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After a five-day journey Francis reached Cochin and few days later set sail for Malacca where he arrived in late May. It was a hazardous voyage and the galleon Santiago was in danger of sinking more than once. Francis found Malacca ravaged by pestilence, and rumour had it that during the siege some months before the attackers had poisoned the water supply. Hospitals were crowded, the dead ran into the hundreds and Xavier was given a new occasion to minister to the sick and the dying.
Xavier's part in the preparation of the embassy had already been finalized. He already had with him Pereira's appointment as ambassador, drawn up in the name of the king. He also had a letter from viceroy to the emperor of China, elaborately illuminated, and a parchment decorated with gold from the bishop of Goa, in which Francis was introduced as the Pope's legate. He also had many precious gifts, carpets and ornaments. The only thing left for him to do was to wait for Diogo Pereira, who arrived in Malacca some days later with a load of pepper to sell in China.
It was then that tragedy--not totally unforeseen--suddenly struck. The Admiral of the Fleet of Malacca, Dom Alvaro de Ataide (he had obtained this post thanks to the good offices of Francis), refused permission for the embassy to leave harbour, and for good measure seized the rudder of the caravel of Diogo Pereira. Xavier and his friend Diogo tried to be conciliatory, but to no avail. Equally useless were all threats of excommunication for hindering Xavier's work as papal nuncio, and even the veiled suggestions that Ataide's behaviour bordered on treason and might bring ruin to him--as it effectively did--were of no effect. The admiral kept to his decision, and reacted in a violent uncouth way to all attempts to make him change.
What could have been the reason behind Ataide's attitude we really do not know. Was it some deep dislike of Xavier or Pereira, which had been kept concealed until then? Or was it jealousy for the substantial profit the embassy and subsequent treaty would bring to Pereira? It was perhaps Ataide's pride as a fidalgo that had been deeply hurt. He, the son of the hero Vasco da Gama, the first Portuguese to set foot in India, had been ignored in favour of a good-for-nothing like Diogo Pereira. Whatever the reason, Ataide's decision proved irrevocable: he would allow the Santa Cruz of Pereira to leave for Sancian, but without Pereira on board and with no embassy whatsoever.
It goes without saying that Ataide's decision was for Xavier the heaviest blow of his life. In a brusque, ruthless way the door had been closed to enter China and bring it to the Gospel. But if Ataide was not a man to change a decision, neither would Francis retract his own: he would go to Sancian to try and get into China. He would go without Pereira, without gifts and without any of the paraphernalia of an embassy, a lonely poor man and God's adventurer, "always nailed on the cross and always risen"...
And so it was that on the 17th of July Francis left Malacca in the Santa Cruz with the Chinese servant Antonio, a faithful interpreter who would accompany him to the end.
Xavier reached Sancian in early September and was cordially received by the Portuguese colony there. Without official permission from the emperor--which he would most certainly give to an ambassador--foreigners could not set foot in the country, and the Portuguese merchants had to close their deals in the coastal island of Sancian, 26 leagues--about 125 kilometers--from Canton. What was being conducted there was plain smuggling, and as such it was forbidden by law, but a modus vivendi had been arranged between smugglers and the authorities in Canton, and these were quite willing to turn a blind eye on the situation.
From the day of his arrival Francis set out to work on his passage to the continent. He tried by all means to find a Chinese merchant who, for a suitable reward, would be willing to carry him incognito to the suburbs of Canton, but the risk to life and possessions was so great that nobody accepted the offer. Francis was already thinking of sailing to Siam with a Portuguese friend and joining the annual embassy of that country to China, when finally a Chinese merchant showed up who was willing to take him to Canton. Payment would be done with pepper for a total value of 200 cruzados, which were soon raised to 350. The trip to Canton would be at night in the merchant's ship, with a crew made exclusively of members of his family. That man would keep Francis concealed in his own house three or four days and leave him before dawn with all his belongings at the gate of the city. The deal was closed and the time of departure fixed for November 19, to give the Portuguese time to weigh anchor and avoid reprisals, a probable event should Xavier be taken prisoner.
Already in early October Francis had caught a severe cold with frequent headaches and chills. He continued to say Mass every day but had to interrupt all pastoral activity. Now he seemed to have recovered and was looking forward to the 19th of November when the boat would take him incognito to Canton. But that day came and the boat did not show up. And the 20th and 21st passed by and there was no boat in sight. It was then when our Navarrese finally collapsed. Our doctors today would have diagnosed acute pleurisy, but we know for sure that Francis gave up his project to enter China because up in heaven his Father was beckoning him to come.
The end came very quickly, in less than ten days, and all the purgatives and cures of the time proved ineffective. Francis was often delirious, and with his eyes fixed on heaven and a cheerful countenance he kept talking to God in the languages he knew, very probably in his native Basque too. He repeated once and again: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me", "Holy Virgin Mother of God, do not forget me". And so, with the name of Jesus on his lips, he rendered his soul to his Lord and Creator with much quiet and peace. His last words were the final ones of the Te Deum: "In You, O Lord I have hoped. I will not be confounded forever." He was 46 years of age.
Welcome are you pilgrim, to Xavier's house in Yamaguchi. We deeply hope that this sketch of Francis' life may keep alive in you the image of that universal Navarrese, "the holy priest", the God-driven adventurer, "always nailed on the cross and always risen."
Because Xavier's life, the same as that of Paul, the Apostle, was always seeded with crosses. "In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from fellow Jews and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers in the high seas...There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter or clothing. And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches." (2 Cor 11.26-28). And together with this, we should not forget the many illnesses of Francis (in Vicenza, Rome, Mozambique), the humiliations received (insults in Yamaguchi, persecution from Ataide), the failures he had to overcome (Kyoto, Sancian). Xavier's life was a never-ending way of the cross.
And yet, from the time he gave himself to the Lord in Paris, Francis was suffused with the peace and inner joy of a man who knows he has already risen with Christ. He was kindness itself, mostly with the poor, the sick and the sinners. He was a cheerful man, always exuding joy, a man who knew how to sing when trudging through deep snow, and smile when hurdles kept on blocking his way. And finally, he was a man who kept a cheerful countenance under the heavy weight of his last cross, his failure to enter China, a man who joyfully closed his eyes to this world to open them again to the eternal bliss of heaven.
God and His Church have given solemn witness to the holiness of Xavier, always nailed on the cross and always risen with Christ. Xavier was buried in Sancian in a wooden coffin, with a large amount of lime in preparation for an eventual transfer to Malacca. When after two and one-half months the grave was opened again and the condition of the body checked, they found the body fresh and incorrupt, just as it had been at the time of death. The lime had had no effect whatsoever. The body was then transferred to another coffin and taken to ship with the lime left inside, but when opened again in Malacca the condition of the body was just the same. Even today, both the body left to rest in a church of Goa and the right arm enshrined in a reliquary kept in Rome--the arm that came to Japan in 1949 and 1999 to commemorate the two anniversaries of Xavier's arrival in Japan--are still incorrupt, although totally mummified.
The Catholic Church beatified Xavier in 1619 and declared him a saint in 1622, eight years after the start of the general persecution of Christianity in Japan. One of the backers of Xavier's beatification had been Otomo Yoshishige, the close friend of Xavier since their meeting in 1551, who had taken the name of Francisco when he was baptized 27 years later.
