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Saint Isaac Jogues
Born January
10, 1607 at Orleans, France
Died Martyred
October 18, 1646 at Auriesville (Ossernenon), New York
Canonized June 29, 1930 by Pope Pius XI
Feast Day October 19
Jesuit priest
Saint Rene Goupil
Born May
13, 1608 at Anjou, France
Died Martyred
in 1642 at Auriesville (Ossernenon), New York
Canonized June 29, 1930 by Pope Pius XI
Feast Day October 19
Jesuit brother
Saint Jean de la Lande
Born
At Dieppe, France
Died Martyred
on October 19, 1646 at Auriesville (Ossernenon), New York
Canonized June 29, 1930 by Pope Pius XI
Feast Day October 19
Lay missionary
The
United States
first and only canonized martyrs
Four canoes paddled
slowly and cautiously along the marshy shore of the St. Lawrence River
on August 3, 1642. The eyes of the paddlers swept the waist-high marsh
grass. They were Huron Indians led by their great Chief Eustace together
with some Frenchmen including Fr. Isaac Jogues and Rene Goupil. They
were on their way to bring missionaries and supplies to nourish the
lives and Christian faith of the Huron Mission in New France.
Suddenly, the quiet early morning air was pierced with wild war whoops
as Mohawk warriors with grotesquely painted faces and bodies streaked
with blood-red paint stood above the grass and fired their muskets. The
Hurons had no guns but returned fire with a volley of arrows. Above the
din of battle the voice of Eustace rose, “Great God, to you alone do I
look for help.”
Father Jogues made the sign of the cross and shouted the words of
absolution over his companions. Then his canoe smashed against the shore
and he was catapulted into the marsh that concealed him. He watched as
his outnumbered companions were killed or captured. He could have
escaped but, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he surrendered
himself.
Like the Good Shepherd Fr. Jogues thought, Could I think for a moment
of abandoning our French and deserting these good neophytes and
catechumens, without giving them the help and consolation that the
Church of my God has entrusted to me? Never, never could that be. He
resolved to himself, “It is necessary, it must be, that my body
suffer the fires of this earth in order to deliver these souls from the
flames of hell. It must be that my body die a death that passes in order
to obtain for these a life that is eternal.”
Fr. Jogues stood up from the grass that concealed him and walked to the
Mohawks with his arms stretched out in surrender. They sprang on him and
beat him, stripped off his black robe and began to tie his ankles with
leather thongs. He said, “No, no. You don’t need to bind me. These
French and Hurons whom you have taken, they are the bonds that will keep
me captive. I won’t leave them till death. I will follow them
everywhere. You can be assured of my person as long as any one of them
remains among you as a prisoner.”
The Mohawks were so impressed with this eloquent statement that they
left him untied. Fr. Jogues threw his arms around Rene Goupil and, like
Job, whispered, “My dear brother, God has acted strangely toward us. But
He is the Lord and Master. What is good in His eyes, that has He done.
As it has pleased Him, so be it. Blessed be His Holy Name forever.”
“O my Father,” replied Rene, “God indeed be blessed. He has permitted
it. He has willed it. His holy will be done. I love it, I cherish it, I
embrace it with all the strength of my heart.”
These strange actions that God permitted probably seemed to the captives
to signal the loss of hope for the Huron Mission. Fr. Jogues thought
about the loss of the Hurons of their Christian apostles and books, as
well as their life supplies of food, clothing and tools. Later he
reflected on the beginning of his march into captivity and lamented, “I
was shaken by interior anguish when I saw this funereal procession of
our Christians led before my very eyes, this cortege of death in which
were the five tried Christians, the sustaining columns of the Church
among the Hurons. Indeed, and I confess it honestly, time and time again
I could not restrain my tears, grieving over the lot of these poor
Hurons and of my French comrades, and worrying terribly about the things
that might happen in the future. I had before my eyes continually the
sight of the door of the Christian faith among the Hurons and other
innumerable nations closed by these Iroquois, unless it might be opened
by a most extraordinary dispensation of Divine Providence. This thought
made me die every hour, in the depth of my soul. It is a hard thing,
more, it is a cruel thing, to bear, that of seeing the triumph of the
demons over whole nations redeemed with so much love, and paid for in
the money of a Blood so adorable.”
