Pope Francis' Arch Nemeses Denounce His New Pagan Mass as a Betrayal Of The Faith

Yes, nemeses, meaning two different figures spoke out about this new religion Francis is the pope of, one of whom is taking a great risk to speak out, even anonymously.

How Christianity Almost Vanished in 303 AD

Christ protected us, but if you read the Martyrology or Fr Butler you'll know what he's talking about.

Diocletian's Great Persecution, which began in 303 AD, was the most systematic Roman attempt to destroy Christianity. This video explores why the persecution happened, what it reveals about the late Roman Empire, and why it ultimately failed.

St Sophonias ~ A "Bi-Ritual" Saint

The Prophet Sophronius is honoured today in both the Latin Church and the Byzantine Rites. Here is his story from both traditions.

From the West:

✠✠✠✠✠

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The ninth of the twelve Minor Prophets of the Canon of the Old Testament; preached and wrote in the second half of the seventh century B.C. He was a contemporary and supporter of the great Prophet Jeremias. His name (Hebrew Zephanja, that is "the Lord conceals", "the Lord protects") might, on the analogy of Gottfried, be most briefly translated by the words God protect. The only primary source from which we obtain our scanty knowledge of the personality and the rhetorical and literary qualities of Sophonias, is the short book of the Old Testament (containing only three chapters), which bears his name. The scene of his activity was the city of Jerusalem (i, 4-10; iii, 1 sqq.; 14 sqq.)

Date

The date of the Prophet's activity fell in the reign of King Josias (641-11). Sophonias is one of the few Prophets whose chronology is fixed by a precise date in the introductory verse of the book. Under the two preceding kings, Amon and Manasse, idolatry had been introduced in the most shameful forms (especially the cult of Baal and Astarte) into the Holy City, and with this foreign cult came a foreign culture and a great corruption of morals. Josias, the king with the anointed sceptre, wished to put an end to the horrible devastation in the holy places. One of the most zealous champions and advisers of this reform was Sophonias, and his writing remains one of the most important documents for the understanding of the era of Josias. The Prophet laid the axe at the root of the religious and moral corruption, when, in view of the idolatry which had penetrated even into the sanctuary, he threatened to "destroy out of this place the remnant of Baal, and the names of the . . . priests" (i, 4), and pleaded for a return to the simplicity of their fathers instead of the luxurious foreign clothing which was worn especially in aristocratic circles (i, 8). The age of Sophonias was also a most serious and decisive period, because the lands of Anterior Asia were overrun by foreigners owing to the migration of the Seythians in the last decades of the seventh century, and because Jerusalem, the city of the Prophets, was only a few decades before its downfall (586). The far-seeing watchman on Sion's battlements saw this catastrophe draw near: "for the day of the Lord is near" is the burden of his preaching (i, 7). "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and exceeding swift: . . . That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds" (i, 14-15).

Contents

The book of the Prophet naturally contains in its three chapters only a sketch of the fundamental ideas of the preaching of Sophonias. The scheme of the book in its present form is as follows:
1:2-2:3

The threatening of the "day of the Lord", a Dies irae dies illa of the Old Testament. The judgment of the Lord will descend on Juda and Jerusalem as a punishment for the awful degeneracy in religious life (i, 4-7a); it will extend to all classes of the people (i, 7b-13), and will be attended with all the horrors of a frightful catastrophe (i, 14-18); therefore, do penance and seek the Lord (ii, 1-3).
2:4-15

Not only over Jerusalem, but over the whole world (urbi et orbi), over the peoples in all the four regions of the heavens, will the hand of the Lord be stretched--westwards over the Philistines (4-7), eastwards over the Moabites and Ammonites (8-11), southwards over the Ethiopians (12), and northwards over the Assyrians and Ninivites (13-15).
With a special threat (3:1-8)

The Prophet then turns again to Jerusalem: "Woe to the provoking, and redeemed city. . . She hath not hearkened to the voice, neither hath she received discipline"; the severest reckoning will be required of the aristocrats and the administrators of the law (as the leading classes of the civil community), and of the Prophets and priests, as the directors of public worship.
3:9-20

A consolatory prophecy, or prophetic glance at the Kingdom of God of the future, in which all the world, united in one faith and one worship, will turn to one God, and the goods of the Messianic Kingdom, whose capital is the daughter of Sion, will be enjoyed. The universality of the judgment as well as of the redemption is so forcibly expressed in Sophonias that his book may be regarded as the "Catholic Epistle" of the Old Testament.
The last exhortation of Sophonias (3:9-20)

also has a Messianic colouring, although not to an extent comparable with Isaias.

Character of the prophet

Sophonias' prophecy is not strongly differentiated from other prophecies like that of Amos or Habacuc, it is confined to the range of thought common to all prophetic exhortations: threats of judgment, exhortation to penance, promise of Messianic salvation. For this reason Sophonias might be regarded as the type of Hebrew Prophets and as the final example of the prophetic terminology. He does not seek the glory of an original writer, but borrows freely both ideas and style from the older Prophets (especially Isaias and Jeremias). The resemblances to the Book of Deuteronomy may be explained by the fact that this book, found in the Josian reform, was then the centre of religious interest. The language of Sophonias is vigorous and earnest, as become the seriousness of the period, but is free from the gloomy elegiac tone of Jeremias. In some passages it becomes pathetic and poetic, without however attaining the classical diction or poetical flight of a Nahum or Deutero-Isaias. There is something solemn in the manner in which the Lord is so frequently introduced as the speaker, and the sentence of judgment falls on the silent earth (i, 7). Apart from the few plays on words (cf. especially ii, 4), Sophonias eschews all rhetorical and poetical ornamentation of language. As to the logical and rhythmical build of the various exhortations, he has two strophes of the first sketch (i, 7 and 14) with the same opening ("the day of the Lord is near"), and closes the second sketch with a hymn (ii, 15)--a favourite practice of his prototype, Jeremias. A graduated development of the sentiment to a climax in the scheme is expressed by the fact that the last sketch contains an animated and longer lyrical hymn to Jerusalem (iii, 14 sqq.). In Christian painting Sophonias is represented in two ways; either with the lantern (referring to i, 12: "I will search Jerusalem with lamps") or clad in a toga and bearing a scroll bearing as text the beginning of the hymn "Give praise, O daughter of Sion" (iii, 14).

From the East:

✠✠✠✠✠

The Prophet Sophonias was a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremias and the Prophetess Oldama. He was from the tribe of Simeon and was the ninth of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. The prophet lived at the royal court, where he preached repentance and helped King Josias eliminate idol worship.

He prophesied about the calamities that were to come for the people of Judea and the surrounding regions: Gaza, Ascalon, Crete, and against the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Ninevites.

Troparion — Tone 2

We celebrate the memory / of Your prophet Sophronias, O Lord; / through him, we entreat You, / save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 4

You have been revealed by the Spirit of God to be brilliant, Prophet Sophronius, / for you proclaimed the coming of God: / “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! / Proclaim Him, O Jerusalem! / Behold, your King is coming to save mankind!”

Did Francis’ ‘Synod on Synodality’ Create a New Church?

I have no doubt that he's TRYING to create a new "church" to fit his dream of One World Order/One World Religion, but he's going to be disappointed. "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)

From LifeSiteNews

Robert T. Morrison

In his October 9, 2021 opening address for the Synod on Synodality, Francis introduced his intention to 'create a different church.' Now that three years have passed it seems reasonable for us to ask: did Francis actually create a new church?

In his October 9, 2021 opening address for the Synod on Synodality, Francis introduced his intention to “create a different church”:

Dear brothers and sisters, may this Synod be a true season of the Spirit! For we need the Spirit, the ever new breath of God, who sets us free from every form of self-absorption, revives what is moribund, loosens shackles and spreads joy. The Holy Spirit guides us where God wants us to be, not to where our own ideas and personal tastes would lead us. Father Congar, of blessed memory, once said: ‘There is no need to create another Church, but to create a different Church’ (True and False Reform in the Church). That is the challenge. For a ‘different Church,’ a Church open to the newness that God wants to suggest, let us with greater fervour and frequency invoke the Holy Spirit and humbly listen to him, journeying together as he, the source of communion and mission, desires: with docility and courage.

Francis’s statement was remarkable not only for the blasphemous notion of “creating a different church” — as if God had made a mistake in establishing the Catholic Church to endure until the end of time — but also in citing Congar’s book as the inspiration. To get some sense of the significance of True and False Reform in the Church, we can consider words from the translator’s introduction to the 1968 edition of Congar’s book:

It is also a book that is, in my view, more potent today than at the time of its original publication in 1950, when it was badly misunderstood. Not long after its publication, the Holy Office forbade its reprinting or translation into other languages; yet less than twenty years later most of its insights had found their way into the major documents of Vatican II. Congar himself once remarked, ‘If there is a theology of Congar, that is where it is to be found.’ Following Vatican II, Congar released a second and revised edition of True and False Reform in 1968. It is that edition that has been translated here.

So by citing Congar’s book, Francis signaled his intent to have the innovative ideas that had been condemned under Pope Pius XII serve as the animating force for his Synod. Overall, we have the following timeline related to Congar’s role in inspiring the creation of a different church:

• Congar’s True and False Reform in the Church was censured by the Holy Office in the 1950’s under Pius XII
• Nonetheless, many of the ideas of True and False Reform in the Church found their way into Vatican II’s documents after John XXIII rehabilitated Congar, appointing him as a Council expert
• On October 9, 2021, Francis cited True and False Reform in the Church as an inspiration for his desire to “create a different church” with the Synod on Synodality 
• On October 21, 2024, the pro-LGTBQ cardinal-designate Fr. Timothy Radcliffe led the Synodal participants in a meditation in preparation for the drafting of the Synod’s Final Document — in that meditation, Radcliffe spoke of Congar’s heroic witness to truth in the face of persecution under Pius XII

Although some Catholics have asserted that Vatican II produced a different church — the “Conciliar Church” — the majority of faithful Catholics do not consider the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church to be actual separate churches. However, Francis’s stated desire to follow Congar’s inspiration in creating a different church leads us to consider a vital question: did Francis’s Synod actually create a different church? 

Did Francis’s synod actually create a different church? 

We have several indications that Francis’s synod has in fact created a different church. First, we must of course consider that Francis told us that he intended to create a different church. While this of itself does not demonstrate that the synod produced a different church, it does make the question reasonable to ask.

