Missionary Position Trivia Quiz

Answer: Asia

Saint Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta, was one of the original seven members of the Society of Jesus, and is associated with his extensive missionary work in a number of Asian countries. These included Portuguese colonies in India, Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), Indonesia, China and Japan. He is the patron saint of Roman Catholic missionaries in foreign lands, as well as being a patron saint for countries including Australia, India, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan (some of which have multiple patrons).

Answer: Canada

Jean de Brébeuf arrived in Canada in 1625, where he lived with the Huron people. He became an expert in their customs, writing a dictionary for the Huron language as part of his efforts to make meaningful contact so as to make converts to Christianity.

In 1643 he wrote "The Huron Carol", a Christmas carol of which a modified version is still sung today. War between the Hurons and the Iroquois led to his capture, torture and death in 1649 along with fellow Jesuit missionary Gabriel Lallemant.

Answer: United States

Miquel Josep Serra i Ferrer, born in Majorca, Spain, took on the name 'Junipero' in honor of Saint Juniper when he became a Franciscan friar. In 1749 he started his work in North America, teaching in Mexico City and establishing missions in other parts of Mexico before being sent to Baja California in 1768.

In 1769 he established a chain of missions, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco, in Alta California (now the US state of California) with headquarters in what is now Monterey. Some Native American groups opposed his beatification (one stage of the progression to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church) in 1988 on the grounds that the missions led to major cultural losses among native Californians, as well as providing harsh living conditions including beatings.

Answer: India

William Carey, one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society, was an English Baptist missionary who spent the years from 1800 to 1834 in the Danish colony of Serampore, India. During that time, the missionary society was engaged in the business of converting Hindus to Christianity, a task which included the translation of the Bible (either in its entirety or in part) into 44 local languages and dialects. Serampore College was founded in 1818 to train indigenous ministers, as well as to provide a general education for all. Following internal dissent within the mission, Carey moved out of the mission property and lived on the college grounds for his final years.

Greenland, modern-day Ghana and the Danish West Indies were also Danish colonies, but in none of them would Bengali or Sanskrit have been an appropriate choice of language for a Bible translation.

Answer: New Zealand

Samuel Marsden, born in Yorkshire, was a prominent figure in the early days of the Australian colony of New South Wales, not only as a minister but also as a farmer and magistrate, following his arrival in Parramatta in 1794. His use of convict labor and his reputation for setting harsh punishments (he was known as 'the flogging parson') made him a controversial figure even in his own time.

As the New South Wales agent for the Church Missionary Society, he established a mission in 1814 in the Bay of Islands, hoping to keep the Maori locals from being corrupted by exposure to the small number of non-observant Europeans who had settled there.

He claimed to have been the first person to celebrate a Christian worship service in New Zealand. In 1819 he planted grape vines in Kerikeri, which are considered to have been the start of New Zealand's wine industry.

Answer: Africa

The renowned explorer had wanted to go to China as a missionary, but the Opium Wars made that impossible. A meeting with Robert Moffat inspired him to go to South Africa in 1841 and expand the existing missions northwards. From 1852 to 1856 he concentrated on exploration rather than missionary work, becoming one of the first Europeans to cross Africa at (or near) the equator, from Luanda (now the capital of Angola) on the Atlantic Ocean to Quelimane (in modern Mozambique) near the mouth of the Zambezi River on the Indian Ocean. Most of the rest of his time in Africa was spent in a combination of exploration and missionary work, with the primary focus being exploration.

He failed in his quest to open the Zambezi River to commercial traffic, then attempted to locate the source of the Nile.

It was during this attempt (which lasted from 1866 to 1871) that he lost contact with civilization, leading the "New York Herald" to send Stanley to locate him.

Answer: Hawaii

Jozef de Veuster was a Belgian priest who took on the name Brother Damien when he became a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary order of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1864 he took the place of his brother Auguste as part of a mission to the (then) kingdom of Hawaii.

In 1865 the government established leper colonies on Molokai in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease amongst native islanders. Father Damien volunteered to minister to the colony at Kalaupapa, arriving there in 1873.

He remained there, working tirelessly for the benefit of the sick, until his death from leprosy (also known as Hansen's disease) in 1889.

Answer: Gabon

The Alsatian-born Schweitzer had difficulty gaining a position as a missionary, because the French Missionary Society felt his Lutheran theology was suspect. After he added a medical degree to his qualifications, he approached committee members individually, and was eventually accepted.

He and his wife established the Albert Schweitzer hospital in 1913. They were forced to leave in 1917 due to World War I, and he returned in 1924 (now a French citizen) to restore the hospital to working order.

Much of the rest of his life was dedicated to maintaining the hospital, as well as continuing the musical and Bible studies for which he was renowned, campaigning against colonialism, and propounding his philosophy of 'reverence for life'. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

Answer: China

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was also known by the Chinese name of Sau Zhenzhu. From 1914 to 1933 she carried on the family tradition of working as a Presbyterian missionary in China, but resigned amidst theological controversy about the role of missionaries in the modern world.

She is perhaps best known as an award-winning author of books set in China, including "The Good Earth" for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, the first American woman to receive that honor.

Answer: Kolkata (Calcutta)

After joining the Loreto Sisters as a missionary at the age of 18, Agnes first learned English and then began her novitiate in Darjeeling, where she had to learn Bengali. From 1937, she worked in a Loreto school in Kolkota, but became increasingly aware that education was not addressing the serious problems associated with the poverty surrounding her.

In 1948 she became an Indian citizen, began her missionary work, and started seeking permission to establish her new order, the Missionaries of Charity, which was granted in 1950. Mother Teresa was a revered yet controversial figure.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, along with a number of other honors, for her work; the order has expanded to operate over 600 missions in over 100 countries, all providing essential services such as schools, hospitals, hospices, soup kitchens, orphanages, and more for the poor.

She has, however, also been criticized for her hard-line stance against contraception and abortion, and her belief in the spiritual benefits of poverty, both positions that sat well with traditional Catholic values as opposed to more humanist attitudes towards social work.