12-year-old Seelos finishes his early schooling. His diploma states that he was gifted with “very great” innate ability, and received “excellent” marks in Diligence, Conduct, Religion, Reading and Handwriting.
Seelos receives his first Holy Communion “with very great devotion,” notes his sister, Antonia. Throughout his childhood, Seelos had displayed many signs of his calling to the priesthood, one of them being to “play priest” with his friends around a small altar he built at home. He was also an altar boy and helped his father in the local church, where he was “wholly in his element,” according to Antonia.
Seelos receives the Sacrament of Confirmation at the age of nine from the ordinary of Augsburg, Bishop Augustine Ignatius Albert von Riegg.
Seelos begins primary school at age 5 in the Volksschule, a one-room school for boys nicknamed “the old Kornhaus” because the first floor was previously the marketplace for the sale of corn to the townsfolk. Along with the standard studies, singing was a large part of Seelos’ school life. He was taught hymns and folk songs, enthusiastically sang at the children’s Mass, and learned to play violin. He retained a love of singing all his life.
From infancy until his ninth year, Seelos was constantly sick and not expected to live beyond his childhood. During this time, his mother tried to prepare him for heaven by admonishing him to be patient and telling him beautiful stories of the saints. His sister Antonia said, “He was always so amiable and tranquil that we loved him most of all.” This thoroughly Catholic atmosphere implanted in the soul of young Xavier the seeds of an all-pervasive spiritual outlook on life. | Shown above, Fr. Seelos’s childhood home in Füssen where he and all of his siblings were born. A plaque denotes the significance of the building.
Francis Xavier Seelos is born in Füssen, Bavaria, Germany into a devout Catholic family of 12 children, with 9 surviving to maturity. He is baptized on the same day in St. Mang’s Church. | Shown above, an illustration of the town of Füssen and a photo of St. Mang’s Church.