Francis Xavier

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."

Patron Saints Index: Saint Francis Xavier

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. I wish they university students would work as hard at converting these people as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

Patron Saints Index: Saint Francis Xavier

St.Francis Xavier Quotes: Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards.

Francis Xavier: Definition and Much More From Answers.com

Apostle to the Far East Born 1506, Javier Died December 2, 1552, China Venerated in Roman Catholic Church Beatified 1619 Canonized 1622 Feast December 3

Francis Xavier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patronage African missions; Agartala, India; Ahmedabad, India; Alexandria, Louisiana; Apostleship of Prayer; Australia; Bombay, India; Borneo; Cape Town, South Africa; China; Dinajpur, Bangladesh; East Indies; Fathers of the Precious Blood; foreign missions; Freising, Germany; Goa India; Green Bay, Wisconsin; India; Indianapolis, Indiana; Japan; Joiliet, Illinois; Kabankalan, Philippines; diocese of Malindi, Kenya; missionaries; Missioners of the Precious Blood; Navarre, Spain; navigators; New Zealand; parish missions; plague epidemics; Propagation of the Faith

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Readings It is not the actual physical exertion that counts towards a man's progress, nor the nature of the task, but by the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.

Patron Saints Index: Saint Francis Xavier

A short hymn or prayer Great Saint Francis, well beloved and full of charity, in union with you I reverently adore the Divine Majesty. I give thanks to God for the singular gifts of grace bestowed on you in life and of glory after death, and I beg of you, with all the affection of my heart, by your powerful intercession, obtain for me the grace to live a holy life and die a holy death. I beg you to obtain for me {mention your petition}. But if what I ask is not for the glory of God and for my well-being, obtain for me, I beseech you, what will more certainly attain these ends. Amen.[citation needed] prayer

Francis Xavier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St.Francis Xavier Quotes: Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards.

Francis Xavier: Definition and Much More From Answers.com

Francis Xavier, Saint, 1506–52, Basque Jesuit missionary, called the Apostle to the Indies, b. Spanish Navarre, of noble parents. He studied in Paris (1525–34), where he became an associate of St. Ignatius of Loyola, with whom he and five others took the vow in Montmartre that made them the nucleus of the Society of Jesus (see Jesus, Society of). In 1536–37 he went to Venice, where he worked in the hospitals; he was ordained (1537) there with Ignatius. He worked at Rome with Ignatius for the new order until 1540, when he left for Portugal to join a mission the king was sending to Goa. St. Francis left Lisbon in 1541 with a brief as papal nuncio. At Goa he immediately began to preach and was very successful. After five months he went to the pearl fisheries of W India and spent 15 months on the coast from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) northward. After a second stay in Goa he sailed to Malacca (1545), which he left in 1546 for the Moluccas; in 1547 he went back to Malacca. Meanwhile more Jesuits were coming to India, and St. Francis assigned them to missions he had started. In 1549 he set sail for Japan and landed at Kagoshima. He and his companions remained in Japan for more than two years and set up many Christian communities. He went back to Goa (1552) and set out for China with a Portuguese embassy. On his way he died on the island of Changchuen (St. John). He is buried at Goa. St. Francis was one of the greatest of Christian missionaries; his travels covered many thousands of miles in 11 years, and his successes in preaching and in personal conversion were tremendous. He possessed a singular combination of profound mysticism and common sense. Feast: Dec. 3.

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On November 21, he fainted after celebrating Mass. He died on the island on December 2, 1552, at age 46, without having reached mainland China. He was first buried on a beach of Shangchuan island. His intact body was taken from the island in February 1553. It was temporarily buried in St. Paul's church in Malacca on March 22, 1553. An open grave in the church now marks the place of Xavier's burial. Pereira came back from Goa, removed the corpse shortly after April 15, 1553, and moved it to his house. On December 11, 1553, Xavier's body was shipped to Goa. The body, having resisted extensive decay, is now in the Basilica of Bom Jésus in Goa, where it was placed in a glass container encased in a silver casket on December 2, 1637. Today, the silver casket has been removed, exposing the glass and leaving the body visible, though it is raised up on a high mausoleum. The glass container is lowered for public viewing only during the public exposition which occurs for a duration of 6 weeks every 10 years, the most recent of which took place in 2004. There is a debate as to how the body could have remained incorrupt for so long. Some say that Francis Xavier was mummified, although all examinations from the time of his death til now have been thoroughly documented, giving credence to the belief that the incorruptible body is evidence of a miracle. Legacy St. Francis Xavier accomplished a great deal of missionary work, both as organizer and as pioneer. By his compromises in India with the Christians of St. Thomas, he developed the Jesuit missionary methods along lines that subsequently became a successful blueprint for his order to follow. His efforts left a significant impression upon the missionary history of India and by being one of the first Jesuit missionary to East India, his work is of fundamental significance with regard to the propagation of Christianity in China and Japan and the systematic and aggressive incorporation of great masses of non-european people on broad lines of policy by the Roman Catholic Church.

Francis Xavier: Definition and Much More From Answers.com

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