However, the martyrdoms of Fr. Jogues, Rene Goupil and Jean de la Lande
also remind us that this adorable Blood and theirs was also shed to pay
for the redemption of their Mohawk oppressors. Fr. Jogues later wrote
in a letter to a friend, “In a word, this people is ‘a bloody spouse’ to
me (Exodus iv, 25). May our good Master, who has purchased them in His
blood, open to them the door of His Gospel, as well as to the four
allied nations near them.”
Formation
Isaac Jogues was born at
Orleans, France on January 10, 1607. He was a member of a good
bourgeois family and entered the Jesuit novitiate school at Rouen at the
age of 17. Later he studied at the royal college of La Fleche where one
of his teachers was Louis Lalemant. He had two brothers and a nephew
serving as missionaries in Canada and Isaac probably began to think of
joining them. Later, in 1629, he met with the missionary Father Jean de
Brebeuf who returned from Canada to France after the English captured
Quebec. Isaac continued his education at the College of Clermont,
University of Paris, was ordained as a Jesuit (The Society of Jesus) and
accepted for missionary service In the summer of 1636, at the age of 29,
he embarked for Canada with several other Jesuits, among them Charles
Garnier.
Journey to
Canada
Sailing on the same ship with
the young missionaries was Sieur Huault de Montmagny, the new French
governor sent out to replace Champlain, who had died a few months
before. After a stormy voyage, they sailed up the St. Lawrence to Quebec
City. Upon arrival, Father Jogues wrote to his mother, "I do not know
what it is to enter Heaven, but this I know—that it would be difficult
to experience in this world a joy more excessive and more overflowing
than I felt in setting foot in the New World, and celebrating my first
Mass on the day of the Visitation."
The Huron
Mission
Father Jogues' companions
were at once sent to the west to join Father de Brebeuf at the Huron
mission at St. Marie. Father Jogues went with them as far as Three
Rivers where he remained. A few weeks later, he saw a flotilla of canoes
coming down the St. Lawrence River from the west. Father Anthony
Daniel, one of Father de Brebeuf’s coworkers, led it. He arrived
exhausted and emaciated with his cassock in tatters. He was bound for
Quebec City to recuperate and Father Jogues was to replace him at St.
Marie.
Father Jogues soon began the
1500 mile journey over the waterways and through the forests. When they
finally arrived at St. Marie, Father Jogues collapsed in Father de
Brebeuf's arms. He and the others came down with a fever and were placed
to recover in the wretched lodgings. Their food was poor and scanty.
When they had recovered, a similar epidemic broke out among the Indians
and they blamed the Jesuits whom they called “Blackrobes” because of the
black cassocks that they wore. The Indians, threatened to kill them but
Father de Brebeuf brought calm. By the following year, relations had so
improved that he was able to write in one of his reports, "We are gladly
heard, and there is scarcely a village that has not invited us to go to
it.... And at last it is understood from our whole conduct that we have
not come to buy skins or to carry on any traffic, but solely to teach
them, and to procure for them their souls' health." The glad hearing and
invitations began to end however because the Indian medicine men
fomented hostility against them.
The mission later consisted
of a church, living quarters, a cemetery, a hospital, and a fort were
eventually built, and a way of life that was half monastic, half
patriarchal grew up in this remote spot. The surrounding lands were
cleared and cultivated, food was stored against famine, and here the
Indians came in times of sickness and trouble, as well as on Sundays and
feast days. Here in the lonely north woods the missionaries tried to
create order and to be witnesses of the Gospel.
Father Jogues labored for six
long years at St. Marie. He learned the language and ways of the Hurons,
developed into a skilled woodsman with great physical stamina, and often
went on missions. He and Father Garnier went south to the Petun Indians,
called the Tobacco Nation, with the Gospel. Later he and Father
Raymbault were sent to Indians further north where they traversed
uncharted waterways and forests. They may have been the first white men
to stand on the shore of Lake Superior. About 2,000 Ojibway Indians were
gathered there to celebrate their Feast of the Dead when Father Jogues
addressed them. He erected a cross facing west towards the Sioux country
where they would later hear the Good News from others.
In 1642, the Hurons suffered
from much sickness and a very poor harvest. Father Jogues led an
expedition back to Quebec for supplies and reinforcements. The journey
was safely made but on their return, they were ambushed and captured by
the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence River.
The captives included Father
Jogues and Rene Goupil. He was a young Frenchman who had failed to be
admitted to the Jesuits because of poor health. Nevertheless, he studied
medicine and came to Canada to help the missionaries.
