Novena to St. Francis Xavier

OR SECOND FRIDAY.

CONVERSION OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER AND HIS PERFECT DISENGAGEMENT FROM ALL EARTHLY THINGS.

XAVIER, completely enslaved by self love, and dazzled by a false glory, thought of nothing but advancement in the world in the career of letters in which he excelled, and was teaching with great success at Paris, when Ignatius Loyola, who was at that time laying the foundations of his Society, cast his eyes upon him as an important conquest for the glory of God. That holy man attempted it; he pressed him not to neglect his salvation, and often repeated to him these words of Our Saviour: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” And by the help of God's grace he rescued him from the giddy torrent of the world, and inspired him with the design of giving himself entirely to God.

Xavier thus gained, made a month's retreat under the guidance of St. Ignatius. He came forth full of the spirit of God, changed in fact into another man. No mortal object could now arrest his glance for a single moment. A rich benefice is offered to him at Pamplona, and he refuses it. But when it is proposed to make, in the spirit of devotion, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he binds himself by vow to accomplish it. He had been vain, haughty, delicate, and eager for praise: he begins to serve his companions with humility. At Venice he took up his lodging in the hospital of the incurables, making the beds of the sick, dressing their sores, and rendering them the most humble services; and in order to master his self love and his natural delicacy, which would have loathed so abject a calling, he gazed steadily on the ulcer of a man laboring under a loathsome disease, and in spite of all the repugnances of nature, drained the sore. At last to offer to God the most difficult sacrifice of his heart, when quitting Europe to go to the East Indies, he passed near the castle of Xavier, but would not turn off from his road for a short distance to see his family, and to take a last farewell of his mother, who was still living, and for whom he had always felt the most tender affection. He consoled himself for this heart rending privation by the prayers which he addressed to God for her; and by the hope of seeing her in heaven for all eternity. The sincerity of a conversion may certainly be judged by such admirable instances of complete disengagement from all that is not God.

REFLECTION.

1. Do I really serve God? Have I not as much, and perhaps more, reason than Xavier, to think seriously of my conversion, and of weaning my heart from earth?

2. What obstacle is there to my serving God? Is it myself? I must master myself. Is it the devil? I must resist him. The world? I must despise it.

3. Xavier obeys his vocation and sanctifies himself. It is by fulfilling my duties, according to God's pleasure, that I also can and should sanctify myself.

PRAYER.

Break, Almighty God, the ties which still bind me to earth and convert me all in all to thee. This favor I intreat through the intercession of thy faithful servant, St. Francis Xavier. Amen.

Holy Spirits of the choir of Angels, I rejoice with you for your fidelity to God: obtain for me the grace of sincere conversion, and pray that all souls alienated from God, may happily return to Him. Amen.

OR THIRD FRIDAY.

MORTIFICATION OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER AND HIS LOVE OF SUFFERING.

WE cannot serve Jesus Christ, says St. Paul, without crucifying our flesh and our inordinate desires, that is, unless we be mortified. This St. Francis Xavier perfectly understood; this made him embrace a life of penance. During the first retreat, he passed three or four days without taking any food, and practised the most astonishing austerities, which he moderated indeed by order of Ignatius; but of which he never entirely gave up the use. Destined to preach Christ crucified, he by his example effectually supported the doctrine that he taught of the necessity of self-denial and of penance.

In Europe he lodged in the hospitals, and always lived on alms; in the East Indies his ordinary meals were those of the poor, rice and water; and even of this he ate so little that one of his companions assures us that it was only by some miracle that he could live. During his apostolic labors in Japan he abstained entirely from meat and fish, living merely on bitter roots and boiled herbs. He always traveled on foot, even in Japan, where the roads are very rough, and often went bare-footed in the most rigorous season. He slept three hours at the most, sometimes on the ground in a fisherman's hut, sometimes on the ship's cables or on the deck. All the austerities, which the Bonzes, who are great hypocrites, pretended to practice, in order to impose on the people, were actually performed by him to the letter, so truly did the desire of suffering for Christ and for the edification of his neighbour, inspire him with the love of the cross and induce him to embrace it with pleasure.

REFLECTIONS.

1. I have sinned; I may yet sin again; great motives induce me to do penance and to mortify a body which can ruin any soul.

2. I run great danger by deferring my penance too long, I will perhaps not be able at the hour of my death; it is terrible in Purgatory, eternal, yet useless in Hell.

