Dec 3 – Feast of St. Francis Xavier, presbyter, religious, missionary (Principal Patron of Foreign Missions)
St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) was a nobleman from the Basque region. He studied and taught philosophy at the University of Paris, and planned a career as a professor. He was a friend of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who convinced him to use his talents to spread the Gospel. He was one of the founding Jesuits, and the first Jesuit missionary.
In Goa, India, while waiting to take the ship, he preached in the street, worked with the sick, and taught children their catechism. He would walk through the streets, ringing a bell to call the children to their studies. He was said to have converted the entire city.
He scolded his patron, King John of Portugal, over the slave trade: “You have no right to spread the Catholic faith while you take away all the country’s riches. It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death, you may be ordered out of paradise.”
He was a tremendously successful missionary for the ten years he was in India, the East Indies, and Japan, baptizing more than 40,000 converts. His epic finds him dining with head hunters, washing the sores of lepers in Venice, teaching catechism to Indian children, baptizing 10,000 in a single month. He tolerated the most appalling conditions on long sea voyages, enduring extremes of heat and cold. Wherever he went, he would seek out and help the poor and forgotten. He travelled thousands of miles, most on his bare feet, and he saw the greater part of the Far East. He had the gift of tongues, and was a miracle worker. He raised people from the dead, calmed storms. He was a prophet and a healer.
- Patron Saint Index
Isa 11:1-10
Lk 10:21-24
…on him the spirit of the Lord rests, a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
Today, we celebrate the feast day of St Francis Xavier, who is the patron saint of missionaries.
According to Franciscan Media, St Francis was ordained a priest in 1537, and over the next 10 years, he preached the Gospel to the Hindus, the Malayans, and the Japanese. Wherever he went, he lived with the poorest people, sharing their food and rough accommodations. He also spent countless hours ministering to the sick and the poor, especially the lepers. Despite often having no time to sleep or say his breviary, he was always filled with joy.
In the first reading, we read:
…on him the spirit of the Lord rests,
a spirit of wisdom and insight,
a spirit of counsel and power,
a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
Reading these lines made me realise that these are indeed the qualities of a missionary – to bear knowledge and fear of the Lord, to gain wisdom and insight of the gospels, and to bring the gift of counsel with the Lord’s authority to bring the Good News to many lost sheep out there.
Indeed, in a long letter to St Ignatius of Loyola, St Francis wrote,
“We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. No Portuguese live here, the country is so utterly barren and poor. The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s Law.
I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
I could not refuse so devout a request without failing in devotion myself. I taught them, first the confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father and Hail Mary. I noticed among them persons of great intelligence. If only someone could educate them in the Christian way of life, I have no doubt that they would make excellent Christians.”
In this letter, St Francis spent a lot of his time preaching to children, even foregoing saying his Office or eating or sleeping. Truly, the Kingdom of heaven belongs to children, as Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”
Recently, someone challenged my faith, and vehemently denied that Jesus is God. I told her that Jesus is truly God, but I was unable to further explain the reason to her, as she went on telling me that Jesus went to heaven but He did not die on the cross; rather, it was someone else who died instead.
Although I had missed an opportunity to evangelise, I have been thinking, “How can I help people to believe that God or Jesus exists?” Logically, we can tell them about the Gospels. But to believe in the Gospels means we have to believe that God exists. Sadly, in today’s world, many people believe otherwise. Personally, I am often afraid that my testimonies of God freeing me from oppression may scare others.
Brothers and sisters, on this feast day, let us intercede to St Francis on behalf of the many lost sheep in Singapore. And let us have the courage to share our testimonies and preach the Gospels so that others may come to know that Jesus is our God and Saviour.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Brenda Khoo)
Prayer: Dear St Francis Xavier, please ignite in us the spirit of knowledge and insight of the Catholic faith, of deep reverence and fear of the Lord, and of counsel to evangelise to the lost sheep whom we encounter in our lives. Amen.
Thanksgiving: Thank you, Lord, for giving us St Francis Xavier as the patron saint of missionaries to inspire us to evangelise Your gospels to Your lost sheep. Amen.
OXYGEN 
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