Saints John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues and Companions
Memorial
19 October (26 September in Canada)
Patron: Americas; Canada
Today the dioceses of the United States celebrate the Memorial of Sts. John de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues (priests) and their companions. They were Jesuit missionaries who died as martyrs in North America where they preached the Gospel.
COLLECT PRAYER
O God, who chose to manifest the blessed hope of your eternal Kingdom by the toil of Saints John de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and their companions and by the shedding of their blood, graciously grant that through their intercession the faith of Christians may be strengthened day by day. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
Things to Do:
- Pray to the Holy Spirit to renew the evangelization of distant countries as well as the re-evangelization of our own nation.
- More Christians have been martyred in the 20th century than in the previous nineteen centuries combined. For example, pastors are being arrested and sometimes shot in China and Cuba. Believers are forbidden to buy goods or own property in Somalia. Christians who testify to their faith in Iran or Saudi Arabia may be put to death for blasphemy. Mobs have wiped out whole villages of Christians in Pakistan. Pray for courageous and zealous missionaries in these countries where the Church is persecuted.
- Support the Indian Missions in the USA.
- Visit the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. This site offers a wonderful gallery of pictures of the shrine.
- Learn more about each of the martyrs. You might also like to read this definitive scholarly biography, Saint Among Savages: The Life of St. Isaac Jogues, by Francis Talbot, S.J.
- Learn for Christmas the Indian Christmas Carol, the first American Christmas carol John de Brebeuf wrote to teach the Christmas story to the Huron Indians.
St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Brebeuf and Companions
French Jesuits were the first missionaries to go to Canada and North America after J. Cartier discovered Canada in 1534. Their mission region extended from Nova Scotia to Maryland.
- Isaac Jogues,
- John de Brebeuf,
- Gabriel Lalemant,
- Noel Chabanel,
- Charles Garnier,
- Anthony Daniel,
- Rene Goupil and
- John de Lalande (the first six Jesuits, the last two laymen) preached the gospel to the Iroquois and Huron Indians, and after being tortured, they were martyred in the area of what is now Auriesville, New York.
The martyrdoms took place between 1642 and 1649. Ten years after the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues, Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the same village in which he died. These martyrs are co-patrons of Canada.
The missionaries arrived in Canada less than a century after its discovery by Cartier in 1534, in the hope of converting the Indians and setting up “New France.” Their opponents were often the English and Dutch colonists. When Isaac Jogues returned to Paris after his first capture and torture, he said to his superior: “Yes, Father, I want whatever our Lord wants, even if it costs a thousand lives.” He had written in his mission report: “These tortures are very great, but God is still greater, and immense.”
In the Office of Readings we have an excerpt from the mission journal of St. John de Brebeuf, who had been a student of the great Jesuit spiritual writer, Louis Lallemant. He wrote:
For two days now I have experienced a great desire to be a martyr and to endure all the torments the martyrs suffered…. I vow to you, Jesus my Savior, that as far as I have the strength I will never fail to accept the grace of martyrdom, if some day you in your infinite mercy should offer it to me, your most unworthy servant…. On receiving the blow of death, I shall accept it from your hands with the fullest delight and joy of spirit…. My God, it grieves me greatly that you are not known, that in this savage wilderness all have not been converted to you, that sin has not been driven from it.
–Excerpted from Saints of the Roman Calendar by Enzo Lodi
Source: CATHOLIC CULTURE
St Paul of the Cross
19 October
Paul Francis Daneii was born at Ovada, Piedmont in northern Italy on January 3 of 1694. After receiving a vision, and while still a layman, he founded the Barefoot Clerks of the Cross and the Passion (Passionists) in 1721 to preach about Jesus Crucified. He became a preacher of such power that even hardened soldiers and bandits were seen to weep. At one point all the brothers in the order deserted him, but in 1741 his rule was approved by Pope Benedict XIV, and the community began to grow again.
His parents, Luke Danei and Anna Maria Massari, were exemplary Catholics, and from his earliest years the crucifix was his book, and the Crucified his model. Paul received his early education from a priest who kept a school for boys in Cremolino, Lombardy. He made great progress in study and virtue and spent much time in prayer and daily Mass. He frequently received the Sacraments, faithfully attended to his school duties, and gave his spare time to reading good books and visiting the churches, where he spent much time before the Blessed Sacrament, to which he had an ardent devotion. At the age of fifteen he left school and returned to his home at Castellazzo, and from this point on his life was full of trials.
In early manhood he renounced the offer of an honorable marriage, and also a good inheritance left him by an uncle who was a priest. He kept for himself only the priest’s Breviary.
Inflamed with a desire for God’s glory, he formed the idea of instituting a religious order with an emphasis on the Passion. Vested in a black tunic by the Bishop of Alessandria, his director, bearing the emblem of our Lord’s Passion, barefooted, and bareheaded, he retired to a narrow cell where he drew up the Rules of the new congregation according to the plan made known to him in a vision, which he relates in the introduction to the original copy of the Rules.
After the approbation of the Rules and the institute, the first general chapter was held at the Retreat of the Presentation on Mount Argentaro on April 10, 1747. At this chapter, St. Paul, against his wishes, was unanimously elected first superior general, an office which he held until the day of his death. In all virtues and in the observance of regular discipline, he became a model to his companions. “Although continually occupied with the cares of governing his religious society, and of founding everywhere new houses for it, he never ceased preaching the word of God, burning as he did with a wondrous desire for the salvation of souls” (Brief of Pius IX for St. Paul’s Beatification, Oct. 1, 1852).
Sacred missions were instituted and numerous conversions were made. He was untiring in his Apostolic labours and never, even to his last hour, remitted anything of his austere manner of life, finally succumbing to a severe illness, worn out as much by his austerities as by old age.
Among the distinguished associates of St. Paul in the formation and extension of the congregation were: John Baptist, his younger brother and constant companion from childhood, who shared all his labours and sufferings and equaled him in the practice of virtue, Father Mark Aurelius (Pastorelli), Father Thomas Struzzieri (subsequently Bishop of Amelia and afterwards of Todi), and Father Fulgentius of Jesus, all remarkable for learning, piety, and missionary zeal. Venerable Strambi, Bishop of Macerata and Tolentino, was his biographer.
Constant personal union with the Passion and Cross of our Lord was the prominent feature of St. Paul’s sanctity, but devotion to the Passion did not stand alone, for he carried to a heroic degree all the other virtues of a Christian life. Numerous miracles, in addition those special ones brought forward at his beatification and canonization, attested the favour he enjoyed with God.
Miracles of grace abounded, as witnessed in the conversion of sinners seemingly hardened and hopeless. For fifty years he prayed for the conversion of England, and left the devotion as a legacy to his sons. The body of St. Paul lies in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul in Rome.
He died on October 18, 1775, was beatified on October 1, 1852, and canonized on June 29, 1867. His feast is celebrated on April 28. The fame of his sanctity, which had spread far and wide in Italy during his life, increased after his death and spread into all countries. Great devotion to him is practiced by the faithful wherever Passionists are established.
Source: Catholic News Agency (CNA)