“What do you think of a man who could run all day beside a trotting horse, and be fresh enough to preach that evening? A kind of a mixture of rubber, steel, electricity and the love of God, that’s what Francis Xavier was. He was what you might call a beefy saint.”

 

The Beefy Saint, by Fergal McGrath SJ, Chapter 1: The Rocky Mountain Priest)

A religious pamphlet published in 1922, specifically for Irish boys, set in a fictional boy’s school ‘St Ronan’s’ and designed to educate them about manly saints including Francis Xavier.

Good times.

Thanks Sibling of Daedalus