3. But what penance can I do? That which the saints have done. I will at least unite my crosses to my Savior's, and bear them for his love.

PRAYER.

I am most guilty, O Lord; and without thy help can do naught to atone for my sins. Help me, therefore, O God of strength, to use against myself a wholesome violence, and to bear in a spirit of penance the trials of life; uniting them with the sufferings of my Savior; I offer them to Thee with those of St. Francis Xavier. Amen.

O blessed Spirits of the Choir of Principalities, I congratulate you on having preserved your fidelity to your God: Oh! implore for me and for all sinners the spirit of penance and Christian mortification, in order to expiate our past iniquities, and save us from all sin hereafter. Amen.

OR FOURTH FRIDAY.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S LOVE OF GOD AND ZEAL FOR HIS GLORY.

THE fire of divine love glowed so intensely in Xavier's breast that he seemed wholly inflamed by it. His countenance was often seen lit up with its flames. The transports of its ardor he could neither hide nor restrain, and even during his sleep, he was often heard to cry out: O blessed Trinity! O Jesus! O Jesus, delight of my soul! He was fired with the desire of shedding his blood for the greater glory of God, and his heart bled when he saw Him offended. When the trials and labors which awaited him in the East Indies and in Japan were revealed to him, “Still more,” he exclaimed, “O Lord, still more!” He could never be sated with them.

But his love was not confined to these tender emotions; what he undertook and accomplished shows far better its extent, its energy. Appointed to the Eastern Missions, he left Italy and Portugal where his labors were surpassed only by his success, crossed the ocean, repaired to the uttermost parts of Asia, penetrated into many regions till then unknown, preached the gospel in all the Islands of Japan, overthrew more than forty thousand idols, baptized more than twelve hundred thousand idolaters, and introduced the worship of God into about three hundred kingdoms, undergoing for this purpose innumerable labors, exposing himself to the most fearful dangers, facing death, bearing all kinds of torture, surmounting the greatest obstacles, and making all bow to the power of his zeal. What zeal! what love! But regarding all this as nothing, he still intended to go to China, then to Tartary, and after passing by the north into Europe, there to bring back to the bosom of the church those who had strayed, and revive the ancient purity of morals; afterwards to proceed to Africa and thence once more to Asia in order to subjugate new kingdoms to Christ. Such is the zeal which the love of God inspires.

REFLECTIONS.

1. Can I without confusion compare my coldness and indifference for the interests of God to the zeal and fervor of St. Francis?

2. Am I rejoiced when I see my Creator loved and served? Am I grieved when I hear his adorable Name taken in vain, or see his holy Commandments transgressed? God is my king, my benefactor, my father.

3. To love him then with all our hearts, to labor and suffer for his glory; to prevent evil and encourage good are acts of zeal from which no one was ever exempt.

PRAYER.

I am confounded, O God of my heart, and blush through shame, for having served thee so little and served thee so ill, after all the benefits thou hast bestowed upon me and still dost promise to bestow. Alas! Shall I never cease to be ungrateful! Yes, O Lord, for henceforth I will love thee, and none but thee; now have I begun, do thou support my weakness. Amen.

St. Francis Xavier, pray for me.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Powers, I congratulate you on your fidelity to God, obtain for me the grace to do all that I can to increase the number of his servants, and lessen the offences daily committed against him.

OR FIFTH FRIDAY.

XAVIER'S CHARITY AND ZEAL FOR THE SALVATION OF SOULS.

LOVE of his neighbor was always deeply rooted in the heart of Xavier. His solicitude for the poor, the afflicted and the sick, was really that of a father. Although apostolical legate, he went begging through the streets of Goa to procure relief for the indigent Portuguese and Hindoos. His miracles were for the most part wrought to remedy public or private evils. Those even who persecuted him the most, enjoyed the greatest share in his love and prayers; thus it was that he daily offered up the holy sacrifice of the mass for the Governor of Malacca during nearly all the time that he received such infamous treatment at his hands.

But his ardent charity appeared more strikingly in his zeal for the salvation of souls. He fain would have converted all the nations of the earth, yet he took no less pains for the conversion of a single individual than he would have taken for that of a whole nation. When a poor man or a child asked for him, he left all to give himself up entirely to the impulse of charity. Nothing could arrest him when souls were to be saved. In vain was it represented to him that, in the island of Moro, whither he desired to go, and which he actually visited and converted, the air was fatal to strangers, the earth often opened, and swallowed up the inhabitants, the cruel and savage natives poisoned one another and fed on human flesh, without any regard to the ties of kindred. He answered that if great riches were there to be had, self interested men, unappalled by these dangers would have flocked thither in thousands; what! added he, shall souls to be saved be looked upon as nothing, and charity be less intrepid than avarice? It is impossible to read without astonishment all that even Protestants have written concerning the admirable effects of his zeal, and yet they have given but a trifling portion of what he really effected.

