Francis Xavier was born into an aristocratic Spanish family, and was educated in Paris. There he met Ignatius Loyola and became one of the original 7 Jesuits (Society of Jesus). They took vows to follow Christ in poverty and chastity and to evangelise the heathen. It is as an evangelist that Francis is remembered. He was a brave, passionate and completely single-minded man, whose duty and delight it was to preach the gospel in season and out of season.

Francis went to Lisbon, and then, at the invitation of King John III of Portugal, he and 2 companions went to Goa on the west coast of India, a Portuguese colony, arriving in May 1542. Francis travelled light, eating as the poorest of the people did and sleeping on the ground in a hut. He regarded the cruel way in which Europeans treated the Indians as “a permanent bruise on my soul”. He was continually calling Europeans to the love of Christ, as well as preaching Christ to the Indians, who had not heard the gospel before. He reformed the somewhat lax church in Goa, but spent much of his time in missionary travels despite suffering from chronic seasickness. Low caste Indians heard him gladly, but he had less success among the higher castes. Wherever he went, he organised Christian communities to carry on the work. His journeys took him from Goa to Travancore, Malacca, Ceylon and in 1549 to Japan.

Francis thought that his mission to Japan had not been successful, but in fact it laid great foundations, which bore fruit in the next generation. He carried out his mission successively in Kagoshima, Hirado and Yamaguchi. He learned Japanese and translated a brief statement of Christian beliefs into Japanese. Eventually he went to the capital, Miyako, and attempted to see the mikado. When not admitted because of his un-prepossessing poverty, he dressed in finery as a representative of the king of Portugal, and was admitted. He was granted a disused Buddhist monastery for his work. After establishing the church in Japan and leaving about 2,000 converts, Francis returned to Goa. He then set out for China, but died on the way there. Half a century later, the church in Japan came under severe persecution but it endures today.

BORN: 7 April 1506, Javier, Spain

DIED:3 December 1552, Shangchuan Island, Jiangmen, China