St. Isaac Jogues, S.J.
Four Hundredth Anniversary
Four hundred years ago on January 10th this year, St Isaac Jogues was born the fifth of nine children in a prosperous family of lawyers and merchants at Orleans on the Loire river in France.
Of the eight canonised Canadian Martyrs, Isaac Jogues is perhaps the most popular especially among young people. No wonder! The accounts of his braveries, his zeal and strength of character; his entire life is crisscrossed with the most extraordinary adventures.
Educated in the Jesuit College in Orleans, Jogues decided at the age of seventeen to join the Order. He was inspired by the stories and writings of the missionaries working in Canada. A first-class student, he was slated by his superiors to become a humanist, an orator, and a scholar in theology; he was insistent, however, that his vocation was to the Native People in Canada. He asked to be - - and was - - released from his studies and, after his Ordination to the priesthood in January 1636, he left for Quebec in April, arrived there in July and reached Huronia in early September.
He learned the language easily, and was involved within a year in the baptism of the first Huron adult, Joseph Chihwatenha. Later, he also led into the Church Chief Eustache Ahatsistari, considered to be the bravest Huron warrior. In 1639 he was put in charge of building Sainte-Marie-among-the-Hurons and, once it was up, of ensuring its development.
It was on the return trip to procure supplies from Quebec in August 1642 that the flotilla he commanded with Ahatsistari was ambushed by a party of Iroquois, once more at war with the Hurons. Many were killed while Jogues, Ahatsistari, and two young French lay volunteers, René Goupil and Guillaume Couture, along with twenty three Hurons, mostly Christians and catechumens, were carried off as prisoners. They were put to the most appalling tortures: floggings, forced, marches, mutilations, brandings with hot coals, runnings of the gauntlet.
Statue of St. Issac Jogues, Jesuit and ambassador, at Martyr's Shrine in Midland, Ontario
During the ambush Jogues, hidden in thickets and dense reeds, had several opportunities to escape. But when he saw the Huron survivors being captured, "Flight seemed horrible to me," he later wrote. He gave himself up, and for the next thirteen months, despite his own cruel treatment, ministered to his fellow prisoners, most notably to Ahatsistari. The latter was burned at the stake and at the point of death refused to shout the last ritual cry "Arise someone from our bones as avenger" but instead exhorted his fellow Hurons to make peace with the Iroquois. René Goupil was tomahawked to death, Guillaume Couture was sold into slavery but eventually managed to escape, and Jogues after twice refusing help from the Dutch governor at New Amsterdam finally allowed himself to be smuggled out of Iroquois territory and be shipped back to France.
A "living martyr" Jogues, much to his sincere embarassment, was an heroic sensation in the Jesuit Colleges and at Court in Paris. The Queen Regent obtained for him from Pope Urban VIII the privilege of celebrating Mass although he was missing his thumbs and index fingers. The Pope declared that "it would not be proper that a martyr who had shed his blood for Christ should not be allowed to drink the Blood of Christ."
Jogues was impatient to return to New France, where overtures for peace were being made by the French and Hurons to the Iroquois, who seemed to have become receptive. In May 1646 Governor Montmagny chose him as his Ambassador for peace to the Iroquois, and Jogues immediately journeyed back to the scene of his captivity. The parleys went well; Jogues returned to Quebec in July to report and get instructions; then, in September, accompanied by only two assistants, a Huron and a young French volunteer, Jean de La Lande, he returned a third time to the Iroquois. When they reached their interlocutors, however, these had once again become hostile, many blaming a small box (his "mass kit") he had left behind in May as the cause of the drought, that had followed his visit.
Jogues and La Lande were taken prisoner, and beaten up again. On October 18 Jogues was killed by a tomahawk blow to the head; La Lande and their Huron companion were put to death in the same way on the next day.
Jogues and La Lande along with Goupil and five other Canadian Martyrs were canonised in June 1930 by Pope Pius XI; they are the secondary Patrons of Canada and of the English Canada Province. They are especially honoured at Saint-Marie-among-the-Hurons and at Martyrs's Shrine, Midland, Ontario, where thousands of pilgrims have come over the years to ask their intercession, and from Jogues especially for peace and the reconciliation of peoples.
Jacques Monet, s.j.
Canadian Institute of Jesuit Studies
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