St. Francis Xavior who converted the coastal plains
I remember my father's stories about St. Xavier walked through our sea shore of my village, and he believes that our ancestors were converted by his baptism.
St. Francis Xavier
Ignatius of Loyola assigned Francis to work in India, and on May 6 1542, Francis arrived in Goa after a yearlong voyage. From there, Francis Xavier began to work among the poor of South India, Malacca, and the Moluccas Islands (Indonesia). Francis wrote that like a crazy man he could scream in the universities of Europe, that millions upon millions are waiting to hear God's World... and he felt that not one student was willing to say "Here I am, Lord. What do you want me to do?" like Samuel in the Bible.
Francis Xavier (Francisco de Jassu y Javier, 1506-1552), was the first Jesuit missionary and the prototype who inspired many men to enter the Society of Jesus and evangelize far off nations. One of the original group of seven men who founded the Jesuits, he was sent to India before the new religious order received formal approval from the Church.
Xavier was born in his family's small castle in Navarre, in the north of Spain, and there received his early education. In September 1525 he went to Paris to begin university studies at the College of Sainte-Barbe where his roommate was Peter Faber (Pierre Favre) from the Savoy region of France. Four years later everything changed when an older student moved in, Ignatius Loyola (Iñigo Lopez de Loyola), a failed Basque courtier given to prayer. Loyola soon won Faber over to wanting to become a priest and work for the salvation of souls, but Xavier aspired to a worldly career and was not at all interested in being a priest. He earned his licentiate degree in the spring of 1530 and began teaching Aristotle at the College of Dormans-Beauvais; he remained living in the room with Favre and Loyola. When Faber went to visit his family in 1533, Ignatius finally broke through to Xavier who yielded to the grace God was offering him. Four other students also became close friends through their conversations with Ignatius who was became a spiritual guide and inspired the whole group with his desire to go to the Holy Land. Xavier joined his friends Aug. 15, 1534 in the chapel of Saint-Denis in Montmartre as they all pronounced private vows of poverty, chastity and going to the Holy Land to convert infidels.
Xavier and Loyola began studying theology in 1534. Two years later Xavier set out for Venice with the rest of the group except for Loyola who had returned to Spain earlier. Venice was the point of departure for ships going to the Holy Land. The companions spent two months waiting for a ship and working in hospitals, then went to Rome to ask papal permission for their pilgrimage and ordination of the non-priests among them. Xavier, Loyola and four others were ordained by the papal delegate in his private chapel on June 24, 1537. And they continued to wait for a ship, but because of Venice's impending war with the Turks none sailed for a whole year, something quite extraordinary. The companions then decided that Ignatius should go to Rome and place the group at the disposal of the pope. Meanwhile, they would go to various university centers and start preaching. Xavier and Nicholas Bobadilla went to Bologna.
Xavier went to Rome in April 1538 and began preaching in the French church of St. Louis. He also took part in the famous deliberations during Lent 1539 in which the companions agreed to form a new religious order. Before Pope Paul III granted his approval of the plan, he asked Ignatius to accede to King John III of Portugal's request to send two of the companions to the new colony in India. Ignatius chose Simon Rodrigues and Nicholas Bobadilla, but the latter got sick and could not go. Francis Xavier was the only one of the companions not already committed to a work so Ignatius asked him to go, even though they were the closest friends and the departure meant that they would never see each other again.
Xavier and Rodrigues left Rome March 15, 1540 and arrived in Lisbon by the end of June. The fleet had already left so the two priests had to remain in Lisbon until the following spring. They devoted themselves to preaching and caring for prisoners. The king was so taken by their work that he asked one of them to stay and start a school; Rodrigues was chosen, leaving Xavier to head off alone as the first Jesuit missionary. As Xavier boarded the ship Santiagio, the king's messenger gave him a letter in which the pope named him apostolic nuncio, which meant that he had authority over all Portuguese clergy in Goa. The ship set sail April 7, 1541, on Xavier's thirty-fifth birthday.
It took 13 months for Xavier to arrive in Goa, including a long wait in Mozambique for favorable winds. As soon as he arrived, the energetic Spaniard set about preaching to the Portuguese, visiting prisons and ministering to lepers. He also tried to learn Tamil, but had to rely on interpreters for his first mission to the Paravas, pearl fishers who lived on India's southeastern shore above Cape Comorin. They had converted to Christianity but been without a pastor, so Xavier reinstructed them in the faith, baptized those who were ready and prepared catechists to remain with them as he moved on from one village to the next. By the end of 1544 he reached the western shore of India at Travancore; in November and December of that year he is reported to have baptized 10,000 persons. He moved northward to Cochin, and then sailed to the Portuguese city of Malacca in Malaya; from there he headed for his goal, the Moluccas, or the Spice Islands where he landed on Feb. 14, 1546. He visited the Christian villages and baptized over 1,000 persons at nearby Seran. Then he did a reconnaissance trip to the islands Ternate and Moro, known for its headhunters. He returned to Malacca in July 1547 and arranged for two Jesuits to take his place.
When Xavier returned to Malacca, he learned about Japan from a Japanese nobleman named Anjiro who was interested in becoming a Christian. This revelation of a culturally advanced nation that had not yet heard of Christ captured the Spanish Jesuit's imagination. Before he could do anything about Japan, Xavier had to return to Goa to fulfill his responsibilities as mission superior and assign newly arrived Jesuits to their posts. He was not able to set sail for Japan with Anjiro and several Jesuits until April 1549. The party got back to Malacca easily enough but could find no ship's captain willing to take the risk of sailing into unknown waters. So Xavier hired a pirate to take them. They left June 24, 1549 and landed on August 15 at Kagoshima in southern Japan, Anjiro's home city.
