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Today’s missionary hero was a man whose accomplishments were almost super-human. His name was José de Anchieta.
José was born on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1534 in Tenerife, Canary Islands. As a youth, he dislocated his spine, and that caused him chronic back pain.
He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at the age of 17. The Jesuits decided to send him to Brazil, hoping that a warmer climate would improve his back. So, two years later, in 1553, he went with a fellow Jesuit, Emanuel Nóbrega, to Brazil to serve as a missionary. He worked in Brazil for the next 44 years, but the climate never did help his back or reduce his chronic pain.
José had an incredible gift for languages – Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, and Tupi – as was seen in his reports to his superiors and his other writings. Tupi is an Indian language of one of the tribes he first worked with in Brazil. In fact, in addition to his regular missionary work, he composed a grammar and dictionary in Tupi for Portuguese missionaries.
During his time in Brazil, José was ordained a priest.
Once, during his years in Brazil, he was captured and held hostage by the Tamoyo tribe. To pass away the time, he composed a poem honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary. Because he had no pen or paper, he would walk along the beach and write the verses in the wet sand. Then, he would memorize the verses – in Latin. When he was freed, he committed all 4,172 lines of the poem to paper!
In addition to the mega-poem he wrote, José also wrote plays for students to perform. He wrote the plays in Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tupi. As a result of his writings, he is given the honor of being known as the “Father of Brazilian national literature.”
Fr. José also wrote many volumes of theology, theater, poetry, and published the first work in the Tupi language. He also produced amazing reports on the lives, knowledge, and customs of the local people, sort of a sociological or anthropological ethnographer. He also wrote treatises on Brazil’s wildlife and geography.
If all that were not enough, he is also credited as being one of the founders of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
After a lifetime of chronic back pain and many decades of missionary work, Father José died on June 9, 1597 in Brazil.
Pope Francis canonized José in 2014. Saint José’s feast day is June 9. He is known as the “Apostle of Brazil” for his amazing contributions to the people of Brazil.
