VATICAN - Feast of St. Francis Xavier

Thursday, 3 December 2020 saints   missionary animation  

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Church and the missionary world celebrate today, December 3, Saint Francis Xavier (Javier 1506 - Sancian Island 1552), one of the first disciples of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who was part of the founding nucleus of the Society of Jesus. Having lived just 46 years and 8 months, he accomplished an incredible missionary work in just more than 10 years, bringing the Gospel in contact with the great Eastern cultures, adapting it to the character of the different populations. In his missionary journeys he touched India and Japan, he died while he was preparing to spread the message of Christ in China.
Because of his missionary ardor, he was declared in 1748 Patron of the East, in 1904 Patron of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith and in 1927 of all missions, together with Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus. There are many missionary institutes, both male and female, who have chosen him as a model of life and apostolate, as well as seminaries, institutes and associations named after him.
Francis Xavier is also called "the Saint Paul of the Indies", as his missionary work was decisive for the development of Christianity in South Asia. In the first Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said: "If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!" (1 Cor 9:16). Saint Francis Xavier made Paul's desire his own. The same cry resounded with vigor from the mouth of Pope John Paul II, at the beginning of his Encyclical Redemptoris Missio. After two thousand years of Christianity, it is still this cry that Pope Francis today raises with renewed relevance and urgency, in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, calling all the baptized to become aware of being "missionary disciples".
In his short but intense decade of missionary commitment, St. Francis Xavier did not spare himself, as he recounts in his Letters to St. Ignatius: "So great is the multitude of converts that often my arms hurt so much they baptized and I no longer have the voice and the strength to repeat the Creed and the commandments in their own language". Despite these results, which could be considered humanly positive and gratifying, his concern was that "many, in these places, do not become Christians now only because there is no one who makes them Christians". Here too we can read a reflection of the Apostle Paul: "But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?
And how can people preach unless they are sent?" (Rom 10: 14-15).
In those days of December of the year 1927, placing itself under the protection of St. Francis Xavier, the first dispatches of the newborn "Agenzia Fides" were published, commissioned by the Superior General Council of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which placed itself at the service of the mission through information, so that the people of God could know the situation of the missions and the religious and social themes of the missions themselves.
More than thirty years later, the Second Vatican Council recognized the contribution of the media "to extend and consolidate the Kingdom of God" (Inter Mirifica, 2). "But in order that each and every one of the Christian faithful may he fully acquainted with the present condition of the Church in the world, and may hear the voice of the multitudes who cry "Help us!" (cf. Acts 16:9), modern means of social communication should be used to furnish such mission information that the faithful may feel this mission work to be their very own, and may open their hearts to such vast and profound human needs, and may come to their assistance. It is also necessary to coordinate the information, and to cooperate with national and international agencies" (Ad Gentes, 36). On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Fides Agency, on 3 December 1977, the then Prefect of Propaganda Fide, Cardinal Agnelo Rossi, remarked: "Fides Agency was undoubtedly the press organ that rendered the largest and most qualified missionary information and animation service for the whole Church".
Nowadays, an impressive volume of information bounces relentlessly from one part of the five continents to the other and is rapidly burned. The risks are many, such as the progressive inability to investigate issues and situations, an aspect particularly relevant for the missionary world, or the reality of many peoples cut off from the information circuit for reasons that appear almost trivial such as the lack of electricity. In the panorama of the challenges posed today to the world of the media, and in particular to those who are dedicated to the cause of the proclamation of the Gospel and not to the sale of commercial products, Fides Agency intends to continue to tell the life of the missions and of those who announce Jesus Christ, so that there is no lack of missionaries and support for the missions, in the awareness that "the joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew". (EG1). (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 3/12/2020)


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