On October 19, the Church celebrates the feast of the North American Martyrs. These eight Jesuit missionaries were killed in Canada and upstate New York while spreading the Gospel among the Iroquois Native Americans. Among these martyrs were the influential Sts. Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf, S.J., who both showed exceptional bravery and faith in the dangerous missions they were assigned to.
St. Isaac Jogues lived a comfortable life as a literature professor in France before he was sent by his superior to spread the faith in Canada in 1636. Leaving his home country for the vast, unsettled Ontario wilderness, Jogues traveled thousands of miles to convert multiple Native American nations before he was captured and held prisoner for 13 months. After surviving horrific torture and losing several of his fingers, Jogues was finally saved by Dutch settlers and returned to his home country.
In France he was received as a “living martyr” by both the king and pope, but rather than living out his life in comfort as a national hero, Jogues chose to return to America to continue his mission, despite his injured hands. Convincing his superiors to allow him to go back to the dangerous Iroquois territory, Jogues negotiated several peace treaties between warring tribes and continued to spread the Gospel before being captured and killed on October 18, 1646.
St. Jean de Brebeuf, too, gave his life for his Church, first arriving as a missionary in Quebec in 1625. Though he was immediately disliked by the Native Americans and the Calvinist settlers who lived in the area, his natural friendliness and joy for his work eventually led the native Hurons to warm up to the idea of Christianity.
After a brief return to France, Brebeuf began a new mission in America with a number of Jesuit companions, and gave them a set of instructions that shed light on how he carried out his evangelization. Suggestions such as, “Always show any other Indians you meet on the way a cheerful face and show that you readily accept the fatigues of the journey,” and ,“You must love these Hurons, ransomed by the blood of the Son of God, as brothers,” show that Brebeuf bore the difficulties of his mission without complaint. He always showed externally the joys his religion brought to him. These seemingly small gestures worked wonders, and the poor reputation of the Jesuit missionaries was transformed through his outpouring of kindness.
Brebeuf was ordered to minister to the natives who had previously killed St. Isaac Jogues and one other of the North American Martyrs. He cast aside his fears of the dangerous task and accepted the mission without complaint. Although he successfully ministered to the dangerous area for a time, his village was eventually invaded, and Brebeuf was burned at the stake, entering Heaven on March 16, 1649.
Sts. Jogues and Brebeuf are just two examples of the heroic efforts that needed to be made to bring Catholicism to the New World. As students at a Jesuit college in the very nation that these heroes worked to convert, we can learn many lessons from the North American Martyrs. In the first place, they remind us that the saints are not mythical figures from far-off lands and times. In fact, these saints met their fates just a few states away from Boston College, and possessed no magical or mystical powers other than a deep devotion to their Church and a great zeal for spreading the faith.
In addition, these saints remind us how important evangelization is to our faith, despite its de-emphasis by many of today’s Catholics. The Lord commanded the faithful to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature,” and recently, Pope St. Paul VI taught that “the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.”
The North American Martyrs were willing to give their lives in order to spread the Gospel to those who did not know of it, and their dedication should give inspiration to today’s faithful, who are often so reluctant to share their belief with the world.
Featured image: painting of the Execution of Sts Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, which is in the Cathedral of Mary Queen of the World in Montréal, QC.
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Nice article.