At first the mission went very smoothly. The local prince gave permission to the foreigners to preach Christianity, but he himself would not convert. Xavier decided that the way to convert Japan was to begin with the emperor, but no one would tell him how to get to the Imperial City, Miyako (today's Tokyo). They spent a year in Kagoshima but only made 100 converts, so the Jesuits left for Hirado, a port used by the Portuguese on the upper coast of Kyushu. Another 100 Japanese became Christians but Xavier remained eager to see the emperor, so he moved to the country's second largest city, Yamaguchi. He preached in the streets but suffered a very unsuccessful meeting with the daimyo, so he left that city in December 1550 for Sakai.
Their fortune turned and they finally found a prince willing to take them to the Imperial City. Xavier and Brother John Fernandez were hired as domestic servants and arrived in January 1551, the first Catholic missionaries to see Asia's largest and most beautiful city. For 11 days they tried without success to secure an audience with the emperor, so they returned to Hirado. They went back, though, with the knowledge that the most powerful lord in Japan was not the emperor, but the daimyo of Yamaguchi, whom they had failed to convince in their first meeting. Xavier resolved to try again, appearing not as a poorly-clad European but as an individual worthy of the daimyo's attention.
The two Jesuits rented horses and a litter and dressed themselves in colorful silken robes. When they ceremoniously arrived in Yamaguchi, they were received at the daimyo's palace without any suspicion that they were the same barbarians who had been brushed away only months earlier. Xavier presented the daimyo with expensive gifts of clocks, music boxes, mirrors, crystals, cloth and wine as signs of friendship; and he presented impressive credentials: letters from King John III of Portugal and Pope Paul III. The daimyo granted the Jesuit's request to preach the Christian religion in the empire, and gave people the freedom to become Christians if they wanted to. He also gave the Jesuits a residence in the city, where many people visited. Within six months they had gained 500 converts.
Xavier thought it was time for him to move on so he brought Father Cosmas de Torres to replace him in Yamaguchi so he could return to India. Xavier set out in September 1551, and found a ship for Malacca. He hoped to return to Japan the following year, but the ship got caught in a typhoon that drove it 1,000 miles off course. On December 17, the vessel entered the Bay of Canton and anchored off Sancian Island. As Xavier looked towards nearby China, he felt that country calling him. The two Jesuits were able to board a ship that happened to be bound for Singapore, which they reached at the end of the month. There Xavier found a letter from Ignatius appointing him provincial of the "Indies and the countries beyond."
He was back in India in January 1552 and found another letter telling him to return to Rome to report on the mission; he decided that visit could wait until he had first gone to China. In April 1552 Xavier set out from India and entered the Bay of Canton in September. He landed on Sancian Island which was both a hideout for Chinese smugglers and a base for Portuguese traders. None of the smugglers was willing to risk taking the Jesuit missionary over to China; one who said he was, took Xavier's money and then disappeared. On November 21 he came down with a fever and could not leave his leafy hut on the island's shore. Seven days later he fell into a coma, but on December 1 regained consciousness and devoted himself to prayer during his waking hours. He died on the morning of December 3 and was buried on the island, but his remains were later taken to Malacca and then to Goa where they were interred in the church Bom Jesus.
He was canonized in 1622 and made patron of the Propagation of the Faith in 1910 and in 1927 was named patron of the missions.
His writtings:
Letter from India - 1544
Many times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your lands and of crying out there, like a man who has lost his mind, and especially at the University of Paris, telling those in the Sorbonne who have a greater regard for learning than desire to prepare themselves to produce fruit with it. Thousands upon thousands, and millions upon millions are waiting to hear God’s Word - and I felt that not one student is willing to say ‘Here I am, Lord. What do you want me to do?’ like Samuel in the Bible. Send me wherever you will, and if need be, even to the Indies. Thousands would be converted if there were enough workers!
Evangelization through Children and bells
Letter from India - 1544
We could not understand one another, as I spoke Castilian and they Malabar; so I picked out the most intelligent and well-read of them, and then sought out with the greatest diligence men who knew both languages. We held meetings for several days, and by our joint efforts and with infinite difficulty we translated the Catechism into the Malabar tongue. This I learnt by heart, and then I began to go through all the villages of the coast, calling around me by the sound of a bell as many as I could, children and men. I assembled them twice a day and taught them the Christian doctrine: and thus, in the space of a month, the children had it well by heart. And all the time I kept telling them to go on teaching in their turn whatever they had learnt to their parents, family, and neighbors.
