Francis Xavier - Missionary Work

Missionary Work

Francis devoted much of his life to missions in Asia, after being appointed by King John III of Portugal to take charge as Apostolic Nuncio in Portuguese India, where the king believed that Christian values were eroding among the Portuguese. After successive appeals to the Pope asking for missionaries for the East Indies under the Padroado agreement, John III was enthusiastically advised by Diogo de Gouveia, rector of the Collège Sainte-Barbe, to draw the newly graduated youngsters that would establish the Society of Jesus.

Leaving Rome in 1540, Francis took with him a breviary, a catechism and a Latin book (De Instituione bene vivendi) written by the Croatian humanist Marko Marulić that had become popular in the counter-reformation. The breviary and the book by Marulić accompanied Xavier on all of his voyages, and was used as source material for much of his preaching. According to a 1549 letters of F. Balthasar Gago in Goa, it was the only book that Francis read or studied.