Second, Francis and the Synodal participants generally refer to their church as the “Synodal Church” rather than the “Catholic Church.” Thus, for instance, Francis did not use the word “Catholic” in his homily at the October 27 Mass to conclude the Synod but he did refer to the Synodal Church: 

This is the synodal Church: a community whose primacy lies in the gift of the Spirit, who makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ and raises us up to him.

Similarly, the Synod on Synodality’s official documents have consistently referred to the Synodal Church rather than the Catholic Church. 

Third, the membership of the Synodal Church appears to differ from the membership of the Catholic Church. In his 1943 encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ, Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII stated that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Church and that the Church’s membership is defined as follows:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.

Thus, membership in the Catholic Church requires both baptism and profession of the true faith (i.e., Catholicism). Conversely, we find throughout the Synod on Synodality documents a definite sense that baptism is the sole criteria for membership in the Synodal Church. For example, the 2023 Instrumentum Laboris states that the Synodal Church is founded on the recognition of a common dignity based on baptism: 

Within this integral understanding, an awareness emerges of certain characteristics or distinctive signs of a synodal Church. These are shared convictions on which to dwell and reflect together as we undertake a journey that will continue to clarify and refine them, starting from the work of the Synodal Assembly will undertake. This is what emerges with great force from all the continents: an awareness that a synodal Church is founded on the recognition of a common dignity deriving from Baptism, which makes all who receive it sons and daughters of God, members of the family of God, and therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, inhabited by the one Spirit and sent to fulfil a common mission.

While it may be theoretically possible to read passages such as this in a way that does not absolutely contradict the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church, it is undeniable that the intention is to establish baptism as the paramount, if not only, criteria for membership in the Synodal Church. 

Fourth, the difference in membership between the two churches naturally leads to a profoundly different perspective on missionary activity. The Catholic Church takes its mission from the words of Our Lord:

And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (Matthew 28: 18-20)

Catholics want to convert souls to the Catholic Faith to honor God and lead souls to heaven. 

On the other hand, the organizers of the Synodal Church seek to “accompany” others, accepting them as they are, even when they are hostile to the Catholic Faith. Indeed, the notion that we must convert non-Catholics to the Faith is completely antithetical to the false ecumenism at the heart of the Synodal Church.  

Fifth, there is a profound difference in the development of doctrine within the two churches. For Catholics, revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle, and the Church is tasked with safeguarding the Deposit of Faith against the errors which have always sought to undermine it. Vatican I’s Pastor Aeturnus expresses this clearly in its discussion of the responsibility of the successors of St. Peter to zealously safeguard, and faithfully transmit, Catholic teaching: 

For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: ‘I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.’

On the other hand, we have all seen how the Synodal Church approaches the question of doctrinal development, with essentially every Christian truth other than those explicitly contained in the Apostles Creed, as subject to debate. As one example among many, the Final Document says this about the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate: 

There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. Additionally, the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. (Paragraph 60)

In the Catholic Church the question is closed, but in the Synodal Church almost everything remains open for discussion. 

Sixth, we can see that whereas the Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ almost two-thousand years ago, the Synodal Church effectively began with Vatican II. The Synod’s Final Document expresses that reality as follows: 

Rooted in the Tradition of the Church, the entire synodal journey took place in the light of the conciliar magisterium. The Second Vatican Council was indeed like a seed thrown onto the field of the world and the Church… The synodal journey is indeed putting into practice what the Council taught about the Church as Mystery and Church as People of God, called to holiness through continual conversion that comes from listening to the Gospel. In this sense, the synodal journey constitutes an authentic further act of reception of the Council, thus deepening its inspiration and reinvigorating its prophetic force for today’s world. (Paragraph 5)

The clear and consistent teachings of the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II oppose several fundamental aspects of the Synodal Church — particularly with respect to ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, and morality — so Francis and the Synodal architects know that their new church’s continuity with the past extends back no further than Vatican II. 

Finally, we can consider the antagonism that exists between the religions represented by the Catholic Church and the Synodal Church. The September 7, 2021 Preparatory Document for the Synod on Synodality describes how “Jesus, the crowd, and the Apostles” are the three actors involved in the Synodal Church. It then proceeds to describe the extra actor: 

Then, there is the ‘extra’ actor, the antagonist, who brings to the scene the diabolical separation of the other three. Faced with the perturbing prospect of the cross, there are disciples who leave and mood-changing crowds. The insidiousness that divides—and, thus, thwarts a common path—manifests itself indifferently in the forms of religious rigor, of moral injunction that presents itself as more demanding than that of Jesus, and of the seduction of a worldly political wisdom that claims to be more effective than a discernment of spirits. In order to escape the deceptions of the ‘fourth actor,’ continuous conversion is necessary. Emblematic in this regard is the episode of the centurion Cornelius (cf. Acts 10), the antecedent of that ‘Council’ of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15) which constitutes a crucial reference point for a synodal Church.

As we can tell, this rigid “antagonist” corresponds with those who adhere to what the Catholic Church has always taught. In the name of toleration, the Synodal Church cannot tolerate those who follow Catholic teaching. 

Likewise, the pre-Vatican II popes unambiguously condemned the heretical foundations of the Synodal Church, including false ecumenism, religious liberty, and Modernist doctrinal evolution. Moreover, we cannot imagine the saints taking part in Synodal sessions such as those we recently witnessed in Rome — surely they would have suffered martyrdom rather than participate in such blasphemous attacks on the Mystical Body of Christ. 

Given these considerations, it appears virtually certain that Francis’s Synod has created a different church: the Synodal Church. This Synodal Church can be seen as a development of what some Catholics had termed the “Conciliar Church” — everything that faithful Catholics objected to in connection with the “Conciliar Church” has been a vital component in the creation of the Synodal Church. 

God has permitted all of this for a reason, and we know that “to them that love God, all things work together unto good” (Romans 8:28). The reality of the Synodal Church requires us to consider certain weighty questions, such as whether a man can be head of both the Catholic Church and an anti-Catholic church. Also, can Catholics support the Synodal Church? 

In addition to raising important questions, though, the existence of a Synodal Church provides an opportunity for faithful Catholics to clearly reject all of the innovations that differentiate the Synodal Church from what Pope Pius XII and his predecessors (and all the saints) knew as the Catholic Church. For decades Catholics have been conflicted, having to choose between immutable truth and loyalty to putative authorities in the Church leading us to accept ideas incompatible with immutable truth. With the Synodal Church, it appears that God is allowing for some separation and purification: our Catholic Faith calls us to reject the Synodal Church so we are left with the pure Catholic Faith that excludes the errors of the past sixty years that have laid the foundation for the Synodal Church. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

St Francis Xavier, Confessor

Today's Holy Mass from Sacred Heart Church, Tynong AUS. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.

St Francis Xavier, Confessor, Apostle of the Indies ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

Come, let us adore the King our Lord, who is to come.

From the Prophet Isaias 2:1-3

The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw, concerning Juda and Jerusalem. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

How the Church loves to hear and say these grand words of the Prophet: Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord! She repeats them in the Lauds of every Feria in Advent; and her children bless the Lord, who, that we might have no difficulty in finding him, has made himself like to a high mountain; high, indeed, yet can we all ascend it. It is true that, at first, this mountain is, as we learn from another Prophet, a small stone which is scarce perceptible, and this to show the humility of the Messias at his birth; but it soon becomes great, and all people see it, and are invited to dwell on its fertile slopes, yea, to go up to its very summit, bright with the rays of the Sun of Justice. It is thus, O Jesus, that thou callest us all, and that thou approachest towards all, and the greatness and sublimity of thy mysteries are put within the reach of our littleness. We desire to join, without delay, that happy multitude of people which is journeying on towards thee; we are already with them; we are resolved to fix our tent under thy shadow, O Mountain ever blessed! There shelter us, and let us be out of reach of the noise of the world beneath us. Suffer us to go so far up, that we may lose all sight of that same world’s vanities. May we never forget those paths which lead even to the blissful summit, where the mountain, the figure, disappears, and the soul finds herself face to face with Him, whose vision eternally keeps the Angels in rapture, and whose delight is to be with the children of men! (Proverbs 8:31)

HYMN FOR THE TIME OF ADVENT
(Composed in the ninth century, and taken from the hymnarium of B. Joseph-Maria Tommasi)

May the sun, and stars, and land, and sea, sound forth the coming of the most high God: may the rich and poor unite their songs of praise to the Son of the supreme Creator!

He is the Savior promised to our fathers; the glorious offspring of a Virgin: the Son of the mighty God born of him before the morning star.

He is the King of glory, and is coming to rule as God over kings, trample our wicked enemy beneath his feet, and heal this sick world of ours.

Let the angels rejoice, let all nations exult; he that is high is coming in lowliness to save what had been lost.

A God-Man is born, and the holy Trinity reigns; the son co-eternal with the Father, our Lord, descends upon our earth.

Let the prophets cry out, and prophesy: Emmanuel is nigh unto us. Let the tongues of the dumb speak, and ye, poor lame ones, run to meet him.

Let the lamb and the wild beast feed with each other: let the ox and the ass know him that lies in the manger.

The royal glittering standard ushers in our divine Chief: ye kings prepare your gifts for the noble and royal Babe.

O the blessed message sent to the Virgin Mary! By believing she conceives; she is a Mother, and a Virgin knowing not man.

All ye nations and islands applaud this grand triumph. Run swiftly as the stag, lo! the Redeemer is coming.

Let the eyes of the blind, who have been sitting in darkness, now learn to throw off the murky night, and open to the true light.

Let Galilee, and Greece, and Persia, and India, receive the faith: a God deigns to become man, and remains the Word with the Father.

Praise, honor, power, glory, be to God the Father, and to the Son, together with the Holy Ghost, for eternal ages.

Amen.

