Ite ad Joseph with Brother Bessette
Today is the feast of the one of Canada’s most beloved saints, her own home-grown Andre Bessette (1845-1937), a humble and obscure lay-brother who founded Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal. A sickly boy, brought up in a difficult impecunious childhood in rural Quebec – his lumberjack father was killed by a falling tree, leaving his wife a 40 year-old widow with ten children – Alfred, as was his baptismal name, struggled to find his vocation, working at various jobs here and in the United States, before joined the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Montreal. He was only accepted with the intervention of Bishop Ignace Bourget, after an initial rejection due to ill health. But Alfred’s own pastor knew what he was about, writing in his recommendation ‘I am sending you a saint…’
And so he was. It seems religious life was good for Brother Andre’s – the name he adopted in religion – precarious health, as he went on to live a healthy 91 years, vigorous and sharp until his dying day. His task was porter, and as he joked, ‘when he joined the Order, his superiors right away showed him the door…’
What would have been a quiet, hidden life became quite the event, as the new brother, his deep humility and holiness recognized by those with eyes to see, was soon sought out as a confidant and miracle-worker. He would recommend ‘devotion to Saint Joseph’ – Ite ad Joseph – and soon unending streams of the sick and troubled came to him – just as they had come to Christ. Brother Andre would say a prayer with them and often rub them with a salve of ‘Saint Joseph’s oil’, followed by countless physical, and spiritual, cures, inexplicable, at least by earthly, scientific means. Soon, the Order had to depute four secretaries to handle the deluge of mail he received, and when good Brother Andre died on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1937, a million people lined past his coffin. God does indeed exalt the lowliness of His servants.
Every healing Brother Andre attributed to Saint Joseph, saying that he himself did nothing much of anything at all, and in honour of the husband of Mary and foster-father of Christ, Brother Andre began raising funds for a fitting monument, in the Oratory that now stands today. At his death, in the midst of the Great Depression, the structure was left unfinished, with no roof, but was completed in the decades afterward, with the impressive church that now dominates Montreal’s skyline.
The great dome, visible from many miles away as one drives into the city, is a bold testament to Quebec’s, and Canada’s, still-visible Catholicism, on life-support, perhaps, but a sign that such faith as ‘little Andre’s’ is already there incipiently in the thousands of pilgrims who still stream to the Oratory, and that such faith, which can quite literally move mountains, may yet be again.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
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Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
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The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→