Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saints John of Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, priests, and their companions, martyrs.
St. John of Brebeuf was born in Normandy in 1593 AD. St. John entered the Society of Jesus in 1617 AD, and was sent as a missionary to New France, arriving in 1625 AD. For the remaining 24 years of his life, except for four years when he was forced to return to France when the colony fell under English control, St. John labored as a missionary in the wilderness of New France, were he endured staggering privations under brutal conditions. The progress of St. John's mission was slow, as early converts amongst the Hurons were few. Undeterred, St. John continued his labors, learning the Huron language and even compiling the first Huron dictionary. For this and other accomplishments in recording Huron customs, St. John has been called the first serious Canadian ethnographer. In 1649, during a war between the Hurons and the Iroquois, St. John was taken captive. He endured cruel tortures without murmur, and was at length burned to death. So that they might partake of St. John's courage, the Iroquois cut out and ate St. John's heart.
St. Isaac Jogues was born at Orleans in 1607 AD. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1624 AD, and arrived in North America as a missionary in 1636. While returning to Quebec after six years of missionary work as far west as Sault Ste. Marie, St. Isaac was taken prisoner by a Mohawk war party. St. Isaac was carried off by the Mohawks to a village in what is now upstate New York, where he suffered cruel tortures, including having several of his fingers chewed off. St. Isaac was kept there as a slave by the Mohawks for thirteen months, and was abused mercilessly. Freed at length by Dutch merchants, St. Isaac returned to France, where he was received with great acclaim, and even declared "a martyr of Christ," the first ever to be so honored, by Pope Urban VII. The pope also granted St. Isaac the privilege of celebrating Mass, even though the Mohawks' torture had deprived him of the canonically required forefingers. In 1646, St. Isaac returned as an ambassador to New France, where he assisted in negotiating peace with the Iroquois. Afterward, St. Isaac's request to be sent as a missionary to the Iroquois was reluctantly granted. When sickness and famine befell the tribe, the Iroquois seized St. Isaac as a scapegoat. Again St. Isaac endured torture, and at length was tomahawked to death.
Many credit St. John of Brebeuf with providing the Indian game played with a ball and curved stick with its present name of "lacrosse." The curved stick reminded St. John of a bishop's crozier.
Saints John of Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, and companions, pray for us.
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