PRAYER FROM THE GALLICAN MISSAL
(In Adventu Domini, Contestatio)

O God, whose nature and property is goodness, and with whom there is no change, be propitious to our prayers, and show to thy Church that mercy of thine which we confess: show to thy people the wonderful mystery of thy Only-Begotten Son: that thus, what thou hast promised by the Gospel of thy Word, may be fulfilled by all nations coming to the faith, and the testimony of truth be verified by the completion of adoption. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

St Francis Xavier, Confessor, Apostle of the Indies

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

The Apostles being the heralds of the Coming of the Messias, it was fitting that Advent should have, in its calendar, the name of someone among them. Divine Providence has provided for this; for, to say nothing of St. Andrew, whose feast is oftentimes past before the season of Advent has commenced, St. Thomas’ day is unfailingly kept immediately before Christmas. We will explain, later on, why St. Thomas holds that position rather than any other Apostle; at present, we simply assert the fitness of there being at least one of the Apostolic College, who should announce to us, in this period of the Catholic cycle, the Coming of the Redeemer. But God has not wished that the first Apostolate should be the only one to appear on the first page of the liturgical calendar; great also, though in a lesser degree, is the glory of that second Apostolate, whereby the Spouse of Jesus Christ multiplies her children, even in her fruitful old age (Psalms 91:15), as the Psalmist expresses it. There are Gentiles who have still to be evangelized; the Coming of the Messias is far from having been announced to all nations. Now, of all the valiant messengers of the divine Word who have, during the last few hundred years, proclaimed the good tidings among infidel nations, there is not one whose glory is greater, who has worked greater wonders, or who has shown himself a closer imitator of the first Apostles, than the modern Apostle of the Indies, St. Francis Xavier.

Yes, the life and apostolate of this wonderful man were a great triumph for our Mother the holy Catholic Church; for St. Francis came just at the period when heresy, encouraged by false learning, by political intrigues, by covetousness, and by all the wicked passions of the human heart, seemed on the eve of victory. Emboldened by all these, this enemy of God spoke, with the deepest contempt, of that ancient Church which rested on the promises of Jesus Christ; it declared that she was unworthy of the confidence of men, and dared even to call her the harlot of Babylon, as though the vices of her children could taint the purity of the Mother. God’s time came at last, and he showed himself in his power: the garden of the Church suddenly appeared rich in the most admirable fruits of sanctity. Heroes and heroines issued from that apparent barrenness; and while the pretended Reformers showed themselves to be the wickedest of men, two single countries—Italy and Spain—gave to the world the most magnificent Saints.

One of these is brought before us today, claiming our love and our praise. The Calendar of the Liturgical Year will present to us, from time to time, his contemporaries and his companions in divine grace and heroic sanctity. The sixteenth century is therefore worthy of comparison with any other age of the Church. The so-called Reformers of those times gave little proof of their desire to convert infidel countries, when their only zeal was to bury Christianity beneath the ruin of her churches. But at that very time, a society of Apostles was offering itself to the Roman Pontiff, that he might send them to plant the true faith among people who were sitting in the thickest shades of death. But, we repeat, not one of these holy men so closely imitated the first Apostles as did Francis, the disciple of Ignatius. He had all the marks and labors of an Apostle: an immense world of people evangelized by his zeal, hundreds of thousands of infidels baptized by his indefatigable ministration, and miracles of every kind, which proved him, to the infidel, to be marked with the sign, which they received, who, living in the flesh, planted the Church, as the Church speaks in her Liturgy. So that, in the sixteenth century, the East received from the ever-holy city of Rome, an Apostle who, by his character and his works, resembled those earlier ones sent her by Jesus himself. May our Lord Jesus be forever praised for having vindicated the honor of the Church, his Spouse, by raising up Francis Xavier, and giving to men, in this his servant, a representation of what the first Apostles were, whom he sent to preach the Gospel when the whole world was pagan.

Let us now read the short account given us, in the words of the Church, of this new Apostle.

Francis was born of noble parents, at Xavier, in the diocese of Pampelona. Having gone to Paris, he there became the companion and disciple of St. Ignatius. Under such a master, he arrived at so high a contemplation of divine things, as to be sometimes raised above the ground: which occasionally happened to him while saying mass before crowds of people. He had merited these spiritual lights by his severe mortifications of the body, for he never allowed himself either flesh meat, or wine, or even wheaten bread, and ate only the coarsest food; he not unfrequently abstained, for the space of two or three days, from every sort of nourishment. He scourged himself so severely with disciplines, to which were fastened pieces of iron, as to be frequently covered with blood. His sleep, which he took on the ground, was extremely short.

Such austerity and holiness of life had fitted him for the labors of an Apostle; so that when John III, King of Portugal, asked of Paul III, that some of the newly-founded Society might be sent to the Indies, that Pontiff by the advice of St. Ignatius, selected Francis for so important a work, and gave him the powers of Apostolic Nuncio. Having reached those parts, he was found to be, on a sudden, divinely gifted with the knowledge of the exceedingly difficult and varied languages of the several countries. It sometimes even happened that while he was preaching in one language to the people of several nations, each heard him speaking in their own tongue. He travelled over innumerable provinces, always on foot, and not unfrequently bare footed. He carried the faith into Japan, and six other countries. He converted to Christ many hundred thousands in the Indies, and baptized several Princes and Kings. And yet though he was doing such great things for God, he was so humble that he never wrote to St. Ignatius, the then General of the Society, but on his knees.

God blessed this zeal for the diffusion of the Gospel by many and extraordinary miracles. The Saint restored sight to a blind man. By the sign of the cross he changed seawater into fresh, sufficient, for many days, for a crew of five hundred men, who were dying from thirst. This water was afterwards taken into several countries, and being given to sick people, they were instantly cured. He raised several dead men to life; one of these had been buried on the previous day, so that the corpse had to be taken out of the grave; two others were being carried to the grave, when the Saint took them by the hand, and raising them from the bier, restored them to their parents. Being continually gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he foretold many future events, or such as were happening in most distant parts. At length, full of merit, and worn out by his labors, he died on the second day of December, in Sancian, an island off the coast of China. His corpse was twice buried in unslaked lime, but was found, after several months, to be incorrupt: blood flowed from it, and it exhaled a pleasing fragrance: when it was brought the Malacca, it instantly arrested a most raging pestilence. At length, fresh and extraordinary miracles being everywhere wrought through the intercession of the man of God, he was enrolled among the Saints by Gregory XV.

Glorious Apostle of Jesus Christ, who didst impart his divine light to the nations that were sitting in the shadows of death! we, though unworthy of the name of Christians, address our prayers to thee, that, by the charity which led thee to sacrifice everything for the conversion of souls, thou wouldst deign to prepare us for the visit of the Savior, whom our faith and our love desire. Thou wast the father of infidel nations; be the protector, during this holy season, of them that believe in Christ. Before thy eyes had contemplated the Lord Jesus, thou didst make him known to countless people; now that thou seest him face to face, obtain for us that, when he is come, we may see him with that simple and ardent faith of the Magi, those glorious first-fruits of the nations to which thou didst bear the admirable light. (1 Peter 2:9)

Remember also, O great Apostle, those nations which thou didst evangelize, and where now, by a terrible judgment of God, the word of life has ceased to bring forth fruit. Pray for the vast empire of China, on which thou didst look when dying, but which was not blessed with thy preaching. Pray for Japan, thy dear garden which has been laid waste by the savage wild beast, of which the Psalmist speaks. May the blood of the Martyrs, which was poured out on that land like water, bring it the long expected fertility. Bless, too, all the Missions, which our holy Mother the Church has undertaken in those lands where the Cross has not yet triumphed. May the heart of the infidel be opened to the grand simplicity and light of faith; may the seed bring forth fruit a hundred-fold; may the number of thy successors in the new apostolate ever increase; may their zeal and charity fail not; may their toil receive its reward of abundant fruit; and may the crown of martyrdom, which they receive, be not only the recompense, but the perfection and the triumph of their apostolic ministry. Recommend to our Lord the innumerable members of that Association, which is the means of the Faith being propagated through the world, and which has thee for its Patron. Pray, with a filial affection and earnestness, for that holy Society, of which thou art so bright an ornament, and which reposes on thee its firmest confidence. May it more and more flourish under the storm of trial which never leaves it in rest; may it be multiplied, that so the children of God may be multiplied by its labors; may it ever have ready, for the service of the Christian world, zealous Apostles and Doctors; may it not be in vain that it bears the name of Jesus.

Let us consider the wretched condition of the human race, at the time of Christ’s coming into the world. The diminution of truth (Psalms 11:2) is emphatically expressed by the little light, which the earth enjoys at this season of the year. The ancient traditions are gradually becoming extinct; the Creator is not acknowledged, even in the very work of his hands; everything has been made God, except the God who made all things. This frightful Pantheism produces the vilest immorality, both in society at large, and in individuals. There are no rights acknowledged, save that of might. Lust, avarice, and theft, are honored by men in the gods of their altars. There is no such thing as Family, for divorce and infanticide are legalized; mankind is degraded by a general system of slavery; nations are being exterminated by endless wars. The human race is in in the last extreme of misery; and unless the hand that created it reform it, it must needs sink a prey to crime and bloodshed. There are indeed some few just men still left upon the earth, and they struggle against the torrent of universal degradation; but they cannot save the world; the world despises them, and God will not accept their merits as a palliation of the hideous leprosy which covers the earth. All flesh has corrupted its way, and is more guilty than even in the days of the deluge: and yet, a second destruction of the universe would be manifest anew the justice of God; it is time that a deluge of his divine mercy should flood the universe, and that He who made man should come down and heal him. Come then, O eternal Son of God! give life again to this dead body; heal all its wounds; purify it; let grace super-abound, where sin before abounded; and having converted the world to thy holy law, thou wilt have proved to all ages that thou who camest, wast in very truth the Word of the Father; for as none but a God could create a world, so none but the same omnipotent God could save it from Satan and sin, and restore it to justice and holiness.

A RESPONSORY OF ADVENT
(The Roman Breviary, Fourth Sunday of Advent)

℟. Behold! how great is he that cometh in to save the nations; he is the King of justice, * Whose generation hath no end.

℣. He comes in as our precursor, made Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech; * Whose generation hath no end.

St Francis Xavier: Greatest Missionary Since the Times of the Apostles

A sermon for today. Please remember to say 3 Hail Marys for the Priest.

1st Tuesday of Advent: The Love of God for Men

Meditations for every day of Advent by St Alphonsus Liguori.

St Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Birinus, First Bishop of Dorchester, Confessor

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

BIRINUS, a priest of Rome, addressed himself to pope Honorius for leave to preach the gospel to the idolaters in Britain. The pope commended his zeal, and caused him to be ordained bishop. The apostolic missionary landed in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and, with many others, baptized king Cynegils, who began to reign in 611, and filled the throne thirty-one years, being the sixth from Cerdic, who founded that kingdom in 519. Birinus fixed his see at Dercis, now at Dorchester, on the Thames, in Oxfordshire upon, the edge of Berkshire:* he built and consecrated many churches, gained many souls to God, and departing to him was buried in the same city, about the year 650. His remains were translated to Winchester by bishop Hedda, and there laid in the church of SS. Peter and Paul. Of the painted windows in Dorchester church which have escaped the fury of the plunderers, Mr. Hearne, in his notes on William of Newborough, vol. 3, p 773, makes this remark “I know of no truly religious person but what is affected with what now remains of the historical painting in Dorchester windows, relating to Birinus’s voyage thither, and his converting the heathens.” See on St. Birinus, Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, p. 247; Bede,1. 3, c. 7 and Neve’s Fasti Anglicani, pp. 137, 283.

St Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Confessor

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

His life was written In Latin by F. Turselin, in six books, first printed at Rome In 1594 The same author translated into Latin, and published in 1596 the saint’s letters in four books. The life of this saint was also composed by F. Orlandino, in the history of the Society: in Italian, by F. Bartoli; also, by F. Maffei: in Portuguese by Luzena, and in Spanish by F. Garcia. See likewise F. Nieremberg’s illustrious men: the modern histories of India, especially that of Jarrio: Solia’s history of Japan, Lewis de Gusman’s Spanish history of the Missions to the East Indies. China, and Japan and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto’s Travels in Portuguese. From these and other sources is the life of St. Francis Xavier elegantly compiled in French by the judicious and eloquent F. Bouhours, published in English by Dryden in 1688. See also Maffei, Histor. Indicar.1. 15. F. Ribadeneira, F. Charlevoix. Hist. de Japan. Lafiteau, Dcouvertes et Conquestes des Indes Orientales par les Portuguais.

A. D. 1552.

A CHARGE to go and preach to all nations was given by Christ to his apostles. This commission the pastors of the church have faithfully executed down to this present time; and in every age have men been raised by God, and filled with his Holy Spirit for the discharge of this important function, who, being sent by the authority of Christ and in his name by those who have succeeded the apostles in the government of his church have brought new nations to the fold or Christ for the advancement of the divine honor, and filling up the number of the saints This conversion of nations according to the divine commission is the prerogative of the Catholic church, in which it has never had any rival. Among those who in the sixteenth century labored most successfully in this great work, the most illustrious was St. Francis Xavier, the Thaumaturgus of these later ages, whom Urban VIII. justly styled the apostle of the Indies. This great saint was born in Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, eight leagues from Pampelona, in 1506. His mother was heiress of the two illustrious houses of Azpilcueta and Xavier, and his father, Don John de Jasso, was one of the chief counsellors of state to John III. d’Albret, king of Navarre. Among their numerous family of children, of which Francis was the youngest, those that were elder bore the surname of Azpilcueta, the younger that of Xavier Francis was instructed in the Latin tongue, under domestic masters, and grounded in religious principles in the bosom of his pious parents. From his infancy he was of a complying, winning humor, and discovered a good genius and a great propensity to learning, to which of his own motion he turned himself, while all his brothers embraced the profession of arms. His inclination determined his parents to send him to Paris in the eighteenth year of his age; where he entered the college of St. Barbara, and commencing a course of scholastic philosophy, with incessant pains and incredible ardor, surmounted the first difficulties of the crabbed and subtle questions with which the entrance of logic was paved. His faculties were hereby opened, and his penetration and judgment exceedingly improved; and the applause which he received agreeably flattered his vanity, which passion he was not aware of, persuading himself, that to raise his fortune in the world was a commendable pursuit. Having studied philosophy two years he proceeded master of arts; then taught philosophy at Beauvais college, though he still lived in that of St. Barbara.

St. Ignatius came to Paris in 1528 with a view to finish his studies, and after some time entered himself pensioner in the college of St. Barbara. This holy man had conceived a desire of forming a society wholly devoted to the salvation of souls; and being taken with the qualifications of Peter Faber, called in French Le Fevre, a Savoyard, and Francis Xavier, who had been school-fellows, and still lived in the same college, endeavored to gain their concurrence in this holy project. Faber, who was not enamored of the world, resigned himself without opposition. But Francis, whose head was full of ambitious thoughts, made a long and vigorous resistance, and bantered and rallied Ignatius on all occasions, ridiculing the meanness and poverty in which he lived as a degenerate lowness of soul. Ignatius repaid his contempt with meekness and kindness, and continued to repeat sometimes to him: What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? This made no impression on one who was dazzled with vain glory, and, under pretences, joined false maxims of worldly decency in his idea of Christian virtue. Ignatius assaulting him on the weaker side often congratulated with him for his talents and learning, applauded his lectures, and made it his business o procure him scholars: also on a certain occasion when he was in necessity, he furnished him with money. Francis, having a generous soul, was moved with gratitude, and considered that Ignatius was of great birth, and that only the fear of God had inspired him with the choice of the life which he led. He began therefore to look on Ignatius with other eyes, and to hearken to his discourses. At that time certain emissaries of the Lutherans secretly scattered their errors among the students at Paris, in so dexterous a manner as to make them appear plausible, and Xavier, who was naturally curious, took pleasure in hearing these novelties, till Ignatius put him upon his guard. Some time after this, having one day found Xavier more than ordinarily attentive, he repeated to him these words more forcibly than ever: What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? and remonstrated that so noble a soul ought not to confine itself to the vain honors of this world, that celestial glory was the only object for his ambition, and that it was against reason not to prefer that which is eternally to last before what vanishes. like a dream. Xavier then began to see into the emptiness of earthly greatness, and to find himself powerfully touched with the love of heavenly things. Yet it was not without many serious thoughts and grievous struggles that his soul was overcome by the power of those eternal truths, and he took a resolution of squaring his life entirely by the most perfect maxims of the gospel. For this purpose, he gave himself up to the conduct of Ignatius: and the direction of so enlightened a guide made the paths of perfection easy to him. From his new master he learned that the first step in his conversion was to subdue his predominant passion, and that vain-glory was his most dangerous enemy. His main endeavors, therefore, were bent from that time to humble himself, and confound his pride. And, well knowing that the interior victory over our own heart and its passions, is not to be gained without mortifying the flesh, and bringing the senses into subjection, he undertook this conquest by hair cloth, fasting, and other austerities.

When the time of the vacancy was come, in 1535, he performed St. Ignatius’s spiritual exercises: in which, such was his fervor, that he passed four days without taking any nourishment, and his mind was taken up day and night in the contemplation of heavenly things. By these meditations, which sunk deep into his soul, he was wholly changed into another man, in his desires, affections, and views; so that afterwards he did not know himself, and the humility of the cross appeared to him more amiable than all the glories of this world. In the most profound sentiments of compunction, he made a general confession, and formed a design of glorifying God by all possible means, and of employing his whole life for the salvation of souls. The course of philosophy which he read, and which had lasted three years and a half, according to the custom of those times, being completed, by the counsel of Ignatius, he entered on the study of divinity. In 1534, on the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, St. Ignatius and his six companions, of whom Francis was one, made a vow at Montmartre to visit the Holy Land, and unite their labors for the conversion of the Infidels; or if this should be found not practicable, to cast themselves at the feet of the pope, and offer their services wherever he thought fit to employ them Three others afterwards joined these six, and, having ended their studies the year following, these nine companions departed from Paris upon the 15th of November, in 1536. to go to Venice, where St. Ignatius had agreed to meet them from Spain. They travelled all through Germany on foot, loaded with their writings, in the midst of winter, which that year was very sharp and cold. Xavier, to overcome his passions, and punish himself for the vanity he had formerly taken in leaping, (for he was very active, and had been fond of such corporal exercises,) in the fervency of his soul, had tied his arms and thighs with little cords, which, by his travelling, swelled his thighs, and sunk so deep into the flesh as to be hardly visible. The saint bore the pain with incredible patience, till he fainted on the road; and, not being able to go any further, was obliged to discover the reason. His companions carried him to the next town, where the surgeon declared that no incision could be safely made deep enough, and that the evil was Incurable. In this melancholy situation. Faber, Laynez, and the rest spent that night in prayer; and the next morning Xavier found the cords broken out of the flesh. The holy company joined in actions of thanksgiving to the Almighty, and cheerfully pursued their journey, in which Xavier served the rest on all occasions being always beforehand with them in the duties of charity They arrived at Venice on the 8th of January, 1537, and were much comforted to meet there St. Ignatius, by whose direction they divided themselves to serve the poor in two hospitals in that city, while they waited for an opportunity to embark for Palestine.

Xavier, who was placed in the hospital of the incurables, employed the day in dressing the sores of the sick, in making their beds, and serving them in meaner offices, and passed whole nights in watching by them. It was his delight chiefly to attend those who were sick of contagious distempers, or infected with loathsome ulcers. Amongst these, one had an ulcer which was horrible to the sight, and the noisomeness of the stench was yet more insupportable. Everyone shunned him, and Xavier found a great repugnance in himself when he first approached him. But, reflecting that the occasion of making a great sacrifice was too precious to be lost, he embraced the sick person, applied his mouth to the ulcer, and sucked out the purulent matter. At the same moment his repugnance vanished; and, by this signal victory over himself, he obtained the grace that, from that time, no ulcers, how filthy and fetid soever, caused in him any loathing, but rather a sweet devotion: of so great importance it is to us once to have thoroughly overcome ourselves, and overthrown the proud giant of sensuality, or vanity: while remiss acts, performed with sloth, unwillingness, and a false delicacy, rather fortify than vanquish the enemy. And it is more the resolution of the will than the action itself that subdues him. Two months had passed away In these exercises of charity, when St. Ignatius, who stayed behind alone at Venice, sent his companions to Rome, to ask the blessing of his holiness Paul III. for their intended voyage. The pope granted those among them, who were not in holy orders, a license to receive them at the hands of any Catholic bishop. Upon their return to Venice, Xavier was ordained priest upon St. John Baptist’s day, in 1537, and they all made vows of chastity and poverty before the pope’s nuncio. Xavier retired to a village, about four miles from Padua, where, to prepare himself for saying his first mass, he spent forty days in a poor, ruined, abandoned cottage, exposed to all the injuries of the weather, lay on the ground, fasted rigorously, and subsisted on what scraps of bread he begged from door to door. St. Ignatius having caused all his company to resort to Vicenza, Xavier, after this retreat, repaired thither, and said there his first mass with tears flowing in such abundance that his audience could not refrain from mixing their own with his. By order of St. Ignatius, he applied himself to the exercises of charity and devotion at Bologna, to the great edification of that city. The house in which he there dwelt as a poor man, was afterwards given to the society, and converted into an oratory of great devotion.

