Saints Who Raised The Dead
The book "Saints Who Raised The Dead"
by Father Albert J. Hebert documents true stories of 400 resurrection
miracles in the lives of the Saints. Jesus says to His apostles in the
Gospel of John: "Amen, amen, I say to
you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do
greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever
you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it." (John 14:12-13) And again He commanded His apostles: "Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."
And
following Jesus command, we have in the Acts of the Apostles Peter
raising Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9:40), and later Paul raising
Eutychus from the dead (Acts 20:12). And after the Apostles we have the
Saints continuing the mission and the mandate of Jesus to "Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons" and to "evangelise unto the ends of the earth." In the book, "Saints who raised the dead"
there are dozens of Saints listed along with an explanation of the
resurrection miracles that they performed. Some of the many listed are
St Ignatius of Loyola, ST Paul of the Cross, St Catherine of Siena, St
Hyacinth, St Martin of Tours, St Ambrose and many others. But probaly
one of the greatest evangeliser and missionary Saints was St Francis
Xavier. The focus of this article will be the many persons that St
Francis brought back to life through the grace of God.
St Francis Xavier -The Missionary Miracle Worker
In
light of his extensive evangelizing, missionary travels and hardships,
the great Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) is considered
to be one of the greatest missionaries since St. Paul. He is known as
the "Apostle of the Indies," and the "Apostle of Japan” for in about ten
short years (1541-1552) Francis did the work of many individual
missionaries, spreading the Catholic Faith from Goa (Portuguese
territory in western India), over South India, Ceylon, Bengal, Cape
Comorin, the Moluccas, Spice Islands, Malacca, and through the China Sea
to Japan where he died-alone except for one companion, a Chinese youth
named Antiry, on the Japanese island of Sancian, waiting for a ship to
China. On his journeys St. Francis Xavier converted hundreds of
thousands, and the impact of his work lasted for centuries.
Those
exotic lands were vastly different from the Basque country of his
native northern Spain and the Xavier Castle on the fertile mountain
slope overlooking the Aragon River. There in the Kingdom of Navarre,
Francis Xavier had been born in 1506, the youngest of the six children
of the Chancellor of Navarre, Don Juan de Jassu (a doctor of law), and
the very beautiful Donna Maria Azpilcueta y Xavier.
Francis
Xavier was a brilliant and attractive personality. As a student and
lecturer at the great University of Paris, he came under the influence
of St. Ignatius Loyola. Francis was among the first seven to take their
vows in the fledgling Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatius; he was
later the last to make the famed Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. If
Francis had remained in Europe and the universities he might have
become famous as a great teacher or doctor of the Church, judging by the
promise of his already brilliant accomplishments.
At that time
it came about that King John III of Portugal asked the Pope to send six
members of the new society to do mission work in Asia. He wanted them to
leave in the royal galleon of the Governor of Portuguese India in
April, 1541. Ignatius could spare only two Jesuits, and one of them,
Bobadilla, became seriously ill with a severe fever at the last minute.
It was apparently with dismay on the part of both Ignatius and Francis
that the latter became the substitute.
Then and there the history
of the Church and its missions was changed by the workings of Divine
Providence. So often it seems that there is a "sacrifice of brilliant
talents"; the ability to teach metaphysics in university classes and the
meticulously acquired knowledge of Greek and Latin give way to the
simplest form of catechism, as a missionary instructs the children,
pagans, and cast-offs of many distant places, returning again to
language study as he struggles with the idioms of foreign dialects. But
God knows what He is about.
Due to inclement weather it took the
packed galleon of 900 passengers 13 months to complete its voyage. It
arrived at Goa in May, the month of Mary, 1542. There St. Francis Xavier
spent five months before traveling on to Cape Com-orin. In Goa he
preached, cared for the sick and for prisoners, taught children, and
endeavored to bring Chris¬tian morality to the Portuguese there,
particularly denouncing the concubinage which was so prevalent among
them.
Besides his numerous cures, there were many other wonders
in St. Francis' life: gifts of tongues, predictions, bilocation, calming
a storm at sea, and more. Francis had been "all things to all men"; he
was known and loved (and sometimes hated) by great and small in all
walks of life. Perhaps the greatest wonder of all is the fact that he
baptized 100,000 with his own hand. That remarkable right arm is still
preserved and venerated.
Along
with the miracles of raising the dead, Butler speaks of four such
events which occurred in one period alone, according to the canonization
process. Those four resurrections were those of a catechist bitten by a
venomous snake, a child drowned in a pit, and a young man and a young
girl dead of pestilential fever.
On the Fishery Coast, St.
Francis Xavier worked enough miracles to fill a large volume. Once when
he was about to begin Mass in a small church at Combutur, a crowd
entered with the corpse of a boy who had been drowned in a well. His
mother threw herself at the feet of St. Francis-who was also the one who
had baptized this child. She implored him to restore the boy to life.
Francis said a short prayer, took the dead child by the hand, and bade
him arise. The child rose and immediately ran to his mother.
