Fr. Tony Lalli, s.x.

Jan. 2006

Part 4 - The Dream

n the spring of 1552, Francis is back in Goa, where he finds a letter from Ignatius naming him Provincial Superior of the Indies. The Jesuit community already had 50 members. As Provincial, he removes Fr. Antonio Gomes, who had expelled from the College all the Indian students, replacing them with sons of the Portuguese. “He does not know that the company of Jesus is a company of love,” was Xavier’s remark.

He likes to get together with the young novices, who are entering the Company of Jesus. He questions them about their lives, their vocation, their personal struggles. One of them left us this impression: “Fr. Francis was rather tall, his face well proportioned, jovial and of great charm; his eyes were black, his forehead broad, his beard and hair black."

A letter from Portuguese prisoners in the terrible dungeons of Canton, China, start Francis thinking about entering the impenetrable Chinese continent, by joining a diplomatic mission of the king of Portugal. If Christianity were to be accepted in China, he thought, the Church would more easily grow in Japan. With youthful enthusiasm he wrote to Ignatius: “I have a great hope that the Chinese and the Japanese, through the Company of Jesus, will abandon their idolatries and adore the true God and Jesus Christ, Savior of all peoples."

But at that time China remained closed to foreigners, and the diplomatic mission did not come through. Nevertheless Francis believed that China would be the grand prize of all his missionary endeavors. He was determined to go even on his own. “I go to the islands of Canton, deprived of any human help, in the hope that some native will take me to the mainland of China.” But this prize would elude him, and his dreams of going to China were never fulfilled.

In 1552, after finally finding a ship to take him to China, he became seriously ill. He was taken off the ship on the unpopulated island of Sancian only a few miles off the Chinese coast.

“I have a great hope that the Chinese and the Japanese, through the Company of Jesus, will abandon their idolatries and adore the true God and Jesus Christ, Savior of all peoples."
Saint Francis Xavier

There, at the doors of China, Francis Xavier ends his missionary quest, with only Antonio, his Chinese friend and interpreter, by his side. On November 21, Francis celebrates his last Mass, after which he prayed continually in his native Basque tongue, between spasms of delirium and the doubtful therapy of bleeding. Antonio later reported, “I could see that he was dying, and put a lighted candle in his hand. Then, with the name of Jesus on his lips, he gave his spirit to his Creator and Lord with great peace and repose,” the skyline of mainland China visible on the horizon.

It is December 3 1552, and Francis Xavier is 46 years old.

For 10 years (1542-52) he had crossed the oceans and lands of Southern Asia preaching, baptizing and caring for the peoples of those regions. Despite his personal doubts about his efficacy, Xavier pushed on from one mission to the next. It was his constant search for new peoples to evangelize that brought him to the coast of China, where he died hoping to gain entry there. His death, alone and far from the friends who had freed him for his mission and brought him to that place, might appear to have been a failure, unless one considers how friendship can be maintained across distances, when the bond that unites them is the Lord Jesus and his Spirit.

Francis Xavier’s remains were later brought to Goa where they are venerated to this day. The Church proclaimed Francis Xavier Saint in 1622, and in 1927 named him, along with St. Therese of Lisieux, patron of foreign missions: the one, patron and model of those how leave their homeland and go to far-away mission fields, the other, patron and model for all those who, like her, want to be authentic missionaries by means of their every day prayer and sacrifice.

The life of Francis Xavier, “Apostle to the world”, tells us that it’s worthwhile to live and die for Jesus Christ. He had written: “The dangers to which I am exposed and the tasks I undertake for God are springs of spiritual joy, so much so that these islands are the places in all the world for a man to lose his sight by excess of weeping; but they are tears of joy.”

Fr. Tony Lalli, s.x.

(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)