REFLECTIONS.

1. Every Christian is an Apostle in his own family; zeal should interest parents towards their children, their servants, &c.

2. If we sin by not contributing, as much as lies in us, to the salvation of our neighbor, how dreadful a crime must it not be to contribute in any manner to his eternal ruin.

3. What zeal can he have for others, who has no charity for himself? Xavier saved a million of souls, and I do not even think of saving my own.

PRAYER.

Thou hast ransomed our souls, O divine Jesus, at the price of thy blood; why cannot I shed mine for the salvation of my brethren? I will at least endeavour to edify, console, instruct and sanctify them as much as lies in my power, aided by thy grace and the example of St. Francis Xavier. Amen.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Virtues, I congratulate you on your faithful adherence to God; implore for me the virtue which the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary desire to see reigning in my heart.

OR SIXTH FRIDAY.

XAVIER'S CONFIDENCE IN GOD.

WE can undertake, and hope for, all things, when like St. Francis Xavier, we put all our trust in God. No one but he was ever in so many perils by sea and by land. A vessel, in which he happened to be, was dashed to pieces by a dreadful storm, and he, for three days and three nights, lay at the mercy of the winds and waves. He fell several times into the hands of an infuriated populace, and was fired at by the barbarians with poisoned arrows. The Mahomedans, and the Brahmins sought by various means to take away his life. The Bonzes after many furious but fruitless attempts, finally assembled to the number of three thousand, resolved on using every effort to accomplish his destruction. These dangers however damped not his courage; the more he was threatened, the more he trusted in God. “Were we,” said he in one of his letters, “not only in the midst of barbarians, but even in the empire of the demons, neither the outpourings of the most violent passions nor all the rage of hell could harm us without God's permission; him and him alone do I fear.” It seems indeed that God, moved by the confidence and faith of his servant, had placed his power in his hands. This appears in the astonishing miracles which were so ordinary to him, and which struck the Pagans so much that they called him the wonder-worker, the friend of heaven, the lord of nature, the God of earth. He renewed all the miracles wrought in the time of the Apostles, possessed the gift of tongues, cast out devils, healed the sick, arrested alone a whole army of barbarians, obtained the total defeat and dispersion of a hostile heathen fleet, sweetened the waters of the sea, appeased storms, saved the shipwrecked, predicted the future, read and revealed the secrets of hearts. In fine, it was almost a miracle in him to work none: for putting all his confidence in the Almighty he shared, as it were, his omnipotence.

REFLECTIONS.

1. God sees all my wants, he can do all things, and he honors me with his love: what more is needed to excite my confidence?

2. Our continual unfaithfulness renders us fearful before God. We dare not hope in him, because we know that we are undeserving of his approbation.

3. Let us take every means to please this God whose goodness is infinite, and we may, like St. Francis, rely on the miraculous effects of his power.

PRAYER.

In thee, O Lord, I put my confidence. Thou seest my necessities and canst help me. Thou art my father, and were hell with all its powers armed against me; like St. Francis Xavier, I fear not beneath so powerful a protection; I ask it of thee through the intercession of thy blessed Apostle. Amen.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Dominations, I congratulate you on your fidelity to God; obtain for me the grace to perform at all times and in all things his holy will.

OR SEVENTH FRIDAY.

XAVIER'S MEEKNESS.

WHEN Xavier had given himself up to God, one of the first lessons he learned of his Divine Master was meekness. This amiable virtue banished from his heart every ungoverned impulse of anger, made him perfect master of his passions, and enabled him to moderate the ardor of his zeal notwithstanding the extreme vivacity of his temper. An engaging and pleasing air, affability of manners, a cheerful and complaisant humor, gained him every heart. So agreeable and interesting was he in conversation, that all, soldiers, merchants, the educated and the uneducated, sought his company and left it but with regret. The king of Bungo, one of those who were converted by him, captivated by the charms of his society, said to him one day: if I go to Paradise, Father Francis, I wish even then to be near you. He sought the attachment of his neighbour only to inspire him with the love of God, and so irresistible was his meekness that he never failed to attain his end.

