Featured News
View our Vocations Brochure
Home / Blogging With Purpose / St. Francis Xavier and Presentation Sisters

St. Francis Xavier and Presentation Sisters

Tradition maintains that the cross, kept at Presentation convent George’s Hill, was a gift to St. Francis Xavier from an Indian Prince whose son he had miraculously cured.

Saint Francis Xavier was born in the kingdom of Navarre, now in northern Spain, in 1506, the youngest son of a councillor to the king. As was common for prosperous families at the time, the youngest son was sent to get an education so as to enter ecclesiastical service, so in 1525 Xavier was sent to France where he studied philosophy at the University of Paris.

At college in Paris, Xavier shared a room with Peter Faber, a fellow student, and in 1529 they were joined in their lodgings by Ignatius de Loyola, a former soldier also studying at the university. Loyola had experienced a religious awakening and tried convincing his roommates to enter the priesthood as he intended to do himself. Xavier didn’t take to this new acquaintance at first but was won over by his spirituality and example. In 1534 Xavier, together with Loyola, Faber and several others, took vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in a church at Montmartre, in Paris. At Loyola’s behest he performed over thirty days the meditations and prayers set out by Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises.

In 1541, months after Pope Paul III officially recognised the Society of Jesus, Xavier set out with two other Jesuit companions from Portugal on a ship bound for west India. For three years, Xavier tireless moved from village to village along the south-eastern coast of India, preaching from a catechism with the help of translators and baptising those who desired it. He also travelled to Portuguese owned islands of what are today Malaysia and Indonesia. While on one of these islands he met Anjirō, a Japanese man with a deep interest in Christianity. Together with Anjirō and three other Jesuits Xavier travelled to Japan in 1549, the first Jesuit missionaries to travel to Japan, arriving there only six years after the first Europeans to reach the island.

Xavier spent two years in Japan preaching the word of God, establishing several Christian communities across the island. Having accomplished this, he next set his eyes on China. Setting sail for China in 1552, Xavier reached the island of Shangchuan, just off the Chinese southern coast, where he was forced to await a ship to bring him to the mainland.

Xavier died, however, on that island, of a fever, after staying there for several months. The legacy of his missionary work is vast; Saint Francis established and cared for communities of Christians all across the Far East, many of which survive to this day. Saint Francis Xavier was beatified in 1619 and canonised in 1622, and because of his life’s work, he was made the patron saint of Catholic missions.

In Dublin, next door to St. Michan’s Church in Halston Street is George’s Hill Convent, founded by Theresa Mulally. Teresa, a humble woman of independent means had, in 1766, quietly started a Catholic school in Mary’s Lane for the poor girls of inner-city Dublin. Striving to ensure its future, she had purchased a plot of land on George’s Hill in the hope that she would get a religious community to continue her work of teaching poor Catholic children.

She went to Cork to consult with Nano Nagle, who had just founded the Presentation Order. With the help of Father Mulhall, funds were collected, and the land for George’s Hill purchased. In 1787 several houses were erected for schools, and in seven years after, 1794, the convent and chapel were formally opened.

The Jesuits being expelled from France carried many precious relics to this parish. One of the most remarkable of these is a Crucifix given by Father Mulcaile to the Presentation Community of George’s Hill. Father Mulcaile in his younger days obtained it from one of the Fathers who had brought it from Goa. Tradition maintained that it was a gift to St. Francis Xavier from an Indian Prince whose son he had miraculously cured. It is said to be of Indian wood, the Figure, also of wood being very finely carved and exceedingly beautiful. The cross and stand can be disjointed, so as to be fitted into a case for missionary travels and purposes.

 

The archival reference can be found in the National Folklore Collection UCD at www.duchas.ie 

Saint Francis Xavier biography from Jesuit.ie

More about George’s Hill Community find here https://presentationsistersne.ie/ne-locations/dublin-georges-hill/

0 Shares

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

View our Vocations Brochure
0 Shares
Share
Tweet