The North American Martyrs and the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament

In 1646, Fr. Isaac Jogues, S.J. (1607-1646) named the body of water depicted in this lovely painting the "Lac du Saint Sacrement" (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament).* In the same year, Fr. Jogues and his companion Jean de Lalande, a lay missionary, were martyred by the Mohawk Indians near what is now Auriesville, New York, about 65 miles from the lake. 

Their martyrdom occurred on October 18, 1646. In 1930, Pope Pius XI canonized Isaac Jogues, along with Jean de Lalande and six other martyred missionaries, now known as the "North American Martyrs". Their feast is celebrated on September 26 in Canada and in the traditional calendar. In the modern calendar, it is celebrated October 19. 

Fr. Jogues was born in Orléans, France on January 10, 1607. He entered the Jesuit novitiate school at Rouen at age 17, and went on to study at the royal college at La Fleche, and then at the College of Clermont at the University of Paris. He celebrated his first Mass on February 10, 1636, and a few months later was on his way to the Jesuit mission in New France on the north American continent:

"In the summer of 1636, at the age of twenty-nine, he embarked for Canada with several of his fellows . . . Drawings of Jogues made at about this time reveal features of unusual refinement; this air of delicacy was, however, deceptive, for beneath it lay heroic powers of physical endurance."

In 1642, some Huron Indian converts, along with missionaries William Couture, Rene Goupil, and Fr. Jogues were attacked by Mohawk warriors. Some of the Hurons escaped. Fr. Jogues could have gotten away too but when he saw that Goupil, a physician, had been captured, he gave himself up. They were taken to the fortress of the Mohawks in what is now east central New York State:

"Fr. Jogues 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. The Iroquois were especially cruel to the Huron converts. At this time and during subsequent torturings Father Jogues suffered the loss of two fingers."

To be more specific, according to Fr. Jogues own description, the Mohawks used their teeth to tear out nearly all of his fingernails and bit off two of his fingers. Goupil was killed, and Fr. Jogues was held as a slave for more than a year:

"'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. [He was a] 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' . . . The Indians were not without respect for their strange captive, naming him 'the indomitable one.' . . . As opportunity offered, he baptized children he found dying. During the year he baptized some seventy persons . . ."

In Fr. Jogues' letters, he wrote that once he baptized two Indians by using for baptismal water the raindrops that had gathered on some corn stalks given them to chew. He baptized others using water from a stream. Some Protestant Dutchmen helped Fr. Jogues escape his Mohawk captors and paid a sum to the Indians not to pursue him.

On November 5, 1643, Fr. Jogues left by ship from what is now New York City, and towards the end of December reached the coast of Cornwall. From there, he took a coal ship to Brittany, arriving on Christmas Day. Then he traveled on to Rennes where he went to the rector's house. There he astonished the rector since it was commonly believed he had likely been killed.

During an encounter with Fr. Jogues, Anne of Austria (1601-1666) was moved to tears when she saw his wounded hands, which had barely healed from the cruelty of the Indians. The Queen then paid him homage:

"Jogues was received by Anne of Austria, and told his story. At its conclusion, the Queen arose and stooped to kiss the mutilated hands . . ."

Fr. Joques was concerned that the injuries to his hands would make it illicit for him to say Mass. Pope Urban VIII, however, abrogated for him the rule that the Eucharist could only be touched with the thumb and forefinger. In doing this, the Pope used words to the effect that it would not be just to prevent a martyr for Christ from drinking the Blood of Christ.

Fr. Jogues desired to return to North America and was permitted to do so. By June, 1644, he was back in Quebec, and worked successfully for some time, even traveling back and forth to the place where he had formerly been held hostage. In 1646, however, he was again taken captive by the Mohawks, along with the lay missionary Jean de Lalande:

"In the [Mohawk] councils the majority were ready to give the brave Ondessonk [Fr. Jogues] his freedom, but the minority faction, members of the Bear clan, took matters into their own hands. They invited Jogues to pay them a visit, and as he unsuspectingly entered the cabin of the Bear chief, he was brutally tomahawked. The next day Lalande met the same fate, and 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 Black Robes."