Once in particular he lodged with three dissolute soldiers, whom he entirely reformed after having passed a whole lent with them and won their affections by his pleasing manners. Thus also he converted a noble Portuguese, a professed unbeliever, who at length yielded to his pressing solicitations. The most savage barbarians and man who had interwoven crime with their very existence, lost while with him their natural ferocity and brutality. He was nevertheless severe and inflexible when it was necessary, terrible even when occasion required him to show all the power of his zeal. Thus he acted towards the governor of Malaca who through a spirit of self interest and jealousy always obstinately thwarted Xavier's design of passing into China to announce the Gospel. Yet even then his apostolical firmness was always tempered by the greatest kindness; silence, modesty and prayers were his only return for this ill treatment, these insults and calumnies.

REFLECTIONS.

1. We like mildness in others, their moderation charms us; but would not others like in us what pleases so much in them.

2. Control your temper, moderate even your zeal. Sourness and anger are evils and evils are never productive of good.

3. The happiness of resembling Jesus Christ and partaking in his promises, the satisfaction of living in peace with God, our neighbour and ourselves are strong motives to engage us to be meek.

PRAYER.

O most amiable Savior who hast so earnestly recommended meekness, help me to bear with patience all the evils that may befal me, to restrain my natural vivacity, and like St. Francis Xavier to preserve my soul in peace amidst the troubles which continually agitate my life. Amen.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Thrones, I congratulate you on your faithfulness to God, may my heart by your prayers become a sanctuary wherein Jesus and Mary may dwell for ever in meekness. Amen.

OR EIGHTH FRIDAY.

HUMILITY OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.

ONE of the virtues which St. Francis most habitually practised and in which he made the greatest progress was humility. Before sailing for the East, an officer by order of the King asked him for a list of what he needed for the voyage. His answer was, that he humbly thanked his Majesty, but that he needed nothing. You will not at least, continued the officer, refuse the services of a valet. I do more, replied Xavier; I intend to be not only my own servant but the servant of others. And such in fact he was during the voyage and during the whole time he spent in the East. The Portuguese officers and merchants, who were aware of his noble origin, for the house of Xavier was not only illustrious, but allied even to the royal blood of Arragon and Navarre, could not contain their astonishment, when they beheld him, as though the meanest of men, clad in a poor worn out habit, which he mended with his own hands: living for the most part on the crusts he begged: delighted with the company of children and the poor; nursing the sick, and becoming in fact the servant of all! Yet nothing was more edifying than the humble sentiments which Xavier had of himself. Amid those amazing works which drew upon him the admiration and applause of the whole world, the Saint, sensible only of his nothingness and sins, humbled himself before God, nor could understand how men could find aught in him to esteem. His miracles he attributed to the faith of the sick or the innocence of the children, whom he employed to work them, and according to himself, the blessings which the Almighty poured forth upon his labors, were the effect of the prayers offered up for him. If, however, his success failed to correspond to his zeal, the blame he took entirely to himself: to believe him, all the evil came from him, his sins prevented all the good he left undone.

“I have never known,” he writes to St. Ignatius, then General of the Order; “as I know here in Japan, the abyss of faults and imperfections that crowd my soul: I see them and am sensible how necessary it is for me to have one to watch over and direct me.”

REFLECTIONS.

1. What reasons have we not for humiliation? The sight of what we are, the uncertainty of what we shall be, the blindness of our understanding, the weakness of our heart, our countless sins.

2. Our innate pride and false ideas of propriety, raise a thousand obstacles to humility: but can any obstacle avail against the precepts and example of Christ.

3. Let us study that divine model, and so act that our thoughts, sentiments, words, and manner, bear, as far as possible, the impress of his humility.

PRAYER.

Thou knowest, O Lord, how necessary humility is to me; and yet how difficult my blind self-love renders the practice of this virtue. Grant me thy grace the better to know my misery, to crush my pride, and, like thy servant St. Francis, to find pleasure in the most mortifying humiliations. Amen.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Cherubim, I congratulate you on your fidelity to God: obtain for me the grace to humble myself in spirit beneath all men by a true humility and self-contempt. Amen.

OR NINTH FRIDAY.

PIETY OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.