Mission Ministry
Letter from India -1544
I had been living for nearly four months in a Christian village, occupied in translating the Catechism. A great number of natives came from all parts to entreat me to take the trouble to go to their houses and call on God by the bedsides of their sick relatives. Such numbers also of sick made their own way to us, that I had enough to do to read a Gospel over each of them. At the same time we kept on with our daily work, instructing the children, baptizing converts, translating the Catechism, answering difficulties, and burying the dead. For my part I desired to satisfy all, both the sick who came to me themselves, and those who came to beg on the part of others, lest if I did not, their confidence in, and zeal for, our holy religion should relax, and I thought it wrong not to do what I could in answer to their prayers. But the thing grew to such a pitch that it was impossible for me myself to satisfy all, and at the same time to avoid their quarrelling among themselves, every one striving to be the first to get me to his own house; so I hit on a way of serving all at once. As I could not go myself, I sent round children whom I could trust in my place. They went to the sick persons, assembled their families and neighbors, recited the Creed with them, and encouraged the sufferers to conceive a certain and well-founded confidence of their restoration. Then after all this, they recited the prayers of the Church. To make my tale short, God was moved by the faith and piety of these children and of the others, and restored to a great number of sick persons health both of body and soul. How good He was to them! He made the very disease of their bodies the occasion of calling them to salvation, and drew them to the Christian faith almost by force!
With the Bonzes in Japan
Letter from Japan, 1551
On our arrival at the native place of our good Paul, we were received very kindly indeed by his relations and friends. They all of them became Christians, being led by what Paul told them; and that they might be thoroughly confirmed in the truth of our religion, we remained in that place a whole year and more. In that time more than a hundred were gathered into the fold of Christ. The rest might have done so if they had been willing, without giving any offence to their kinsfolk or relations. But the bonzes admonished the prince (who is very powerful, the lord of several towns), that if he allowed his people to embrace the Christian religion, his whole dominion would be destroyed, and the ancestral gods of the country, which they call pagodas, would come to be despised by the natives.
Appreciation of local cultures
Letter from Japan - 1551
We have now translated this book on Christ, for such it was, into Japanese with great labor, and have written it in our own characters. Out of this we read what I have mentioned to those who came to the faith of Christ, that the converts might know how to worship God and Jesus Christ with piety and to their souls' health. And when we went on to expound these things in our discourses, the Christians delighted in them very much, as seeing how true the things were which we had taught them. The Japanese are certainly of remarkably good dispositions, and follow reason wonderfully. They see clearly that their ancestral law is false and the law of God true, but they are deterred by fear of their prince from submitting to the Christian religion.
St. Xavier and HOLY CROSS CHURCH
Manapad is a coastal village in India, 70 km from Tirunelveli and 18 km south of Tiruchendur, and one of the first places to be visited by St. Francis Xavier in 1542 when he initiated missionary activity on the Fishery coast. Francis Xavier is said to have lived and prayed in a cavern on the seaward face of a cliff. Holy Cross Church close to the sea was built in the year 1581. This church has what is believed to be a fragment of the True Cross of Jerusalem. Thousands congregate during the festival season from 1 to 14 September every year when the cross is publicly displayed.
History
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is celebrated annually by the Catholic Church on 14 September, as one of thanksgiving for the recovery of the True Cross from the Persians by the great Emperor Heraclius. Fragments of the True Cross were in due course brought from Jerusalem to many churches dedicated to the Holy Cross in the East and West. These churches sought to imitate the solemn ceremonies in use at Jerusalem in order to do homage to the Holy Cross. Possibly one of the earliest dedications to the Cross in India was the Church of the Holy Cross in Manapad. Throughout the year many pilgrims visit the church and thousands congregate during the festive season from first to fourteenth September.
Traditional Origin of the Church
Tradition has it that around 1540, a Portuguese trading vessel, while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on its way to the East, encountered a violent storm and had its sails split and the hind mast snapped. The vessel ran the risk of foundering. The Captain, who was devoted to the veneration of the Holy Cross, implored and entrusted the safety of the vessel and that of the crew to the crucified Christ. He also made a vow that he would construct a cross from a portion of the splintered mast and have it planted on the shore where they alighted in safety. By chance, the vessel after having drifted for several days soughthaven in the then well known port of Kulesakharapatnam.
The first miracle is said to have occurred when the cross was still in the form of a log cut off from the broken mast. It is said that when the log was lying on the shore an inhabitant of the village who had trampled on filth had cleansed his foot on this log. No sooner had he wiped his leg than he felt a pain and instantaneous swelling of the leg too. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was able to return home. That night the man had a vision in which it was revealed to him that the ailment was due to his defiling the log intended for a sacred purpose. He was asked to wipe the muck off the log, smear the log with oil, and then apply the same oil to his foot to cure it. Early next morning, the patient was carried to the log, and to the amazement of the crowd that had collected there, the man was cured immediately and able to walk back home unaided. This remarkable event made the planting of the Cross by the Captain an occasion of great piety and festivity. From then onwards, the name and fame of the Captain's cross spread throughout the Coromandel Coast.
Arrival of St. Francis Xavier
Manapad was mostly inhabited by the Paravars who had embraced Christianity in 1532. However, for want of missionaries, the neophytes remained nominal Christians until the arrival and ministration of St. Francis Xavier. The saint who arrived in Manapad in October 1542 found two spots which impelled him to choose Manapad as his favorite haunt during his sojourn on the Pearl Fishery Coast. One was a grotto carved out of the rocky ledge, which he preferred to use for a home. This cave was known in pre-Christian era as "Valli's cave", a counterpart of the one at Tiruchendur. It is now a signal grotto having at its outer entrance a stone tablet inscribed: "This cave, the dwelling of a saivitesanyasi, has been sanctified by the prayers and penance of St. Francis Xavier". The lonely hermitage chosen by Francis Xavier depicts his thirst for austerity and renunciation.
