Xavier Team
Jose Panadan SJ, Leo D’Souza SJ, Walter Xavier Minj SJ
Sebastian Xalxo SJ, Dinesh Breganza SJ, Vincent Pereppadan SJ

Francis Xavier needs no introduction, especially here in Goa, where the figure of Xavier has assumed legendary proportions. In this paper we acknowledge Xavier as part of our Ignatian family who struggles through the tensions of his times and remains the unparalleled leader of the Mission unto the Indies. It is our conviction that the creative tensions that he had to resolve were his challenges and his ways of resolving them made him the charismatic leader of the Missions. These characteristics emerge emphatically from his letters. In this presentation we attempt to rediscover Xavier in his context, so that we can discover what leadership in Mission can mean today. In other words ours is an attempt to read the future in the past.

Even as he traveled single mindedly towards expanding the Missions, his letters moved in different directions to consolidate the Missions. Out of 137 letters preserved in his name in the Roman Curia, 34 original copies of the letters are still extant of which 9 are in Xavier’s own hand. 25 others are in the hand of scribes to whom Xavier dictated them. The remaining texts survive only in copies or in subsequent translations.1 They were eagerly read, copied, recopied and translated into many languages.

The letters of Francis Xavier were popular mainly for two reasons:

• The letters to Europe recorded the information about the newly discovered lands and cultures, the challenges and opportunities for the missionaries. They also recorded the spectacular growth of the Church in all the newly discovered lands. This was a strong support for Catholics living in areas where the Church was suffering reverses.
• They were effective propaganda for the Society of Jesus. Many were inspired to join the Society. Many Jesuits, enthused by the letters of Francis Xavier opted for Missions in Asia, North and South America

In this presentation we attempt the following:

• To mirror the struggling leader in his missionary context,
• To draw a deeper perspective of the person through one of his major creative tensions namely the dialectic between the expansion and consolidation in the mission, and 
• To listen to Xavier speak to us today.