Living a life of Mission : Celebrating the Feast Day of St Francis Xavier.
- Tamara Agavi
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Port Moresby : The core mission of the Catholic Church is evangelization, which is to make disciples by proclaiming the Gospel, baptizing converts, and teaching them to follow Christ's commands. This is often expressed through a two-part mission, evangelization and service. In addition to spreading the faith, the Church is also called to serve others through works of charity, justice, peace, and care for creation, as a way to incarnate faith in action.
St. Francis Xavier quite lived up to these two missions of evangelization and service to others. This year coinciding with the Year of Jubilee “Pilgrims of Hope” Living your Catholic faith to the fullest means also to being of service to others.
We have many saints in the Catholic Church who also lived their entire life being of service to others and were martyred because they wore their faith out in the open and were not afraid to show it to others. The Life and mission work of St. Francis Xavier was just that , he lived boldly his faith.
A portrait of St. Francis Xavier
Today as we reflect on his life , we remember his devotion to administering to people from all over the world and his life's work , which is still being revered.
St. Francis Xavier , through his life's mission of evangelization to people from all walks of life is highly documented as seen from a detailed Bibliography on the New Advent website ;
It is truly a matter of wonder that one man in the short space of ten years could have visited so many countries, traversed so many seas, preached the Gospel to so many nations, and converted so many. The incomparable apostolic zeal which animated him, and the stupendous miracles which God wrought through him, explain this marvel, which has no equal elsewhere.
St. Francis Xavier is known for setting up the Society of Jesus , also known as the Order of the Jesuits which is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola , St Francis Xavier and 5 other companions, with the approval of Pope Paul III.