Francisco Javier
Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta (April 7, 1506 - December 3, 1552), better known as Saint Francisco Javier or Also known as Francisco Xavier, Francisco de Javier or Francés de Jaso, he was a Spanish religious and missionary of the Society of Jesus born in the town of Javier (Kingdom of Navarre), present-day Spain, and died on Shangchuan Island (China). He was canonized by the Catholic Church with the name Saint Francis Xavier .
As for the forms he used of his name, he appears as Francisco de Jasso in the lease he made in Burguete on behalf of his mother, and Francisco de Jasso y de Xabier in his process of nobility; but as a Jesuit he did not use his father's last name but his mother's, like his brother's, successor to the domain of Javier. He signed his letters as Francisco de Xabier, or better, only with Francisco, with the exception of the Francés de Xabier in the letter that Ignacio de Loyola He took it by hand to his brother Juan de Azpilicueta in 1535.
Francisco Javier was a Jesuit missionary of the first order, a member of the founding group of the Society of Jesus and a close collaborator of its founder, Ignacio de Loyola. He stood out for his missions that took place in East Asia and Japan. He received the nickname Apostle of the Indies.
Historical circumstances of his birth
Born as Francisco de Jasso Azpilicueta Atondo y Aznárez de Javier, in 1506 in the Castle of Javier, in the Kingdom of Navarre. His father Don Juan de Jasso y Atondo, Lord of Idocín, was president of the Royal Council of Navarre after having received a doctorate from the University of Bologna, for which reason he is usually documented as " doctor Jasso ". In 1483 he married Doña María de Azpilcueta y Aznárez de Sada, daughter of the lords of Javier.
In 1512, on the occasion of the pact between the kingdom of Navarre and France, the conquest of Navarre began again by the Castilian-Aragonese troops under the command of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, by order of Fernando el Católico, already king of Aragon and Castile. They occupy a large part of the squares of the Kingdom of Navarre, with the support of the descendants of the Beaumontese nobleman Luis de Beaumont, exiled in Castile, the so-called Beaumontese, who had faced the Agramonteses in a long civil conflict that had ended in early XVI century. After the partial invasion of the Kingdom of Navarra by Castilian-Aragonese troops with a strong Gipuzkoan presence, there were several counter-offensives by those loyal to the Albrets, in this case with strong French support, fights that lasted until 1530.
In 1516, his father having died in exile a year earlier, Francisco's brothers participated in an unsuccessful offensive with the legitimate King of Navarre Juan de Albret, with which Francisco's family was dispossessed of their properties, and the castle topped by order of the Governor, Cardinal Cisneros.
In 1521, a Navarrese-French invasion that would penetrate as far as Logroño (former Navarrese territory) allowed those loyal to Juan de Albret to briefly regain almost total control of the Kingdom, although it lasted for a short time, and they lost the part to the south of the Pyrenees, Alta Navarra, in 1524 (with the fall of the Navarra de Fuenterrabía square), while in Lower Navarre, north of the Pyrenees, he would remain loyal to Juan de Albret in the French orbit.
In 1530, when Carlos I was King of Spain, he abandoned his aspirations to occupy the rest of the Kingdom of Navarre, which would remain an independent kingdom, and finally, through matrimonial ties, he would unite with the French crown with the title of Kings of France and Navarre. The southern part of Upper Navarre, with which the Crown of Spain is consummated (understood the word according to current usage, that is, not including Portugal) would maintain its institutions, privileges and name as a Kingdom until the 19th century, when it becomes a foral province. The part that remained in France, Lower Navarre, would maintain its status as a Kingdom until the abolition of the privileges of the territories of the French monarchy, after the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.
Francis had embraced an ecclesiastical career and went to Paris in 1528 to the University of the Sorbonne, where he met Ignatius of Loyola, with whom he would later found the Society of Jesus. Although at first he did not like Ignacio de Loyola, he ended up being his best friend and collaborator. Indeed, it so happened that in 1521, prior to beginning his ecclesiastical vocation, Saint Ignatius, at that time Íñigo de Loyola, had fought with the imperial Gipuzkoan troops against the French troops of the Duke of Foix (who supported Juan de Albret)., in which the brothers of San Francisco Javier fought, along with other Navarrese, and in which Ignacio was wounded at the siege of Pamplona.
