Critical Study of the missionary work of Francis Xavier in South India
By Reeju Tharakan
Francis Xavier was a Jesuit missionary who worked in India from 1542 to 1552. He came with a firm determination to serve God and people, contributed to the education of children and youth, and worked for “the greater glory of God.” His attitude to and relationship with Portugal colonial power was cordial he used their help for mission in India. An evaluation of his approach in mission and his attitude to other religions, culture, and life of the native people should bring in to light that he was influenced by colonialism.
Francis Xavier was born on April 7, 1506, at Xavier Castle, near the town of Sanguesa, in north Spain. He was born into a wealthy Royal family and decided to become a priest and went to the University of Paris in 1525 to study theology. Xavier remained in Paris as a teacher until November 1536 and he spent the next several years assisting Ignatius Loyola in his social works in Venice and Rome. In early 1540, Loyola received a request from Joao III, the King of Portugal, for Jesuit missionaries for Portugal’s colonies in the East Indies. Francis Xavier committed to become the Jesuit missionary to the East Indies. The king took a special interest in seeking the papal approval for Francis Xavier and to send him as a Jesuit missionary to India because of his commitment for mission among the poor and needy.
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He sailed in 1541, and reached Goa, in May 1542. The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the sick in the hospitals. He would go through the streets ringing a little bell and inviting the children to hear the word of God. When he had gathered a number, he would take them to a certain church and would there explain the catechism to them. He opened the first Jesuit school for native children in Goa in 1542. Xavier saw the school as an opportunity to do good by initiating the young into secular and human knowledge and simultaneously into spiritual and moral values — the love of God and human person.
From Goa Francis Xavier moved to south India to work among the fishing communities, Paravas and Mukkuvars. Robert Eric Frykenberg observes the conversion of the fishing communities who engaged in fishing, pearl diving, trading, and piracy was a political and a spiritual event. They turned to the Portuguese for protection when they were threatened by Arabs. As part of their mutual agreement they adopted Christian faith. When Farncis Xavier came there, the Paravars and Mukkuvars were Christian only in name. He says, “When I first came I asked them, if they knew anything about our Lord Jesus Christ? But when I came to the points of faith in detail and asked them what they thought of them, and what more they believed than when they were infidels, they only replied that they were Christians, but as they are ignorant of Portuguese, they know nothing of the precepts and mysterious of our holy religion.”
Francis Xavier took three Tamil-speaking assistants and spent several months, walking from village to village, building prayer houses, baptizing children, teaching them Lord’s Prayer, creed and commandments. He installed local catechist for each village to track of births, deaths, and marriages. He assembled the people twice a day and taught them and encouraged them to teach to their parents, family, and neighbors. He gave them instruction in Tamil language about the responsibilities necessary to salvation and prepared them for baptism. But often there were mass conversions where the whole village was baptized. He appreciated the extraordinary zeal of the people for learning the creed of Catholic faith. He taught them biblical theology-Trinity- One God and three divine persons.
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Francis Xavier failed to adjust with the religious pluralistic society where they had other religions and idol worshippers. In his own words, “whenever their own parents practice it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.” He observed the religious rites and the practices of Brahmins in his time wicked superstitious practices and he prayed “from an unholy race and a wicked and crafty man deliver me, O Lord.” He had a close tie up with the Portuguese colonial power that arranged yearly revenue of 4000 gold fanams for the salary of catechists. The letter says that the Governor Don Martin Alfonso was a close friend him and the missions. He had a negative attitude towards the common life of the people as uneducated and living in wickedness.
Missionary strategies (accommodation)
1. Care- accommodating himself- with the sick people
2. Ringing bell- he puts himself with the life of people- he wanted to go to them
3. “I tried to help them understand salvation- Catholicism”
4. School- education
5. Learning language
6. Appointed local leaders
7. Support- money
Evaluation
1. Negative attitude towards other religion
2. Negatively influenced the children (induced them) to rebel against the parents
3. Financial support from colonial powers
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[ 2 ]. As part of the impact of Counter Reformation, Ignatius Loyola, and his two roommates at the University, Peter Faber and Francis Xavier pledged themselves to the service of the Pope and to the poor and needy in 1534. They called themselves the Company of Jesus. The Pope, in 1540, renamed them the “Society of Jesus.” They were later known as the “Jesuits.” Ignatius Loyola was the first General of Jesuits.
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[ 3 ]. The motto of Jesuits: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
[ 4 ]. “Francis Xavier,” Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm. accessed on January 14, 2013.
[ 5 ]. Robert E. Frykenberg, Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 137.
[ 6 ]. “Francis Xavier’s Letter to the Society of Jesus (1543 AD),” M.K. Kuriakose, (Compiler).
History of Christianity in India: Source Materials, Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1982, 27.
[ 7 ]. Ibid., 29.
[ 8 ]. Ibid., 29.
[ 9 ]. Ibid., 30.
[ 10 ]. Ibid., 30