Let's Go X!

December 3

Saint Francis Xavier, Priest

Memorial

St. Francis Xavier was a Jesuit priest in the 1500’s. The son of an aristocratic Spanish-Basque family, he received the best education; studying at the University of Paris. While there; he met St. Ignatius of Loyola and with several other men, took vows to follow Christ. In 1541, St. Francis, now an ordained priest, was appointed apostolic nuncio in the East. He traveled to Goa, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan establishing missionary outposts and converting hundreds of thousands. He was canonized in 1622. For his apostolic zeal, Pius X named him the patron of foreign missions.

O God,
who through the preaching of Saint Francis Xavier
won many peoples to yourself,
grant that the hearts of the faithful
may burn with the same zeal for the faith
and that Holy Church may everywhere rejoice
in an abundance of offspring.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.