On the site of the martyrdom of Fr. Jogues and Lalande, there is now a shrine:

"Today, near the town of Auriesville, New York, which on the best archeological authority is accepted as the site of Ossernenon, there is a famous Catholic shrine and pilgrimage place. It was dedicated in 1885 to the Martyrs of North America and to their Indian converts. Here pilgrims come to honor the memory of the Jesuits of the seventeenth century who faced death in the wilderness. The eight martyrs—Jogues, Lalande, Brebeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Daniel, Goupil, and Chabanel . . .".

Source: The quoted material is from "Saint Isaac Jogues, Martyr - 1646", an article in the online library of the Eternal Word Television Network that relies on a Lives of the Saints published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc., author and year unknown.

Image: Painting by John F. Kensett, from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain. 

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*Now more commonly known by its secular name, Lake George, this lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State will always be the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament to Catholics.

The Lioness and Her Lord

In Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales uses a compelling metaphor about a lioness to describe the soul's need for the sacrament of Confession:

"Our Savior has bequeathed the Sacrament of Penitence and Confession to His Church, in order that therein we may be cleansed from all our sins, however and whenever we may have been soiled thereby. Therefore, my child, never allow your heart to abide heavy with sin, seeing that there is so sure and safe a remedy at hand. If the lioness has been in the neighborhood of other beasts she hastens to wash away their scent, lest it should be displeasing to her lord; and so the soul which has ever so little consented to sin, ought to abhor itself and make haste to seek purification, out of respect to His Divine Gaze Who beholds it always. Why should we die a spiritual death when there is a sovereign remedy available?

"Make your confession humbly and devoutly every week, and always, if you can, before communicating, even although your conscience is not burdened with mortal sin; for in confession you do not only receive absolution for your venial sins, but you also receive great strength to help you in avoiding them henceforth, clearer light to discover your failings, and abundant grace to make up whatever loss you have incurred through those faults. You exercise the graces of humility, obedience, simplicity and love, and by this one act of confession you practice more virtue than in any other.

"Be sure always to entertain a hearty sorrow for the sins you confess, however small they are; and also a steadfast resolution to correct them in the future. Some people go on confessing venial sins out of mere habit, and conventionally, without making any effort to correct them, thereby losing a great deal of spiritual good. Supposing that you confess having said something untrue, although without evil consequences, or some careless words, or excessive amusement;—repent, and make a firm resolution of amendment: it is a mere abuse to confess any sin whatever, be it mortal or venial, without intending to put it altogether away, that being the express object of confession.

"Beware of unmeaning self-accusations, made out of a mere routine, such as, 'I have not loved God as much as I ought; I have not prayed with as much devotion as I ought; I have not loved my neighbor as I ought; I have not received the Sacraments with sufficient reverence;' and the like. Such things as these are altogether useless in setting the state of your conscience before your Confessor, inasmuch as all the Saints in Paradise and all men living would say the same. But examine closely what special reason you have for accusing yourself thus, and when you have discovered it, accuse yourself simply and plainly of your fault. For instance, when confessing that you have not loved your neighbor as you ought, it may be that what you mean is that having seen some one in great want whom you could have succored, you have failed to do so. Well then, accuse yourself of that special omission: say, “Having come across a person in need, I did not help him as I might have done,” either through negligence, or hardness, or indifference, according as the case may be. So again, do not accuse yourself of not having prayed to God with sufficient devotion; but if you have given way to voluntary distractions, or if you have neglected the proper circumstances of devout prayer whether place, time, or attitude—say so plainly, just as it is, and do not deal in generalities, which, so to say, blow neither hot nor cold.

"Again, do not be satisfied with mentioning the bare fact of your venial sins, but accuse yourself of the motive cause which led to them. For instance, do not be content with saying that you told an untruth which injured no one; but say whether it was out of vanity, in order to win praise or avoid blame, out of heedlessness, or from obstinacy. If you have exceeded in society, say whether it was from the love of talking, or gambling for the sake of money, and so on. Say whether you continued long to commit the fault in question, as the importance of a fault depends greatly upon its continuance: e.g., there is a wide difference between a passing act of vanity which is over in a quarter of an hour, and one which fills the heart for one or more days. So you must mention the fact, the motive and the duration of your faults. It is true that we are not bound to be so precise in confessing venial sins, or even, technically speaking, to confess them at all; but all who aim at purifying their souls in order to attain a really devout life, will be careful to show all their spiritual maladies, however slight, to their spiritual physician, in order to be healed.

