Dear St. Francis
Xavier, I would like to thank you for bringing Christianity to Malaysia. And I
am very blessed indeed to be actually serving now in the very state that you
visited which is in my diocese of Malacca-Johore. Every year we have your Feast
Day Mass at the site where your body lay for 9 months while waiting to be
transferred to Goa, India with people coming in thousands from all over
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand and even from Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Though the site has been ruined during the
war, the government tried to save the site and has named it a ‘Heritage Site’.
We have many tourists including local Muslims coming to visit the site every
day. I believe and hope that when they read about you and the life you have
witnessed, they will be inspired by your zeal for preaching Christ and would
want to know more of the Christ you preached.
I have three
questions for you dear Saint. You are from a very rich family; you had
everything including servants to look after your needs. My first question is
how were you able to leave all these luxuries and a comfortable lifestyle to
follow Christ and be his missionary? In another word, what was the zeal (or
turning point) for wanting to preach Christ to all peoples?
Malacca was your
stop-over for the various destinations you had traveled. And during your short
stay at Malacca each time you came, you had some unique experiences such as the
time when you faced a fierce storm and lost your precious cross and you found
it later on the shore presumable that a crab was holding on to it only to give
it back to you. I believe you had also many encounters with many different
people from various countries coming to Malacca to do some trading and it is
there you met Yajiro (Anjigo) and became his friend and your first Japanese
convert who opened the door for your mission trip to Japan. So now it seems
Malacca has a special meaning for you and for the Malaysians. My second
question is; do you have any particular story for the Malaccans about their
pioneers of the Christian faith?
Dear Saint, the
church, recognizing your works and life for Jesus Christ, canonized you a Saint
in the year 1622 and made you a Patron of the Missions. Reflecting on your life, I can come to a
conclusion that you feel you do not deserve this recognition. But it is
important for us here living now. Through the proclamation that you are a
Saint, invites each one of us to be like you, a worker in the Lord’s vineyard, and
a missionary for the Lord of the Harvest. My third question is; what is your
advice to all of us who is taking up missions in the various fields in the life
of the Church especially priests and seminarians in this current era?
Once again, I
would like to thank you for all the sacrifices and your missionary work
especially in Asia and in particular in Malacca, Malaysia. You are indeed ‘a
good and faithful servant’ and I know you are ‘sharing in your master’s joy’
(Matthew 25:21). I ask you to pray for me that I too may be faithful to my
calling and be a missionary like you in the Master’s vineyard.
Yours sincerely,
Adrian Francis Mathews.