The captives were forced into
the Mohawk canoe flotilla that paddled south from the St. Lawrence River
down the Richelieu River (River of the Iroquois) and Lake Champlain.
They were brought to Jogues Island, a small island located in Lake
Champlain near Westport, New York, on the western shore of the Lake.
There they were forced to “run the gauntlet” and tortured. Father Jogues
later wrote, "We were made to go up from the shore between two
lines of Indians who were armed with clubs, sticks, and knives. I was
the last and blows were showered on me. I fell on the ground and thought
my end had come, but they lifted me up all streaming with blood and
carried me more dead than alive to the platform." Worse tortures
followed on the platform. The Indians called these tortures “caresses.”
The captives were led from
Jogues Island south to the Mohawk Village at Auriesville, New York
(Ossernoneon). It was located 40 miles west of Albany (Fort Orange), New
York on a bluff overlooking the Mohawk River. It housed about 600
Indians in multi-family Long Houses. The village was surrounded by
“palisades” – tall double fences made of pointed logs that protected
the village from attack. The palisades were 75 yards parallel to the
river by 115 yards deep.
First Mohawk
Captivity
Father Jogues and Rene Goupil
were cruelly tortured and lived in slavery in the village for 13 months.
The news of their capture soon reached the Protestant Dutch settlement
at Albany. Its Commandant, Van Corlear, tried to ransom them but his
offers were rejected.
One day an Indian observed
Rene making the sign of the Cross on the head of an Indian girl. The
superstitious Indians thought that it would bring them bad medicine so
they brutally tomahawked Rene on the head from behind. Father Jogues was
nearby. He took the dying man in his arms and gave him the sacrament of
the Anointing of the Sick (Extreme Unction) before he died. The Indians
snatched the body away from the grieving Fr. Jogues and concealed it in
a stream. Guided by a friendly Indian, he went in search of the corpse,
and when he found it, he hid it deeper in the stream, hoping to return
and give it proper burial before he too was killed. The Indians thwarted
his plan by destroying the body. Father Jogues wrote of Rene’s death,
"Thus on the 28th of September [1642] this angel of innocence and martyr
of Jesus Christ was immolated in his thirty-fifth year, for Him who had
given His life for his ransom. He had consecrated his heart and soul to
God and his life and labor to the welfare of the poor Indians."
Father Jogues' slavery
continued. Francis Parkman wrote, "He would sometimes escape . . . and
wander in the forest, telling his beads and repeating passages of
Scripture. In a remote and lonely spot, he cut the bark in the form of a
cross from the trunk of a great tree; and here he made his prayers. This
living martyr, half clad in shaggy furs, kneeling in the snow among the
icicled rocks and beneath the gloomy pines, bowing in adoration before
the emblem of his faith in which was his only consolation and his only
hope, is alike a theme for the pen and a subject for the pencil." Later,
Father Jogues reported to his spiritual guide, "The only sin I can
remember during my captivity is that I sometimes looked on the approach
of death with complacency."
The Indians respected the
bravery of their strange captive, naming him "the indomitable one."
He had at least one good friend among the Mohawks. She was an old
woman whom he called "aunt." She tried to heal his wounds and to warn
and protect him when danger threatened. His days were passed in menial
work, learning the language, and comforting Huron prisoners who were
sometimes brought in. As opportunity offered, he baptized children he
found dying. During the year, he baptized some seventy persons, New York
State's first Catholic baptismal record. He was taken on fishing and
hunting expeditions, when he suffered much from hunger and exposure. On
one of their fishing expeditions, the Mohawks took Father Jogues down
river to the Dutch settlement at Albany.
Escape
When Father arrived at
Albany, the Dutch told him that it would be possible to escape that
night to a boat lying offshore on the Hudson River. It was ready to sail
for Bordeaux. He and his Indian guards were to sleep in a Dutch farmer's
big barn. Before dawn, guided by a farm hand, he picked his way over the
sleeping Indians around him, and got to the river. Rowing out to the
anchored vessel, he was taken on board and concealed. The enraged
Mohawks were soon on his trail, threatening reprisals against the Dutch
for their part in his attempted escape. When Father learned of this, he
insisted on going back to shore. "If this trouble has been caused by
me," he said, "I am ready to appease it at the loss of my life. I have
never wished to escape if it meant injury to the least man in the
colony." But the Indians were persuaded to relinquish all claim to his
person for the sum of 300 livres, which the Dutch paid. However,
Father’s life continued in jeopardy. For the next six weeks, he waited
for another boat and was kept in close, uncomfortable confinement.
