Story
A statue in a Kagoshima park
In Xavier Park in three bronze figures stand together: in the middle, (Yajirō) on one side, and on the other a young Japanese man named Bernardo.The statues were set up in 1999, four hundred and fifty years after Xavier's landing, and the Kagoshima diocese still uses a photograph of them to illustrate its articles on Bernardo.Anjirō is famous as the man who brought Xavier to Japan. Bernardo is less well known. Yet he was the first Japanese to set foot in Europe, the first to see Rome, and one of the first Japanese to enter the Society of Jesus. Above all, he was the companion who would not leave Xavier's side.
"A rather poor young man of Kagoshima"
Xavier on 15 August 1549.Kadota Akira, the president of the society that honours Xavier's landing, summarised for the Kagoshima diocesan bulletin in 2007 the study of Bernardo by the Jesuit historian Pasquale M. D'Elia, published in Japanese in kenkyū 5 (1959). D'Elia wrote that Xavier baptised "within a few days," and that "the first, or certainly the second, to be baptised in that domain was a rather poor young man of Kagoshima. Xavier gave him the Christian name Bernardo." His exact age and his Japanese name are not known.
Charlevoix, writing in the eighteenth century, says the same in his own way: the first to ask for baptism was "a man of low birth," whom Xavier named Bernard, and "this fervent neophyte left everything to follow the missionaries."
D'Elia describes what happened next. "As Bernardo came to know Xavier, he came to think that here was a man he would never be ashamed to call his master. From then on he did not leave the saint's side for a moment," and so it went on until the day he left for Europe.
On the road with Xavier
When persecution began in Kagoshima and Xavier left for at the end of September 1550, Georg Schurhammer writes, Anjirō (Pablo) stayed behind to lead the Christians, while his companions João and António, "as well as a young convert, Bernardo, who would not be separated from Xavier, joined the departing messenger of the faith."
At the end of October Xavier set out from Hirado for the capital with Brother as his interpreter "and the faithful Bernardo."Schurhammer's account of the journey, drawn from the companions' own reports, is full of hardship. They carried all they owned in two sacks: a cassock, three or four shirts and an old blanket. "Bernardo, however, carried a small sack of roasted rice to serve as sustenance on the long journey."Charlevoix adds that their food was only a little rice "that Bernard carried in a sack."Winter came; snow covered the mountains; children jeered and threw stones; at the inns they were treated with contempt.They passed through the great port of Hakata and, after six days of hard marching, reached the straits of Shimonoseki and so came to .
From Yamaguchi, eight days before Christmas, Xavier, Fernández and Bernardo set out for by land, through deep snow and country full of robbers. Xavier walked barefoot on the frozen roads until his feet swelled, broke and bled; more than once they waded through icy streams; at night, soaked and half frozen, Xavier covered himself with straw mats and still could not get warm.Our Francis Xavier page tells the rest of that winter.
The capital was a disappointment. The city was ravaged by war, and there was no hope of an audience with the emperor. "After eleven days Xavier and his associates, Fernández and Bernardo, left the city."Back at Yamaguchi, Xavier presented himself to the lord Ōuchi Yoshitaka again, this time in good clothes and with the letters and gifts he had brought, and Bernardo was one of the three who went with him.This time the lord gave permission to preach.
To India
In September 1551 a Portuguese ship reached Bungo, and the lord of Bungo, Ōtomo Yoshishige, invited Xavier to . Schurhammer writes that Xavier went "accompanied by Matthew, a young neophyte, Bernardo," and Pablo's companion João.Charlevoix too describes Matthew and Bernard as the two who "never left him," and has them walking with him on the road.
Xavier had decided to return to India. He had hoped to take learned Japanese with him, Schurhammer writes, even some learned monks, "in order that his fellow-religious in Europe might form an idea of their acutely philosophical mind." But the Christians of Yamaguchi feared the risks of the voyage, and "Francis had to be satisfied with Bernardo, Matthew, and Pablo's one-time companions, John and Antonio. Bernardo and Matthew wanted to visit India and Portugal so that they could report what they had seen upon their return home."
They sailed from Bungo on 15 November 1551 on Duarte da Gama's ship and reached the following February.At Goa, Schurhammer writes, the reports of "Bernardo and Matthew, the two Japanese companions of Father Francis," about their country and about Xavier's work did much to stir up enthusiasm for Japan among the Jesuits there.
"So that they may bear witness"
On 8 April 1552 Xavier wrote from Goa to Father Simão Rodrigues in Portugal. Kadota quotes the letter:
"Mateus and Bernardo are coming to you. They are true Japanese, who came with me from Japan to India wishing to go to Portugal and Rome, to see Christendom, and to return home and bear witness to the Japanese of what they have seen. Dear brother Father Simão, for the love and service of God our Lord, I ask you to look after them well, so that they return content. For when the Japanese hear the witness from their own mouths, they will surely trust us greatly."
Schurhammer records that the two were to sail for Europe with Brother Andrew Fernandes, who was going to report to Rodrigues and to Ignatius on the Indian mission.But Mateus, the young man of Yamaguchi, could not bear the heat of Goa and died there almost at once.
Bernardo went on alone. He reached Lisbon in September 1553, Kadota writes, worn out by the long voyage.A letter written from the college of St Anthony in Lisbon on 8 May 1554 describes him: "Bernardo is a fine man who came from Japan determined to train himself. But it was a long voyage, so he is weak and without strength. Still, I encouraged him that if he gets well he will be able to study as much as he wishes, so first he should build up his body."
A Jesuit, and Rome
In Lisbon Bernardo was drawn to the Society of Jesus, and around February 1554 he was admitted.The Kōdansha Dictionary of Japanese Biography calls him "the first Japanese student in Europe."His long-held wish to see Rome was granted. On 17 July 1554 he left Coimbra, where he had been staying, and early in January 1555 he arrived in Rome.There, the Kōdansha dictionary says, he met the General of the Society of Jesus, who at that date was its founder, Ignatius of Loyola, who died in 1556.According to D'Elia as summarised by Kadota, he was also received by the Pope.
So thirty years before the four boys of the were embraced by in 1585, a young man from Kagoshima had already made the journey. Our The Tenshō Embassy page notes the point: the boys were the first Japanese embassy, sent in the name of Japanese lords, but Bernardo came first.
Coimbra
The journey had cost him dearly. He fell ill on the road, Kadota writes, and early in 1557 his illness grew worse. He died at Coimbra a little before Ash Wednesday, 3 March, probably in February.The Kōdansha dictionary says he died while studying at Coimbra, in the first month of Kōji 3.Charlevoix writes that after Rome he withdrew to Portugal, entered the Society, and "ended his days in holiness at the college of Coimbra."
The priest who was with him at the end left this testimony, quoted by D'Elia: "He died like a saint. Just as he was always an example to us while he lived among us, so in his death he moved us deeply."Kadota closes his article: these words tell of the depth of Bernardo's spirit, and even after so many centuries we still grieve that he died so young.
The witness he carried
Xavier had sent Bernardo to Europe so that the Japanese might one day hear, from one of their own, what Christendom was like. Bernardo never came home to tell them. But he told Europe about Japan: in Goa, in Lisbon, in Coimbra and in Rome, he was the living proof of what Xavier had written, that the Japanese were ready for the Gospel.And in Kagoshima he stands again beside his master, as he did on the snowy roads to the capital.