THAT spirit of piety which contributed so powerfully to the sanctification of Xavier had been imbibed by him in the first retreat which he made under the guidance of Ignatius: he maintained and increased it by frequent communings with God. When at Goa, he retired to the belfry to escape all interruption, during the two hours which he daily spent in meditation. When at sea he passed in the same holy exercise, the hours from midnight till day break. This the sailors knew. “We need not fear a tempest,” they would say. “Father Francis is conversing with God.” His scanty rest he often took in the church, and generally on the very steps of the altar: spending the residue of the night in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

When able to find a confessor he approached the tribunal of penance daily. He celebrated the Holy Sacrifice with so recollected and touching an air that his fervor was caught up by all present. Tears of gratitude, tenderness and joy flowed from his eye, and he conversed with his God as though visibly before him.

Towards the Most Holy Trinity his devotion was very great. So frequently did he invoke the Triune God by the words, ‘Most Holy Trinity,’ that they were at last used even by the idolaters; ignorant as they were of the meaning.— Wonderful was his confidence in the merits of the passion of Our Lord.—The Blessed Virgin he honored as his mother and patroness, and omitted no device to inspire the neophytes with a fervent devotion towards her: he also offered constant prayers to the Holy Angels, and St. Joseph, for under their protection he had placed his missions.

REFLECTIONS.

I. We complain that we do not feel sufficient piety: this is because a love of the world, and an eagerness to satisfy our every desire, have usurped the place of a relish for the things of heaven.

II. It is, however, of faith, that the least act of an interior life, or aught that is done for the soul, is far more precious than the whole world.

III. The frequentation of the Sacraments, assiduous prayer, reading of pious books, and self-watchfulness, excite and nourish this piety in the soul.

PRAYER.

O Holy Ghost, who infusest into our hearts the heavenly gifts of thy grace, inspire me with a love of piety, that I may henceforth serve Thee with a purity of heart and a fervor of spirit, equal, if possible, to the purity and fervor of thy faithful servant, Saint Francis Xavier. Amen.

Blessed Spirits of the Choir of Seraphim, I congratulate you on your fidelity to the Almighty: implore for me a tender, generous and constant love for the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

OR TENTH FRIDAY.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S RESIGNATION TO DIVINE PROVIDENCE.—HIS HOLY DEATH.

THE whole life of St. Francis Xavier was an entire self-resignation to the guidance of Divine Providence. But if this submission to the decrees of heaven, this entire resignation to Providence, were ever more strikingly displayed, it was especially in his design of entering China, despite the multiplied obstacles thrown in his way, yet which he almost entirely surmounted. Behold him now, in sight of that vast empire! his desires seem now to be fulfilled. But, alas! the merchant who had promised to bear him in, is faithless; the Chinese who was to have been his interpreter, disappears. In this distressing moment he is seized with a raging fever; conscious that he would never rise again, his thoughts were centered on his approaching voyage to Eternity.

The close air and the fitful motion of the ship heightened his fever. They laid him on the shore, exposed to a keen blast: there he would have died, had not a Portuguese carried him into a wretched cabin, little better than the strand. There Xavier awaited his last hour, forsaken by all, without a remedy, without food, without assistance. All forsook him but God, and in God alone he rested; his consolation was to look up to heaven, or fix his eyes on the crucifix which he clasped in his hand; turning at times his streaming eyes to China, filled with anguish to leave it still idolatrous: yet contented to make this sacrifice of his zeal and life to God. After two days, thus spent without any nourishment, he gradually sunk, and at last calmly gave up his soul, on the second of December, 1552, in the forty-sixth year of his age, and the tenth of his apostleship in the East. His dying words were “In te Domine speravi; non confundar in æternum.” “In thee O Lord have I hoped; I shall not be confounded forever.”

REFLECTIONS.

I. How sweet it is thus to resign the soul into the hands of God. A happy death! this must henceforth be my only thought.

II. For this happiness I can prepare only by submitting with entire resignation to him who disposes of all the events of my life.

III. Whatever then befals me, be it pleasing or not, it is by the will of God. I shall bow down: my resignation glorifies him, and at the same time, draws down his graces upon me.

PRAYER.

Lord, I will all that thou wilt, because thou wilt, as thou wilt. Dispose of me according to thy good pleasure in this life, but forsake me not in my last hour; grant me then the grace to die in thy love, like thy blessed servant, St. Francis Xavier. Amen.

Angel of God, my Guardian, to whom I have been committed by the Divine clemency, enlighten, guard, direct and govern me, this day, and during my whole life, but particularly at the hour of my death.