The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier (Set of 2 Volumes)

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The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier by Henry James Coleridge is a compelling biography of one of Christianity's greatest missionaries. Through Xavier's personal letters and Coleridge's insightful commentary, the book vividly narrates the saint's life, from his early days in Europe to his pioneering missionary work in India, Japan, and Southeast Asia during the 16th century. As a close companion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Xavier played a critical role in the global expansion of the Jesuit Order and the Catholic Church.

The book provides a balanced portrayal of Xavier, highlighting his spiritual zeal and human challenges. His letters reveal his struggles with loneliness, cultural barriers, and the harsh conditions of his missions, yet they also reflect his unwavering faith and passion for spreading the Gospel. Coleridge places Xavier's endeavors within the broader historical context of the Counter-Reformation, emphasizing his influence on the Catholic missionary movement.

Rich in historical detail, this work not only showcases Xavier's extraordinary life but also provides insight into the early cultural exchanges between Europe and Asia. Both an inspiring spiritual biography and a historical treasure, it remains a must-read for anyone interested in the life of St. Francis Xavier or the history of global missions.

Henry James Coleridge (1822-1893), writer on religious affairs and preacher. Studied at Eton and Oxford (Trinity College), going on to a distinguished university career at Oxford (Oriel). Converted from Anglican Orders to Catholicism, eventually becoming a priest in 1856 after moving to Rome to study for it. He became a Jesuit shortly afterwards, becoming an academic, writer and religious magazine editor, and authoring several influential biographies, treatises and commentaries, including the book, "The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ".

ALTHOUGH several beautiful Lives of St. Francis Xavier exist- some of them in our own language-I do not think that any excuse will be required for the attempt made in the present work to produce a new Life, which may satisfy in some sort the legitimate requirements of our own time. We are accustomed to set a higher value than men of former generations on those indications of personal character, in the case of great men and conspicuous Saints, which are to be found in their own words, in their letters, in anecdotes which set them familiarly before our eyes, and the like. The Catholics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would take the letter of a Saint, for instance, of St. Teresa or St. Francis Xavier, and cut it to pieces for the sake of making up a signature out of letters from separate words, or forming some holy text in the Saint's handwriting in the same way. Many valued such relics as these, without caring much for the actual words and thoughts of the Saint, which they were often content to have in a translation, or a paraphrase which preserved the general sense, but not the peculiar colouring and incommunicable character of the mind from which the words proceeded; we, on the other hand, value above all things the minute traits of character and shades of feeling which can only be discerned by close and faithful study of the mind and heart of someone in whose history we are interested, and we set the highest store on such biographies as make this study most easy to us, by putting before us in its native simplicity whatever comes to us most immediately from such a heart and mind.

There can be no doubt, that if St. Francis Xavier had lived within the present century, the first thought of his biographers would have been to collect every detail within reach, even as to the external circumstances and scenery of his career, and that, in particular, every scrap of writing that ever proceeded from his pen would have been religiously preserved and examined, even if it had not been published. Such was not the way in which biographies were written in the generation which succeeded that of Francis Xavier and Ignatius, and the lives which that generation and subsequent generations produced differ in proportion from those which we require. At this distance of time, and under all the circumstances of the case, it might be impossible, even for one with far greater opportunities than it is my lot to possess, to supply fully what is to us a sort of deficiency in earlier lives of the Saint. A very large number of his letters have perished altogether. Those which remain to us exist chiefly in a Latin translation, which appears to have the merit of conscientious fidelity, but which must certainly fail to give us much of the fire, much of the delicate grace, much of the intense tenderness, which must have breathed in every line of the originals. Moreover, a great many collateral facts, which would render the letters more complete as an integral portion of his biography, have certainly been lost to us. There are other accessories which might be supplied, even at the present day, but which I am painfully aware are wanting in the present work. A knowledge of India and the East, including Japan, an acquaintance with the scenes of his labours, with the living effects which still remain of his preaching, notably in the south of India, with the unchanged and unchangeable aspects of nature in the gorgeous world of the Eastern Isles, with the half civilized and half savage tribes to whom he preached, and of whose manners he has given so striking an account-these and other similar qualifications would have enabled me not only to render the picture more full and attractive, but to supply many an absolute deficiency, and explain much that is now hardly free from obscurity.

No one will rejoice more heartily than myself should any future writer, possessed of such qualifications, undertake to write a more complete life of the Saint than this can pre- tend to be. In the mean time, it may serve to the glory of God and the honour of St. Francis to have done that which has been now attempted that is, to give a clear narrative of his life as it stands in the ordinary biographies, and to use the whole of the letters and fragments which have survived to us, in the form in which we possess them, to illustrate the life and to speak to us of his character for themselves. The only former biographer of St. Francis who has made much direct use of the letters is Père Bouhours, whose work is known in England from its translation by Dryden. But our acquaintance with the letters has been increased since his time, and he did not use those which he had as fully as might be wished.