"Do not spare yourself in telling whatever is necessary to explain the nature of your fault, as, for instance, the reason why you lost your temper, or why you encouraged another in wrong-doing. Thus, some one whom I dislike says a chance word in joke, I take it ill, and put myself in a passion. If one I like had said a stronger thing I should not have taken it amiss; so in confession, I ought to say that I lost my temper with a person, not because of the words spoken so much as because I disliked the speaker; and if in order to explain yourself clearly it is necessary to particularize the words, it is well to do so; because accusing one’s self thus simply one discovers not merely one’s actual sins, but one’s bad habits, inclinations and ways, and the other roots of sin, by which means one’s spiritual Father acquires a fuller knowledge of the heart he is dealing with, and knows better what remedies to apply. But you must always avoid exposing any one who has borne any part in your sin as far as possible. Keep watch over a variety of sins, which are apt to spring up and flourish, often insensibly, in the conscience, so that you may confess them and put them away . . .

"Do not lightly change your Confessor, but having chosen him, be regular in giving account of your conscience to him at the appointed seasons, telling him your faults simply and frankly, and from time to time—say every month or every two months, show him the general state of your inclinations, although there be nothing wrong in them; as, for instance, whether you are depressed and anxious, or cheerful, desirous of advancement, or money, and the like."

Source:
St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter XIX, "On Confession".

Image:
Antoine-Louis Barye's, "Lions near their Den" from Web Gallery of Art. In the public domain.

Fr. De Smet and the Flathead Indians

It is well known that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" (Tertullian). One way in which the seed of the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues and the other North American Martyrs bore fruit was in the form of a band of Catholic Iroquois who many decades later encountered and evangelized the Flathead Indians of the Rocky Mountain area of North America.

The Flatheads had an oral tradition prophesying the arrival of black-robed, pale-faced men. Once the Iroquois clarified this oral tradition for the Flatheads, their desire for the Faith was so great that they made several long and arduous expeditions to St. Louis, Missouri, pleading with the bishop to send them a priest. Finally, the bishop sent them Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Belgian Jesuit. What ensued is a most remarkable story, told in two beautiful audio sermons, available for free mp3 download via these links:

The Flathead Indians and the Black Robes - Part I

The Flathead Indians and the Black Robes - Part II

Image:
Photograph of Fr. De Smet from Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

The End of the Affair (1955, 1999)

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1904-1991) is a 1951 novel that became the basis for two films: one in 1955 and the other in 1999.

The story line of the novel is this: in London, in 1939, Maurice Bendrix, a British novelist writing a book about a high level civil servant, looks for such a character to study in real life. Thus, Bendrix becomes acquainted with Henry Miles and his wife, Sarah. Almost immediately, Bendrix and Sarah embark on an adulterous affair that continues for several years, during which Bendrix reveals himself as a jealous and possessive lover.

In 1944, Bendrix and Sarah are together in Bendrix’s rented room when a bomb strikes. Bendrix appears to be dead. Sarah prays and promises God she will leave Bendrix forever if he is spared. Bendrix comes back to life and Sarah is left with a promise she must either honor or abandon.

Sarah leaves Bendrix without explanation and they remain apart for two years. Then Bendrix has a chance encounter with Henry who confides he is worried that Sarah is having an affair because of her frequent absences. Jealous of the lover who has supplanted him, Bendrix hires a private investigator to have Sarah followed.

Barkis, the awkward but lovable investigator, and his young son, conduct a bumbling investigation that initially results in the false conclusion that Sarah is indeed having another illicit affair. In reality, she meets for a time with an atheist who fails to convince her that coming to faith is folly, while at the same time she is being drawn more deeply into her relationship with that most ardent and most jealous Lover of all lovers.