The other spot that induced him to choose Manapad was the Captain's Cross with its raised platform and an overhead covering, almost providing a built-in chapel enabling him to offer daily the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. St. Francis Xavier toiled among the Paravars, instructing and ministering all along the Pearl Fishery Coast until November 1543 when he returned to Goa. He was again at Manapad in March, June, August and September 1544 and went to Travancore in November. This is the well inside the cave where St.Francis Xavier resided. The water is sweet though it is only few feet away
Xavier's First Miracle
Xavier was held in high regard by the people of Manapad for his austerity, moral strictness, compassion, and wise counsel. During his stay there, with the help of the pandits of Manapad he translated the rudiments of the common prayers and trained the first catechists.
While at Manapad, the saint had two youngsters, Augustine Paiva and Anthony Miranda, trained as acolytes. One day at dawn when Augustine was on his way to the Captain's Cross where Xavier offered the Eucharistic Service daily, a few yards away on the pathway, he saw his companion Anthony lying still and frothing at the mouth. Augustine was terror-stricken by the sight of a deadly cobra crawling away. However, Augustine approached Anthony and tried to rouse him, but upon finding no pulse, ran to the saint's niche. Bursting into tears, he related what he saw. Unperturbed, the saint raised his head heavenwards, exclaimed some prayers and rushed to the scene. Blessing Anthony's body, he called upon Anthony to get up. To the amazement of all gathered there, Anthony Miranda not only got up, but followed the saint and assisted him at the Holy Mass as usual. The first miracle of his life had such an impact that the people in and around Manapad started venerating him as a saint long before he was canonized by the Church.
The Church of the Holy Cross
After more miracles, the church of the Holy Cross was built in the year 1581, on the same spot encasing the Captain's Cross. It is said that contributions towards building of the church were spontaneously given by the inhabitants, and Rev. Fr.John de Salanova, the parish priest of the only church in the village then dedicated to the "Queen of Heaven", was able to complete construction long before the scheduled time.
The relic of the True Cross
With the erection of the church, Rev.John de Salanova deemed that it was worthy to possess the relic of the True Cross. As such, in 1583 he appealed to Rome through the General of the Jesuits very Rev. Fr.Aquaviva for a fragment of the True Cross. Pope Gregory XIII graciously obliged. The relic is said to have arrived at Cochin in the first week of August 1583, since Cochin was then the mother of all the Latin Dioceses in South India and Ceylon. The most Rev. Mathew de Medina of the Order of Christ, the prelate of Cochin, is said to have received the relic. Having had it exposed for three days for the veneration of the faithful, he inaugurated the grand tour of the relic all along the coastal belt with halts in places of Catholic predominance. The procession is said to have reached Manapad a few days before the festival of the Exaltation of the True Cross. Many Catholics were said to have followed in procession with the relic. Thus it is that Manapad came to be a traditional place of pilgrimage to those of the Malabar Coast.
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Though with the conferment of the fragment of the True Cross, the feast attained a certain dignity, it was only after the inauguration of the Confraternity of the Five Sacred Wounds of Our Lord that the festival won recognition as a major festival. The Confraternity was approved by His Holiness Pope Benedict XIII on 25 February 1725 and on May 28 of the same year was established in the Church of Holy Cross in Manapad. Thereafter the Confraternity of the Five Sacred Wounds of Our Lord has been instrumental in the celebration of the festival with pomp and piety.
The most solemnity and pageantry occurs during the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, when mostly maritime pilgrims throng to Manapad from the Coromandel and Kerala Coasts. They can be seen in village or family groups performing the Way of the Cross as they cover the fourteen stations built on the hillock, reminiscent of Jesus Christ's last journey on Mount Calvary. Presumably, it is this resemblance that prompted His Holiness Pope Leo XIII to refer to Manapad as "A Little Jerusalem". Incidentally, there are many who decline quick transport to trudge many miles as reparation for their sinful lives. For many, the hardship is eclipsed by joyful participation in a 300 year-old tradition, the procession of the relic of the True Cross when they join the thousands singing praises:
Forth comes the standard of the kings!
All hail, thou mystery adored!
Hail, cross on which the life Himself died and by death our life restored!
Notable Religious Art
There has been much speculation about the crucifix that adorns the high altar of Holy Cross Church. The most popular belief is that the crucifix had come together with the well-known "Our Lady of Snows" statue in the Our Lady of Snows Basilica in Tuticorin. This assumption is untenable, because there was no church or priest in Manapad until sometime in the fifteen seventies. However, both the crucifix and the "Our Lady of Snows" statue originate from Manila, with the crucifix sent at a later date.
The two aforementioned items, as well as a statue of Child Jesus, were carried to Manila by Captain Ferdinand Magellan, a Spanish explorer who arrived in Cebu, Philippines, in March 1521. The first converts by Magellan were a chief named Humabon and his queen. The latter, baptized as Juana, was given the statue of Child Jesus, which came to be known as Santo Nino de Cebu, standing to this day above the high altar of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño. This statue for many millions of Catholic Filipinos is a national heritage. Magellan's statue of Our Lady is a replica of the statue in the church of St. Mary of the Snows in Rome. It was gifted to Tuticorin by the Prioress of the convent in Manila in 1555. Subsequently, Fr. John de Salanova sought Magellan's crucifix for his newly constructed church of the Holy Cross in Manapad. The Prioress was cooperative due to the rare papal conferment of the relic of the True Cross to Manapad. The exact date of the receipt of the crucifix is unknown.
