Send me anywhere you like!
Today is the Memorial for St. Francis Xavier, S.J., who after the Apostle Paul, is considered the greatest missionary in Christianity. During Francis’ ministry to the Orient, focused mainly on India and Japan, he is reported to have baptized approximately 40,000 people into the Catholic faith.
Francis Xavier was born in 1506 to a family of means in present-day Spain. As a student in Paris, he met (St.) Ignatius of Loyola and together they founded the Society of Jesus. Rather than continue to study and become an academic, as was expected, he became the first Jesuit missionary priest. He was known for his humility, his care of the poor, and miracles including healings and prophetic powers. Most important was his passion for Christ and his zeal for souls, and as a result there were many converts added that formed the first churches of South and East Asia.
The second reading of the Daily Office on his feast day captures his passion in a letter that he wrote to St. Ignatius:
We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. The country is so utterly barren and poor. They have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Commandments of God’s Law.
I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again, I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”
I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.
This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like—even to India.
In our present reality and locality, can we say with St. Paul and St. Francis Xavier, “An obligation (to preach the gospel) has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!”? Send me anywhere you like Lord—even to my neighborhood!