Francis Xavier was born on 7th April in the Castle of Javier , a defensive stronghold on the eastern border of the Kingdom of Navarre . Francis was the fifth child of Juan de Jasso y Atondo and Maria de Azpilcueta y Aznárez.
King Ferdinand of Castile invaded Navarre. The Navarrese monarchs, Juan and Catalina de Albret, abandoned the territory and took up seat in the merindad (similar to a county) of Ultrapuertos to the north of the Pyrenees . As a consequence of this war the Castle of Javier was demolished in 1516 and in 1523 Francis's two elder brothers, Miguel and Juan, were condemned to death (although they were later pardoned) and the family was dispossessed.
Francisco Javier left to study in Paris . He was admitted to the College de Sainte Barbe, where he qualified in philosophy, and in 1530 he went on to teach at Beauvais College.
Ignatius of Loyola, who arrived in Paris in 1528, convinced Francis Xavier to begin a new life dedicated to preaching the word of God based on humility and attending to the most needy.
On 15th August, Ignatius, Francis Xavier and some other friends took their religious vows in Montmartre and laid the foundations for the Society of Jesus.
Francis Xavier arrived in Venice . Whilst waiting to embark on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he nursed terminally ill patients. The war with the Turks made it impossible to set sail so Francis made a pilgrimage to Rome . On his return to Venice he was ordained as a priest and celebrated his first Mass there.
He preached to university students in Bologna and cared for the city's poor and sick. He then moved to Rome , where he took an active role in the formation of the Society of Jesus, of which he was to be the First Secretary.
Pope Paul III acceded to a request from the King of Portugal to send Jesuit missionaries to the East Indies . The illness of his Jesuit companion Bobadilla meant a sudden change to Francis Xavier's plans, as he was appointed to this mission and left for Lisbon immediately.
After spending some months in Portugal , where he formed a deep friendship with the King, Juan IlI, on his 35 th birthday Francis Xavier set sail from Lisbon on his long journey to the East.
On 6th May after skirting the African continent, stopping off in Mozambique , Malindi and Socotra, he arrived in Goa , India , where his apostolic work in the East began. In October he began his journey towards Cape Comorin.
Francis Xavier travelled around the Moluccan archipelago for eighteen months visiting many of the "spice islands", including Ambon, Ternate and Baranura, overcoming many dangers on the way and finally returning to Malacca where he remained for 6 months.
On 15th April Javier departed from Goa for Japan . He stopped off in Malacca for a month before carrying on to Kagoshima , where he disembarked on 15th August and began his tour of Japanese regions.
He visited Hirado and Yamaguchi before arriving at the capital city of Miyako ( Kyoto ) to ask the Emperor for permission to preach. The Emperor refused to receive him so he returned to Yamaguchi where he was given an audience with the daimyo, Ôuchi Yoshitaka, who granted him permission to preach Christianity. In the last weeks of his stay in Japan he visited Bungo.
After returning to India he began to plan his next voyage to China , a country that imposed the death penalty on any foreigner daring to enter. However, Francis Xavier believed China to be of key importance in spreading the word of God in the Orient. On 17th April, after being appointed Chief Representative of the Society of Jesus in the Orient, he left for Malacca where he had a major confrontation with Captain Alvaro de Ataide, who forbade him to make the journey to China as the King of Portugal's envoy. Even though he had been stripped of the security he believed would facilitate his entry into China , Xavier still refused to abandon the project and on 17th July he left Malacca for southern China . After passing through the Singapore Straits he arrived on Chang-Chuen-Shan (Sancian) Island at the end of August, hoping to enter China 's closed frontier from there and journey on to Canton . It was during this wait that death caught him unawares on 3rd December 1552.
His body was initially buried on a beach in Sanchian but in February 1553 it was moved to Malacca, where it remained for 5 months before being taken to Goa . Here he was finally laid to rest in the Church of Bon Jesus , where he has since been worshipped by Christians, Hindus and Muslims alike.
