St. Francis Xavier was one of the Church’s greatest missionaries.

He was born near Pamplona, Spain, in 1506, the youngest in a large family. At the age of 18, he left home to attend the University of Paris. There, he met Ignatius of Loyola. While at university, Francis was already sharing an apartment with his friend Pierre Favre when Ignatius began to board with them. Ignatius was in his late thirties, while Francis and Pierre were in their early twenties, and Francis was at turns annoyed and amused by their new roommate. Francis thought Ignatius was embarrassingly zealous for Christ and he kept on hand an abundance of sarcastic remarks to provide commentary on Ignatius’ evangelizing efforts. Francis himself was not exempt from Ignatius’ catechetical projects. Ignatius kept insisting that Francis should consider the priesthood, an invitation that Francis also met with sarcasm. As the story goes, Ignatius finally pierced through Francis’ sarcastic defense with one simple question: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Whether that anecdote is factual or not, Francis did undergo a profound transformation while living with Ignatius. He matriculated from the University and began to teach philosophy at another college in the University of Paris. In 1534, seven University of Paris scholars, including Ignatius and Francis, gathered together in the crypt chapel of the Church of St. Denis on Montmartre outside of Paris and made vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the pope. Thus, the Society of Jesus was born. Shortly thereafter, Francis began studying theology in preparation for ordination and he became a priest in June 1537. Francis helped Ignatius draw up the organizing charter of the Society of Jesus, which was finally approved by Pope Paul III in 1540.

King John of Portugal requested that Pope Paul III send Jesuit missionaries to Portuguese colonies in India and other lands surrounding the Indian Ocean that the Portuguese had control over. Ignatius appointed two missionaries to go east. Ignatius certainly did not want to send off his trusted co-founder Francis, but one of the Jesuits appointed to go fell gravely ill. Thus, Francis took his place. When they bade farewell, Ignatius would never see his beloved friend Francis again in this life.

Francis Xavier traveled with a delegation from Portugal, following the gospel mandate to take little with him for the journey—besides the necessary books. Even though he suffered from terrible sea-sickness on the long journey, Francis converted his own quarters to an infirmary for the ill and cared for the passengers and crew who had become afflicted with scurvy.

When they reached India—more than a year later—Francis found the native Christian community there in a sad state, foundering without enough priests to administer the sacraments. In a letter back to Ignatius, Francis wrote: “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.” Francis began immediately preaching, baptizing, and teaching the content of the faith to all who would listen. In the same letter, Francis writes: “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.'” Francis offered Mass with a community of lepers near Goa each week and visited his people. His sweet disposition and caring concern did just as much to spread the Gospel as the books he had brought with him.

In a letter back to Ignatius, Francis meditated on bringing the Gospel to those who do not take the beauty and grace of Christianity for granted:

“Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: ‘What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell!’ I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and talents entrusted to them. This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would [give themselves] over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like—even to India!”

Francis continued to travel around the coast of India and throughout the Philippine, baptizing crowds of people young and old—so many, it was said, that his arms weakened and he could barely move them at times. Throughout the region of East Asia, he saw the influence of Chinese and Japanese cultures. His imagination became fixed upon Japan.

While spending the winter of 1547 in Malacca, Francis Xavier met a Japanese man, Anjiro, who had heard of Francis and sought him out, in order to be baptized. Francis baptized him, and, together, they began the long process of trying to arrange the necessary diplomatic and ecclesial permissions to reach Japan. In July of 1549, Francis, three Jesuits, and Anjiro finally reached Japan. But they were not allowed to bring their ship to port until the August 15th, when they arrived at Kagoshima, one of the principal ports of the Satsuma Province. Francis was welcomed, as a representative of the Portuguese king. The daimyo—the feudal lord—of Satsuma greeted them warmly but later, when so many of the peasants flocked to Francis, forbade the conversion of his subjects to Christianity. Francis stayed with Anjiro and his family for almost a year.

Francis encountered many challenges while working in Japan: he was unable to meet with the emperor, he struggled to learn the language, and he wrestled with how to make the principles of the gospel translate to a different culture. But Francis paved the way for other Jesuit missionaries, who, for many years, were the only Christian priests in Japan. Francis desired to bring Christianity to China and made secret plans to travel to China, which was closed to foreigners. Francis died just off the coast of China, awaiting a ship that would bring him to the mainland, on December 3, 1552.

Francis approached people with the Gospel by becoming one of them—he ate the humblest rice and water, he slept on the ground in a hut—and his life was marked by joy. He is the patron saint of all foreign missions and all those who work to spread the faith.

St. Francis Xavier, whose relics rest in the Basilica’s reliquary chapel, is depicted in the image above from Matthew Alderman ’06, which is used here with his permission. It shows St. Ignatius in the center, flanked by St. Francis Xavier on the left and St. Francis Borgia on the right.

St. Francis Xavier, who traveled around the world to spread Christ’s love in word and deed—pray for us!