Among the members of the Society of Jesus who brought most renown to the infant church in North America in the middle of the seventeenth century. God chose as victims eight men of outstanding integrity, that from the seeds of faith watered with their blood there might spring up a more abundant harvest.

All these Martyrs--six priests and two laymen--natives of France, were sent by their Superiors to the Missions in Canada, at that time known as New France. With Quebec as a center they made numberless missionary journeys to the various sectors of this vast territory, laboring there amidst the greatest hardships. In the end all were most cruelly put to death and for the same reason, their faith, although not at the same time and place. John de Brebeuf, born at Conde-sur-Vire, in the diocese of Bajon (now Constance), of an illustrious family, and Isaac Jogues, born in Orleans, are regarded as their leaders and masters and rightly so. For they were valiant men, fired with apostolic zeal, living most mortified lives, in intimate prayerful union with God, and at times were honored with heavenly visions.

Not unlike them were their four companion priests: Anthony Daniel, born at Dieppe, Gabriel Lalemant and Charles Gamier, both Parisian born, and Noel Chabanel, a native of Mende; all of these faithfully fulfilled their priestly functions, laboring principally in various villages of the Huron country.

Frequent raids by the Iroquois, a hostile neighboring tribe, often wrought havoc in the Huron missions and seriously endangered the lives of the Fathers in charge of them. In 1642, on a journey from Quebec to the Huron country, Isaac Jogues together with Rene Goupil, a lay coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, fell in with the Iroquois who held him and his companion as slaves, and subjected them to most horrible torments. In the same year on the 29th of September, Rene was killed by order of an old savage, out of hatred for the cross of salvation. It was near Auriesville in the present State of New York where this most sincere man breathed forth his soul to God. In the following year Isaac managed to escape and made his way back to France. He returned to America after another year and along with John Lalande who was also a coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, made a second and third journey to the savages, his erstwhile tormentors.

On October 18, 1646, in the present diocese of Albany, Isaac was struck with a tomahawk and thus obtained the palm of martyrdom. The following day his companion, John, meeting with a like fate, took his flight to heaven, to be rewarded with the same crown of martyrdom.

On July 4, 1648, in an attack upon the village of St. Joseph by the Iroquois, Anthony Daniel, in charge of the Huron mission there, was slain while fearlessly defending his flock. Overwhelmed by a shower of arrows and bullets at the entrance of the church, like a good shepherd he laid down his life for his sheep. Within a year, on March 16, 1649, at St. Ignace, a village situated in what is now the province of Ontario, Canada, John de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were captured by the Iroquois. That same day, Brebeuf, rightly called the Apostle of the Hurons, died a glorious death, after undergoing long drawn-out tortures of the most atrocious description during which this gallant soldier of Christ manifested such fortitude as to excite even the admiration of the savages themselves. On the following day Gabriel Lalemant suffered the same cruel martyrdom, during which he showed the same heroic virtue.

In December of the same year, 1649, on the eve of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Charles Garnier, after several bullet Wounds was killed by a blow from a hatchet, thereby adding a glorious crown to a life of exceptional innocence. On the following day Noel Chabanel became the victim of the treachery of a Huron apostate who killed him and threw his body into a river. His longing for the palm of martyrdom was thus realized in his own beloved mission. Although he felt a natural repugnance for this work among the savages, hero that he was, he bound himself by a vow to remain in this mission until death. These eight martyrs, the first in North America, were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and were canonized by the same Pontiff five years later.

 

For two days now I have experienced a great desire to be a martyr and to endure all the torments the martyrs suffered.

Jesus, my Lord and Savior, what can I give you in return for all the favors you have first conferred on me? I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name. I vow before your eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, before your most holy Mother and her most chaste spouse, before the angels, apostles and martyrs, before my blessed fathers Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavierin truth 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 would offer it to me, your most unworthy servant.

I bind myself in this way so that for the rest of my life I will have neither permission nor freedom to refuse opportunities of dying and shedding my blood for you, unless at a particular juncture I should consider it more suitable for your glory to act otherwise at that time.

Further, I bind myself to this so that, on receiving the blow of death, I shall accept it from your hands with the fullest delight and joy of spirit. For this reason, my beloved Jesus, and because of the surging joy which moves me, here and now I offer my blood and body and life. May I die only for you, if you will grant me this grace, since you willingly died for me. Let me so live that you may grant me the gift of such a happy death. In this way, my God and Savior, I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

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. My God, even if all the brutal tortures which prisoners in this region must endure should fall on me, I offer myself most willingly to them and I alone shall suffer them all.

PRAYER

LET US PRAY
O God, who chose to manifest the blessed hope of your eternal kingdom by the toil of Saints John de Brbeuf, 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, one God, for ever and ever. Amen