Sarah frequents a Catholic church, spending time in reflection. In tentative moments that perhaps only a convert can appreciate to the fullest, she makes certain material moves toward the Faith. She writes in her diary:

“. . . I did what I had seen people do in Spanish churches: I dipped my finger in the so-called holy water and made a kind of cross on my forehead.” And, “Yesterday I bought a crucifix, a cheap ugly one because I had to do it quickly. I blushed when I asked for it. Somebody might have seen me in the shop. They ought to have opaque glass in their doors like rubber-goods shops. When I lock the door of my room, I can take it out from the bottom of my jewel-case.”

Ultimately, Sarah seek religious instruction from a Catholic priest. Meanwhile, Barkis manages to purloin Sarah’s journal, which explains why she left Bendrix after the bombing, and Bendrix reads it. Once he realizes what occurred, Bendrix is determined to win Sarah back. Bendrix reaches Sarah by telephone but by then Sarah has committed to making her separation from Bendrix permanent. She is also ill with an upper respiratory infection. Sarah tells Bendrix that she cannot see him, that she is ill, and that if he comes to her she will evade him. Bendrix disregards Sarah’s wishes and her illness and goes to her home. Sarah flees. With Bendrix in pursuit, Sarah hurries through a rainy night to a Catholic church where Bendrix confronts her. Sarah convinces Bendrix to leave and remains in the church despite her illness. As a result of the exposure to the cold and rain, Sarah’s illness deepens into pneumonia and within days she dies, repeatedly asking for a Catholic priest.

With total disregard of his role in causing Sarah’s death, Bendrix continues to oppose Sarah’s new Lover, managing to prevent a Catholic burial even after the priest who had begun instructing Sarah tells Henry that Sarah could have a Catholic funeral because, “We recognize the baptism of desire.”

After Sarah’s cremation, Sarah’s mother reveals to Bendrix that Sarah had been secretly baptized into the Catholic Church as a two-year-old, although Sarah herself did not know it. After learning this, Bendrix says to the God he does not believe in, “You can’t mark a two-year-old child for life with a bit of water and a prayer. If I began to believe that, I could believe in the body and the blood.”

Within weeks of Sarah’s death, Barkis’s son is healed from a serious illness after being given one of Sarah’s old children’s books. And, the atheist Sarah had been visiting is healed of a disfiguring facial birthmark after he sleeps with strands of Sarah’s hair pressed to his marred cheek. Ultimately, Bendrix recognizes that Sarah must have obtained these favors from her Beloved. Nevertheless, Bendrix still wants nothing to do with Him.

Except for Sarah’s diary, the novel is written from Bendrix’s point of view. On the first page, Bendrix writes, “this is a record of hate far more than of love”. The novel ends with Bendrix praying, “O God, You’ve done enough, You’ve robbed me of enough, I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever.”

The 1955 film stars Van Johnson as Maurice Bendrix and Deborah Kerr as Sarah Miles. Johnson seems entirely too American in every respect to be believable as the Englishman, Bendrix, although he is convincing as a possessive lover and a selfish, arrogant unbeliever. Deborah Kerr, a Scot, does fine portraying an Englishwoman being brought to faith. She is far less credible, however, as a woman whose erotic desire for Bendrix is so powerful that relinquishing it constitutes a major sacrifice.

Although the correspondence of the 1955 film to the novel is less than a hundred percent, and the film has many defects, it is reasonably true to the book. The film has no bedroom scenes, nudity, vulgarity, or violence. Although the film portrays an adulterous affair, it does not portray the affair in a positive light. Obviously, though, this is not a film for children or young teenagers.

The 1999 version is so graphic in its portrayal of the sexual relationship between Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) and Sarah (Julianne Moore) that it should not be viewed by anyone. (I had to skip over large portions of the DVD and would not have even tried to view it if I had known in advance about the content.) In any event, the 1999 film departs from the book so significantly that the meaning of Greene’s story is entirely lost.

Image:
Video cover of 1955 film, from Wikimedia Commons. Copyrighted material. Fair use claimed.

NB: This review has been edited since its first publication.

Baptism of Desire

Dante, in his epic poem, The Divine Comedy, places characters in Paradise who have not been baptized. One might therefore ask, “Can someone who has not received the sacrament of baptism in the Roman Catholic Church be saved?”

Fr. Anthony Cekada presents a traditional view at Quidlibet here.

Image:
Wikipedia picture of Michelino’s “Dante and His Poem” from the Wikipedia article linked above.