1. The Story of the North American Martyrs
Saving the Americas
The Story of the North American Martyrs

2. Saving the Americas The Story of the North American Martyrs
The first half of the 17th Century
Who were the Jesuits?
The Mission to New France
Jean de Brebéuf
Isaac Jogues
Noël Chabanel
To take away…

3. The First Half of the 17th Century
Thirty Years War
( : 6-8 million casualties)
Science: Galileo,Kepler, Harvey, Toricelli
Education: The Academy
Philosophy: Locke, Descartes
Theology: Bossuet

4. The First Half of the 17th Century
Literature: Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes
Sculpture: Bernini, Maderno
Painting: Velasquez, Murillo, Rembrant, Rubens
Language: Latin
The English Civil War: Cromwell’s Rebellion against Charles I and II ( )

5. Who Were the Jesuits? medievals in the modern world
Founded in 1539 by a Basque soldier who finds Jesus at the business-end of cannonball at the battle of Pamplona (1521)
Loyola intended to restrict the membership to 60; God had a different plan: in 1615 there were 13,112 Jesuits.
Clermont, La Flèche, Rouen, etc: Jesuit Colleges grew dramatically during the first half the 17th Century; over 525 colleges by 1645

6. Who Were the Jesuits? medievals in the modern world
The Ratio Studiorum: No better formation: drama, poetry, arts, music, philosophy, physical sciences, languages
All undergirded by the sacramental and spiritual life: The Spiritual Exercises—internal reform necessarily precedes mission
The best of the best
The age of exploration meets the age of Jesuit missionary fervor (188 Jesuit martyrs in under 50 years since it’s founding)

7. New France

8. New France: Cartier Fur (esp. beaver), fish, passage to India
Jacques Cartier (Four voyages between ) “…to make known the most sacred name of God and our Holy Mother the Catholic Church.”
Dies in 1557: The colony is abandoned for 60 years.

9. New France: Champlain
Samuel de Champlain ( ), founder of Québec in (Algonquin: kebec, “narrow point in the river.”)
Huguenot/Catholic tensions at home and in the colony
The Beaver Wars (Begin 1628): The Iroquois League vs. Hurons and Algonquins who were allied with the French. (They result in the genocide of the Hurons by the Iroquois in the early 1650’s)
Conversion of the natives his chief goal
Charts the course and issues the call for French priests and French families to come to New France.

10. Beaver Wars

11. The Iroquois League
Seneca
Mohawk
Cayuga
Oneida
Onandaga

12. The Mission to New France
Québec
Montreal
Three Rivers
Ossernenon
Jogues martyred

13. The Mission to New France
Huronia
Ste. Marie
Isaac Jogues:
First European to see
Lake Superior
750 miles from
Québec
St Ignace
(Brébeuf and Lalemont Martyred)
Ihonatiria

14. The Jesuit Relations Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France
The sources of information concerning the early Jesuits of New France are very copious. During a period of forty years, the Superior of the Mission sent, every summer, long and detailed reports, embodying or accompanied by the reports of his subordinates, to the Provincial of the Order at Paris, where they were annually published, in duodecimo volumes, forming the remarkable series known as the Jesuit Relations. Though the productions of men of scholastic training, they are simple and often crude in style, as might be expected of narratives hastily written in Indian lodges or rude mission−houses in the forest, amid annoyances and interruptions of all kinds. In respect to the value of their contents, they are exceedingly unequal. Modest records of marvelous adventures and sacrifices, and vivid pictures of forest life, alternate with prolix and monotonous details of the conversion of individual savages, and the praiseworthy deportment of some exemplary neophyte. With regard to the condition and character of the primitive inhabitants of North America, it is impossible to exaggerate their value as an authority. I should add, that the closest examination has left me no doubt that these missionaries wrote in perfect good faith, and that the Relations hold a high place as authentic and trustworthy historical documents —FRANCIS PARKMAN, The Jesuits in North America

15. The Jesuit Relations Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France
But when we see them, in the gloomy February of 1637 and the gloomier months that followed toiling on foot from one infected town to another, wading through the sodden snow, under bare and dripping forests, drenched with incessant rains, till they descried at length through the storms the clustered dwellings of some barbarous hamlet. When we see them entering one after another these wretched abodes of misery and darkness, and all for one sole end, the baptism of the sick and dying, we may smile at the futility of the object, but we must needs admire the self sacrificing zeal with which it was pursued. — FRANCIS PARKMAN, The Jesuits in North America

16. The Jesuit Relations Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France
The Missions are a branch of the subject which I regard with very great interest. The more I examine them, the more I am impressed with the purity of motive, the devoted self sacrifice and the heroism of the early missionaries, some of whom seem to me to fall no whit below the martyrs of the primitive church, and although not writing from the same point of view, my testimony to their virtues will often be no less emphatic than your own. —FRANCIS PARKMAN, Letter to Catholic historian John Gilmary Shea (father of American Catholic History)

