[
    {
        "id": 209967,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1983",
        "page_number": 226,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "204\n\nA RELIC OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nIn a small cool church in Macau, separated by a few hundred yards of muddy water from China, rests a unique relic of St Francis Xavier.*\n\nAlmost 20 years ago 100,000 people in 15 days filed past the small piece of bone housed in an ornate silver monstrance when it was taken to America from its usual resting place in Macau. Now the relic is back in a tiny church on Coloane Island. Ten years ago the building was in a run-down condition, having been used as a chapel for soldiers from Mozambique serving in the Portuguese Army. Then Father Mario C. Acquistapace arrived on the scene. A sprightly figure now probably in his seventies, he had the church restored. Today its exterior is washed in pale yellow with windows and woodwork picked out in light blue. He has an outgoing personality that runs to a hug when he finds a visitor is a Christian.\n\nMacau, the first permanent Western settlement on the coast of China, across the silt-laden waters of the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong, despite wars, upheavals and revolutions, remains curiously Mediterranean. The Portuguese built their first houses there in 1557, having camped briefly at Liampo and Sanchuang (St John's) Islands.\n\nFrancisco de Xavier, called by Pope Urban VIII the \"apostle of the Indies\", was born into a noble and wealthy family and in 1529 he made the acquaintance of St Ignatius Loyola who was then studying at Paris. Impressed by his teachings, Xavier became one of the original seven men to take the first vows of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1534.\n\nWhen John III, King of Portugal, asked the Pope to send a mission to his Indian possessions, two Jesuits were selected, one of whom was Xavier. He set sail in 1541 and after a voyage of more than a year arrived in Goa, India, where he carried out missionary work. From there he journeyed to Ceylon, or Sri Lanka...\n\n* See plates 12-14.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209969,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1983",
        "page_number": 228,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "206\n\nthe 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.\n\nBut 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nIn 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nDuring 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.\n\nAlong with the fragment of bone of Xavier there are relics of 58 Japanese martyrs and 14 Vietnamese martyrs.\n\nThe 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.\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209970,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1983",
        "page_number": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "207\n\nThe Vietnamese bones include those of Andrew, Pro-Martyr of Vietnam. Andrew, or Phy-yen, was born in 1625 in Fan-ran province in South Vietnam. He became a Catholic at 15 and was martyred at 19 when he refused to adjure his religion. His head was taken to Rome where it can be seen today. His bones are in Macau, together with other Vietnamese and Japanese.\n\nThe bones are neatly packed in polished wooden boxes. Father Acquistapace laughs as he recalls the occasion when the relics were inspected by scientists: \"One seized a bone and said: 'But this bone is from a woman!'” The priest's comments: \"As if only men can die for Jesus!\" There are, in fact, bones from 15 female martyrs in the church.\n\nHe breaks off, pressing a few pamphlets and souvenirs into the hands of the visitor. \"Stay as long as you wish\", he says. \"The children are coming.\" And so they are, for into the cool, airy church come tumbling a horde of laughing Chinese children chasing each other and finding places on the wooden pews. Father Acquistapace moves his attention from the relics of the dead to the enthusiasms of the living. He strides up and down the short aisle as the youngsters roar out a cheerful hymn in Chinese, cajoling, quietening, and then swelling the youthful sounds with great arm movements. Outside, the day is hot and humid, and across the flat patch of muddy water in front of the small village that can be seen in China, a few dilapidated junks lie at anchor.\n\nFrom the church comes the sound of singing. The first modern missionary to the Far East, Xavier, and the martyrs from Japan and from Vietnam, must heartily approve.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    }
]