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| Rev. Fr. Augustine Vallooran V.C. |
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the
messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces
salvation." (Isaiah 52:7) These prophetic words resound
in the hearts of those who have taken up the pilgrimage to Goa to venerate the
uncorrupted body of St Francis Xavier exposed at the Bom Jesu Cathedral. It is
on the shores of Goa that the saint arrived on 6 May 1542 with the Light of the
Gospel. His untiring zeal for the proclamation of the Word took him to the
western coastlands of India and later to the far eastern countries where he
died in an island off the shore of China on 3 December 1552.
“More Precious Than Gold” (1 Peter 1:7)
Francis was born on 7 April
1506 in the Xavier castle, Navarre to an aristocratic family. His father was
the Privy Counselor to the King of Navarre. The Spanish invaded Navarre and
three years later his father died. Francis was only nine years old then. In this
Spanish invasion, the Xavier family lost all their fortunes except their
residence. The one ambition in the life of Francis was to restore the lost
fortunes to his family. Dreaming of a glorious future, he went to the most
reputed university of the time at Paris to study. His roommates were Peter
Faber and Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius had come to study after having been
badly wounded in a war and after a marvellous and radical conversion to Jesus
Christ. In the company of Ignatius, Peter Faber soon found the truth of life in
a personal commitment of his life to Jesus Christ. Francis Xavier however
insulated himself from this spiritual influence because of his worldly
ambitions. Ignatius of Loyola repeatedly spoke to him about Jesus Christ. The
one Scripture that Ignatius would keep proposing to him was this challenge, "For
what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?
Or what shall a man give in return for his life?" (Matthew 16:26) At one
sacred moment, this word struck Francis as a "double edged sword" (Hebrew 4:12),
transforming his life dramatically.
In the life of every saint
there's a sacred moment of finding the Lord. Jesus teaches us that this is the
spiritual dynamics of accepting the Kingdom. “The
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and
covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that
field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine
pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had
and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46)
In these two parables, Jesus
speaks about the finding and a joyful renouncing. The person who found the
treasure in the field was so fascinated by it that he went and sold everything
he owned and bought that field. In the same way, the merchant who found the
pearl of great price was so enamoured by its beauty that he sold every other
pearl he had joyfully. The joy in the renunciation was caused by the
fascination of the discovery.
Francis was a man of the world
who crowded his life with everything the world could offer. But once he met the
Lord, everything else became irrelevant. One is reminded the testimony of St
Paul. who said,
“Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and
count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”
(Philippians 3:8) At one time,
Saul had thought that the glory of his Roman citizenship and the meticulous
observation of the regulations of the Pharisaic law and his scholarship under
Gamaliel were all achievements that gave value to his life. Once he met the
Lord, everything changed. All he wanted was to become one with God! Even his life
was not of any importance for him since he preferred to die in order to be with
the Lord. His abandonment of worldly assets was not a painful renunciation but
a joyous liberation to pursue the goal of total oneness with the Lord.
“That People Might Seek God” (Acts 17:27)
Religion is today for many a
compromise with the ways of the world. The practice of the faith is confined to
an hour on a Sunday - and that too according to one’s convenience. To renounce
anything for God seems unreasonable, painful and not worth the exercise. God is
good enough only as far as He will satisfy our needs and answer our prayers. When
God seems to fail this purpose, people could even go from godman to godman to
get their ways. God seems to have become one of the providers in this
consumerist culture. Satisfaction of one’s personal needs has become the motive
of religion itself. God seems to be sidelined in the practice of religion and
the inflated ego has been enthroned. As a result radical commitment to God has
not just lost all its value but is counted as implausible. So now religion has
come to be centred on the corruptible.
It is in this background that
it is very telling that thousands are flocking to venerate the uncorrupted body
of St. Francis Xavier. This glorious body proclaims the radical commitment that
the saint had to the incorruptible. The words of Ignatius of Loyola challenged
him to leave behind the corruptible and embrace the incorruptible. This is an
echo of the challenge the Lord put forth when He spoke of the enduring quality
of life for those who had a firm foundation of a commitment to follow the Word
of God. “Every one then who hears these words of mine and does
them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain
fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it
did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)
“He Has Anointed Me To Bring Good News To The Poor” (Luke 4:18)
The unwavering zeal of the
saint to make Jesus known brought him to India. Following in the footsteps of
His Master Jesus Christ, it was to the lowly and the poor that he went with the
Good News. He had a heart for the sick and the downtrodden.
