Saint Francis Xavier. Confessor. Apostle Of The Indies. Feast Day 3 December.

Coat-of-Arms of Saint Francis Xavier.

Date: 9 July 2020.

Source: Own work.

Author: RickMorais

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from “The Liturgical Year”.

By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.

Volume 1.

Advent.

Saint Francis Xavier.

Confessor.

Apostle Of The Indies.

Feast Day 3 December.

The Apostles being the heralds of the coming of The Messias, it was fitting that Advent should have in its Calendar the name of some one among them.

Divine Providence has provided for this; for, to say nothing of Saint Andrew, whose Feast Day is oftentimes past before the Season of Advent has commenced, Saint Thomas’s Feast Day is unfailingly kept immediately before Christmas.

We will explain, later on, why Saint Thomas holds that position rather than any other Apostle; at present, we simply assert the fitness of there being at least one of the Apostolic College, who should announce to us, in this period of the Catholic Cycle, The Coming of The Redeemer.

The IHS emblem of The Jesuits.

The design of the emblem is attributed to Ignatius of Loyola (1541).

Date: 29 December 2008.

Source: Own work.

Author: Moranski

(Wikimedia Commons)

But God has not wished that the first Apostolate should be the only one to appear on the first page of the Liturgical Calendar; great, also, though in a lower degree, is the glory of that second Apostolate, whereby the bride of Jesus Christ multiplies her children, even in her fruitful old age, as the Psalmist expresses it. [Psalms xci. 15.]

There are Gentiles who have still to be evangelised; the coming of The Messias is far from having been announced to all Nations. Now, all of the valiant messangers of The Divine Word who have, during the last few hundred years, proclaimed the good tidings among infidel Nations, there is not one whose glory is greater, who has worked greater wonders, or who has shown himself a closer imitator of the first Apostles, than the modern Apostle of The Indies, Saint Francis Xavier.

The life and Apostolate of this wonderful man were a great triumph for our mother the holy Catholic Church; for Saint Francis came just at a period when heresy, encouraged by false learning, by political intrigues, by covetousness, and by all the wicked passions of the human heart, seemed on the eve of victory.

Emboldened by all these, this enemy of God spoke, with the deepest contempt, of that ancient Church which rested on the promises of Jesus Christ; it declared that she was unworthy of the confidence of men, and dared even to call her the harlot of Babylon, as though the vices of her children could taint the purity of the mother.

God’s time came at last, and He showed Himself in His power: The garden of The Church suddenly appeared rich in the most admirable fruits of sanctity. Heroes and heroines issued from that apparent barrenness; and whilst the pretended reformers showed themselves to be the most wicked of men, two countries, Italy and Spain, gave to the World the most magnificent Saints.

One of these is brought before us today, claiming our love and our praise. The Calendar of The Liturgical Year will present to us, from time to time, his contemporaries and his companions in Divine Grace and heroic sanctity. The 16th-Century is, therefore, worthy of comparison with any other age of The Church.

Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Goa.

Artist: André Reinoso (fl. 1610–1641).

Collection: Museu de São Roque

Date: 1610.

Source: Google Arts and Culture

(Wikimedia Commons)

The so-called reformers of those times gave little proof of their desire to convert infidel countries, when their only zeal was to bury Christianity beneath the ruin of her Churches.

But at that very time, a society of Apostles was offering itself to the Roman Pontiff, that he might send them to plant the true Faith among people who were sitting in the thickest shades of death. But, we repeat, not one of these holy men so closely imitated the first Apostles as did Francis, the disciple of Ignatius of Loyola.

He had all the marks and labours of an Apostle; An immense world of people evangelised by his zeal, hundreds of thousands of infidels Baptised by his indefatigable ministration, and Miracles of every kind, which proved him, to the infidel, to be marked with the sign which they received who, living in the flesh, planted The Church, as The Church speaks in her Liturgy.

Statue of Saint Francis Xavier.

Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church,

Superior, Wisconsin, United States of America.

Photo: 20 April 2015.

Source: Own work.

Author: Billertl

(Wikimedia Commons)

So that, in the 16th-Century, The East received from the ever Holy City of Rome an Apostle, who, by his character and his works, resembled those earlier ones sent her by Jesus, Himself.

May Our Lord Jesus Christ be for ever praised for having vindicated the honour of The Church, His bride, by raising up Francis Xavier, and giving to men, in this His servant, a representation of what the first Apostles were, whom He sent to Preach the Gospel when the whole World was pagan.