There
was a pair of youths who accompanied Francis as catechists. During the
night one of them was bitten in the foot by a "cobra da capello." In the
morning the youth was found dead. Francis took some saliva from his own
mouth, touched the foot of the poisoned catechist, made the Sign of the
Cross over him, took him by the hand and bade him arise in the Name of
Jesus Christ. The youth responded immediately and was able to continue
the missionary journey at once. It was as simple as if he had just
gotten up from sleep, instead of having been restored to life itself.
Several
chroniclers attribute to St. Francis other resurrections of the dead in
that part of the country. Only the Lord knows how many Francis actually
recalled from the dead in all his missionary life, laboring night and
day. Large numbers could be expected when one recalls that he was the
greatest missionary since St. Paul, and if one considers how many of the
dead have been raised by other great missionaries.
Further, it is
stated in the processes concerning Francis that one of the children he
often sent among the sick in his name raised two dead persons to life.
The Christian "children" of St. Francis worked many prodigies. One is
re¬minded of the helpers St. Vincent Ferrer commissioned to continue
working miracles for the multitudes during the times when the saint
himself was exhausted.
The following miracle of St. Francis
Xavier is recorded in the Relatio documented in the time of Pope Paul V.
In the streets of Mutan, Francis met a funeral procession bearing the
body of a youth who had died of a malignant fever. Ac-cording to the
custom of that area, the body had been kept for 24 hours wrapped in a
shroud. Like Jesus with the widow of Naim, Francis pitied the bereaved
parents; they pleaded with him.
The saint knelt down, raised his
eyes to Heaven, and prayed to God for the lad's life. Then he sprinkled
the covered corpse with holy water and ordered the funeral shroud cut
open. When the body was visible, Francis made the Sign of the Cross over
it, took the youth by the hand, and bade him in the Name of Jesus to
live.
The youth rose up alive, and Francis gave him to his parents in
good health. The crowd marveled and praised the holiness of Francis.
The youth's parents and friends, in grat¬itude and memory of the deed,
erected a great cross on the spot and held a festival there.
At
another time, St. Francis was preaching at Coulon, near Cape Comorin in
Travancore at the southern tip of India opposite Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
This was a seaport, a rough town where many Christians dishonored their
name. Francis, while preaching in the Portuguese church there, felt
baffled and stymied by the wall of obstinacy he met in his hardhearted
listeners.
Now it happened that a man had been buried in the
church the day before. St. Francis stopped preaching; he prayed to God
to honor the Blood and the Name of His Son and to soften the hearts of
the congregation. Then he directed a few men to open the nearby grave of
the man who had been buried the day before. He had prayed in tears, and
now he accompanied his directions with the burning words of holy
eloquence. He told the congregation how God was pleased even to raise
the dead in order to convert them.
When they opened the tomb and
brought out the body, it was already giving off a stench. On Francis'
orders they tore apart the shroud-to find the body already beginning to
putrefy. Francis expressed his desire that they should all take note of
these facts. (They could hardly escape them!) Then the saint fell on his
knees, made a short prayer, and commanded the dead man, in the Name of
the Living God, to arise.
The man arose-alive, vigorous and in
perfect health! The onlookers were filled with awe. Those who needed it
fell at the saint's feet to be baptized, and a large number of people
were converted because of this miracle.
The two miracles above
were accepted by the auditors of the Rota as resting on incontrovertible
evidence from two witnesses, Emanuel Gaga and Joam Audicondam, as well
as from one "dead" person himself. These great miracles led almost the
entire kingdom--except for the king and a few of his courtiers-to become
Christians within a few months. And as Father Coleridge points out in
his two-volume life of St. Francis Xavier, "We must take these miracles
as but specimens."
Why
would God grant anyone the power to perform such great miracles? This
becomes easier to understand when one appreciates the immense number of
souls converted by St. Francis Xavier. Within about a year he had
established up to 45 Christian communities in the area. It is hard to
conceive of such mass conversions, whether by Francis Xavier or by any
missionary apostle, without great and numerous wonders to testify to the
truth of the apostle's words. Our Lord used His own miracles as signs
that testified to His Messiahship and Kingdom. His wonders proved that
He was, indeed, the Son of God sent by the Father. He ordered His
disciples to work similar miracles with generosity, and promised that
they would work even greater wonders than He had.
Man is inclined
to measure miracles by his own limited standards and abilities. But for
God, of course, the "great" and the "small" miracle are equally easy.
Yet it somehow seems more wonderful when (as with Lazarus) someone who
has been dead for days is raised, rather than one who has very recently
died. But death is death-whether it has lasted a minute or a week-and
the wonder of restoration is equally marvelous in either case.
At
Malacca St. Francis Xavier worked a miracle for someone who had been
buried for several days. When Fran¬cis was away from the town, the
daughter of a recently baptized woman died. The mother had sought
Francis everywhere while the girl was still ill. When this earnest
parent learned that Francis had returned, she was full of the simple
faith that Francis, whom she was convinced could have healed her
daughter-as he had cured people en masse¬could just as easily raise the
girl from the dead. As Martha said to Jesus, "But now also I know that
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." (John 11 :22).
