| Saint Gonsalo Garcia, O.F.M. | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1556 Vasai, Maharashtra, India |
| Died | 5 February 1597 Nagasaki, Japan |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 14 September 1627 by Pope Urban VIII |
| Canonized | 8 June 1862 by Pope Pius IX |
| Major shrine | St. Gonsalo Garcia Church in Gass, Vasai, India |
| Feast | February 5 |
| Patronage | Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay |
Saint Gonsalo Garcia, O.F.M., (Latin: Gundisalvus, Spanish: Gonzalo) (1556 – 5 February 1597) was a Roman Catholic Franciscan friar from India, who died as a martyr in Japan and is venerated as a saint. Born in the western coastal town of Vasai, now an exurb of the city of Mumbai,[1] he hailed from the town--then known as Bassein--during the time the town was under Portuguese colonial rule. The festival of St. Gonsalo has come to be held on the first Sunday nearest to the neap tide following Christmas in Vasai.[1]
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The future saint was born [2] in 1556 to a Portuguese father and a Canarese (resident of the Konkan coast) mother.[1][2] When he came of age, he was tutored by Father Sebastião Gonsalves, S.J., a priest working at the Jesuit college near Bassein. Garcia studied under the tutelage of the Jesuits for eight years from 1564 to 1572.[1] Then, Father Gonsalves was assigned to the Jesuit mission in Japan and brought Garcia, who was fifteen years old, along with him. Once there, Garcia soon managed to learn the language and made good friends with the Japanese people, among whom he soon became popular as a catechist. He resigned this position and left to set up a trade. His business prospered and branches were opened in different locales in Southeast Asia.[1] Garcia, though, would distribute most of his profits to aid the poor.
Garcia's long cherished dream to be a Jesuit did not materialize, and so he moved to Manila in the Philippines as a lay missionary.[1] In the Philippines, he was drawn to the Franciscan friars there and he came to be guided by Father Peter Baptist, O.F.M., (with whom he would later share martyrdom) and soon joined the Franciscan Order as a lay brother.[1] After working with leprosy patients there, during his year of novitiate, Gonsalo professed his religious vows as a Franciscan at the friary in Manila.[1]
On May 26, 1592, the Spanish governor in the Philippines sent Father Peter on a diplomatic mission to Japan, along with a small group of friars, including Brother Gonsalo.[1] With his familiarity with the country and his command of the language, Brother Gonsalo proved to be Father Peter's right hand in his duties as Superior of the Franciscan mission in Japan.[2] After working for four years, however, the Japanese shogun suspected the missionaries of sedition and they were placed under house arrest in their friary in Miaco (Kyoto) on 8 December 1596. A few days afterwards, when they were singing vespers, they were arrested, manacled and imprisoned.[1] They were held there with several Jesuits, and a dozen young members of the Third Order of St. Francis, whom they had brought into the Franciscan Order.
On January 3, 1597, the left ears of the twenty-six prisoners, among them Garcia, were severed. (These were soon collected in reverence by the local Christians). On February 5, they were all marched off in the depth of winter to be crucified just outside the city of Nagasaki. Brother Gonsalo, the first to arrive, went straight to one of the crosses--which had all been made to measure for the prisoners--and asked "Is this mine?". The reply was "It is not". Then he was taken to another cross, where he knelt down and embraced it. The others, one after another, started doing the same. "That was quite a sight, the way Brother Philip was embracing his cross. . . " comments one of the witnesses.[1] [3] Garcia was the first to be extended on and nailed to his cross, which was then erected in the middle of those of his companions, as they were all lifted simultaneously. Two lances through the heart was the fate of each of the prisoners. While they waited for the fatal blows, Garcia and his 25 companions sang psalms and praises of God till the moment of their deaths, earning them all the martyr's title.[1]
On 14 September 1627, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Garcia and his fellow martyrs were beatified by Pope Urban VIII.[1] The martyrs' feast day occurs on February 5 and, in 1629, their veneration was permitted throughout the Catholic Church. On 8 June 1862 Garcia, along with his companions, were declared saints by Pope Pius IX.[1]
Because of the devastation to the Catholic community in Bassein, after its loss by the Portuguese in 1739, the memory of Garcia eventually faded. At the beginning of the 20th century, though, a noted writer put out a work on the history of the region, which brought his story back to the attention of Indian Catholics. As a result of this, with the backing of the Jesuit Archbishop of Bombay, a native Goan priest, Msgr. Louis Caetano D'Souza, worked to re-establish St. Gonsalo's memory for the Catholics of his native region. Through his efforts, St. Gonsalo Garcia Church in Gass village of the Vasai Tehsil was built in 1942 and later expanded in 1957. A week-long festival is celebrated there in February, followed by a novena in his honor.[1]