Biography
Francisco de Javier was born in the castle of Javier located in what is now the town of Javier, Navarra, northern Spain, on April 7, 1506 into a noble family. His father, Juan de Jasso, was President of the Royal Council of the King of Navarre Juan III de Albret. His mother was María de Azpilicueta who belonged to a noble family that included Martín de Azpilicueta, the so-called doctor navarrus . He was the youngest of five siblings: Magdalena, Ana, Miguel, Juan and himself.
His childhood was marked by the historical events that led to the conquest of the kingdom of Navarra by the kingdom of Castile, since his family was very involved in defending the independence of the former. His birthplace was a meeting place for supporters of the Albrets and he suffered revenge for the loss. His brothers, members of Juan III's army, were imprisoned for it. These circumstances could be the cause of Francisco's determination for religious study.
Study in Paris
In 1524 Francisco Javier was determined to go to study in Paris, at the Sorbonne. He had previously studied in different Navarrese cities, and completed them in Pamplona.
In September 1528 he went to study in Paris, where he met the man who would become his best friend, Íñigo de Loyola, later Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who never left him alone in difficult moments in Paris and always helped him, as if by example, when Francisco suffered financial problems.
It was there that he and five other companions formed what would become the embryo of the Society of Jesus. On August 15, 1534, after completing their studies, they swear vows of charity and chastity, while promising to travel to the Holy Land, in the Crypt of Martyrdom in Montmartre. Francisco stayed in Paris for another two years studying Theology, after participating in the Spiritual Exercises with Ignacio de Loyola.
In 1537 he met with Ignacio de Loyola to travel to Italy. In Rome they visit Pope Paul III to ask for his blessing before embarking on the trip to the Holy Land, a trip that was not going to be possible because Venice had entered into a war with Turkey. They arrive in Venice and he is ordained a priest on June 24. During his stay in Venice, while they waited for the ship to go to the Holy Land, he dedicated himself to preaching in the surrounding area with his companions. Given the delay of the trip, they return to Rome and offer themselves to the Pope to be sent elsewhere. From there he leaves for Lisbon in 1540, where he will begin the most important stage of his life: that of a missionary. The trip to Portugal was due to the request of the Portuguese ambassador in Rome, Pedro de Mascarenhas, who asked Ignacio de Loyola on behalf of John III of Portugal for some of his men to send to the East Indies. For this trip, Francisco was appointed by the Pope his legacy in the lands of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and Oceania, on both sides of the Ganges.because
His missionary trips
The trip to Lisbon was by land and stopped in Azpeitia (Guipúzcoa), to deliver letters from Ignacio de Loyola to his family. They stayed in Lisbon for a while, until Francisco was appointed to be envoy to the Indies. At that time they did not stop preaching the gospel to the poor of the city.
On April 7, 1541, the day he turned 35, the expedition leaves and arrives in Mozambique on September 22. There he stays until February of the following year. During that stay, he helps out at the hospital and perceives the reality of the treatment given to blacks, which leads him to have the first confrontations.
After making stops in Melinde and Socotora, he arrived in Goa (the city that would later be the capital of Portuguese India) on May 6, 1542. He prepared an informative text based on the catechism of Juan Barros and began to preach the doctrine Catholic through the city, while assisting the dying, visiting prisoners and helping the poor.
To achieve a more intense approach, he dedicates himself to learning the language of the country. After refusing the position of director of the seminary of San Pablo, he embarked, in October 1542, for the islands of Pesquería, off the coast of Goa, where he stayed for more than a year.
Evangelize the Paravas Indians and visit the cities of Tuticorrín, Trichendur, Manapar and Combuture. He met with opposition from the Brahmins, who inhabited the region's pagodas.
