St Gonzalo Garcia

Description

A book that brings you a brief life-sketch of a son of the soil of India, Saint Gonzalo Garcia. The only Indian canonized to date, Gonzalo was born of a Portuguese father and an Indian mother at Bassein—now Vasai—in 1557 and died in Japan in 1597, aged 40. We read here in brief how he crossed Indian shores to be a witness to the Gospel in Japan, in the Philippines and again in Japan, where he was eventually martyred on Nagasaki Hill. We read about the twists and the turns his vocation took, from an inclination to be a Jesuit to answering the call of the harvest as a Franciscan, with an attempt at business somewhere in between! The book also gives interesting details of Vasai as it then was, about its chequered history; about Japan, its religions and its rulers; the intrigues that were part of the evangelization process put into motion by the Jesuits and the Franciscans. Completing the narration are little-known details of the martyrdom itself and, finally, the commemoration of the martyr in his place of birth.