taxes to no one, not even to the king. They are fiercely independent, even individualistic, and endowed with strength of character that even bordered on plain stubbornness.

Francis’ mother, Dona Maria, was already forty-two when she gave birth to her fifth and last child on 7th April 1506. Francis received deeply conservative training. In his youthful, formative years he never went to any public school. His mother and the parish priest were his only tutors. His father, Don Juan de Jassu y Atondo was often absent from the castle on business, in the capital of the kingdom, Pamplona.

His elder sister, Magdalena was a poor Clare in far away Valencia and his younger sister Anna was given in marriage when Francis was only six. His two brothers, Miguel and Juan, had a fairly hot blood coursing through their veins. This was shown in their military exploits. We know from Francis’ own testimony that his mother tongue was Basque, not Spanish.

It is recorded that once young Francis, then aged 13, joined his two elder brothers in giving chase to a flock of straying sheep. Marian devotion was high in the Xavier castle, but nothing could beat the devotion to the Santo Cristo, the venerable old crucifix in the chapel of the castle.

Politically they were momentous years. Pope Julius III had been at war with France from the time Francis was four. When the French king tried to depose the Pope, the latter dealt him a double retaliatory blow: the interdict of the kingdom and his excommunication. He also formed the Holy League of nations against France, to which England, Venice and Spain belonged.

In March 1512 Ferdinand, King of Spain declared war on France and demanded free passage through independent and neutral Navarre. Its king, whose sympathies lay with the French, tried to keep a precarious balance between the two warring nations and an outer show of neutrality, but the crafty Spanish King, informed of the Navarre’s dealings with the French, invaded and annexed the kingdom.

The Navarrese tried to revolt often, but were subdued. In order to quench the revolt of the Communeros of Castile the occupying Spanish forces had to pull out of Navarre, for they were needed elsewhere. The Navarrese seized the occasion and rose up again, this time with the help of French across the border.

The French army began the bombardment of the Pamplona citadel on April 20. One of the Spanish defenders happened to be Ignatius of Loyola, at the time still dreaming of military exploits and worldly glory. After the bombardment had lasted a good while, he was struck on one of his legs by a canon-ball which smashed it completely and badly damaged the other leg also. When he fell, the garrison on the citadel surrendered to the French. The French treated the wounded man very well.

In just 15 days the whole of Navarre was liberated, but the French invaders ran out of steam. They were halted and eventually routed and thrown back across the border. It had been a bloody battle. By the end of the day as many as six thousand French and Navarrese bodies covered the battle field. Navarre was subdued again, this time for good.

The military authorities showed no mercy; the property of those who had helped the French was to be confiscated and the rebels sentenced to death. As the result of these severe measures, Francis’ brothers Miguel and Juan, now in their mid-twenties fled to the mountains, to launch from there, a sort of guerrilla warfare. Miguel was caught and thrown into a dungeon in the Pamplona citadel. Eventually he slipped through the guards unnoticed, dressed as a woman. Three years later a general pardon was granted and the two brothers could return home, their honour intact.

In the meantime, Francis had entered into early manhood. He was now 18. His height was five feet and three inches. He was tonsured and thereby became a cleric of the diocese of Pamplona. This committed him to nothing, but conferred the advantage of exempting him from any military service. He was decidedly ambitious but, in order to climb the ladder of success in the clerical world, he needed badly to increase his homespun knowledge which so far was rather limited. And so his ambitious eyes turned eagerly towards the famous University of Paris, the renowned center of ecclesiastical learning.

CHAPTER 2

THE LUSTRE OF LEARNING

It was sometime in September 1525 that Francis bade farewell to his mother and brothers and left the Xavier castle for good. His departure marked almost the complete severance of his family ties, for never in his life would he see his family again. After a ride of about three weeks he reached Paris, the centre of his ambitious dreams. He made straight for the college of Sainte Barbe where students were lodged. For the next eleven years, Paris would be his home.

The dress code of the college was specific. University doctors usually dressed in a cassock, cloak, and fur collar; a master of arts in hose, blouse, and a loose own with wings and sleeves pleated at their ends; and a student in secular dress with a feathered cap and slit jacket.

The students’ daily routine was quite punishing. Their rosy dreams and sweet slumber was shattered by the shrill sound of the rising bell at the inconceivable hour of 4 o’clock in the morning. An older student made the rounds to see that all were on their feet and nobody had sluggishly drifted back into unconsciousness. Then the second bell was rung at 5 o’clock calling all to class. An hour later, compulsory Mass for all, followed by a very lean breakfast, consisting usually of a roll and water or watered wine, taken in perfect silence. From eight to ten, classes and repetitions without break. The University largely followed the medieval method of committing a text to memory by sheer dint of mental effort. Apparently books were not yet in vogue.

At 11 o’clock, after the dismissal of all the external students, lunch was served, at the beginning of which the lives of saints were read in the refectory. All ate with their fingers. Cutlery was not yet used. Serviettes were changed every two days and table cloths once a week. The meals were rather austere. There were classes again from three to five in the afternoon then another hour of academic activities usually repetitions. Supper was early, at six o’clock, followed by the review of the class matter heard during the day.

A bell called everybody to chapel at 8 o’clock for night prayers. All lights were extinguished at nine, after which only an occasional glimmer would be perceptible from the solitary room of a master or, with special