Source: Encyclopedia
St. Francis Xavier
Ignatius of Loyola assigned Francis to work in India, and on May 6 1542, Francis arrived in Goa after a yearlong voyage. From there, Francis Xavier began to work among the poor of South India, Malacca, and the Moluccas Islands (Indonesia). Francis wrote that like a crazy man he could scream in the universities of Europe, that millions upon millions are waiting to hear God's World... and he felt that not one student was willing to say "Here I am, Lord. What do you want me to do?" like Samuel in the Bible.
Francis Xavier (Francisco de Jassu y Javier, 1506-1552), was the first Jesuit missionary and the prototype who inspired many men to enter the Society of Jesus and evangelize far off nations. One of the original group of seven men who founded the Jesuits, he was sent to India before the new religious order received formal approval from the Church.
Xavier was born in his family's small castle in Navarre, in the north of Spain, and there received his early education. In September 1525 he went to Paris to begin university studies at the College of Sainte-Barbe where his roommate was Peter Faber (Pierre Favre) from the Savoy region of France. Four years later everything changed when an older student moved in, Ignatius Loyola (Iñigo Lopez de Loyola), a failed Basque courtier given to prayer. Loyola soon won Faber over to wanting to become a priest and work for the salvation of souls, but Xavier aspired to a worldly career and was not at all interested in being a priest. He earned his licentiate degree in the spring of 1530 and began teaching Aristotle at the College of Dormans-Beauvais; he remained living in the room with Favre and Loyola. When Faber went to visit his family in 1533, Ignatius finally broke through to Xavier who yielded to the grace God was offering him. Four other students also became close friends through their conversations with Ignatius who was became a spiritual guide and inspired the whole group with his desire to go to the Holy Land. Xavier joined his friends Aug. 15, 1534 in the chapel of Saint-Denis in Montmartre as they all pronounced private vows of poverty, chastity and going to the Holy Land to convert infidels.
Xavier and Loyola began studying theology in 1534. Two years later Xavier set out for Venice with the rest of the group except for Loyola who had returned to Spain earlier. Venice was the point of departure for ships going to the Holy Land. The companions spent two months waiting for a ship and working in hospitals, then went to Rome to ask papal permission for their pilgrimage and ordination of the non-priests among them. Xavier, Loyola and four others were ordained by the papal delegate in his private chapel on June 24, 1537. And they continued to wait for a ship, but because of Venice's impending war with the Turks none sailed for a whole year, something quite extraordinary. The companions then decided that Ignatius should go to Rome and place the group at the disposal of the pope. Meanwhile, they would go to various university centers and start preaching. Xavier and Nicholas Bobadilla went to Bologna.
Xavier went to Rome in April 1538 and began preaching in the French church of St. Louis. He also took part in the famous deliberations during Lent 1539 in which the companions agreed to form a new religious order. Before Pope Paul III granted his approval of the plan, he asked Ignatius to accede to King John III of Portugal's request to send two of the companions to the new colony in India. Ignatius chose Simon Rodrigues and Nicholas Bobadilla, but the latter got sick and could not go. Francis Xavier was the only one of the companions not already committed to a work so Ignatius asked him to go, even though they were the closest friends and the departure meant that they would never see each other again.
Xavier and Rodrigues left Rome March 15, 1540 and arrived in Lisbon by the end of June. The fleet had already left so the two priests had to remain in Lisbon until the following spring. They devoted themselves to preaching and caring for prisoners. The king was so taken by their work that he asked one of them to stay and start a school; Rodrigues was chosen, leaving Xavier to head off alone as the first Jesuit missionary. As Xavier boarded the ship Santiagio, the king's messenger gave him a letter in which the pope named him apostolic nuncio, which meant that he had authority over all Portuguese clergy in Goa. The ship set sail April 7, 1541, on Xavier's thirty-fifth birthday.
It took 13 months for Xavier to arrive in Goa, including a long wait in Mozambique for favorable winds. As soon as he arrived, the energetic Spaniard set about preaching to the Portuguese, visiting prisons and ministering to lepers. He also tried to learn Tamil, but had to rely on interpreters for his first mission to the Paravas, pearl fishers who lived on India's southeastern shore above Cape Comorin. They had converted to Christianity but been without a pastor, so Xavier reinstructed them in the faith, baptized those who were ready and prepared catechists to remain with them as he moved on from one village to the next. By the end of 1544 he reached the western shore of India at Travancore; in November and December of that year he is reported to have baptized 10,000 persons. He moved northward to Cochin, and then sailed to the Portuguese city of Malacca in Malaya; from there he headed for his goal, the Moluccas, or the Spice Islands where he landed on Feb. 14, 1546. He visited the Christian villages and baptized over 1,000 persons at nearby Seran. Then he did a reconnaissance trip to the islands Ternate and Moro, known for its headhunters. He returned to Malacca in July 1547 and arranged for two Jesuits to take his place.
When Xavier returned to Malacca, he learned about Japan from a Japanese nobleman named Anjiro who was interested in becoming a Christian. This revelation of a culturally advanced nation that had not yet heard of Christ captured the Spanish Jesuit's imagination. Before he could do anything about Japan, Xavier had to return to Goa to fulfill his responsibilities as mission superior and assign newly arrived Jesuits to their posts. He was not able to set sail for Japan with Anjiro and several Jesuits until April 1549. The party got back to Malacca easily enough but could find no ship's captain willing to take the risk of sailing into unknown waters. So Xavier hired a pirate to take them. They left June 24, 1549 and landed on August 15 at Kagoshima in southern Japan, Anjiro's home city.