In Lent, in 1538, our saint was called by St. Ignatius to Rome, where the fathers assembled together to deliberate about the foundation of their order, and their consultations were accompanied with fervent prayers, tears, watchings, and penitential austerities, which they practised with a most ardent desire of pleasing our Lord alone, and of seeking in all things his greater glory and the good of souls. After waiting a whole year to find an opportunity of passing into Palestine, and finding the execution of that design impracticable, on account of the war between the Venetians and the Turks, St. Ignatius and his company offered themselves so his holiness, to be employed as he should judge most expedient in the service of their neighbor. The pope accepted their offer, and ordered them to preach and instruct in Rome till he should otherwise employ them. St. Francis exercised his functions in the church of St. Laurence, in Damaso, in which he appeared so active, that to one distinguished himself by a more ardent charity, or a more edifying zeal. Govea, a Portuguese, formerly president of the college of St. Barbara at Paris, happened to be then at Rome, whither John III., king of Portugal, had sent him on some important business. He had formerly known Ignatius, Xavier, and Faber at Paris, and been a great admirer of their virtue; and he became more so at Rome, insomuch, that he wrote to his master, that men so learned, humble, charitable, inflamed with zeal, indefatigable in labor, lovers of the cross, and who aimed at nothing but the honor of God, were fit to be sent to plant the faith in the East Indies. The king wrote thereupon to Don Pedro Mascaregnas, his ambassador at Rome, and ordered him to obtain six of these aposlic men for this mission. St. Ignatius could grant him only two, and pitched upon Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and Nicholas Bobadilla, a Spaniard. The former went immediately by sea to Lisbon: Bobadilla, who waited to accompany the ambassador, fell sick, and, by an overruling supernatural direction, Francis Xavier was substituted in his room, on the day before the ambassador began his journey. Our saint received this order with joy, and when he went to ask the benediction of Paul III., there shone, through a profound humility, such a magnanimity of soul, that his holiness took from thence a certain presage of the wonderful events which followed. The saint left Rome with the ambassador on the 15th of March. 1540, and, on the road found perpetual occasions for the most heroic actions of humility, mortification, charity, zeal, and piety, and was always ready to serve his fellow-travellers in the meanest offices, as if he had been everybody’s servant. The journey was performed all the way by land, over the Alps and Pyreneans, and took up more than three months. At Pampelona, the ambassador pressed the saint to go to the castle of Xavier, which was but a little distant from the road, to take leave of his mother, who was yet living, and of his other friends, whom he would probably never more see in this world. But the saint would by no means turn out of the road, saying, that he deferred the sight of his relations till he should visit them in heaven; that this transient view would be accompanied with melancholy and sadness, the products of last farewells; whereas, their meeting in heaven would be for eternity, and without the least allay of sorrow. This wonderful disengagement from the world exceedingly affected Mascaregnas, who, by the saintly example and instructions of the holy man, was converted to a new course of life.

They arrived at Lisbon about the end of June, and Francis went immediately to F. Rodriguez, who was lodged in an hospital, in order to attend and instruct the sick. They made this place their ordinary abode, but catechised and instructed in most parts of the town, and were taken up all Sundays and holidays in hearing confessions at court; for the king and a great number of the courtiers were engaged by their discourses to confess and communicate every week; which they chose to do at their hands. F Rodriguez was retained by the king at Lisbon; and St. Francis was obliged to stay there eight months, while the fleet was getting ready to sail in spring. Dr. Martin d’Azpilcueta, commonly called the doctor of Navarre, who was uncle to Xavier by the mother’s side, was then chief professor of divinity at Coimbra, and wrote several letters to our saint, but could not engage him to go to Coimbra. St. Francis, when he left Rome, put a memorial in the hands of F. Laynez, in which he declared that he approved the rules which should be drawn up by Ignatius, and consecrated himself to God, by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the society of Jesus, when it should be confirmed as a religious order by the apostolic see At Lisbon, before he went on board, the king delivered to him four briefs from the pope; in two of which his holiness constituted Xavier apostolic nuncio, with ample power and authority; in the third, he recommended him to David, emperor of Ethiopia; and, in the fourth, to other princes in the east. No importunities of the king or his officers could prevail on the saint to accept of any provisions or necessaries, except a few books for the use of converts. Nor would he consent to have a servant, saying, that as long as he had the use of his two hands, he never would take one. When he was told that it would be unbecoming to see an apostolic legate dressing his own victuals, and washing his own linen on the deck, he said he could give no scandal so long as he did no ill. The saint had two companions to the Indies, F. Paul de Camarino, an Italian Jesuit, and Francis Mansilla, a Portuguese, who was not yet in priest’s orders. F. Simon Rodriguez bore them company to the fleet: and then it was that St. Francis, embracing him, said, that at Rome, in the hospital, he once beheld, whether sleeping or waking he knew not, all that he was to suffer for the glory of Jesus Christ: and that he thence conceived so great a delight in sufferings, that he cried out aloud, “Yet more, O Lord, yet more.” Which words this F. Rodriguez, who was then in the same chamber, heard; and had often pressed him to explain the meaning of. This the saint did upon his taking leave, adding, “I hope the divine goodness will grant me in India what he has foreshown to me in Italy.”

The saint set sail on the 7th of April, in the year 1541, the thirty-sixth of his age, on board the admiral’s vessel, which carried Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa, general-governor of the Indies, who went with five ships to take possession of his government. The admiral’s vessel contained at least a thousand persons, whom Francis considered as committed to his care. He catechised the sailors, preached every Sunday before the mainmast, took care of the sick, converted his cabin into an infirmary, lay on the deck, and lived on charity during the whole voyage, though the governor was very urgent with him to eat at his table, or accept of a regular supply of food from his kitchen; but he always answered, that he was a poor religious man, and that, having made a vow of poverty, he was resolved to keep it. He, indeed, received the dishes which the governor sent him from his table; but divided the meat among those who had most need. He composed differences, quelled murmuring, checked swearing and gaming, and took the utmost care to remove all disorders. Bad actions he reproved with so much authority that nobody resisted him, and with so much sweetness and tender love that no one was offended at him. The insufferable colds of Cape Verd, the heats of Guinea, the stench of the fresh waters, and the putrefaction of their flesh provisions under the line, produced pestilential fevers and violent scurvies. After five months of perpetual navigation, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope, they arrived at Mozambique, on the eastern coast of Africa, about the end of August, and there they wintered. The inhabitants are mostly Mahometans, and trade with the Arabs and Ethiopians; but the Portuguese have settlements among them. The air is very unwholesome, and Xavier himself fell sick there: but was almost recovered when the admiral again put to sea in a fresh vessel which made better sail, on the 15th of March, in 1542. In three days they arrived at Melinda, a town of the Saracens, in Africa, where one of the principal inhabitants complained to Xavier, that so little sense of religion was left among them, that, of seventeen mosques which they had, fourteen were quite forsaken, and the three that remained were little frequented. Leaving this place, after a few days sail they touched at the isle of Socotora, over against the strait of Mecca. Thence, crossing the sea of Arabia and India, they landed at Goa on the 6th of May, in 1542, in the thirteenth month since their setting out from Lisbon.

After St. Francis was landed, he went immediately to the hospital and there took his lodging: but would not enter upon his missionary functions till he had paid his respects to the bishop of Goa,* whose name was John d’Albuquerque, and who was a most virtuous prelate. The saint presented to him the briefs of Paul. III., declared that he pretended not to use them without his approbation, and, casting himself at his feet, begged his blessing. The bishop was struck with the venerable air of sanctity that appeared in his countenance and deportment, raised him up, kissed the briefs, and promised to support him by his episcopal authority: which he failed not to do. To call down the blessing of heaven on his labors, St. Francis consecrated most of the night to prayer. The situation in which religion then was in those parts, was such as called forth his zeal and his tears. Among the Portuguese, revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery, seemed to have extinguished in many the sentiments of their holy religion; the sacraments were neglected: there were not four preachers in all the Indies, nor any priests without the walls of Goa. The bishop’s exhortations and threats were despised, and no dam was sufficient to stem such a deluge. The infidels resembled rather beasts than men, and the few who were come over to the faith, not being supported by competent instructions, nor edified by example, relapsed into their ancient manners and superstitions. Such was the deplorable situation of those countries when St. Francis Xavier appeared among them as a new star to enlighten so many infidel nations. So powerful was the word of God in his mouth, and such the fruit of his zeal, that in the space of ten years he established the empire of Jesus Christ in a new world. Nothing more sensibly afflicted him at his arrival at Goa, than the scandalous deportment of the Christians, who lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed, and, by their manners, alienated the infidels from the faith: he therefore thought it would be best to open his mission with them. In order to compass a general reformation, he began by instructing them in the principles of religion, and forming the youth to the practice of sincere piety. Having spent the morning in assisting and comforting the distressed in the hospitals and prisons, he walked through all the streets of Goa, with a bell in his hand, summoning all masters, for the love of God, to send their children and slaves to catechism. The little children gathered together in crowds about him, and he led them to the church, and taught them the creed and practices of devotion, and impressed on their tender minds strong sentiments of piety and religion. By the modesty and devotion of the youth the whole town began to change its face, and the most abandoned sinners began to blush at vice. After some time the saint preached in public, and made his visits to private houses: and the sweetness of his behavior and words, and his charitable concern for the souls of his neighbors were irresistible. Sinners were struck with the horror of their crimes, and throwing themselves at his feet, confessed them with bitter compunction of heart; and the fruits of penitence which accompanied their tears, were the certain proofs of the sincerity of their conversions. Usurious bonds were cancelled, restitution was made of unjust gains, slaves who had been unjustly acquired were set at liberty, concubines dismissed, or lawfully married, and families were well regulated.