17. The North American Martyrs
(Canonized by Pius XI in 1930; Feast Day, Oct 19)
René Goupil (September 29, 1642) (donné)
Isaac Jogues (October 18, 1646)
Jean de Lalande (October 19, 1646) (donné)
Antoine Daniel (July 4,1648)
Gabriel Lalemont (March 16, 1649)
Jean de Brébeuf (March 17, 1649) (The only one to live past 50)
Charles Garnier (December 7, 1649)
Noël Chabanal (December 8, 1649)

18. Some things about the Native Population
Aggressive promiscuity
Matrilineal
Ritual torture
Lack of hygiene
Appalling diet
Influenced by sorcerers and medicine men
Life in the longhouses

19. Some things about the Native Population

20. Some things about the Native Population

21. St. Jean de Brébeuf “Echon” “The one who carries the load”
First Apostle to the Hurons
Arrives Quebec summer of 1625; not welcomed by Emery de Caen, the Huguenot commandant of Québec; he and his companions are welcomed by the Récollet Fathers (OFM).
: Lived alone among the Huron for 3 years, silently studying their language (under the most difficult conditions).
Returns to France with Champlain in 1629
( : French lose Quebec to the English/Scots; restored by the Treaty of St. Germain; Cardinal Richelieu drive recolonization)

22. The Mission to New France
Québec
Montreal
Three Rivers
Ossernenon
Jogues martyred

23. St. Jean de Brébeuf “Echon” “The one who carries the load”
Returns to the Hurons in August 1634: “Why, there is Echon, come back again …my nephew my brother my cousin, you have finally come back to us.”
Lives among the Huron for 23 years
Writes a Huron grammar and Catechism
Contrast the flowering of an intellect Jesuit trained with the perpetual doubt of his contemporary René Descartes

24. St. Jean de Brébeuf “Echon” “The one who carries the load”
“Instead of being a great master and a great theologian as in France, you must reckon on being here a humble student; and then, good God, with what masters!—women, little children, and all the savages—and exposed to what laughter! The Huron language will be your St. Thomas and your Aristotle. Clever men as you are, and speaking glibly among learned and capable person, you must make up your minds to be mute for a long time among the barbarians. You will have accomplished much if you begin the stammer at the end of a little time.”

25. St. Jean de Brébeuf “Echon” “The one who carries the load”
“Our lives depend upon a single thread. We are told to expect death at every hour, and be prepared for it, no matter where we are in the world; that applies here particularly .…The malice of the savages gives us special cause for almost perpetual fear; a malcontent may burn you down or cleave your head open in some lonely spot. Then too we are responsible for the sterility and the fecundity of the earth, under the penal of our lives. We are the cause of droughts….I we cannot make rain they speak of nothing less than murdering us. It is to souls like yours that God has appointed the conquest of many other souls….Fear no difficulties; there will be none for you, since it is your whole consolation to see yourself crucified with the son of God.

26. St. Jean de Brébeuf
Brutally martyred by the Iroquois along with Fr. Charles Lalemont and their Huron companions.

27. St. Isaac Jogues “Ondessonk” “Bird of prey” or “The indomitable one”
Penetrates all the way to Sault Sainte Marie (The Rapids of Saint Mary); (Today: “The Soo”
Preached the Gospel 1000 miles in the interior five years before John Eliot addressed the Indians 5 miles from Boston Harbor.
Arrives Quebec, summer of 1636
First priest in New Amsterdam (Manhattan Island)
First to die for Jesus Christ

28. The Mission to New France
Huronia
Ste. Marie
Isaac Jogues:
First European to see
Lake Superior
750 miles from
Québec
St Ignace
(Brébeuf and Lalemont Martyred)
Ihonatiria

29. St. Isaac Jogues “Ondessonk” “The indomitable one”
Penetrates all the way to Sault Sainte Marie (The Rapids of Saint Mary); (Today: “The Soo”)
Preached the Gospel 1000 miles in the interior five years before John Eliot addressed the Indians 5 miles from Boston Harbor.
June 1642: Accompanies a Huron expedition to Québec. Taken prisoner by the Mohawks downriver from three rivers; lives as a slave for for more than a year; thumb and fingers

30. St. Isaac Jogues “Ondessonk” “The indomitable one”
“It is a cruel thing to bear, that of being the triumph of the demons over whole nations redeemed with so much love, and paid for in the money of Blood so adorable.”

31. St. Isaac Jogues “Ondessonk” “The indomitable one”
Ransomed by Dutch (First priest to set foot in Manhattan)
Returns to France
Returns to New France
Tomahawked to the skull while attempting to negotiate peace between Hurons and Iroquois

32. The Mission to New France
Québec
Montreal
Three Rivers
Ossernenon
Jogues martyred

33. St. Noël Chabanel
Youngest and last to die of the eight.

34. The North American Martyrs (Feast Day, Oct 19) To take away…
Inconvenience
Practical tolerance
The best and the brightest
Appreciation of baptism
The faith of the Hurons
Zeal for souls? Effort to evangelize?
Acting out of Love of God

35. The North American Martyrs
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
—John 15:11-14

36. The North American Martyrs
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
—Galatians 2:20