to the nations and nation
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TO THE NATIONS AND NATION:
The Apostle of the Indies and the Apostle of Ceylon
Ad genies —
to the nations - is the
at an effort is made in this brief write-up
tisfied ) interested in hearing more abcut
myths . The deliberate use of plural and
Ad genies, IV, § 23).
Hence, any
(Ad genies, 1, § 5),
and the only
poverty and obedience and self-sacrifice to death"
I bid). If
the same decree on missions reco-
BY;.
TEOTONIO R. DE SOUZA
Director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa.
"should learn the history, aim, and method of the
Church's missionary activity, and the special social,
economic and cultural conditions of- their, own
people "
(Ibid., II, § 16)
it is only to make them
better aware of the
inc rn tion l
method in the
changing historical "circumstanccs in which the
mission is exercised " (
Ibid ., I, § 6).
Two Co founders
In the persons
of
Francis Xavier and Joseph
Vaz we have two co-founders of two religious
bodies, namely the Society of Jesus and the Ora-
torians of Goa. They originated from distant
lands : One a Spanish basque and a stranger to
the culture of India and the East; the other a Goan
brahmin of Salcete and better equipped to meet
the cultural demands of the people to whom he
preached the gospel. Both had Goa, the head-
quarters of the Portuguese empire, as their base
of missionary activities. However, the time-interval
between them was about a century and half, and
the fortunes of the Portuguese empire differed as
much : When Francis Xavier arrived in India
(1542)
the Portuguese power was almost at its
zenith and the Portuguese gunboat was in a posi-
tion to terrorize the natives into c.mversion if the
threats of hell or material allurements failed
Joseph Vaz had to operate in times (1681-1711)
when the Portuguese writ was no more respected
in Kanara or in Ceylon. The Dutch commercial
and religious rivals had wrestld away the most
prized spice-lands : clove-lands of Moluccas, the
cinnamon-land of Ceylon, and he pepper-lands of
Malabar.
If Francis Xavier laid the foundation of the
Church on a massive scale and reached
n tions
till the Far East, Fr. Joseph Vaz has rightly been
credited with the second foundation of the Church
of
Ceylon in a way that was no longer "foreign
to the people or to the rulers of that land. What-
ever the differences of their personal backgrounds,
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Xavier in Paris had ended when he witnessed the
deadly effects of venereal disease on a senior com-
panion of his games. It had been such a traumatic
experience that contact with a woman even in a
dreamr led him to inflict on himself bloody injuries
The saint himself admitted later that God had
granted him at that moment a special grace of
preserving his virginity (Schurhammer, op.
cit.,
1, 727) There have been no lack of hints that Fran-
cis Xavier was a women-hater. But without going
to such an extreme conclusion, we could definitely
say that he did not put much trust in a woman.
Among the many practical instructions that he left
for the provincial-designate before leaving for
China, we read "Never blame the husband in
public, even though he may be at fault, since
women are so indomitable
... (Schurhammer,
op. cit.,
IV,
544).
In the many small and detailed instructions
that Francis Xavier conveyed in his written notes
to Francisco Mansilhas, his Jesuit aide in the
Fishery Coast, or to Fr. Gaspar Barze as mentioned
above, we find a sort of resumé of what one may
call the " methodology of St. Francis Xavier ".
Much that he was advising others, he was striving
to practise in his own life
atience, cheerfulness,
ever-readiness to serve the sick and the poor and
the prisoners, preaching repentance, and above all
to be constantly on the move No surprise if he
was always in a hurry and was a burn-out in ten
years
Joseph Vaz was no less in a hurry We are
told by Fr. Pedro de Saldanha, a close companion
of Fr. Joseph Vaz in Ceylon " I have never seen
him incline to take any rest except when he is
indisposed and ordered to do so by obedience
He is very seldom in this church, but he is
constantly going on mission tours. When his
tours are over, he returns to this city of Candia
and begins to visit the surrounding districts. This
is a very toilsome work, as the city is situated in
the centre of many hills and forests and mountain
ranges ...
" He adds "From the various servants
wft6 accompanied him in his long journeys 1 heard
that they have never been able to keep pace with
Father Vaz, for he walks much and with great
speed a testimony i can endorse from my own
experience of the journey I made with him from
Potulao to Mantota " ( V. Pernioja,
The Catholic
Church in
Sri
Lanka,
1984, Vol. I: pp. 2723)
Apparently, all his energy came from rice boiled
in water and his unlimited trust in Providence
If he lived longer than Francis Xavier in spite of
leading an equally strenous life we could humanly
attribute it to his native constitution that could
better withstand our Indian strains. From the first
attack of dysentery on his arrival in Ceylon in
1987, through the gruesome trial of his physical
resistance during the year-long epidemic ten years
later, till his death that followed a long and painful
abscess in a ear, he kept up his practice of visiting
every single family of Ceylon at least once a year
Fortunately for him by 1705 his burden was shared
by nine priests of his Oratory.
It is true that Francis Xavier died uttering
" In Thee, 0 Lord, have I hoped; let me never be
confounded ". Joseph Vaz did not have to utter
any such words. He was a living example of trust
in God's Providence. He always preferred the
opinion of others to his own, and regarded it as
the surest way of finding and doing God's will.
More than once he had to countenance opposition,
changes and delays in the execution of his life.
dream of assisting the Christianity of Ceylon.
His experience was not different fiom
that
f the
arlier Apostle :
"
For those
who love God everything leads to good ". His
formation in Goa, the years of apprenticeship in
Kanara, the formation of the Oratory, were stages
through which he was unwittingly led by Provi-
dence towards the ultimate mission that was
reserved for him.
Joseph Vaz did notfail to reach his
nation.
It was a small nation compared to the Indies of
Francis Xavier, but it was a hard nut to crack.
Only a man in disguise, without fanfare of presti-
gious appointments, without foreign political
patr nage, unhampared by jurisdictional rivalries
of
Padroado
and Propaganda
and backed by a
group that was small enough not to attract
unwanted publicity could be an apostle of Ceylon.
Joseph Vaz fulfilled all these requirements. While
Francis Xavier made a good apostle for the Indies,
only Joseph Vaz could be the right apostle for
Ceylon. Unworthy as I feel of presenting any
bird's-eye-view of two missionary giants, this
exercise of assessing them may at best be
regarded as a worm's-eye-view of someone who
holds them in deep esteem.
XCHR, Alto de Porvorim.
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