Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Pamplona (Agenzia Fides) - Saturday 3 December the Society of Jesus opened a Xaverian Year to mark three important dates for Jesuits: 5th centenary of the birth of St Francis Xavier and Blessed Pedro Fabro (1506) and to commemorate St Ignatius of Loyola 450 years after his death (1556).
Celebrations in Pamplona started with a cultural spectacle “Paths of Javier”, of music and theatre on the values which marked the life and message of St Francis Xavier. This was followed by a solemn concelebration of Mass presided by the Archbishop of Pamplona, Archbishop Fernando Sebastián. Concelebrants included papal Nuncio in Spain Archbishop Manuel Monteiro di Castro; Jesuit prepositor general Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach; President of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference Archbishop Ricardo Blázquez, and Jesuit provincial superiors from all over the world.
In his homily the archbishop of Pamplona said the Jubilee year must be “a year of Christian renewal, a year in which Christian families must rediscover the joy of the religious education of the children a year in which young people must discover the beauty and love of Jesus Christ and offer to serve the coming of the Kingdom, in which faith in Christ will bring us all closer and teach us to live as brothers and sisters”. He held up St Francis Xavier as a model also for today “when our country and the whole of the West live under the temptation to organise our life without God”. At the end of the Mass a message signed by Cardinal James Francis Stafford of the Apostolic Penitentiary was read to announce a plenary indulgence during this special year for pilgrims to Pamplona cathedral, to the Shrine of Castel of Javier.
On the same day an exhibition on “Georg Schurhammer”, German Jesuit who spent much of his life researching the life of St Francis Xavier with the ambition to collect photographs, prints and paintings. The material, the fruit of sixty years of labour can be viewed at (http://www.javier2006.com/es /) the official Jubilee year site in Spanish, Castilian, and Basque as well as English, French Italian Portuguese, with detailed information on this important event, the life of St Francis, his travels and his figure in Navarra, the Javieradas, and Javier Castle.
Sunday 4 December, at the new Javier Auditorium, 11 missionaries (six from Navarra), received the mission cross from Archbishop Fernando Sebastián and will now set out for mission. In his address the Archbishop asked the missionaries to imitate St Francis: “be bold, generous courageous forte, invincible and tenacious and ready to give your life for the salvation of the world”.
The Xaverian Year will be celebrated with special events in Spain, in Pamplona, Madrid, Barcelona and Loyola, and in 127 different countries all over the world where Jesuits live and work. The Church in Navarra is organising a diocesan pilgrimage 29 September 12 October 2006 to Goa, in India where St Francis Xavier is buried. The main celebration day will be 7th April birthday of St Francis Xavier. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 5/12/2005, righe 42, parole 583)
