Jmj

On December 3, we members of the Catholic Church family honor, in a special way, the following friends of God -- "saints" and "blesseds" whose souls are now in heaven:

St. Francis do Yasu y Javier [better known as Francis Xavier] [Francisco] ["Apostle to the Far East "] (Basque [Spanish], nobleman, priest, first Jesuit missionary [India, East Indies, Japan], baptized 40,000+, had genuine gift of tongues, miracle worker [healed sick, raised dead, calmed storms], died on an island off the coast of China at age 46 in 1552 [beatified 1619, canonized 1622])

St. Anthemius of Poitiers (French, bishop, martyred by Moslems in 8th century)
St. Bernard of Toulouse (French, Dominican friar, tortured and martyred [sawn in half] by Albigensian heretics in 1320)
St. Birinus (French, bishop of Genoa in Italy, missionary and bishop of Dorchester in Britain, died at about age 50 in 650)
St. Cassian of Tangiers (Moroccan, court stenographer, martyred in 298)
Sts. Claudius, Hilaria, Jason, Maurus, and companions, of Rome (Italian, military officer, wife, sons, and seventy soldiers, martytred [some by drowning] in 283)
Bl. Edward Coleman of Suffolk (English, duchess's secretary, martyred under Charles II in 1678 [beatified 1929])
Bl. John Nepomucene von Tschiderer zu Gleifheim of Bolzano [Johann Nepomuk] (Austrian, bishop of Bressanone in Italy, bishop of Innsbruck in Austria, died at age 83 in 1860 [beatified 1995])
St. Lucius (British, chieftain, missionary in Switzerland, c. 200)
Bl. Lucy the Chaste [Lucie] (French, Dominican tertiary in Spain, d. 1420)
St. Mirocles of Milan (Italian, bishop, c. 318)
St. Sola of Eichstatt (British, Benedictine abbot in Germany, d. 794)
St. Veranus (Irish, brother of nine saints, hermit, 8th century)

If you have anything to share about these holy people, please reply now -- biographical episodes, prayers through their intercession, the fact that one is your patron -- whatever moves you. If you are interested in one of these saints or blesseds and want to find out more about him/her, please ask. Additional information is sometimes available on the Internet.

All you holy men and women, saints of God, pray for us.
God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik ("jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 03, 2004

Answers

[From letters to St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, from St. Francis Xavier:]

"I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. ... The older children would not let me say my Divine Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: 'The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'"

"Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. I wish the university students would work as hard at converting these people as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them. This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God's will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: 'Lord, here I am! What do you want me to do?' Send me anywhere you like -- even to India!"

-- ("jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 03, 2004.

[Note: I am copying the following indented messages from the old, obsolete "saints" thread for this day of the year, so that the old thread can later be deleted. JFG]

St. Francis Xavier is the patron of missionaries.

David

-- December 03, 2001.

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David, you gave me an opening to say that he is the CO-patron of missionaries. The other co-patron is St. Therese of Lisieux, who once expressed a wish that she could be a great missionary and who prayed (in her cloistered Carmelite life) for the missionaries of the world.
JFG

-- December 04, 2001.

-- ("jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 03, 2004.