He learned Tamil and translated into that language part of the Christian texts and a talk about heaven and hell.
In November 1543, he met his companions Messer Paulo and Mansilla in Goa and met with the city's bishop, Juan de Alburquerque, to ask him for missionaries. The bishop assigns 6 priests for this work. With the new collaborators he turns again to the Fishery. On the trip he writes several letters to his companions in Rome, in one of them he says:
Many Christians are no longer doing in these parts, because there are no people who care for evangelization. Many times I am moved by thoughts of going to those Universities, crying out as a man who has lost the judgment, and mainly to the University of Paris, saying in the Sorbonne to those who have more lyrics than will, to dispose to fruitful with them; how many souls stop going to glory and go to hell for their negligence! It is so much the multitude of those who turn to the faith of Christ in these parts, in this land where I walk, that many times I seem to have tired the arms of baptizing, and not being able to speak of so many times of saying Creed and commandments in their language and the other prayers.
He establishes on the coast of Pesquería de Perlas a system of assigning territories to a person in charge, who should keep him informed of the future of the mission. Once he has organized that territory, he leaves for Manapar and the southern district. He spends a month with the makuas, where he will baptize more than 10,000 people.
During 1544 he made more than twenty evangelization trips. Given the news of the execution of Christians in Ceylon, Francisco returns to Goa and speaks with the governor to accompany the troops that were to be sent to punish the actions against the Christians that King Jafnapatan had done. For various reasons, said action was never carried out.
In 1545 he left for the Moluccas islands in the company of Juan Eiro, and arrived in Malacca shortly after. During three months Francisco Javier will learn a minimum of the language and become familiar with the local culture; he will also translate, with the help of knowledgeable people, the basic part of the texts of Catholic doctrine. That same year he wrote to the King of Portugal about the injustices and vexations imposed on them by Your Majesty's own officials .
He left for the Islands of Amborio and Ternate in January 1546, after preparing the Instructions for the catechists of the Society of Jesus. He reaches his destination after a month and a half. He travels to different islands in the region and in Baranula (Ceran), according to tradition, a crab returns the crucifix that he had lost during a storm.
In June he arrives in Ternate, a rich commercial center for spices and the last Portuguese possession, and remains there for three months. From there he leaves for the Moro islands, where he spends another three months. From the Moro islands he undertook a return trip to Cochin, where he would arrive on January 13, 1548.
After carrying out tasks of reorganization and supervision of the missions established in India and the Moluccas, where he feels disappointed with the deterioration suffered, as he shows in his letters, he leaves for Japan, together with his companions Cosme de Torres and Juan Fernández and the translator Anjirō, on Palm Sunday in 1549. He arrived in Japan on August 15. They disembark in Kagoshima, then the capital of the southern kingdom of Japan. He stayed in this city for one year and in Japan for two years and three months. With the collaboration of his companion Pablo de Santa Fe, he evangelized through Japanese lands and had the work Declaration of the Articles of Faith translated, which he learned by heart and used to recite in the corners. To answer the questions that passers-by made, he used an interpreter. Faced with the failure of the mission, he thought of making an appointment with the king of the area with the hope that if he converted to Catholicism, the town would too. In 1550 he headed north with this intention. He founds a small Christian community in Hirado. He reaches Yamaguchi, then Sakai, and finally Meaco, where he tries unsuccessfully to be received by the emperor.
He moves to Yamaguchi again and gets the prince's guarantee of respect for converts to Christianity. Faced with this perspective, he carried out, together with his two companions, an intense preaching work that bore fruit in the creation of a small Catholic community. Many of the converts are samurai. The opposition of the local clergy, the bonzes, was always strong.
In September 1551 he was called by the Prince of Bungo, who allowed him to preach on those islands. A month later and leaving some converts, Francisco Javier returned to India alerted by the news that reached him. The return trip is made on the ship Santa Cruz led by Diego de Pereira, who gives him the idea of organizing an embassy to China on behalf of the King of Portugal to start peace negotiations. When he arrives in Malacca he learns that India has been named an independent Jesuit province of Portugal and that he is his province.