At first the mission went very smoothly. The local prince gave permission to the foreigners to preach Christianity, but he himself would not convert. Xavier decided that the way to convert Japan was to begin with the emperor, but no one would tell him how to get to the Imperial City, Miyako (today's Tokyo). They spent a year in Kagoshima but only made 100 converts, so the Jesuits left for Hirado, a port used by the Portuguese on the upper coast of Kyushu. Another 100 Japanese became Christians but Xavier remained eager to see the emperor, so he moved to the country's second largest city, Yamaguchi. He preached in the streets but suffered a very unsuccessful meeting with the daimyo, so he left that city in December 1550 for Sakai.
Their fortune turned and they finally found a prince willing to take them to the Imperial City. Xavier and Brother John Fernandez were hired as domestic servants and arrived in January 1551, the first Catholic missionaries to see Asia's largest and most beautiful city. For 11 days they tried without success to secure an audience with the emperor, so they returned to Hirado. They went back, though, with the knowledge that the most powerful lord in Japan was not the emperor, but the daimyo of Yamaguchi, whom they had failed to convince in their first meeting. Xavier resolved to try again, appearing not as a poorly-clad European but as an individual worthy of the daimyo's attention.
The two Jesuits rented horses and a litter and dressed themselves in colorful silken robes. When they ceremoniously arrived in Yamaguchi, they were received at the daimyo's palace without any suspicion that they were the same barbarians who had been brushed away only months earlier. Xavier presented the daimyo with expensive gifts of clocks, music boxes, mirrors, crystals, cloth and wine as signs of friendship; and he presented impressive credentials: letters from King John III of Portugal and Pope Paul III. The daimyo granted the Jesuit's request to preach the Christian religion in the empire, and gave people the freedom to become Christians if they wanted to. He also gave the Jesuits a residence in the city, where many people visited. Within six months they had gained 500 converts.
Xavier thought it was time for him to move on so he brought Father Cosmas de Torres to replace him in Yamaguchi so he could return to India. Xavier set out in September 1551, and found a ship for Malacca. He hoped to return to Japan the following year, but the ship got caught in a typhoon that drove it 1,000 miles off course. On December 17, the vessel entered the Bay of Canton and anchored off Sancian Island. As Xavier looked towards nearby China, he felt that country calling him. The two Jesuits were able to board a ship that happened to be bound for Singapore, which they reached at the end of the month. There Xavier found a letter from Ignatius appointing him provincial of the "Indies and the countries beyond."
He was back in India in January 1552 and found another letter telling him to return to Rome to report on the mission; he decided that visit could wait until he had first gone to China. In April 1552 Xavier set out from India and entered the Bay of Canton in September. He landed on Sancian Island which was both a hideout for Chinese smugglers and a base for Portuguese traders. None of the smugglers was willing to risk taking the Jesuit missionary over to China; one who said he was, took Xavier's money and then disappeared. On November 21 he came down with a fever and could not leave his leafy hut on the island's shore. Seven days later he fell into a coma, but on December 1 regained consciousness and devoted himself to prayer during his waking hours. He died on the morning of December 3 and was buried on the island, but his remains were later taken to Malacca and then to Goa where they were interred in the church Bom Jesus.
He was canonized in 1622 and made patron of the Propagation of the Faith in 1910 and in 1927 was named patron of the missions.
His writtings:
Letter from India - 1544
Many times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your lands and of crying out there, like a man who has lost his mind, and especially at the University of Paris, telling those in the Sorbonne who have a greater regard for learning than desire to prepare themselves to produce fruit with it. Thousands upon thousands, and millions upon millions are waiting to hear God’s Word - and I felt that not one student is willing to say ‘Here I am, Lord. What do you want me to do?’ like Samuel in the Bible. Send me wherever you will, and if need be, even to the Indies. Thousands would be converted if there were enough workers!
Evangelization through Children and bells
Letter from India - 1544
We could not understand one another, as I spoke Castilian and they Malabar; so I picked out the most intelligent and well-read of them, and then sought out with the greatest diligence men who knew both languages. We held meetings for several days, and by our joint efforts and with infinite difficulty we translated the Catechism into the Malabar tongue. This I learnt by heart, and then I began to go through all the villages of the coast, calling around me by the sound of a bell as many as I could, children and men. I assembled them twice a day and taught them the Christian doctrine: and thus, in the space of a month, the children had it well by heart. And all the time I kept telling them to go on teaching in their turn whatever they had learnt to their parents, family, and neighbors.