Finally, Father got passage
down the Hudson River to New York City (New Amsterdam). He was the first
Catholic priest to visit the settlement. "No religion is publicly
exercised here but the Calvinist," he noted, "and orders are to admit
none but Calvinists; but this is not observed. There are in the colony
Catholics, Puritans, Lutherans, Anabaptists, etc."
On November 5, 1643, Father
sailed. He reached the coast of Cornwall, England towards the end of
December. Then he was able to get aboard a boat bound for France and.
landed on the coast of Brittany on
Christmas
morning in a state of absolute destitution.
Home Again
From Brittany, kindly people
helped him reach the town of Rennes. At the rector's house, Father sent
word by a servant that he was the bearer of news from Canada. Unknown to
him, his own fate was a matter of widespread concern in France since the
latest volume of the Jesuit Relations had contained the details
of his capture. When the rector came to the door, after an exchange of
courtesies, he asked the shabbily dressed man if he had known Father
Jogues. "Very well indeed," was the answer. "Have they murdered him?"
"No, Father, he is alive and free - and I am he!"
The astonishing news spread
quickly. Father reported to his superiors. He was so famous that women,
courtiers, and even the Queen Regent wanted to meet him and do him
honor. Father was received by Anne of Austria and he told her his story.
When he was finished, the Queen arose and stooped to kiss the mutilated
hands, which he habitually kept covered by the folds of his cassock.
However, Father did not seek public acclaim. He even refrained from
going to see his mother, wishing to spare her the pain of another
parting and the sight of his mutilated hands.
He was honored by the Queen
Regent, the mother of King Louis XIV, and received special permission to
celebrate Mass with the stumps of his fingers. When Pope Urban VII
granted this exceptional privilege, he said, "It would be unjust that a
martyr for Christ should not drink the blood of Christ.”
Return to
Canada
Father Jogues' only desire
was to get back to Canada and, in June 1644, he was again in Quebec.
From there he was sent to Montreal to spend his time helping to build up
the new outpost there, until the end of warfare would allow him to
return to the Hurons. Two years later, an embassy of Iroquois came to
Three Rivers to discuss terms of a truce and the ransom of prisoners.
Many fine speeches were made and gifts were exchanged. Father
participated in these conclaves. After the deliberations were concluded,
the French thought it prudent to send a conciliatory deputation to meet
with other Iroquois chieftains at Auriesville. Father Jogues and Sieur
Jean Bourdon, an engineer, who represented the government of New France,
led this embassy. "Oh, how I should regret to lose so glorious an
occasion," Father wrote to his superior before starting, "When it may
depend only on me that some souls be saved! I hope that His goodness,
which has not abandoned me in the hour of trial, will aid me still."
Ambassador
to the Mohawks
Fr. Jogues traveled back to
Auriesville. The party traveled south and arrived at Lake George, New
York. Father named it the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. Next, he
stopped at Albany, where he saw his Dutch friends again and reimbursed
them for his ransom of the year before. The Dutch were astonished to
learn that he was going back to the scene of his painful captivity.
On June 5, 1646, Father
arrived at Auriesville after a three weeks journey. The Mohawks were
impressed by his courage and disarmed by his gentleness. Father showed
them no sign of ill will for their mistreatment of him. He came as an
envoy of peace.
His old "aunt" greeted him
warmly, "With us you will always have a mat to lie on and a fire to warm
yourself." Gifts were exchanged between Frenchmen and Indians and belts
of wampum offered for the release of the Hurons held captive. The
purpose of the visit was achieved, the pact confirmed and Father went
back to Quebec. He started for
Quebec
on June 16th and arrived there on July 3rd. Immediately, he asked to be
sent back to the
Iroquois
as a
missionary. After much hesitation, his superiors agreed to his request.
On September 27th, he began his third and last journey to the Mohawks.
In the meanwhile, after
Father had left Auriesville, an epidemic broke out, caterpillars ate the
crops and famine threatened. As usual, the Mohawks blamed all their
troubles on the Blackrobes, even though, on his latest trip, Father had
not worn his priestly clothing. However, he had left with them a
mysterious box. He had showed them its contents, which consisted of
personal necessaries, but he had locked it up and asked them to keep it.
