Homily
for the Memorial of the
North
American Martyrs
Saturday,
Week 28 of Ordinary Time
Oct. 19, 2024
Collect
Eph
1: 15-23
Provincial
House, New Rochelle, N.Y.
I’ve
heard that Canada claims these 8 heroic Jesuits as “the Canadian martyrs.” In truth, they were all Frenchmen on the
Jesuits’ Canadian mission. Some, like John
de Brebeuf, had been in Canada for over 20 years; others had been there only a
year or 2. Six were priests, 2 lay
missionary volunteers.
Interior of the North American Martyrs Shrine
Auriesville, N.Y.
Five—Brebeuf,
Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, Gabriel Lalement, and Noel Chabanel—shed their
blood in what’s now Ontario. There’s a
beautiful shrine to them at Midland, along with a re-creation of a Huron
village and Jesuit mission. As we know,
the other 3—Isaac Jogues, René Goupil, and John de Lalande—died at Auriesville,
N.Y., where their blood a few years later seeded the faith of Catherine
Tekakwitha.
We’ve
all heard news stories introduced with a caution like, “Some listeners may find
the details disturbing.” That’s true of
the tortures to which these priests and laymen were subjected: running the gauntlet, fingernails torn out,
parts of fingers sawed off with clamshells, being “baptized” with boiling
water, having a necklace of red-hot tomahawks put upon them. Being dispatched by arrows like Fr. Daniel or
tomahawk like Lalande almost sounds merciful.
On
one winter occasion while Brebeuf and a companion were sheltering in a
longhouse, a chief ordered them, “Go out and leave our country, or we will put
you into a kettle and make a feast of you.”[1]
These
missionaries didn’t suffer all that for love of the forests, rivers, and lakes
of New France but for love of God and zeal for souls.
Shedding
one’s blood so gruesomely wasn’t the only witness to love for Christ that
Jesuit, as well as Franciscan, missioners displayed in Canada and lands that we
know today as New York, Maine, and the Midwest.
In Don Bosco’s introduction to our Constitutions, he tells us that
religious suffer a martyrdom of endurance in contrast to the intensity which
blood martyrs suffer. A good many of the
Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries in New France endured at length—endured
insufferable cold, hunger, choking smoke in Indian longhouses, insects, days of
travel by canoe, fatigue, the loneliness of going months without seeing a
confrere, struggles with language, insults, the poor moral example of some of
their countrymen who trapped and traded among the First Nations.
One
Franciscan missionary left this report of a voyage up the Ottawa River: “It would be hard to tell you how tired I was
with paddling all day, with all my strength, among the Indians; wading the
rivers a hundred times and more, through the mud and over the sharp rocks that
cut my feet; carrying the canoe and luggage through the woods to avoid the
rapids and frightful cataracts; and half starved all the while, for we had
nothing to eat but a little sagamite, a sort of porridge of water and
pounded maize, of which they gave us a very small allowance every morning and
night. But I must needs tell you what
abundant consolation I found under all my troubles; for when one sees so many
infidels needing nothing but a drop of water to make them children of God, one
feels an inexpressible ardor to labor for their conversion, and sacrifice to it
one’s repose and life.”[2]
Some
missionaries died heroically without shedding their blood. Fr. Anne de Nouë froze to death in a winter
storm while trying to reach a French outpost to celebrate the sacraments for
the soldiers. Fr. Jacques Marquette,
renowned for exploring the Mississippi River and having a Jesuit university
named for him, died almost alone on the shore of Lake Michigan and was buried
in an unmarked grave.
U.S. postage stamp, 1968
Some
shed blood without having their cause as martyrs put forward. There is one cause of martyrdom underway for
5 Franciscans murdered in 1597 by natives in what’s now Georgia,[3]
claimed at the time by Spain as part of Florida. Many others were killed by Indians they
visited in the Midwest and Southwest.
Back
in New France, Fr. Joseph Bressani, a Jesuit, was captured by the Iroquois and
horribly mutilated and tortured but not killed; eventually he was ransomed by
the Dutch at Albany—and after recovering from his wounds, returned to the Huron
mission.[4] Fr. Sebastien Râle was a missionary among the
Abenaki in what’s now Maine for 30-something years. He converted most of the tribe and was
totally devoted to them. Their territory
was in the borderlands between New France and New England, and he defended
their independence from both French and English intrusions during the endless
colonial wars. The Massachusetts English
blamed Fr. Râle when the Abenaki sided with the French in the wars and, with
their passionate hatred for both the French and Catholics, put a price on his
head. In 1724 they slew him in an
assault on his Abenaki mission.[5]
The death of Fr. Rale
Thomas W. Strong, lithograph (public domain)
Truly,
all of these priests and lay volunteers were North American martyrs, even if
only 8 have been canonized. They suffered
all their hardships and danger in order to enlighten the eyes of native hearts
and reveal to them the hope that belongs to the call of Jesus Christ and the
riches of the glory we inherit thru him (cf. Eph 1:18); they made it their
mission to “acknowledge the Son of Man before others” (Luke 12:8).
That’s
their example to us who don’t expect to be tortured or tomahawked. In the collect we prayed “that thru their
intercession the faith of Christians may be strengthened day by day.” Every day we have the opportunity to witness
to the Lord Jesus and to the faith in our struggles—struggles with our various
personalities, with perceived shortcomings, with the weather, with household
breakdowns, with plans that go awry, with impatience with our own sins and
failings, with the effort to be faithful to our vows, with the hard work of
administration, etc. Our witness helps
support our brothers—and also the lay people and students who see and hear us
and count upon our good example as well as our prayers. Several nites a week we hear the names of
deceased confreres whom we lived with, and some of us have read of the
struggles of the Salesian pioneers of North America. We admire their heroic example, for they were
contemporary North American martyrs, witnesses to the Lord Jesus and our faith. May the grace of Christ strengthen us to be
genuine witnesses to him.
[1] Quoted by Francis Parkman, The Jesuits
in North America in the Seventeenth Century, vol. 2 of Parkman’s “France
and England in North America,” vol. I, The Library of America (New York, 1983),
p. 501.
[2] Fr. Joseph le Caron, quoted by Parkman, Pioneers
of France in the New World, vol. 1 of “France and England in North
America,” vol. I, The Library of America, p. 287.
[4] Parkman, The Jesuits in North America,
pp. 576-579.
[5] Brian O’Neel, 150 North American
Martyrs You Should Know (Cincinnati: Servant Books, 2014), pp. 80-83. Cf. Francis Parkman, A Half Century of
Conflict, vol. 6 of “France and England in North America,” vol. II, The
Library of America (New York, 1983), pp. 477-501.
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