The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1879-02-02
GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE OPENING OF THE
TOMB AND COFFIN OF THE APOSTLE
OF THE INDIES AT GOA.
N. Y. Catholic Review.

N Y. Catholic Review.
Unnoticed by the Protestant press of
Europe and America, almost unnoticed by
the Catholic Press, the ancient town OF
Goa, once the mistress Of the East, wac
during the early part of Last month the
scene of the revelation once more to public
knowledge, of the astounding miracle OF
the preservation incorrupt of the body OF
st. Francis Xavier, who, after death, was
thrown into q vessel of unslacked lime;
then buried in moiet earth, but whose
body, nevertheless, "wss not allowed to
zee curruption." Three times since it's final
burial in Goa, the Portuguese capital of the
East, the Saints tomb had been opened.
The last of these occasions was on Decem-
Der 3, 1873, the Feast of st. Francis
Xavier. The result of the examination of
the relics is told in the following letter by
Bishop Leo Meurin, s j., Vicar Apostolic
of Bombay, in a letter to brother Jesuit.
We owe this letter as we'll as our extract
from the pastoral of the Archbishop of
Goa, to our excellent Oriental friends of
the Catholic Examiner, whose flies also
furnish>us with an account of a similar ex-
animation in 1859, from the pen of Bishop
Canoz. But for this we cannot find space
to- day. Bishop Meurin, j., writes:
hasten to fulfill the mcst cheerful duty of
giving you an account of my pilgrimage to the
shrine of our gloriods brother, the Apostle of
the Orient, ST. Francis Xavier, whose body,
miraculously preserved up to this day, has just
been exposed to the admiration and veneratlon
of the faithful do not intend TO speak of the
past, of the travels, labors, virtues, and mira
oles of our Saint. nor of his death on the 2i of
December. 1852, on the island of Saucian, the
door of China, which death closed to his in
satiable thirst for souls only wish to call to
your memory the following historical facts !:
that his body was placed in
COFFIN FILLED WITH UNsLACKED LIME,
for the purpose of acceleratng decomp position,
SO that the bones might be ready to be removed
80 = AhA 81 .f khn oNrTrn nf hn nnna
Malaccs; that on re-oDening the ccft on the
18th of February, 1858, more than two months
after the burial, the body was found unoor-
rupted, and, on an incisiop being made in the
thigh, fresh blood issued copiously from it, q
fact which repeated itself when, on the 23d of
March of the came year. the body was hurt
whilst being placed in q narrow vault outside
of the Church of Our Lady of Malsoos; that,
when taken out from that humid resting place
one day of the folio wing August, it was found
as fresh rs before and diffueing sweet fra
GRANGE, but the face wns II j1red by falling
sharp stone; that it was taken to Goa. and
placed, on the 18th of March, 1854, in the
Church of st. Paul, of which now only the IA
cade remains, whence it ives removed in 1860
to the Chapel of S.. Thomas, TO the College of
st. Paul, and then to the professed- house of
the Bonn Jesus that on the Sd of November,
", who wished to possess the arm that had
built up the Church of the Orient, on which
occasion
BLOOD ISSUED AGAIN coPIoUsLY FROM THE
BODY;
the arm was taken to Portugal, and thence to
Rome. where had the great consolation to see
it 1850, in the Church del Geeu. The body,
which from that time began to shrivel, was
translated in 1865 to the Church BON Jesus,
where it has been kept up to this time, and
twice exposed to the view and veDerstion of
the Christian people. frat from the SSh till the
18th of February, 1882 and then from the Sd
December, 1879, tilk the STh of January, 1860.
It is not here the place to recount the miracles
which happened on all the oece sops men ton
ed they have been dolly examined, and, when
found to have evidently been the work of God,
have been declared as such by the compet snt
ecclesiastical authority. At the invitation of
his Grace Dom Ayres d'Oroellas Vasconcel-
los, the present zsaloas and viItuous Archbis-
hop of Goa, repaired to Goa together with
their Lordships Bishop Borj san of affna, and
Bishop Bsrbero of Aydrabad, the Very Rsv.
Fathers Pagani, Pro-Vlcar Apostolic of Marga-
lore, and ColSap, Vicar General of Madras. and
number of our clerical companions, leaving
Bombay on the 29sh November at ten 8. M, in
the steamer Alabama, chartered and II ted NJ
for the Bombay pilgrims, and reaching Goa on
the following day at ten q. m. Having anchor
ed before Nova Goa or Papjim, the Governors
barge, manned with fourteen men in their
state dress, received and conveyed us in abont
an hours time to Goa Velha, the city of ruins,
the former capital of
THE ONCE MAJESTIC PORTUGUESE
Empire of the East stiil grand in the maguif.
cent churches and converts, partly standing
we'll preserved, partly fallen more or less into
ruins. how often alreaQy nave tne lanenba-
tiops of JeTemias been recited over this city,
and how often hereafter will travellers reoite
them! It is impossible to look at Old Goa
without rememberir the "Threni." viii they
after another three hundred years be repeated
over our Bombayf Through shrubs and rub
bish We wound our way to the palace of the
Archbishop, contiguous to the Cathedral,
stately building sufficiently put in repair to be
used occasionally by the Archbishop and those
whom his amiable hospitality calls to that
nobody except the can ons of the cathedral, who
are at the same time guardians of the still ex-
rant churches and converts, and by St. FraDois
Xavier, resting, 80 to say, alive in his magnif-
cent silver shrine of the beautiful church of
the Jesuits of old
HOW CAN CALL DEAD
him whose body dwells there preserved from
corruption by Gods power, and breaches with
open lips to all who come to receive from the
eight of an evident miracle confirmation of
their faith, consolation in their hearts, and,
perhaps, relief from bodily ailments 2 Being
H.o ;vh lryh hro