Missionary's Return

"Da mihi animas [give me souls]," was the prayer of bearded, stern-faced St. Francis Xavier, greatest missionary of the Roman Catholic Church since Apostolic times. One of the first Jesuits, who helped St. Ignatius Loyola found the order, Francis Xavier journeyed to India .and then to the Far East in his historic quest for converts. On Aug. 15, 1549, the astonished farmers and fishermen of Japan first saw his black-clad figure. For more than two years thereafter, Francis Xavier moved tirelessly among the Japanese, of whom he wrote: "These people are the delight of my soul." He made hundreds of converts, sowed the seed of a Japanese church that numbers more than 100,000 Catholics in present-day Japan. Among them 1,200 missionaries, re-admitted after V-J day, are preaching and teaching to widen the saint's work.

Hymns and Shinja. Last week, the soul of St. Francis Xavier--and part of his body--were again at work on the island of Japan. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Xavier's landing, a party of 75 foreign notables, including bishops, priests and laymen, had come bearing with them St. Francis Xavier's right forearm in a gold, glass-paneled reliquary. Scheduled to visit most of Japan's major cities, the pilgrims were making a 17-day tour that will end next week with a Pontifical High Mass in Tokyo's Meiji Stadium.

The pilgrims had come from all over the world. Aloof, tight-lipped Bishop Giuseppe Lopez Ortiz of Tuy in western Spain headed a delegation of 35 from the saint's own country. There were Germans, French, Italians, Filipinos, Irish, Canadians and one priest from India. In the U.S. delegation was energetic, ruddy Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonnell, Auxiliary Bishop of New York. The Japanese turned out in crowds that jammed streets, parks and station platforms. Non-Christians sang hymns along with their shinja (believer) brothers. Pious deputations waited at railway stations until late at night to catch a glimpse of the holy relic.

Tangible Reminder. The right arm of St. Francis Xavier, flown from Rome by the Jesuit Order for the occasion, was severed at the elbow in 1614 and brought to Rome as a relic. The saint's body rests on the tiny Portuguese-Indian island of Goa, which had been his mission headquarters. It is exposed for public veneration once every ten years.

The veneration of saints' relics is a pious custom of Roman Catholics, though it dates back to pre-Christian times. According to the most common theological opinion, these objects, ranging from parts of the body to bits of things the saints used, are to be honored not for themselves but as tangible reminders of the saints.

But to the emotional Japanese, St. Francis' arm was something more than a reminder. Cried one white-haired man in Nagasaki, a Japanese Catholic center, as he stood, rosary in hand, to watch the procession go by: "We have seen the second coming of St. Francis Xavier."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.