Mission Ministry
Letter from India -1544
I had been living for nearly four months in a Christian village, occupied in translating the Catechism. A great number of natives came from all parts to entreat me to take the trouble to go to their houses and call on God by the bedsides of their sick relatives. Such numbers also of sick made their own way to us, that I had enough to do to read a Gospel over each of them. At the same time we kept on with our daily work, instructing the children, baptizing converts, translating the Catechism, answering difficulties, and burying the dead. For my part I desired to satisfy all, both the sick who came to me themselves, and those who came to beg on the part of others, lest if I did not, their confidence in, and zeal for, our holy religion should relax, and I thought it wrong not to do what I could in answer to their prayers. But the thing grew to such a pitch that it was impossible for me myself to satisfy all, and at the same time to avoid their quarrelling among themselves, every one striving to be the first to get me to his own house; so I hit on a way of serving all at once. As I could not go myself, I sent round children whom I could trust in my place. They went to the sick persons, assembled their families and neighbors, recited the Creed with them, and encouraged the sufferers to conceive a certain and well-founded confidence of their restoration. Then after all this, they recited the prayers of the Church. To make my tale short, God was moved by the faith and piety of these children and of the others, and restored to a great number of sick persons health both of body and soul. How good He was to them! He made the very disease of their bodies the occasion of calling them to salvation, and drew them to the Christian faith almost by force!
With the Bonzes in Japan
Letter from Japan, 1551
On our arrival at the native place of our good Paul, we were received very kindly indeed by his relations and friends. They all of them became Christians, being led by what Paul told them; and that they might be thoroughly confirmed in the truth of our religion, we remained in that place a whole year and more. In that time more than a hundred were gathered into the fold of Christ. The rest might have done so if they had been willing, without giving any offence to their kinsfolk or relations. But the bonzes admonished the prince (who is very powerful, the lord of several towns), that if he allowed his people to embrace the Christian religion, his whole dominion would be destroyed, and the ancestral gods of the country, which they call pagodas, would come to be despised by the natives.
Appreciation of local cultures
Letter from Japan - 1551
We have now translated this book on Christ, for such it was, into Japanese with great labor, and have written it in our own characters. Out of this we read what I have mentioned to those who came to the faith of Christ, that the converts might know how to worship God and Jesus Christ with piety and to their souls' health. And when we went on to expound these things in our discourses, the Christians delighted in them very much, as seeing how true the things were which we had taught them. The Japanese are certainly of remarkably good dispositions, and follow reason wonderfully. They see clearly that their ancestral law is false and the law of God true, but they are deterred by fear of their prince from submitting to the Christian religion.
St. Xavier and HOLY CROSS CHURCH
Manapad is a coastal village in India, 70 km from Tirunelveli and 18 km south of Tiruchendur, and one of the first places to be visited by St. Francis Xavier in 1542 when he initiated missionary activity on the Fishery coast. Francis Xavier is said to have lived and prayed in a cavern on the seaward face of a cliff. Holy Cross Church close to the sea was built in the year 1581. This church has what is believed to be a fragment of the True Cross of Jerusalem. Thousands congregate during the festival season from 1 to 14 September every year when the cross is publicly displayed.
History
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is celebrated annually by the Catholic Church on 14 September, as one of thanksgiving for the recovery of the True Cross from the Persians by the great Emperor Heraclius. Fragments of the True Cross were in due course brought from Jerusalem to many churches dedicated to the Holy Cross in the East and West. These churches sought to imitate the solemn ceremonies in use at Jerusalem in order to do homage to the Holy Cross. Possibly one of the earliest dedications to the Cross in India was the Church of the Holy Cross in Manapad. Throughout the year many pilgrims visit the church and thousands congregate during the festive season from first to fourteenth September.
Traditional Origin of the Church
Tradition has it that around 1540, a Portuguese trading vessel, while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on its way to the East, encountered a violent storm and had its sails split and the hind mast snapped. The vessel ran the risk of foundering. The Captain, who was devoted to the veneration of the Holy Cross, implored and entrusted the safety of the vessel and that of the crew to the crucified Christ. He also made a vow that he would construct a cross from a portion of the splintered mast and have it planted on the shore where they alighted in safety. By chance, the vessel after having drifted for several days soughthaven in the then well known port of Kulesakharapatnam.
The first miracle is said to have occurred when the cross was still in the form of a log cut off from the broken mast. It is said that when the log was lying on the shore an inhabitant of the village who had trampled on filth had cleansed his foot on this log. No sooner had he wiped his leg than he felt a pain and instantaneous swelling of the leg too. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was able to return home. That night the man had a vision in which it was revealed to him that the ailment was due to his defiling the log intended for a sacred purpose. He was asked to wipe the muck off the log, smear the log with oil, and then apply the same oil to his foot to cure it. Early next morning, the patient was carried to the log, and to the amazement of the crowd that had collected there, the man was cured immediately and able to walk back home unaided. This remarkable event made the planting of the Cross by the Captain an occasion of great piety and festivity. From then onwards, the name and fame of the Captain's cross spread throughout the Coromandel Coast.
Arrival of St. Francis Xavier
Manapad was mostly inhabited by the Paravars who had embraced Christianity in 1532. However, for want of missionaries, the neophytes remained nominal Christians until the arrival and ministration of St. Francis Xavier. The saint who arrived in Manapad in October 1542 found two spots which impelled him to choose Manapad as his favorite haunt during his sojourn on the Pearl Fishery Coast. One was a grotto carved out of the rocky ledge, which he preferred to use for a home. This cave was known in pre-Christian era as "Valli's cave", a counterpart of the one at Tiruchendur. It is now a signal grotto having at its outer entrance a stone tablet inscribed: "This cave, the dwelling of a saivitesanyasi, has been sanctified by the prayers and penance of St. Francis Xavier". The lonely hermitage chosen by Francis Xavier depicts his thirst for austerity and renunciation.