His preaching ministry was
greatly supported by charismatic gifts especially the gift of healing. Francis
Xavier writes to Ignatius of Loyola about a healing event, which opened the
doors of the whole village to the Good News of Christ. A woman was critically
ill and at the point of delivery. Neither was the child being born nor was she
getting better. Midwives and sorcerers were treating her with superstitious
incantations. Xavier went to the woman's home and called on the Name of Christ
to heal her. He wrote to Ignatius, “By the mercy of
God, the woman came to believe in Jesus Christ. I read excerpts from the
Gospels in that house where, I think, they were never heard before.” As soon as Francis prayed for her, she was healed
and gave birth to a healthy baby. The woman's family was so touched by this
divine intervention that they invited Francis to stay with them and instruct
and baptize all of them, including the newborn. News then traveled quickly
throughout the village. A representative of the local king gave the village
elders clearance to allow Francis to proclaim Christ there.
In another village, crowds
besieged Francis, begging him to pray for ailing family members. Missionary and
teaching duties overwhelmed him - so he enlisted some enthusiastic children to
minister to the sick. He writes to Ignatius that he taught the villagers
including the children to pray and sent them to the homes of the ailing. Xavier
not only responded to requests for prayer but he managed to train the villagers
to exercise their faith powerfully and proclaim the Word of God. Because the sick
and their families had faith, he said, “God has shown
great mercy to them, healing them in both body and soul.” He
indeed started the system of training catechists to build the Church by
preaching God’s Word and praying for the people.
When Francis Xavier was passing
through the Malabar coast, his preaching and miraculous powers of healing
attracted crowds. The King of Travancore invited him to the palace because his
son was critically ill. Francis prayed for him and the boy was healed
miraculously. The King called him “the grand priest” and allowed him to preach
and establish churches in his kingdom.
Francis, apart from preaching
and teaching the people, spent time nursing the sick, comforting the dying and
administering the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. He would visit the
prisons where he often counselled the inmates to repent and change their way of
life. He took a special interest in teaching children to pray. He knew the
importance of formation given to the children in their tender age so that the
future generation would be founded on firm truths. It is his famous words, “Give me the children until they are seven and anyone
may have them afterwards.”
Francis was well
known in the city as the priest who called upon the people of the town to
prayers - by walking around the streets and ringing the bell. After celebrating
Sunday Mass, he would go to the colony of lepers on the outskirts of the city.
There again he would administer the Sacraments to them, comforting them with
the Word of God. He was indeed the ambassador of God who dedicated his life “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness
of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn
upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death.” (Luke 1:77-79)
“Whether We Live Or Die, We Are The Lord’s” (Romans 14:8)
The saint was charged with a
great zeal to make Jesus known and accepted by all. Once he realized the
futility of pursuing the goal of life in this material world, he was
enlightened by God to realize that the evil in humankind is to remain satisfied
with the pleasures and gains of the world. He also was aware that greed for material
possessions has an addictive power holding man in chains. He knew this from his
own experience. Once he was liberated from the shackles of greed for more of
the world, he worked for the Good News of Jesus to be proclaimed to the whole
world. It is this great mission that he took up when he consented to take all
the hardship involved in going to the Eastern countries. No sacrifice for him
was too much to make Jesus known and accepted by all. The salvation found in
Jesus gripped his heart to such an extent that he wanted to lead the whole of
humankind to this life-transforming experience.
One is reminded of what St. Pope
John Paul II exhorted speaking of
mission, “Do
not be afraid. Do not settle for mediocrity. Putout into the deep and let down
your nets for a catch.” A life without Jesus at its centre will be
pursuing the superficial goals that will never satisfy the human heart as St. Augustine had long ago recognized: “Our hearts were made for you Lord. They will never find
rest until they find their rest in you.”
The heart of St. Francis grieved for the bulk of humanity wasting their
life running after the superficial pleasures of this world. Abiding joy comes
only in finding Jesus who is the treasure of great value. In the midst of his great
hardships and many struggles in his missionary journeys, his heart was
rejoicing in the great sense of achievement that he was living for the Lord who
called him and made him his own and that he was able to bring thousands to
accept Jesus as the goal of their lives. Even when he was shivering with fever
in that lonely shelter in a remote island off the China coast, and he knew
death was at hand, his heart was so filled with the heavenly comfort that he
seems to have cried out, “Sufficient my
Lord, sufficient.” A man who
could have spent his life in the lap of luxury and wasting his resources in
useless pursuits had found the fullness of heavenly joy in living and dying for
the Lord. St. Francis Xavier had a message not only for the people of his time
but his life continues to inspire the men and women right up to our age.
His uncorrupted body proclaims
to the whole world the way of incorruptible living. When one chooses to live
and die for Christ and for the Kingdom of God what is gained is the eternal. “It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power; it
is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1
Corinthians 15:42-44)
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus we thank You for the gift of St. Francis Xavier who
reveals to the world that when we are consumed by Your Love, we will live
forever. We praise You, O God, for the way You touched his heart with the fire
of Your Love and made him a powerful instrument bringing Your Good News in a
mighty manner across the nations. We offer to You every one of us and we pray
that You would renew us by Your Holy Spirit that we may live for You and that our
lives will bring Your Light to this world.
Amen.
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