anton

Yesterday I travelled 60 kilometres north to Old Goa, the old capital the Portuguese established in the 16th century. I went to an old church, apparently famous throughout the Christian world. It's called the St. Francis Xavier Basilica, I think. It's a big old building, held up by (at the time, revolutionary) flying buttresses which had first been seen at Notre Dame. Inside, the pulpit, and one entire wall of carved figures (Jesus, Mary, the usual) is gilded. It looks like real gold, but it's not. 'You could try to get the gold off,' a guy told me, 'but it would be very hard.' So I didn't try.

There's a story behind the church, and a reason it's famous in the Christian world.

This St. Francis Xavier character studied under the guy who established the Jesuit Order in the 16th century. (Xavier went to the same school as Francis Assisi, who is famous for wearing birds on his head or something, maybe). In the last ten years of his life, Xavier roamed the Asian and sub-continental areas looking to convert the locals. For example, he went to Japan, but found all the locals told him to get fucked. They were quite happy with Buddhism. He travelled to many places, but eventually - on the way to Goa - he fell ill.

He eventually died. Rome wanted his body, but figured it'd be too hard to get it there. The Pope of the time couldn't be bothered making the trip down south, so that was out of the question. The solution was to cut off one of his hands, which was sent to Rome (and, over the centuries, lost). The arm was canonised, and hence Xavier was a saint.

Now, the miracle that had Xavier canonised was that his body didn't rot. For about a hundred years, it is said that his face looked fine, and blood was seen to flow throughout his body. When his arm was cut off, blood spurted everywhere even though he had been dead for days! Yes, I know, wow.

Even today, his body is still looking half-decent. For centuries it was kept in Goa and displayed every decade. People would touch the scraggly, shrivelled, but not-bad-looking body. However, in the 70s, a woman bit one of his toes to see if it would bleed ('she didn't swallow it,' a moustached man mentioned to me, 'she just bit it'). So they sealed him in a glass, air-tight coffin, surrounded by a beautiful, bejewelled silver box with holes in it to see him through.

So, amongst all the gilded walls and statues of Jesus, I looked at St. Francis Xavier's shrivelled head, attached to his shrivelled body, in his eponymous church.

(I bought a GI Joe style figurine of him for $1 afterwards. He is holding a cross like 'ROCK ON DUDES!')