The Mohawks thought that a demon was concealed in the box, to bring upon
them all manner of evils. They threw the box into the river
Missionary
to the Mohawks
In a letter to a friend
written shortly before his last mission to the Mohawks, Father wrote,
The
Iroquois have come to make some presents to our governor, ransom some
prisoners he held, and treat of peace with him in the name of the whole
country. It has been concluded, to the great joy of France. It will last
as long as pleases the Almighty.
To
maintain, and see what can be done for the instruction of these tribes,
it is here deemed expedient to send them some father. I have reason to
think I shall be sent, since I have some knowledge of the language and
country. You see what need I have of the powerful aid of prayers while
amidst these savages. I will have to remain among them, almost without
liberty to pray, without Mass, without Sacraments, and be responsible
for every accident among the Iroquois, French, Algonquins, and others.
But what shall I say? My hope is in God, who needs not us to accomplish
his designs. We must endeavor to be faithful to Him and not spoil His
work by our shortcomings....
My heart tells me that if
I have the happiness of being employed in this mission, Ibo et non
redibo (I shall go and shall not return); but I shall be happy if our
Lord will complete the sacrifice where He has begun it, and make the
little blood I have shed in that land the earnest of what I would give
from every vein of my body and my heart.
In a
word, this people is "a bloody spouse" to me (Exodus iv, 25). May our
good Master, who has purchased them in His blood, open to them the door
of His Gospel, as well as to the four allied nations near them.
Adieu,
dear Father. Pray Him to unite me inseparably to Him.
Father was completely unaware of the mounting tension and antagonism in
the Mohawk village. He and Jean de la Lande, a lay missionary, once more
started south for Auriesville. On the trail, near Lake George, a party
of Mohawks met them. The three or four Hurons serving Father as guides
turned back to escape capture but Father and Jean were captured. They
stripped Father naked, slashed him with their knives, beat him and then
led him and Jean on to their village.
At Auriesville, Father'
arguments seemed to affect his hearers. "I am a man like yourselves," he
replied to their charges. "I do not fear death or torture. I do not know
why you wish to kill me. I come here to confirm the peace and show you
the way to Heaven, and you treat me like a dog." In the councils, the
majority were ready to give him his freedom, but the minority, members
of the Bear clan, took matters into their own hands.
Martyrdom
They invited Father to pay
them a visit. As he unsuspectingly entered the cabin of the Bear chief,
he was brutally tomahawked on October 18, 1646.The next day, Jean met
the same fate. Both bodies were thrown into a nearby ravine. Their heads
were cut off and placed on poles facing the trail by which they had
come, as if in warning to other Blackrobes. When the news of the
martyrdom was carried to Albany, the Dutch pastor hastened to
Auriesville to denounce the Mohawks for their crime. Later on some of
the Indians went to Albany with Father’s breviary, missal, and cassock,
hoping to make a profitable trade, and the pastor again censured them
Mohawks on the Warpath
Once more, the Mohawks began
to attack and plunder the Huron villages in Canada. They spared on one.
Fathers Garnier, Daniel, Gabriel, Lalemant, and de Brebeuf were
martyred. But in the Mohawk Valley, the example of Father Jogues'
heroism was not forgotten. The gentle priest had possessed in a high
degree the virtue the Indians admired most, bravery. Some years later,
when there was peace, the three Jesuit priests sent from Canada to
establish the Mission of the Martyrs were well received. Before long,
Mohawk converts were traveling to the seminary in Quebec to be trained
as Christian leaders.
Father Isaac Jogues was
declared a martyr and canonized as a saint by Pope Pius XI on June 29,
1930 together with the seven other North American martyrs –Rene Goupil,
Jean de la Lande and Fathers Jean de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles
Garnier, Antoine Daniel and Noel Chabanel. Their collective feast
day is October 19.
Opening Prayer for the Mass in Commemoration of Saints Isaac Jogues,
Jean de Brebeuf and Companions
Father, you consecrated the first beginnings of the faith in North
America
by the preaching and
martyrdom of Saints Jean and Isaac and their companions.
By the help of their
prayers may the Christian faith continue to grow throughout
the world.
We ask this through our Lord
Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Shrine:
Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs
136 Shrine Road
Auriesville, N.Y. 12016
Phone: (518) 853-3033
http://www.martyrshrine.org
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