Saint Francis Xavier, Spanish San Francisco Javier, or Xavier (born April 7, 1506, Xavier Castle, near Sangüesa, Navarre [Spain]—died Dec. 3, 1552, Sancian Island, China; canonized March 12, 1622; feast day December 3), the greatest Roman Catholic missionary of modern times, who was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India, the Malay Archipelago, and Japan. In Paris in 1534 he pronounced vows as one of the first seven members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, under the leadership of Ignatius of Loyola.
Early life and education.
Francis was born in Navarre (now in northern Spain), at the family castle of Xavier, where Basque was the native language. He was the third son of the president of the council of the king of Navarre, most of whose kingdom was soon to fall to the crown of Castile (1512). Francis grew up at Xavier and received his early education there. As was often the case with younger sons of the nobility, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career, and in 1525 he journeyed to the University of Paris, the theological centre of Europe, to begin his studies.
In 1529, Ignatius Loyola, another Basque student, was assigned to room with Francis. A former soldier 15 years Xavier’s senior, he had undergone a profound religious conversion and was then gathering about himself a group of men who shared his ideals. Gradually, Ignatius won over the initially recalcitrant Xavier, and Francis was among the band of seven who, in a chapel on Montmartre in Paris, on Aug. 15, 1534, vowed lives of poverty and celibacy in imitation of Christ and solemnly promised to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and subsequently to devote themselves to the salvation of believers and unbelievers alike. Xavier then performed the Spiritual Exercises, a series of meditations lasting about 30 days and devised by Ignatius in light of his own experience of conversion to guide the individual toward greater generosity in the service of God and man. They implanted in Francis the motivation that carried him for the rest of his life and prepared the way for his recurrent mystical experiences.
Mission to India.
After all the members of the band had completed their studies, they reassembled in Venice, where Xavier was ordained priest on June 24, 1537. Having for more than a year sought passage to the Holy Land in vain, the seven, along with fresh recruits, went to Rome to put themselves at the disposal of the Pope. Meanwhile, as a result of their preaching and care of the sick throughout central Italy, they had become so popular that many Catholic princes sought their services. One of these was King John III of Portugal, who desired diligent priests to minister to the Christians and to evangelize the peoples in his new Asian dominions. When illness prevented one of the two originally chosen for the task from departing, Ignatius designated Xavier as his substitute. The next day, March 15, 1540, Francis left Rome for the Indies, travelling first to Lisbon. In the following fall, Pope Paul III formally recognized the followers of Ignatius as a religious order, the Society of Jesus.
Francis disembarked in Goa, the centre of Portuguese activity in the East, on May 6, 1542; his companion had remained behind to work in Lisbon. Much of the next three years he spent on the southeastern coast of India among the simple, poor pearl fishers, the Paravas. About 20,000 of them had accepted Baptism seven years before, chiefly to secure Portuguese support against their enemies; since then, however, they had been neglected. Using a small catechism he had translated into the native Tamil with the help of interpreters, Francis travelled tirelessly from village to village instructing and confirming them in their faith. His evident goodness and the force of his conviction overcame difficulties of verbal communication. Shortly afterward the primitive Macuans on the southwestern coast indicated their desire for Baptism, and, after brief instructions, in the last months of 1544 Xavier baptized 10,000 of them. He anticipated that the schools he planned and Portuguese pressure would keep them constant.
In the fall of 1545, news of opportunities for Christianity attracted him to the Malay Archipelago. Following several months of evangelization among the mixed population of the Portuguese commercial centre at Malacca, he moved on to found missions among the Malays and the savage headhunters in the Spice Islands (Moluccas). In 1548 he returned to India, where more Jesuits had since arrived to join him. In Goa the College of Holy Faith, founded several years previously, was turned over to the Jesuits, and Francis began to develop it into a centre for the education of native priests and catechists for the diocese of Goa, which stretched from the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, to China.