Isaac Jogues was a Jesuit priest,
missionaryA missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
, and
martyrA martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
who traveled and worked among the native populations in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. He gave the original European name to
Lake GeorgeLake George, nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes, is a long, narrow oligotrophic lake draining northwards into Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River Drainage basin located at the southeast base of the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, U.S.A.. It lies within the upper region of the...
, calling it
Lac du Saint Sacrement,
Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. In 1646, Jogues was martyred by the
MohawkMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
s near present day
Auriesville, New YorkAuriesville is a hamlet in the northeastern part of the town of Glen in Montgomery County, New York, United States, along the south bank of the Mohawk River. It lies about forty miles west of Albany, the state capital. A Jesuit cemetery is located there....
. Jogues,
Jean de BrébeufJean de Brébeuf was a Jesuit missionary, martyred in Canada on March 16, 1649.-Early years:Brébeuf was born in Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy, France. He was the uncle of the fur trader Georges de Brébeuf. He studied near home at Caen. He became a Jesuit in 1617, joining the Order...
and
six other martyred missionariesThe North American Martyrs, also known as the Canadian Martyrs or the Martyrs of New France, were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, who were martyred in the mid-17th century in Canada, in what are now southern Ontario and upstate New York, during the warfare between the...
, all Jesuits or laymen associated with them, were canonized in 1930, and are known as "The North American Martyrs" or "St. Isaac Jogues and Companions". Their feast day is October 19, except in
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, where the feast is celebrated on September 26.
Life
St. Isaac Jogues was born in
Orléans-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1624. In 1636, he was sent to
New FranceNew France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
as a missionary to the Huron and
AlgonquianThe Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
allies of the French. In 1642, while on his way by canoe to the country of the Hurons, Jogues was captured by a war party of
MohawkMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
IroquoisThe Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
, in the company of
Guillaume CoutureGuillaume Cousture was a citizen of New France. During his life he was a lay missonary with the Jesuits, a survivor of torture, a member of an Iroquois council, a translator, a diplomat, a militia captain, and a lay leader among the colonists of the Pointe-Lévy in the Seigneury of Lauzon...
,
René GoupilRené Goupil was a French missionary and one of the first North American martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church....
, and several Huron Christians. They were taken back to the Mohawk village where they were gruesomely tortured. It was during this torture that several of Jogues' fingers were cut off by his captors.
St.Isaac Jogues survived this torment and went on to live as a slave among the Mohawks for some time, even attempting to teach his captors the rudiments of
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. He was finally able to escape thanks to the pity of some
DutchThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
merchants who smuggled him back to
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. From there, he managed to sail back to France, where he was greeted with surprise and joy. As a "living martyr," Jogues was given a special permission by
PopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Urban VIII to say
Holy MassThe Tridentine Mass is the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. It was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in December 1969...
with his mutilated hands, as the Eucharist could not be touched with any fingers but the thumb and forefinger.
Yet his ill-treatment by the did not dim the missionary zeal of Jogues. Within a few months, he was on his way back to Canada to continue his work. In 1645, a tentative peace was forged between the Iroquois and the Hurons, Algonquins, and French. In the spring of 1646, Jogues was sent back to the Mohawk country along with
Jean de LalandeSaint Jean de Lalande was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and one of the eight North American Martyrs....
to act as ambassador among them.
However, some among the Mohawks regarded Jogues as a practicioner of magic, and when the double-calamity of sickness and crop failure hit the Mohawks, Jogues was the easiet thing to blame their now prevelent problems on. On October 18, 1646, Jogues and
LaLandeSaint Jean de Lalande was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and one of the eight North American Martyrs....
were tomahawked in the head (not clubbed as some tell the story).
Today, the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, maintained by the Jesuits, stands on or near the site (ten years after Jogues' death, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was born in approximately the same place). Brébeuf and five of his companions were killed in Canada in 1648 and 1649. The Mohawk Indians killed him but first stripped him naked and beat him.
He was canonized on June 29, 1930 by
PopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Pius XI along with seven other
Canadian MartyrsThe North American Martyrs, also known as the Canadian Martyrs or the Martyrs of New France, were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, who were martyred in the mid-17th century in Canada, in what are now southern Ontario and upstate New York, during the warfare between the...
. His Day of Remembrance is October 19. A statue of Father Jogues stands in the village of Lake George, in a park by the lake.
At
Fordham UniversityFordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...
's Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx, New York, a freshman
dormitoryA dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
—Martyrs' Court—has three sections, which are named for the three U.S. martyr-saints: Isaac Jogues, René Goupil, and
John LaLandeSaint Jean de Lalande was a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and one of the eight North American Martyrs....
. Dormitories at LeMoyne College in Syracuse and at
Fairfield UniversityFairfield University is a private, co-educational undergraduate and master's level teaching-oriented university located in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the New England region of the United States. It was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1942, and today is one of 28 member institutions of the...
in Connecticut are also named for Jogues.
The novitiate of the Maryland Province of the
Society of JesusThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
just outside
Wernersville, PennsylvaniaWernersville is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,494 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Wernersville is located at .-History:...
was named for Jogues. It is now called the Jesuit Center at Wernersville, PA.
http://www.jesuitcenter.org/history.htm
See also
- Blessed Julian Maunoir
Julien Maunoir , was a French-born Jesuit priest known as the "Apostle of Brittany". He was beatified in 1951 by Pope Pius XII and is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church on 29 January and 2 July....
- Roman Catholicism in the United States#American Catholic Servants of God, Venerables, Beatified, and Saints
External links