The reformation of the whole city of Goa was accomplished in half a year, when the saint was informed, that on the coast of La Pescaria, or the Pearl Fishery, which is extended from Cape Comorin to the isle Manar, on the eastern side of the peninsula, there were certain people called Paravas, that is, Fishers, who some time ago, in order to please the Portuguese who had succored them against the Moors, had caused themselves to be baptized, but, for want of instructions, retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier had by this time got a little acquaintance with the Malabar language, which is spoken on that coast, and, taking with him two young ecclesiastics who understood it competently well, embarked in October, in 1542, and sailed to Cape Comorin, which faces the isle of Ceylon, and is about six hundred miles from Goa. Here, St. Francis went into a village full of idolaters, and preached Jesus Christ to them; but the inhabitants told him they could not change their religion without the leave of their lord. Their obstinacy, however, yielded to the force of miracles by which God was pleased to manifest Ins truth to them. A woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered, and recovered upon being instructed in the faith, and baptized by St. Francis, as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius.1 Upon this miracle, not only tint family, but most of the chief persons of the country, listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced the faith, having obtained the leave of their prince. The servant of God proceeded to the Pearl Coast, set himself first to instruct and confirm those who had been formerly baptized; and, to succeed in his undertaking, he was at some pains to make himself more perfectly master of the Malabar tongue. Then he preached to those Paravas to whom the name of Christ was till that time unknown; and so great were the multitudes which he baptized, that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarce able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe. To make the children comprehend and retain the catechism, he taught them to recite with him some little prayer upon each question or article. Every lesson or instruction he began with the Our Father, and ended with the Hail Mary. Diseases seem to have been never so frequent on that coast as at that time. which happened as if it had been to drive the most obstinate, in spite of their reluctance, into the folds of the church: for the people had almost all recourse to St. Francis for their cure, or that of some friend, and great numbers recovered their health, either by being baptized, or by invoking the name of Jesus. The saint frequently sent some young neophyte with his crucifix, beads, or reliquary to touch the sick, after having recited with them the Lord’s prayer, creed, and commandments; and the sick, by declaring unfeignedly that they believed in Christ, and desired to the baptized. recovered their health. This great number of miracles, and the admirable innocence, zeal, and sanctity of the preacher, recommended him to the veneration of the Brahmins themselves, who were the philosophers divines and priests of the idolaters. These, nevertheless, upon motives of interest, opposed his doctrine: and neither his conferences nor his miracles could gain them. The process of the saint’s canonization makes mention of from dead persons, to whom God restored life at this time, by the ministry of her servant. The first was a catechist who had been stung by a serpent of that kind whose stings are always mortal. The second was a child who was drowned in a pit. The third and fourth a young man and maid whom a pestilential fever had carried off. Incredible were the labors of the same His food was the same with that of the poorest people, nice and water. His sleep was but three hours a night at most, and that in a fisher’s cabin on the ground: for he soon made way with a mattress and coverlet winch the governor had sent him from Goa. The remainder of the night he passed with God or with his neighbor. In the midst of the hurry of his external employments, he ceased not to converse interiorly with God, who bestowed on him such an excess of interior spiritual delights, that he was often obliged to desire the divine goodness to moderate them; as he testified in a letter to St. Ignatius, and his brethren at Rome, though written in general terms, and in the third person. “I am accustomed,” says he,2 “often to hear one laboring in this vineyard, cry out to God: O my Lord, give me not so much joy and comfort in this life: or, if by an excess of mercy, thou wilt heap it upon me, take me to thyself, and make me partaker of thy glory For he who has once in his interior feeling tasted thy sweetness, must necessarily find life too bitter so long as he is deprived of the sight of Thee.”

He had labored about fifteen months in the conversion of the Paravas, when, towards the close of the year 1543, he was obliged to return to Goa to procure assistants. The seminary of the faith which had been founded there for the education of young Indians, was committed to his care, and put into the hands of the society. The saint enlarged it, and made prudent regulations for the government and direction of the youth; and, from this time, it was called the seminary of St. Paul. The following year he returned to the Paravas with a supply of evangelical laborers, as well Indians as Europeans, whom he stationed in different towns; and some he carried with him into the kingdom of Travancore, where, as he testifies in one of his letters, he baptized ten thousand Indians with his own hand in one month; and sometimes a whole village received the sacrament of regeneration in one day. When the holy man first penetrated into the inland provinces of the Indians, being wholly ignorant of the language of the people, he could only baptize children, and serve the sick, who, by signs, could signify what they wanted, as he wrote to F. Mansilla. While he exercised his zeal in Travancore, God first communicated to him the gift of tongues, according to the relation of a young Portuguese of Coimbra, named Vaz, who attended him in many of his journeys. He spoke very well the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he instructed them. He sometimes preached to five or six thousand persons together, in some spacious plain. The saint narrowly escaped the snares which were sometimes laid by Brahmins and others to take away his life; and, when the Badages, a tribe of savages and public robbers, having plundered many other places, made inroads into Travancore, he marched up to the enemy, with a crucifix in his hand, at the head of a small troop of fervent Christians, and, with a commanding air, bade them, in the name of the living God, not to pass further, but to return the way they came. His words cast such a terror into the minds of the leaders who were at the head of the barbarians, that they stood some time confounded, and without motion; then retired in disorder, and quitted the country. This action procured St. Francis the protection of the king of Travancore, and the surname of the Great Father. As the saint was preaching one day at Coulon, a village in Travancore, near Cape Comorin, perceiving that few were converted by his discourse, he made a short prayer that God would honor the blood and name of his beloved Son, by softening the hearts of the most obdurate. Then he bade some of the people open the grave of a man who, was buried the day before, near the place where he preached; and the body was beginning to putrefy with a noisome scent, which he desired the by-standers to observe. Then falling on his knees, after a short prayer he commanded the dead man in the name of the living God to arise. At these words, the dead man arose, and appeared not only living, but vigorous, and in perfect health. All who were present were so struck with this evidence, that throwing themselves at the saint’s feet, they demanded baptism The holy man also raised to life, on the same coast, a young man who was a Christian, whose corpse he met as it was carried to the grave. To preserve the memory of this wonderful action, the parents of the deceased, who were present, erected a great cross on the place where the miracle was wrought. These miracles made so great impressions on the people, that the whole kingdom of Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of his courtiers.

The reputation of the miracles of St. Francis reached the isle of Manar, which sent deputies to St. Francis, entreating him to visit their country. The saint could not at that time leave Travancore, but sent a zealous missionary, by whom many were instructed and baptized. The king of Jafanatapan, in the northern part of the neighboring beautiful and pleasant isle of Ceylon, hearing of this progress of the faith, fell upon Manar with an army, and slew six or seven hundred Christians, who when asked the question, boldly confessed Christ. This tyrant was afterwards slain by the Portuguese, when they invaded Ceylon. The saint, after he had made a journey to Cochin upon business, visited Mancar, and settled there a numerous church; in a journey of devotion, which he took to Meliapor, to implore the intercession of the apostle St. Thomas, he converted many dissolute livers in that place. Afterwards, intending to pass to the island of Macassar, he sailed to Malacca, a famous mart, in the peninsula beyond the Ganges, to which all the Indies, and also the Arabs, Persians, Chinese, and Japonians, resorted for trade. The saint arrived here on the 25th of September, 1545, and, by the irresistible force of his zeal and miracles, reformed the debauched manners of the Christians, and converted many pagans and Mahometans. This town had been lately possessed by a tribe of the latter sect, who had wrested it from the king of Siam: but Albuquerque had conquered it in 1511. St. Francis, finding no opportunity of sailing to Macassar, passed the isles of Bonda, which are some of the spice islands. Landing in the island of Amboina, he baptized great part of the inhabitants. Having preached in other islands, he made a considerable stay in the Moluccas, and, though the inhabitants were an untractable people, he brought great numbers to the truth. Thence he passed to the isle del Moro, the inhabitants of which he gained to Christ. In this mission he suffered much: but from it wrote to St. Ignatius: “The dangers to which I am exposed, and pains I take for the interest of God alone, are the inexhaustible springs of spiritual joys: insomuch, that these islands, bare of all worldly necessaries, are the places in the world for a man to lose his sight with the excess of weeping: but they are tears of joy. I remember not ever to have tasted such interior delights; and these consolations of the soul are so pure, so exquisite, and so constant, that they take from me all sense of my corporal sufferings.” The saint, returning towards Goa, visited the islands on the road where he had preached, and arrived at Malacca in 1547. In the beginning of the year 1548 he landed in Ceylon, where he converted great numbers, with two kings.

At Malacca, a Japonese, named Angeroo, addressed himself to the saint. Kaempfer tells us, that he had killed a man in his own country, and, to save his life, made his escape in a Portuguese ship. All agree that he was rich, and of a noble extraction, and about thirty-five years of age, and, that being disturbed in mind, with remorse and terrors of conscience, he was advised by certain Christians to have recourse to the holy St. Francis for comfort. The saint poured the mildest balm into his wounded heart, and gave him assurances that he should find repose of mind, but must first seek God in his true religion. The Japonese was charmed with his discourses, and, as he had by that time acquired some knowledge of the Portuguese language, was instructed in the faith, and engaged by St. Francis to embark with his attendants and to go to Goa, whither he himself was directing his course, by taking a round. In the straits of Ceylon, the ship which carried the sain was overtaken with a most dreadful tempest, insomuch that the sailors threw all their merchandise overboard, and the pilot, not being able to hold the rudder, abandoned the vessel to the fury of the waves. For three days and three nights, the mariners had nothing but death before their eyes. St. Francis, after hearing the confessions of all on board, fell on his knees before his crucifix, and continued there, wholly taken up and lost to all things but to God. The ship at last struck against the sands of Ceylon, and the mariners gave themselves for lost, when Xavier, coming out of his cabin, took the line and plummet, as if it had been to fathom the sea, and, letting them down to the bottom of the water, pronounced these words: “Great God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.” At the same moment, the vessel stopped, and the wind ceased. After which, they pursued their voyage, and happily arrived at Cochin, on the 21st of January, 1548. Writing from that place to the fathers at Rome, he tells them, that in the height of the tempest, he had taken them, and all devout persons on earth, for his intercessors with God, had invoked all the saints and angels, going through all their orders, and desired particularly for his protectress and patroness, the most holy Mother of God, and Queen of Heaven. He adds: “Having reposed all my hope in the infinite merits of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, being encompassed with this protection, I enjoyed a greater satisfaction in the midst of this raging tempest, than when I was wholly delivered from the danger. In very truth, being as I am, the worst of all men, I am ashamed to have shed so many tears of joy, through an excess of heavenly pleasure, when I was just upon the point of perishing. Insomuch, hat I humbly prayed our Lord, that he would not free me from the danger of my shipwreck, unless it were to reserve me for greater dangers, to his own glory, and for his service. God has often shown me by an inward discovery, from how many perils and sufferings he has delivered me by the prayers and sacrifices of those of the society.”