On January 24, 1552, he arrived in Cochin and on February 18, Goa. After solving some problems of the missions and preparing the trip to China, he leaves for that country on April 14. He was accompanied on the adventure by the priest Gago, his brother Álvaro de Ferreira, Antonio de Santa Fe (who was of Chinese origin) and an Indian servant named Cristóbal, and they embarked on the Santa Cruz captained by Pereira..
When they arrive in Malacca, they have problems with the Captain of the Seas, Álvaro de Ataide, who delays the trip for two months and prevents Pereira from continuing to command the ship. They arrived on Shangchuan Island at the end of August 1552, apparently moved by the statements of the Japanese, who did not value anything that had not previously taken root in China, and with the idea of evangelizing China so that this would later influence China. Japan. This island was the meeting place between Chinese and Portuguese merchants.
They are waiting for the arrival of a Chinese ship that is supposed to smuggle them into the continent. On December 3 of that year, Francisco Javier died when he was 46 years old.
His body is taken to Goa, where it arrives in the spring of 1554, and is buried there.
Canonization, patronage and festivities
He was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622 along with Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint Isidro Labrador and Saint Philip Neri.
He has been named patron of various sites and works:
- In 1748 he was appointed patron of all the lands east of Cape Good Hope.
- In 1904 he was appointed patron of the Work of the Propagation of the Faith.
- In 1927 Pope Pius XI named him Patron of the Missions next to St.Therresses of the Child Jesus.
- In 1952 Pope Pius XII proclaimed him the patron of tourism.
- He is also the patron of the Walking Branch within the Catholic Scout Movement.
He is co-patron saint of Navarre along with San Fermín de Amiens. His festivity is celebrated on December 3, coinciding with the day of his death. In 1949, the Sociedad de Estudios Vascos also chose December 3 to celebrate International Euskera Day. Annually, in the first days of March, a massive pilgrimage is celebrated in his memory to the Castle of Javier, known as javieradas.
Dispute for the Patronage of Navarra
San Francisco Javier is co-patron of all of Navarre, sharing this title with San Fermín since in 1657 Pope Alexander VII had to intervene to put an end to three decades of controversies that divided the towns and institutions of Navarra, between supporters of one or another saint: The supporters of San Francisco Javier ―the Jesuits and the Diputación de Navarra―, and those who fought for San Fermín ―the Cabildo Catedral and the Pamplona City Council―. This conflict arose from popular fervor motivated by the canonization of Francisco Javier and in a context of renewal of the Church. All kinds of arguments were argued for and against the patronage of one saint or another, positions that were opposed and irreconcilable. The matter was settled with the joint appointment of the two saints as co-patrons of Navarre in 1657.
Iconography and work
There are many works that have reflected the Apostle of the Indies in painting and sculpture. Famous artists such as Murillo, Rubens, Van Dyck, Luca Giordano, André Reinoso and Goya have immortalized the Saint of Javier with their brushes.
Francisco Xavier became from the XVI century an ideal as a missionary in pagan land. This has given rise to a very abundant work that deals with his figure. Work of all kinds, especially epistolary, considering it as an example by the members of the Society of Jesus. It was Javier who created the first seminary in Goa and who promoted vocations to the priesthood of the indigenous people, while proposing direct catechism and the translation of liturgical texts into local languages.
Francisco Javier's written work focuses on the correspondence he maintained with his companions and those responsible for evangelization. There are also small well-known catechetical writings, such as the little catechism (1542), the great catechism (1546) and the Instructions for the Catechists of the Society of Jesus (1545).
Paintings of the Church of Saint Sulpice in Paris, France.
"Milagro de San Francisco Javier, Resurrection of a Dead in Coulan, India."
"Transposition of the body of San Francisco Javier to Goa (Portuguese India), miracles are done on his step."
Roof of the chapel of San Francisco Javier.
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