To the Band of Brothers: December 3, 2020
Good morning!
This day could not begin without writing about the hands-down, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, unquestionably second-most important Jesuit in the history of the Jesuits. This guy is so second-most-important that throughout history many children, especially Spanish ones, have been christened with his name. So second-most-important, there are whole nations that attribute their Catholic population to the seeds that he planted when he made his way through their lands as a missionary in the sixteenth century.
The Jesuit, of course, is Francis Xavier (FX) and today the Church celebrates his feast.
Born into an aristocratic family in the province of Navarra in Spain, he was sent to study at the University of Paris. It was there he ran track for the university and where he eventually met the most important Jesuit in the history of the Jesuits (St. Ignatius of Loyola, of course) as a roommate.
From what I’ve read, they didn’t get along at first. Ignatius was considerably older than Xavier. It also didn’t help that while Ignatius had gone through his conversion experience, Xavier hadn’t. This must have been very annoying to FX. Here he was trying to enjoy college life, there was Ignatius wanting to talk about God and faith and living a Christian life. It must have been very annoying to have someone nagging him to do something that he didn’t want to do. In Xavier’s case, it worked out for him because it ended up changing his life forever.
The retreat experience Ignatius kept nagging Xavier about was the Spiritual Exercises and, when he finished, Xavier was ready to set the world on fire. Ignatius knew it would happen. He understood Francis Xavier was a passionate individual. Ignatius knew he needed to help harness the energy and direct it in a Godly direction. Years later, Ignatius would say of FX that, of all the clay he had molded in his life, there was none tougher than Xavier, but none better.
Shortly after helping found the Society of Jesus, FX was sent by his college roommate to India to set that strange land on fire with God. Xavier’s passion was so intense that he eventually made his way to Japan where he worked tirelessly baptizing hundreds of thousands. His dream (and he always dreamed big) was to make his way to China and step into an even stranger land where no westerner had gone before.
On December 3, 1552, on the island of Shangchuan, just six miles off the coast of China, FX died in a little hut from where he could see the coast of the land he desired so much to evangelize.
Undoubtedly, the second-most-important Jesuit in the history of the Jesuits was a force to be reckoned with. He was not the most important Jesuit in the S.J.s only because the most important was Ignatius of Loyola, his college roommate. What a pair. It’s no wonder that the Society of Jesus is the second-most important religious order in the whole Church… just kidding, most important.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: communications@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba, by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the school's property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit is situated on a 34-acre site in western Dade County, just minutes away from downtown Miami.