Today the Church celebrates the feast of St Francis Xavier. The secret source of Francis' irresistible magnetism and indomitable courage, the key to his adventures, lay in his love of God his trust in Him and his zeal for souls. All three go inseparably together. If the risks and the dangers, the difficulties and contradictions only increased his determination to try even harder, it was because his power and strength came from God, the God he trusted so blindly. He exulted in his sufferings, he overflowed with consolation and joy.

His only fear was not to trust sufficiently in His mercy. His greatest comfort and hope stemmed from the conviction of his total inadequacy for the task of preaching the Gospel in foreign lands. He was so possessed by and so obsessed with the love of God that he was blind to everything else. In his journeys he went through the strangest and most beautiful seas in the world. At his long journey's end he wrote to his friends urgent, imploring letters, brimming over with the solicitude that tormented him for the poor Christians he had won for the only true God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.