Saint Francis Xavier, East Asia, and the "Catholicity" of Christ

December 3: The incredible SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER, missionary to East Asia. To his intercession (among others) I entrust my ongoing and increasingly difficult work of studying and "listening to" the great historic civilization of China and the drama and difficulty of its recent past and present reality. Today's Saint began to build a "Great Bridge" to facilitate an encounter with the peoples beyond the "Great Wall", and his confreres - Ruggieri, Ricci, Trigault, Valignano, et. al. along with their Chinese collaborators Li Zhizao, Xu Guangqi, Yang Tingjun, Candida Xu, and many others - continued a remarkable, profoundly human, mutually enriching dialogue of cultures within the missionaries' witness to Christ and the free response of Chinese converts. This permitted the Gospel to take root and flourish in an "organic" Chinese inculturation wherein all that was true and beautiful in China's great wisdom tradition opened itself to the West and showed new facets of the "Catholicity" of Christ's Church. Tragically, misunderstandings and, eventually, the greedy abuses of colonial domination by Western nations obscured this evangelical and cultural work (though not entirely — the Catholic faith remained through the centuries and has endured many trials).

But Francis Xavier was no seeker of earthly power or riches; he was a man on fire with the love of God, with a passion to witness to Jesus through all the world. He preached in India, was the first Catholic missionary in Japan, and longed to reach China - where he finally died of an illness (having reached the limits of human endurance) on an island seven miles from the coast of the southern province of Guangdong. The ardor of his missionary heart brought a great many people to Christ, shined the light of the Gospel explicitly in nations where it had never shone before, and planted seeds - many of which have yet to grow, blossom, and bear fruit. But they will…

Welcome to Advent 2025

This Advent, let us remember that Jesus is with us, that He loves us, and that He is the Lord of history.

The 1700-Year-Old Legacy of the First Council of Nicaea

Pope Leo XIV, Bartholomew (Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople), and other leaders of Catholic and other ancient churches met together in Turkiye in recent days to mark the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.

The Council was — a remains today — a great source and hope for the unity of all Christians. In the Creed that clarifies the truth revealed by Christ and handed on by the Scriptures and the Apostolic Tradition, we profess our common faith in the Person of Jesus Christ, consubstantial with the Father in His Divinity, who assumed our humanity and entered history for our salvation.