When
the mother found St. Francis she threw herself at his feet, and like
Martha and Mary, exclaimed that if he had been there her daughter would
not have died; nonetheless, nothing was difficult for God, and she knew
that Francis, with his prayers, could return her to life. As Jesus had
mar¬veled at the faith of the Roman centurion and the Syropheonician
woman, St. Francis Xavier marveled at the faith and confidence of this
recent convert.
Since the mother seemed so worthy of such a
favor, Fran¬cis prayed for God to grant her this consolation. Then he
turned to the mother and told her to go to the grave; her daughter was
alive. Hopeful, fearful, not disbelieving, but because Francis had not
offered to come himself to the tomb, she answered simply that the girl
had been three days buried. But St. Francis had measured her testing
tolerance.
She questioned St. Francis no further; with shining
faith she ran rejoicing to the church where her daughter had been
buried. At the burial place the mother, together with many other
witnesses who had hurried there with her, had the stone raised from the
grave. The dead daughter, buried three days, came out alive! As with the
raising of Lazarus, no one could doubt the verity of such a miracle.
One
must admire the tenacious faith of this newly converted woman. Such
strong faith is seldom found. The great faith and wisdom of the apostle
met and matched the faith of the mother, when he asked her to go to the
tomb alone.
This power of raising the dead from a distance seems
to have been a special charism of St. Francis Xavier. In Japan, at or
near Cagoxima, a pagan nobleman lost his only daughter. He was greatly
grieved. Some recent Christian converts, sympathizing with him,
recommended that he seek help from the God of the Christians and the
prayers of the "great teacher of the Portuguese." The father went to St.
Francis and cast himself at his feet. He was so choked with emotion he
could not speak. But the saint understood.
St.
Francis went into the little oratory where he offered Mass. His helper,
Joam Fernandez, went along with him. After Francis prayed for a few
moments he came out and told the anxious father to go, that his prayers
were heard. That was all Francis said, so the nobleman turned homeward,
hurt and grieved.
But on his way a servant met him and joyfully
told him that his daughter was alive. Next, the girl herself came
run¬ning and threw herself upon her father's neck. She informed her
father that when she had breathed her last breath, im-mediately two
horrible demons had seized her. They were about to hurl her into Hell
when two venerable men came to her rescue. The next moment she found
herself alive and well.
When the girl's father brought her to St.
Francis Xavier's house she identified Francis and Fernandez as her two
deliverers. Father and daughter were subsequently in¬structed and
baptized.
Another miracle occurred when Francis was on a ship,
the Santa Croce, going to San Chan. A Musselman's five-year¬old son fell
overboard at a time when the ship was running fast before the wind. It
was impossible even to attempt to save him. The father had been in
despair for three days when he chanced upon Francis on the deck. Francis
somehow -for the glory of God? -had not heard of the tragedy. He asked
the father if he would believe in Jesus Christ if his child were
restored. (A small child, overboard in the sea for three days, miles
behind the ship, and Francis confidently asks such a question!) The man
said he would believe.
A few hours passed, probably while Francis
was praying. Suddenly the Musselman met his child, bright and joyous,
running to him on the deck. The father and his entire family were
baptized.
"For, Amen I say to you, if you have faith as a
grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from hence
hither, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be im¬possible to you." (Matt.
17:19). The "mountain" may represent the great obstacle of unbelief to
be overcome. A mustard seed is very, very small. Suppose one's faith
were the size of a watermelon seed ... or a coconut ...?
In Japan
at Cagoxima, Francis blessed the swollen body of a deformed child,
making it straight and beautiful. And that expresses well the objective
of the saints: to make all men straight and beautiful in the eyes of
God.
Among his later miracles, Francis raised to life a young
pagan woman "of some quality" who had been dead a whole day. At Malacca
he restored to life a young man, Francis Ciavos, who later became a
Jesuit.
St. Francis Xavier died on December 3, 1552, at the age
of 46. Before his burial, the coffin was filled with lime-two sacksfull
beneath the body and two over it-in order to hasten decomposition so
that at some future time the bones could be easily transported to India.
Ten weeks later, when the saint's body was exhumed to be taken to
Malacca, it was found to be perfectly incorrupt.
Only 12 years
after he had first embarked on his missionary journeys, the body of St.
Francis Xavier was brought back to Goa in veritable triumph. Around the
saint's body miracles were recorded every day of that autumn and winter.
When his remains were temporarily placed in the chapel of the College
of St. Paul on March 15, 1554, several blind were cured, as also were
paralytics, those with palsy, etc. Francis had been the special envoy of
both the Holy See and of King John III of Portugal; on the order of the
King a verbal process was made with the utmost accuracy, in Goa and in
other parts of India; in it, accounts were taken of many miracles
wrought through St. Francis Xavier.
Today the body of St. Francis
Xavier is dry and shrunken, but there is still no corruption. Many
parts of the body, notably the right arm mentioned above, have been
removed and sent to various places as most precious relics. In 1974-75
the body of the saint (in a glass case) was exhibited for viewing and
veneration for a six -week period. Today it rests in a silver reliquary
in the Basilica of Born Jesu in Goa, India.
