Daily Update: December 3, 2010

On this First Friday of the month, dedicated to devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we honor Saint Francis Xavier, Priest (died 1552). Born in 1506 at Javier, Spanish Navarre as Francisco de Jaso y Azpilicueta,  his family was of the Basque nobility. He studied and taught philosophy at the University of Paris, and planned a career as a professor. However, he was a friend of Saint Ignatius of Loyola who convinced him to use his talents to spread the Gospel. He was one of the founding Jesuits in 1534, and the first Jesuit missionary. He was ordained priest in 1537, and left Lisbon in 1541 for the Portuguese East Indies. In Goa, India, while waiting to take ship, he preached in the street, worked with the sick, and taught children their catechism. He would walk through the streets ringing a bell to call the children to their studies, and was said to have converted the entire city. He was a tremendously successful missionary for ten years in India, the East Indies, and Japan, baptizing more than 40,000 converts. His epic found him dining with head hunters, washing the sores of lepers in Venice, teaching catechism to Indian children, and baptizing 10,000 in a single month. He tolerated the most appalling conditions on long sea voyages, enduring extremes of heat and cold. Wherever he went he would seek out and help the poor and forgotten. He traveled thousands of miles, most on his bare feet, and he saw the greater part of the Far East, including Japan, but died before entering China. He had the gift of tongues, and was a miracle worker, being able to heal people and to calm storms. He is the Patron Saint of foreign missions.