Story Highlights
- historical event: St. Francis Xavier traveled and preached on the territories of what are now Japan, Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka, and his great desire was to preach in China.
The famous St. Francis Xavier – one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the Catholic Church – died on this day. By birth he was probably Basque, a member of the perhaps the oldest indigenous nation in Europe. Namely, the Basques are an indigenous ethnic group who live on the border of Spain and France, and the Basque language has no relationship with any other European language.
St. Francis Xavier was one of the founders of the Jesuit order, together with another Bask – famous saint Ignatius Loyola. St. Francis was devoted to missionary work, so he sailed to distant India to spread the Catholic religion.
The travels of St. Francis Xavier covered such distances that really showed his missionary zeal. In fact, he went all the way to Japan, where he apparently arrived as the first Christian missionary in history. St. Francis Xavier traveled and preached on the territories of what are now Japan, Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka, and his great desire was to preach in China.
He went there in 1552 and reached the island Shangchuan, not far from the present-day Hong Kong. While waiting for transport to the mainland on this day, he died, in all probability from a fever caused by a disease. He was buried in the Basilica of Good Jesus (Basilica do Bom Jesus) in the Indian city of Goa – the former center of the Portuguese government in India.
