Events

  Francis Xavier, letter writer

“No less fruit has been obtained in Spain and Portugal through his letters than has been obtained in the Indies through his teaching.”
Antonio Araoz SJ, contemporary of Xavier, writing in 1545

Great missionaries make great letter-writers. This statement is largely true, I think. The letters of the first great Christian missionary, Paul of Tarsus are part of the body of Sacred Scripture, though these are more in the nature of encyclicals than personal letters – except for one gem. But Paul was certainly prolific, and this is why his writings are larger than anyone else’s in the New Testament.

Francis Xavier, the first Jesuit missionary, was a great letter writer too. His letters were both private and personal, and public – that is, written for a wider, more general readership. Scholars have put together 137 such letters, and have surmised that another 89 existed, but have been lost without a trace.

Some of his letters are in reality documents of instruction, and the saint either wrote them in his own hand, or dictated them. Not infrequently too, they were written in duplicate or triplicate, so that at least one copy would reach the recipient, delivery systems being as unreliable as they were in those times. Besides Xavier had perforce to write in many languages – to his companions in Rome in Spanish; to the king and to his companions in Portugal and in the Indies, he wrote in Portuguese; but he had also learned some Tamil and Japanese; and earlier, some Italian and French; even though his mother-tongue was Basque. So naturally there is linguistic confusion in many of his letters, for they were always written (or dictated) under pressure, and his vocabulary was limited. And yet, as one of his translators puts it,

They are always warm with the love of God and of souls, always tender and expressive. Xavier never uses a literary phrase. Admirers of beautiful language and learned composition will only find sentences which are frequently entangled, barely correct, and written in haste by the pen of a man whose entire time was spent in the service of his neighbour. But it is all so alive and almost breathless !

And the English poet John Dryden (1631-1700) who translated a biography of Xavier, write similarly:

Where he exhorts, there’s not an expression but glows with the love of God. Where he directs a missionary, we can scarcely have a lesser idea than of a St Paul advising Timothy or Titus. Where he writes to Europe, he inspires his ardour into sovereign princes, and the spirit of his devotion burns his colleagues even at that distance from the Indies.

 This is the reason why his letters to Rome made such an impact. We know that they were eagerly read and re-read, copied, recopied and translated into Latin and into other European languages. The first letter to be so published was Xavier’s great letter from Cochin, India (January 15, 1544). In fact compilations of his letters were widely distributed and became an inspiration to Jesuits and their students in Europe. They inspired countless young men and women to dedicate themselves to God, and to volunteer for the Eastern missions. In the archives of the Jesuits in Rome there are records of some 15000 letters from before the Suppression of the Society (1773) written by members volunteering their services for the foreign missions.

Other Jesuits took their cue from Xavier, so that Jesuit letters from the field (sometimes from various royal courts; at other times, from expeditions of discovery and exploration) always meticulous in detail and rich in observation, constitute one of the most important sources of historiography for most countries, but specially for India. ( John Correia-Afonso’s Jesuit Letters and Indian History explores this connection in great detail.).

To take just one example: the letters of Father Thomas Stephens (1549-1619) to his father in London had unforeseen consequences. So impressed was the older Stephens, a merchant by profession, with the details sent in by his son, that he persuaded a group of his merchant friends to form a company to trade with India. The group founded what was later known as the East India Company, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ours is a more hectic age where the telephone call and the e-greeting has taken the place of the written letter. Letters belong to a quieter, slower time, where there was more ‘personal space’ to reflect upon oneself – whether through conversation, keeping a journal or pouring out one’s feelings in letters to a friend. These personal soliloquies may seem frivolous today, but they were in fact a simple and convenient way of articulating oneself as an individual, as a person. This is why one finds truth ‘between the lines’ as it were – in the handwriting, the spellings and the quaint turns of phrase. Letters and diaries are where one encounters the truth of oneself and of those one loves.

And what is the truth of Xavier which we encounter in these pages ? We find a man who is immersed in the details, both spiritual and mundane, of running a Company overwhelmed with activities. Most of his letters are about ‘business’ – political arrangements with the Portuguese and with the local rulers, the care of the small Christian communities, his travels between one place and another, and the dispatching of missionaries where there is greatest need.
And yet, through it all runs the great solicitude Xavier has for the personal care of each Jesuit before God, and his frequent petitions to Ignatius to write to the brethren so that his words can uplift and challenge them. These are not personal letters in our modern sense – whimsical, fanciful, subjective – but they reveal a heart which vibrates with the love of Christ and with ‘personal care’ for all those entrusted to him.

This is the man who would cut out the signatures of his friends and place them in a sachet hung around his neck close to his heart—
I thus am coming to a close without being able to stop writing about the great love which I have for all of you as individuals, and in general. If the hearts of those who love each other in Christ could be seen in this present life, believe me, dearest brothers, you would see yourselves clearly in mine. If you did not recognize yourselves when you saw yourselves in it, the reason for this would be my very great esteem for you; and you, yourselves, because of your virtues hold yourselves in such contempt because of your humility that you would fail to see and recognize yourselves, and not because your images are not impressed upon my heart and soul…(to the brethren in Goa, 5 Nov 1549, from Kagoshima)

I thus bring this to a close, asking your holy Charity, most reverend Father of my soul, as I kneel upon the ground while writing thus, as if I were in your presence, to commend me much to God our Lord in your holy sacrifices and prayers, so that he may grant me to know his most holy will in this present life, and give me the grace to fulfill it perfectly. Amen. Your least and most useless son, Francisco. (to Ignatius, 12 Jan 1549, from Cochin)

Wherever men and women are open to being pulled out of themselves and their self-centred lives, there the words of Francis Xavier will continue to inspire and challenge.

It’s another world, but Xavier lives – still !

In English, the one-volume compilation of The Letters and Instructions of Francis Xavier translated and introduced by M. Joseph Costelloe SJ, is available from Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Anand 388 001.