The saint, leaving Cochin, visited the villages of the coast of the pearl fishery, and was much edified with the fervor of the converts: he made some stay at Manapar, near Cape Comorin, passed over to the isle of Ceylon, (where he converted the king of Cande,) and arrived at Goa on the 20th of March, 1548. There he instructed Angeroo and many others, and took a resolution to go to Japan. In the mean time, he applied himself more than ever to the exercises of an interior life, as it were to recover new strength; for it is the custom of all apostolical men, by the communications which they have with God, to refresh themselves, and repair their interior spirit amidst the pains which they take with their neighbor. During this retirement, in the garden of St. Paul’s college, sometimes walking, at other times in a little hermitage which was there set up, he cried out: “It is enough, my Lord: it is enough.” And he sometimes opened his cassock before his breast, declaring he was not able to support the abundance of heavenly consolations. At the same time, he signified that he rather prayed that God would reserve those pleasures for another time, and here would not spare to inflict on him any pains or sufferings in this present world. These interior employments did not hinder him from the labors of his ministerial vocation, nor from succoring the distressed in the hospitals and in the prisons. On the contrary, the more lively and ardent the love of God was in him, the more desirous he was to bring it forth, and kindle it others. This charity caused him often to relinquish the delights of holy solitude. F. Gaspar Barzia and four other Jesuits arrived at that time at Goa from Europe, whom the saint stationed, and then set out for Malacca, intending to proceed to Japan. After a short stay at Malacca, he went on board a Chinese vessel, and arrived at Cangoxima, in the kingdom of Saxuma, in Japan, on the 15th of August, 1549, having with him Angeroo, who had been baptized with two of his domestics at Goa, and was called Paul of the holy faith.*

The language of the Japanese seems, in the judgment of Kaempfer, to be a primitive or original tongue; for it has no affinity with other oriental languages, though certain Chinese terms are adopted in it. St. Francis learned certain elements of it from his convert during his voyage, and stayed forty days at Cangoxima, lodging at Paul’s house, whose wife, daughter, and other relations he in the mean time converted and baptized. The same language is used all over the empire, but the words are differently accented when addressed to courtiers or persons of rank, and when to merchants and soldiers, and again differently to the vulgar. During these forty days, St. Francis, by unwearied application, made such progress in it as to translate into Japonian the apostles’ creed, and an exposition of it which he had composed and which he got by heart in this language, and then began to preach; but was first introduced by Paul to the king of Saxuma, whose residence was six leagues from Cangoxima. Meeting with a most gracious and honor able reception, he obtained the king’s leave to preach the faith to his subjects; of which he made so good use that he converted a great number. Kaempfer pretends that he never spoke the language perfectly; but Charlevoix, from the original authors of his life, assures us that he spoke it even with elegance and propriety. The gift of tongues was a transient favor. He distributed copies of his exposition of the creed among his converts.* New miracles confirmed his doctrine. By his blessing, a child’s body, which was swelled and deformed, was made straight and beautiful: and, by his prayers, a leper was healed, and a pagan young maid of quality, that had been dead a whole day, was raised to life.

After a year spent at Cangoxima, with his usual success, the saint, in 1550, went to Firando, the capital of another petty kingdom; for the king of Saxuma, incensed at the Portuguese because they had abandoned his port to carry on their trade chiefly at Firando, had withdrawn the license he had granted the saint, and began to persecute the Christians. The converts, however, persevered steady, and declared they were ready to suffer banishment or death, rather than deny Christ; and St. Francis recommended them to Paul, and left in their hands an ample exposition of the creed, and the Life of our Saviour, translated entire from the gospels, which he had caused to be printed in Japonese characters. He took with him his two companions, who were Jesuits, and carried on his back, according to his custom, all the necessary utensils for the sacrifice of the mass. The saint, in his way to Firando, preached in the fortress of Ekandono, the prince of which was a vassal to the king of Saxuma. The prince’s steward embraced the faith with several others, and to his care Xavier recommended the rest at his departure; and he assembled them daily in his apartments to recite with them the litany and prayers, and, on Sundays, read to them the Christian doctrine. And so edifying was the behavior of these Christians, that many others desired to join them, after the departure of their apostle; and the king of Saxuma, moved by their edifying conduct, became again the protector of our holy religion. At Firando, Xavier baptized more infidels in twenty days than he had done at Cangoxima in a whole year. These converts he left under the care of one of the Jesuits that accompanied him, and set out for Meaco with one Jesuit, and two Japonian Christians. They went by sea to Facata, and from thence embarked for Amanguchi, the capital of the kingdom of Naugato, famous for the richest silver mines in Japan. Our saint preached here in public, and before the king and his court; but the gospel, at that time, took no root in this debauched city, the number which the saint gained there being inconsiderable, though a single soul is, indeed, a great acquisition.

Xavier, having made above a month’s abode at Amanguchi, and gathered small fruit of his labors, except affronts, continued his journey towards Meaco, with his three companions. It was towards the end of December, and the four servants of God suffered much on the road from heavy rains, great drifts of snow, pinching cold, torrents, and hideous mountains and forests; and they travelled barefoot. In passing through towns and villages, Xavier was accustomed to read some part of his catechism to the people, and to preach. Not finding a proper word in the Japonian language to express the sovereign deity, and fearing lest the idolaters should confound God with some of their idols, he told them, that having never had any knowledge of the true infinite God, they were not able to express his name, but that the Portuguese called him Deos; and this word he repeated with so much action, and such a tone of voice, that he made even the pagans sensible what veneration is due to that sacred name. In two several towns he narrowly escaped being stoned, for speaking against the gods on the country. He arrived at Meaco with his companions in February, 1551. The Dairi, Cubosama, and Saso, (or high priest,) then kept their court there; but the sain could not procure an audience even of the Saso, without paying for that honor a hundred thousand caixes, which amount to six hundred French crowns, a sum which he had not to give. A civil war, kindled against the Cubosama, filled the city with such tumults and alarms, that Xavier saw it to be impossible to do any good there at that time, and, after a fortnight’s stay, returned to Amanguchi. Perceiving that he was rejected at court, upon the account of his mean appearance, he bought a rich suit, and hired two or three servants; and, in this equipage, waited on the king, to whom he made a present of a little striking-clock, and some other things. Thus he obtained his protection, and preached with such fruit, that he baptized three thousand persons in that city, with whom he left two Jesuits, who were his companions, to give the finishing to their instruction. At Amanguchi, God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues; for he preached often to the Chinese merchants who traded there, in their mother-tongue, which he had never learned. Sanctity, meekness, and humility, are often more powerful in a preacher than the evidence of miracles. By the heroic example of these virtues, the apostles converted the world; and, by the like, did our saint soften the hearts of many hardened infidels. F. Fernandez, one of his two companions, was a proof of this at Amanguchi. As he was preaching one day to a mob who made a sport of him, one of the rabble, hawking up a great quantity of nasty phlegm, spit it full upon his face. The father, without speaking a word, or making the least sign of emotion or concern, took his handkerchief, wiped his face, and continued his discourse At such an heroic example of meekness, the scorn of the audience was turned into admiration, and the most learned doctor of the city, who happened to be present, said to himself that a law which taught such virtue, inspired men with such unshaken courage, and gave them so perfect a victory over themselves, could not be but from God; and as soon as the sermon was ended, he confessed that the preacher’s virtue had convinced him, and desired baptism, which he received, some days after, with great solemnity. This illustrious conversion was followed by many others.

St. Francis, recommending the new Christians here to two fathers whom he left behind, left Amanguchi towards the middle of September, in 1551, and, with two Japonian Christians, who had suffered with joy the confiscation of their goods for changing their religion, travelled on foot to Fuceo, the residence of the king of Bungo, who was very desirous to see him, and gave him a most gracious reception. Here the saint publicly confuted the Bonzas, who, upon motives of interest, everywhere strenuously opposed his preaching, though, even among them, some were converted. The saint’s public sermons and private conversations had their due effect among the people, and vast multitudes desired to be instructed and baptized. Among others, the king himself was convinced of the truth, and renounced those impurities which are abhorred by nature; but remained still wedded to some sensual pleasures; on which account he could not be admitted to the sacrament of regeneration, till, after some succeeding years, having made more serious reflections on the admonitions of the saint, he reformed his life altogether, and was baptized.* Our saint took leave of this king, and embarked to return to India, on the 20th of November, 1551, having continued in Japan two years and four months. To cultivate this growing mission, he sent thither three Jesuits, who were shortly followed by others. It had been often objected to him that the learned and wise men in China had not embraced the faith of Christ. This circumstance first inspired him with an earnest desire that the name of Christ might be glorified in that flourishing empire; and full of a zealous project of undertaking that great enterprise, he left Japan. In this voyage, the ship in which he sailed was rescued from imminent danger of shipwreck in a storm, by his prayers; and a shallop, in which were fifteen persons belonging to the ship, from which it had been separated by the same tempest, was saved by the same means, according to his confident and repeated prediction, the passengers and mariners in it seeming all the way to have seen Xavier sitting at the helm and steering it. Many other clear predictions of the saint are recorded. At Malacca he was received with the greatest joy that can be imagined, and he immediately set himself to contrive how he might compass his intended journey to China. The greatest difficulty was, that besides the ill understanding which was betwixt China and Portugal, it was forbidden to strangers on pain of death, or of perpetual imprisonment, to set foot in that kingdom. Even some Portuguese merchants who had stolen thither for the benefit of trade, having been discovered, some of them had lost their heads, others had been put in irons, and cast into dungeons, there to rot for the remainder of their lives. To remove this obstacle, St. Francis discoursed with the old governor of Malacca, Don Pedro de Sylva, and with the new one, Don Alvarez d’Atayda, and it was agreed that an embassy might be sent in the name of the king of Portugal to China to settle a commerce, with which the saint might with safety land in that kingdom. In the mean time the saint set out for Goa. Arriving at Cochin on the 24th of January, in 1552, he there met the king of the Maldives fleeing from rebellious subjects, whom F. Heredia had instructed in the faith, and St. Francis baptized him.

