In 1545 a priest named Francis Xavier arrived in Melaka. He helped to establish Christianity in India, the Malay Archipelago and was the first missionary to visit Borneo and the Moluku islands.
In the early 1550s, he wanted to go to China to continue his work there and requested a ship from the Portuguese governor, Dom Alvaro, who refused to cooperate.
Eventually, Francis Xavier was allowed to board the ship, Santa Cruz, but in an unofficial capacity.
He was forced to wade through the mud to reach the rowboat that would take him to the ship but before boarding the boat, he cursed the governor, who later died of leprosy.
But did he really curse the governor? This would seem unbecoming for someone who would eventually be declared a saint.
Xaverian schools teach that pupils should bear wrongs patiently and forgive offences willingly, but it seems he did not show much patience or forgiveness on this occasion.
Here is more about this famous saint, the most zealous and successful of all missionaries ever sent to the East.
Miraculous career
Francisco De Xavier was born in Navarre, Spain on April 7, 1506, to a wealthy, aristocratic family. In 1525 he went to Collège Sainte-Barbe, University of Paris, where he spent the next 11 years.
He seemed set on a life in academia until he fell under the influence of Ignatius Loyola, who persuaded him into a spiritual life. Together with five other students, they formed the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Pope.
In 1541, he sailed from Lisbon and arrived in Goa, India, in May 1542. About a decade later he would be dead, but in that short time he was said to have converted 700,000 people to Christianity, 100,000 with his own hand, in India, Ceylon, the East Indies, China and Japan.
How did he achieve such stellar results? Mostly through hard work, good example, persuasion and other missionary techniques, as well as performing miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, curing leprosy and stopping pestilence.
Modern readers cannot help but be sceptical about claims of the dead being brought back to life but St Francis was working among simple people, often illiterate and deeply superstitious.
He was also said to have had the gift of tongues, in that men of different languages understood him at the same time, each in their own dialect.
He is known to have spoken Basque, Spanish, French, Latin and Greek, but he struggled to make himself understood in Tamil.
Congee and egg whites or a miracle?
It was considered miraculous that his body remained free from normal decomposition for an exceptionally long period after his death.
When he died of fever on Shangchuan Island, China on Dec 3, 1552 while waiting for a ship to take him to the mainland, he was temporarily buried pending the arrival of a vessel to transport his remains back to Melaka.
His body was covered with quicklime to hasten decomposition so the bones could easily be transported. When the body was disinterred two months later it was found, to the astonishment of all, to be as fresh as the day it was buried.
The body was taken by ship to Melaka, arriving in March 1553.
It was taken to the Church of Our Lady of the Mount where it was buried without a coffin in a grave too small, causing the neck to be bent and broken.
Possibly Governor Dom Alvaro was responsible for this rough treatment, still resentful after his clash with St Francis.
When the body was exhumed once again in August 1553, it was still in fresh condition. The body was transported to Goa, where it is still on display at the Basilica of Bom Jesus.
There could be a scientific explanation for how the body remained free from corruption for such a long time.
Some say lime accelerates the process of decomposition while others say it prevents decay and protects the body. Furthermore, the lime would have been obtained locally on Shangchuan Island and would probably have been of the sort used for construction.
In China, organic materials such as congee and egg whites were often added to increase the strength of lime mortar. Might this have helped preserve Francis Xavier’s body?
Such ideas probably do not carry much weight with believers in miracles and tens of thousands of devotees continue to flock to churches holding relics of St Francis Xavier.
To rest in peace, better not become a saint
St Francis’ body has been divided into multiple parts and distributed to various places around the world. Basilica of Bom Jesus, Goa, holds the shrivelled skull, legs, left arm and hand, heaps of bones, loose vertebrae, ribs or fragments of ribs and pieces of skin.
A chunk of flesh cut off centuries ago is kept in a reliquary in the basilica and a toe is preserved in another reliquary and kept for public veneration every Friday and Sunday.
This toe had been bitten off by a Portuguese lady while kissing the corpse’s feet in 1554, in her pious eagerness to possess some relic of St Francis. Two other bones are held by other churches in Goa.
In 1614, the entire right arm was detached. The hand and forearm were sent to Rome at the request of the Pope while the upper arm was divided into two; part went to the Jesuit college in Cochin and part to their college in Melaka.
Legend has it that in Rome, the arm was placed on a table, given a heap of papers with a pen and told to sign its name to prove its sainthood.
The arm, it is recorded, lifted itself and wrote the name Francis Xavier, with the signature passing through all the sheets of paper and onto the table. The right arm is now on display at the main Jesuit church in Rome, Il Gesu.
Xavier’s humerus is kept in a silver reliquary at St Joseph’s Macau, having previously been kept at the Chapel of St Francis Xavier on Coloane, Macau.
All the internal organs of the chest and abdomen were removed and distributed among various countries.
Was the sainthood deserved?
Xavier’s outburst in Melaka was rather un-saintly, but then nobody is perfect. As a missionary he was outstandingly successful and for that alone he deserved the highest honour the Catholic Church can bestow. He gave up a life of comfort and wealth in order to work with the poor, sick and helpless and he devoted his life to his mission.
This article first appeared on Thrifty Traveller
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