OTTAWA – Nearly 80,000 people across Canada thronged to see the relic of St. Francis Xavier that made a coast-to-coast pilgrimage Dec. 26-Feb. 3.

OTTAWA – There was a killer at the door when Immaculée Ilibagiza discovered how much trust she had in God.

HALIFAX – More than 465 years after his death, St. Francis Xavier’s missionary work has brought him to Canada.

TORONTO – Timothy Rafanan has had more than 100 blood transfusions in his lifetime — and he’ll turn just two years old in August. 

It all started with a selfie.

While at the Steubenville Toronto youth conference last July, a few of the youth from St. Francis Xavier parish asked the host, Chris Stefanick, to take a selfie with them.

While reading through former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s convocation speech at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia on May 3, it was as if he was talking about a modern-day Pope Francis leadership style.

GOA, INDIA - Expecting more than five million pilgrims for the once-a-decade exposition of the body of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, the Catholic Church in the former Portuguese colony has worked to ensure the event is “spiritually nourishing” for the visitors.

A few weeks back, I attended a funeral Mass about a half hour from my home. With the priest’s comforting words and the heavy smell of incense still commandeering our senses, the congregation filed out and into the nearby church hall for sandwiches, tea and a story or two about Sandy, the deceased. The elderly man, from all accounts that flowed from inside the church and out, was a kind, gentle soul who put family and God above all else.

The world was both surprised by, and speculated on, the new Pope’s choice of the name Francis. The initial reaction was that it signified his devotion to St. Francis of Assisi, renowned for his practice of the virtue of poverty and a life of simplicity. (That turned out to be correct.) But others suggested that it reflected the Pope’s formation as a Jesuit, well aware of the evangelizing efforts of that great Jesuit co-founder, St. Francis Xavier who died in 1552.