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the Dutch had arrived as a power in Asian waters. In their attacks on Cochin and Malacca the two relics there of the saint were lost.
But the missionary effort in Japan continued and the Macau fragment was taken there in 1619. However, persecution worsened and it was brought back to the territory shortly afterwards; it was popularly believed that its presence lessened the frequency of the terrible typhoons to which the coast of China was, and is, subject.
The relic was housed in Macau's famous St Paul's church, destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century and of which now only an impressive facade remains. Then it passed to the church of St. Joseph's seminary.
In 1952, on the 400th anniversary of Xavier's death it was taken to Malacca and there were celebrations there and throughout Malaysia. The last time the piece of bone left Macau was in 1965, when, at the request of Cardinal Francis Spellman, it was taken to Newark, New Jersey, where it was seen and venerated by more than 100,000 people.
The relic thereafter went back to its normal resting place in the seminary in Macau. However, soon afterwards Father Acquistapace was given charge of the dilapidated little chapel on Coloane, one of two small islands which with a peninsula form Macau. The relic is now kept at that church.
During his decades of service in Asia as a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Father Acquistapace served in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Manila, Formosa and Macau. He spent much of his life teaching in technical schools. A man of immense good humour, he is delighted to find visitors interested in his relics.
Along with the fragment of bone of Xavier there are relics of 58 Japanese martyrs and 14 Vietnamese martyrs.
The Japanese perished in the brutal suppression of Christianity which took place in the first half of the 17th century. According to one historian: "The descriptions of the ways in which the Christians of Japan were forced to meet their deaths rank among the most horrifying and degraded reading matter to be found anywhere."