Francis Xavier
One of the first companions of Ignatius of Loyola. He reached Goa in 1542, taught and baptized in southern India, and in 1549 carried the Christian message to Japan.
Xavier is one of the ten priests named in the bull that approved the Society of Jesus (Paul III, Regimini militantis Ecclesiae § 1). Ignatius of Loyola says that he won him at Paris by giving him the Spiritual Exercises (Ignatius, Autobiography p. 122). His own letters record that he left Lisbon on 7 April 1541 and reached India on 6 May 1542 (Xavier, Letters, letter 10, Goa, 18 September 1542), and that he landed at Kagoshima in Japan on 15 August 1549 (Xavier, Letters, letter 79, Kagoshima, 5 November 1549, vol. 2, p. 232); see Francis Xavier in India and Japan.
His last letters are dated 13 November 1552 from the island of San Chan, where he was waiting to enter China (Xavier, Letters, letter 124, San Chan, 13 November 1552). He died there soon afterwards. H. J. Coleridge, The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier (1872), vol. 2, pp. 571–572, who names the Chinese youth Antonio among those who attended him, gives the day as 2 December 1552; Pope Francis, in his general audience of 17 May 2023, gives 3 December.
In the timeline
- 27 September 1540, firm dateThe Society of Jesus Is Founded
Pope Paul III approves the Society of Jesus, a company of ten priests, masters of the University of Paris, led by Ignatius of Loyola. Its members vow poverty, chastity and obedience, with a special vow to go wherever the pope sends them.
- 1542 to 1552, firm dateFrancis Xavier in India and Japan
The Jesuit Francis Xavier lands at Goa in 1542, teaches and baptizes among the Christians of Cape Comorin, and in 1549 carries the Christian message to Japan with the Japanese convert Anjiro. He dies in 1552 on an island off China.
Primary sources
Autobiography
- Ignatius, Autobiography p. 122gutenberg.org