In the Summer edition, we ran an article on St Francis Xavier, ‘Pioneer of the Spirit’. We invited schools named after St Francis to write in and tell us how they are carrying on the spirit  of the journeyman saint.

Sheree Jarvis, Religious Education Coordinator, St Francis Xavier’s Primary School, Lurnea, NSW.

Our most prominent way is our support of the Santa Cruz Mission in the Philippines. The mission is comprised of numerous lay and religious people who minister to the tribal peoples of Mindanao.

These people have lost over 90 per cent of their land in the recent past due to environmental assaults such as logging, and have lost much of their ancient cultural heritage. Their traditional hunter-gatherer methods of providing food have been lost and they now struggle to grow patches of rice and corn. Many are destitute and malnourished, easily contracting diseases such as malaria and typhoid.

Our school sponsors children in the mission. Each grade has one sponsor child, for whom they raise funds and pray, while also communicating with them via letter-writing. The children in each grade keep that same sponsor child as they move to new grades, to create a sense of ‘growing up’ together.

Too often today, children in Australia (and adults too!) do not realise how privileged we are to live in a free and developed nation. The experience of, and involvement with, the Santa Cruz mission allows our students to be regularly reminded of how lucky we are. We feel that this is the practical way in which we can connect ourselves with the international scene, or as Andrew Hamilton put it in his article, ‘to be international in our outlook’.

Our senior students are quite passionate about this cause and strive to come up with new fundraising ideas. Last year, for example, we had a ‘Rice Guessing Competition’, in which students guessed how many grains of rice were in a jar (approx 38,000!). We feel that through praying and raising money for Santa Cruz, we are sharing our faith as Francis Xavier did.

Maria McGarvie, Xavier Rugby Supporters Group, Xavier College, Kew, Vic.

It is fitting that to remember the life of St Francis Xavier a group of 44 Rugby players will journey from Xavier College Melbourne to Padua in Italy to be a part of Saveriadi 2006, the European Jesuit Sports Tournament in July this year. This tournament is organised by the Jesuits in Rome as part of the 500th anniversary of the birth of St Francis Xavier.

These players will represent their school, their state, their country but more importantly, and perhaps less conspicuously, they will represent the faith and extraordinary visionary leadership of St Francis Xavier. His restlessness and devotion to his God will be remembered especially this year.

Marie Chapman, Community Liaison Leader, St Francis Xavier College Beaconsfield and Berwick, Vic.

Each year, the college has a theme for its community to focus on, one which reflects the vision of its founder. In 2006 the college is focusing on the theme inspired in their motto: Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life.

In the foyer of both the Beaconsfield and Berwick campuses there is an amazing collection of crosses and crucifixes from all parts of the world that have been collected by members of the college community in their travels.

The tradition of bringing back a cross symbolises the strong links between our community and the wider Catholic community. This tradition is inspired by St Francis Xavier and his many travels, carrying the cross as a universal symbol of Christianity that transcends the boundaries of culture and language.

On the actual day of St Francis Xavier’s 500th anniversary, 7 April, the college celebrated with a school assembly and Mass. At both campuses, there was a huge cake, big enough for every student and member of staff to have a piece. The students held up flags of the countries associated with St Francis and said happy birthday in their respective languages. It was a great day of celebration.

How is your school carrying on the mission of its namesake? Write in and let us know at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it