The exiled prince married a Portuguese lady, and lived a private life till the day of his death; happy in this, that the loss of his crown procured him the gift of faith and the grace of baptism. Xavier reached Goa in the beginning of February, and having paid a visit to the hospitals, went to the college of St. Paul, where he cured a dying man. The missionaries whom he had dispersed before his departure, had spread the gospel on every side. F. Gaspar Barzia had converted almost the whole city and island of Ormuz. Christianity flourished exceedingly on the coast of the pearl fishery, and had made great progress at Cochin, Coulan, Bazain, Meliapor, in the Moluccas, the isles of Moro, &c*. The king of Tanor, whose dominions lay on the coast of Malabar, had been baptized at Goa. The king of Trichenamalo, one of the sovereigns of Ceylon, also embraced the faith. The progress of the faith in many other places, was such as gave the greatest subject of joy to the holy man. But F. Antonio Gomez, a great preacher and scholar, whom the saint had appointed rector at Goa, had made such changes and innovations even in the domestic discipline of the society, that the saint was obliged to dismiss him from the order. Xavier appointed F. Barzia, a person of eminent piety, rector of Goa and vice-provincial, sent new preachers into all the missions on this side the Ganges, and obtained of the viceroy, Don Alphonso de Norogna, a commission for his good friend, James Pereyra, to go on an embassy to China. Having settled all affairs at Goa, he made the most tender and ardent exhortations to his religious brethren, then leaving F. Barzia vice-provincial, he set sail on the 14th of April, in 1552, and landing at Malacca, found the town afflicted with a most contagious pestilential fever. This he had foretold before he arrived; and no sooner was he come on shore, but running from street to street, he carried the poor that lay languishing, up and down to the hospitals, and attended them with his companions. At that time he restored to life a young man named Francis Ciavos, who afterwards took the habit of the society. When the mortality had almost ceased, the saint treated about the embassy to China* with the governor of Malacca, on whom Don Alphonso de Norogna (the fifth viceroy and seventeenth governor of the Indies) had reposed the trust of that affair. Don Alvarez d’Atayda Gama had lately succeeded his good brother Don Pedro de Sylva Gama in the government of Malacca. This officer, out of a pique to Pereyra, crossed the project of the embassy, and, when St. Francis urged the authority of the king, and the command of the viceroy, Alvarez flew into a rage, and treated him with the most injurious language. The saint ceased not for a whole month to solicit the governor, and at length threatened him with excommunication in case he persisted thus to oppose the propagation of the gospel. Upon this occasion the saint produced the briefs of Paul III. by which he was appointed apostolic nuncio: which, out of humility, he had kept a profound secret during ten years that were expired since his coming to the Indies. The governor continued to laugh at the threats, so that the bishop’s grand vicar at length fulminated an excommunication against him in the name of Xavier, who seeing this design utterly destroyed, determined to go on board of a Portuguese ship that was setting sail for the isle of Sancian, a small barren island near Macao, on the coast of China. This governor was afterwards deposed for extortions and other crimes, by an order of the king, and sent in chains to Goa. St. Francis during this voyage wrought several miracles, and converted certain Mahometan passengers, and on the twenty-third day after the ship’s departure from Malacca, arrived at Sancian, where the Chinese permitted the Portuguese to come and buy their commodities When the project of the embassy had failed, St. Francis had sent the three Jesuits he had taken for his companions into Japan, and retained with him only a brother of the society (who was a Chinese, and had taken, the habit at Goa) and a young Indian. He hoped to find means with only two companions to land secretly in China. The merchants at Sancian endeavored o persuade him that his design was impracticable, all setting before, his eyes the rigorous laws of the government of China, that all the ports were narrowly guarded by vigilant officers who were neither to be circumvented nor bribed; and that the least he could expect was scourging and perpetual imprisonment. The saint was not to be deterred; and answered all these and many other reasons, saying, that to be terrified by such difficulties from undertaking the work of God, would be incomparably worse than all the evils with which they threatened him. He therefore took his measures for the voyage of China, and first of all provided himself with a good interpreter; for the Chinese he had brought with him from Goa was wholly ignorant of the language which is spoken at the court, and had almost forgotten the common idiom of the vulgar. Then the saint hired a Chinese merchant called Capoceca, to land him by night on some part of the coast where no houses were in view: for which service Xavier engaged to pay him two hundred pardos,* and bound himself by oath that no torments should ever bring him to confess either the name or house of him who had set him on shore.

The Portuguese at Sancian fearing this attempt might be revenged by the Chinese on them, endeavored to traverse the design. While the voyage was deferred Xavier fell sick, and when the Portuguese vessels were all gone except one, was reduced to extreme want of all necessaries. Also the Chinese interpreter whom he had hired, recalled his word. Yet the servant of God, who soon recovered of his illness, did not lose courage; and hearing that the king of Siam was preparing a magnificent embassy to the emperor of China, he resolved to use his best endeavors to obtain leave to accompany the ambassador of Siam. But God was pleased to accept his will in this good work, and took him to himself. A fever seized the saint a second time on the 20th of November, and at the same time he had a clear knowledge of the day and hour of his death, which he openly declared, to a friend, who afterwards made an authentic deposition of it by a solemn oath. From that moment he perceived in himself a strange disgust of all earthly things, and thought on nothing but that celestial country whither God was calling him. Being much weakened by his fever, he retired into the vessel which was the common hospital of the sick, that he might die in poverty. But the tossing of the ship giving him an extraordinary headache, and hindering him from applying himself to God as he desired, the day following he requested that he might be set on shore again; which was done. He was exposed on the sands to a piercing north wind; till George Alvarez, out of compassion; caused him to be carried into his cabin, which afforded a very poor shelter, being open on every side. The saint’s distemper, accompanied with an acute pain in his side, and a great oppression, increased daily: he was twice blooded, but the unskilful surgeon both times pricked the tendon, by which accident the patient fell into swooning convulsions. His disease was attended with a horrible nauseousness, insomuch that he could take no nourishment. But his countenance was always series and his soul enjoyed a perpetual calm. Sometimes he litted up his eyes to heaven, and at other times fixed them on his crucifix, entertaining divine conversation with his God, in which he shed abundance of tears. At last, on the 2d of December, which fell on Friday, having his eyes all bathed in tears, and fixed with great tenderness of soul upon his crucifix, he pronounced these words: In thee, O Lord, I have hoped: I shall not be confounded forever; and, at the same instant, transported with celestial joy, which appeared upon his countenance, he sweetly gave up the ghost, in 1552. Though he was only forty-six years old, of which he had passed ten and a half in the Indies, his continual labors had made him gray betimes, and in the last year of his life he was grizzled almost to whiteness. His corpse was interred on Sunday, being laid, after the Chinese fashion, in a large chest, which was filled up with unslaked lime, to the end that the flesh being consumed, the bones might be carried to Goa. On the 17th of February in 1553, the grave was opened to see if the flesh was consumed; but the lime being taken off the face, it was found ruddy and fresh colored like that of a man who is in a sweet repose. The body was in like manner whole, and the natural moisture uncorrupted; and the flesh being a little cut in the thigh, near the knee, the blood was seen to run from the wound. The sacerdotal habits in which the saint was buried, were no way endamaged by the lime; and the holy corpse exhaled an odor so fragrant and delightful, that the most exquisite perfumes came nothing near it. The sacred remains were carried into the ship, and brought to Malacca on the 22d of March, where it was received with great honor. The pestilence which for some weeks had laid waste the town, on a sudden ceased. The body was interred in a damp churchyard; yet in August was found entire, fresh, and still exhaling a sweet odor, and being honorably put into a ship, was translated to Goa, where it was received, and placed in the church of the college of St. Paul, on the 15th of March in 1554, upon which occasion several blind persons recovered their sight, and others, sick of palsies and other diseases, their health, and the use of their limbs. By order of king John III., a verbal process of the life and miracles of the man of God was made with the utmost accuracy at Goa, and in other parts of the Indies. Many miracles were wrought through his intercession, in several parts of the Indies and Europe, confessed by several Protestants;* and Tavernier calls him the St. Paul, and the true apostle of the Indies. St. Francis was beatified by Paul V. in 1554, and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1662. By an order of John V., king of Portugal, the archbishop of Goa, attended by the viceroy, the marquis of Castle Nuovo, in 1744, performed a visitation of the relics of St. Francis Xavier; at which time the body was found without the least bad smell, and seemed environed with a kind of shining brightness; and the face, hands, breast, and feet, had not suffered the least alteration, or symptom of corruption.10 In 1747, the same king obtained a brief of Benedict XIV., by which St. Francis Xavier is honored with the title of patron and protector of all the countries in the East Indies.

Holy zeal may properly be said to have formed the character of St. Francis Xavier. Consumed with an insatiable thirst of the salvation of souls, and of the dilatation of the honor and kingdom of Christ on earth, he ceased not with tears and prayers to conjure the Father of all men not to suffer those to perish whom he had created to his own divine image, made capable of knowing and loving him, and redeemed with the adorable blood of his Son; as is set forth in the excellent prayer of this saint, printed in many books of devotion. For this end the saint, like another St. Paul, made himself all to all and looked upon all fatigues sufferings, and dangers, as his pleasure and gain. In transports of zeal he invited and pressed others to labor in the conversion of infidels and sinners. In one of his letters to Europe, he wrote as follows:11 “I have often thought to run over all the universities of Europe, and principally that of Paris, and to cry aloud to those who abound more in learning than in charity. Ah! how many souls are lost to heaven through your neglect! Many, without doubt, would be moved, would make a spiritual retreat, and give themselves the leisure for meditating of heavenly things. They would renounce their passions, and, trampling under foot all worldly vanities, would put themselves in a condition of following the motions of the divine will. Then they would say: Behold me in readiness, O Lord. How much more happily would these learned men then live! With how much more assurance would they die! Millions of idolaters might be easily converted, if there were more preachers who would sincerely mind the interests of Jesus Christ, and not their own.” But the saint required missionaries that are prudent, charitable, mild, perfectly disinterested, and of so great purity of manners, that no occasions of sin weaken their constancy.12 “In vain,” says he, “would you commit this important employ to any, howsoever learned and otherwise qualified, unless they are laborious, mortified, and patient: unless they are ready to suffer willingly and with joy, hunger, and thirst, and the severest persecutions.”13 This saint was himself a model of such preachers, formed upon the spirit of the apostles. So absolute a master he was of his passions, that he knew not what it was to have the least motion of choler and impatience, and in all events was perfectly resigned to the divine will; from whence proceeded an admirable tranquillity of soul, a perpetual cheerfulness, and equality of countenance. He rejoiced in afflictions and sufferings, and said that one who had once experienced the sweetness of suffering for Christ, will ever after find it worse than death to live without a cross.14 By humility the saint was always ready to follow the advice of others, and attributed all blessings to their prayers, which he most earnestly implored. Of himself he always sincerely spoke as of the basest and most unworthy of men, with the most perfect sentiments of distrust in himself. The union of his soul with God by holy prayer raised him above the world. Ingulfed in deep meditations, he was sometimes found suspended in the air, with beams of glory round his countenance, as many ocular witnesses deposed.15