St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, was the apostle of the East Indies, and the first to preach the faith of Christ in Japan. He baptized hundreds of thousands of pagans. For the love of Jesus and out of a “longing love to help Christ”s poor,” he traveled, barefoot, to the most distant parts, preached the Gospel in more than a hundred kingdoms, and islands and brought kings and nations into the fold of the Church. And then this noble-hearted missionary, this saint mighty in word and work, gave his great soul to his Master, December 2, 1552.

(Source: The New Roman Missal, Rev. F. X. Lasance)