The other spot that induced him to choose Manapad was the Captain's Cross with its raised platform and an overhead covering, almost providing a built-in chapel enabling him to offer daily the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. St. Francis Xavier toiled among the Paravars, instructing and ministering all along the Pearl Fishery Coast until November 1543 when he returned to Goa. He was again at Manapad in March, June, August and September 1544 and went to Travancore in November. This is the well inside the cave where St.Francis Xavier resided. The water is sweet though it is only few feet away
Xavier's First Miracle
Xavier was held in high regard by the people of Manapad for his austerity, moral strictness, compassion, and wise counsel. During his stay there, with the help of the pandits of Manapad he translated the rudiments of the common prayers and trained the first catechists.
While at Manapad, the saint had two youngsters, Augustine Paiva and Anthony Miranda, trained as acolytes. One day at dawn when Augustine was on his way to the Captain's Cross where Xavier offered the Eucharistic Service daily, a few yards away on the pathway, he saw his companion Anthony lying still and frothing at the mouth. Augustine was terror-stricken by the sight of a deadly cobra crawling away. However, Augustine approached Anthony and tried to rouse him, but upon finding no pulse, ran to the saint's niche. Bursting into tears, he related what he saw. Unperturbed, the saint raised his head heavenwards, exclaimed some prayers and rushed to the scene. Blessing Anthony's body, he called upon Anthony to get up. To the amazement of all gathered there, Anthony Miranda not only got up, but followed the saint and assisted him at the Holy Mass as usual. The first miracle of his life had such an impact that the people in and around Manapad started venerating him as a saint long before he was canonized by the Church.
The Church of the Holy Cross
After more miracles, the church of the Holy Cross was built in the year 1581, on the same spot encasing the Captain's Cross. It is said that contributions towards building of the church were spontaneously given by the inhabitants, and Rev. Fr.John de Salanova, the parish priest of the only church in the village then dedicated to the "Queen of Heaven", was able to complete construction long before the scheduled time.
The relic of the True Cross
With the erection of the church, Rev.John de Salanova deemed that it was worthy to possess the relic of the True Cross. As such, in 1583 he appealed to Rome through the General of the Jesuits very Rev. Fr.Aquaviva for a fragment of the True Cross. Pope Gregory XIII graciously obliged. The relic is said to have arrived at Cochin in the first week of August 1583, since Cochin was then the mother of all the Latin Dioceses in South India and Ceylon. The most Rev. Mathew de Medina of the Order of Christ, the prelate of Cochin, is said to have received the relic. Having had it exposed for three days for the veneration of the faithful, he inaugurated the grand tour of the relic all along the coastal belt with halts in places of Catholic predominance. The procession is said to have reached Manapad a few days before the festival of the Exaltation of the True Cross. Many Catholics were said to have followed in procession with the relic. Thus it is that Manapad came to be a traditional place of pilgrimage to those of the Malabar Coast.
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Though with the conferment of the fragment of the True Cross, the feast attained a certain dignity, it was only after the inauguration of the Confraternity of the Five Sacred Wounds of Our Lord that the festival won recognition as a major festival. The Confraternity was approved by His Holiness Pope Benedict XIII on 25 February 1725 and on May 28 of the same year was established in the Church of Holy Cross in Manapad. Thereafter the Confraternity of the Five Sacred Wounds of Our Lord has been instrumental in the celebration of the festival with pomp and piety.
The most solemnity and pageantry occurs during the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, when mostly maritime pilgrims throng to Manapad from the Coromandel and Kerala Coasts. They can be seen in village or family groups performing the Way of the Cross as they cover the fourteen stations built on the hillock, reminiscent of Jesus Christ's last journey on Mount Calvary. Presumably, it is this resemblance that prompted His Holiness Pope Leo XIII to refer to Manapad as "A Little Jerusalem". Incidentally, there are many who decline quick transport to trudge many miles as reparation for their sinful lives. For many, the hardship is eclipsed by joyful participation in a 300 year-old tradition, the procession of the relic of the True Cross when they join the thousands singing praises:
Forth comes the standard of the kings!
All hail, thou mystery adored!
Hail, cross on which the life Himself died and by death our life restored!
Notable Religious Art
There has been much speculation about the crucifix that adorns the high altar of Holy Cross Church. The most popular belief is that the crucifix had come together with the well-known "Our Lady of Snows" statue in the Our Lady of Snows Basilica in Tuticorin. This assumption is untenable, because there was no church or priest in Manapad until sometime in the fifteen seventies. However, both the crucifix and the "Our Lady of Snows" statue originate from Manila, with the crucifix sent at a later date.
The two aforementioned items, as well as a statue of Child Jesus, were carried to Manila by Captain Ferdinand Magellan, a Spanish explorer who arrived in Cebu, Philippines, in March 1521. The first converts by Magellan were a chief named Humabon and his queen. The latter, baptized as Juana, was given the statue of Child Jesus, which came to be known as Santo Nino de Cebu, standing to this day above the high altar of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño. This statue for many millions of Catholic Filipinos is a national heritage. Magellan's statue of Our Lady is a replica of the statue in the church of St. Mary of the Snows in Rome. It was gifted to Tuticorin by the Prioress of the convent in Manila in 1555. Subsequently, Fr. John de Salanova sought Magellan's crucifix for his newly constructed church of the Holy Cross in Manapad. The Prioress was cooperative due to the rare papal conferment of the relic of the True Cross to Manapad. The exact date of the receipt of the crucifix is unknown.
Source: Encyclopedia
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