By Francis X. Maier.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: I'm told yesterday was Giving Tuesday. I don't much like these "days," and 'weeks," and "months" that have largely replaced the Church year in our radically secularizing society. But many of you certainly were in a giving mood. Thanks to you all. It brought us considerably further along the way to our funding goals. As Fran Maier makes clear today, the central activity of the Church used to be evangelizing and has to be - even in our changed circumstances - even today. At TCT, we try to do precisely that, taking the measure of the problems and opportunities both in the Church and the world. So Giving Tuesday may be past, but giving shouldn't be. In this space, it's always TCT Day. So if you still haven't made your contribution to this work, please give now, and generously.

Now for today's column...

The Island of Mozambique is a speck on Google Maps, a tiny patch of land two miles off the East African coast. Today, it's a sleepy UNESCO World Heritage site. It's also a magnet for hardcore tourists. One reason is its beauty. The other is its history. Five hundred years ago, it was a vital, heavily fortified Portuguese trading and administrative center. It stood midway between Europe and Portuguese possessions in the Far East, and thus had immense strategic value. I first saw the island in the early 1970s, reporting on Portugal's colonial wars. From the mainland, it looked like the ends of the earth; an exotic jumble of poverty and decaying wealth floating on the horizon.

At the time, though, that's not what piqued my interest. Remembering a particular saint did. My family, when I was a child, had a special love for the missions, and (Saint) Francis Xavier spent seven months on Mozambique Island, August 1541 to March 1542, on his way to India. He devoted himself to preaching, baptizing, hearing confessions, and working among the sick and dying in the island's hospital. He almost certainly celebrated Mass in the island's Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte ("Our Lady of the Bulwark"). Built in 1522 by Portuguese sailors, it still exists today. It's the oldest European structure in the southern hemisphere.

So much for memories and geography. Why do they matter?

Here's why: On the Church calendar, Catholics mark today, December 3, as the Feast Day of St. Francis Xavier. Born in 1506 of a noble Basque family, he came to maturity in the turbulent early years of the Reformation. Francis studied at the University of Paris and was originally resistant to, even sarcastic toward, a religious vocation. It didn't last. His friend and fellow student, and also a fellow Basque - Ignatius of Loyola - gradually convinced him otherwise. Once persuaded, he was fully committed. Francis went on to be co-founder of the Society of Jesus and one of the original seven Jesuits. He's widely acknowledged today as the greatest Christian missionary since St. Paul.

The record supports exactly that claim. He was a man of astonishing stamina and zeal. In little more than a decade of tireless ministry, in an era when "social communications" meant direct in-person contact, Francis Xavier baptized somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 souls in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Nor did he merely baptize and abandon. He ensured ongoing pastoral support for the communities he created, adapted his evangelizing to local needs and culture, and worked hard to develop an educated native clergy.

He died of fever and exhaustion in 1552 on Sancian (Shangchuan) Island off the coast of China, waiting for permission to enter and evangelize the mainland. He was barely 46 years old. Having left Lisbon for missionary service in April 1541, he never returned to Europe. He was canonized in 1622. And in 1927, Pope Pius XI named him co-patron, with Thérèse of Lisieux, of the foreign missions.

Advent prepares us for the birth of Jesus and his Second Coming at the end of time. We remember and celebrate these things each ...