ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY
Saints celebrated on the 6th of January
SAINT ANDRE BESSETTE, RELIGIOUS
On October 17, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI presided at a Mass in St Peter’s Square for the Canonisation of six new saints of the Church.
One of these new saints is Saint Andre Bessette, who was born in 1845 in Saint-Gregoire d’Iberville, near Montreal, Canada. He was the eighth of twelve children. His father moved the family to Farnhan in 1849 in the hope of improving the family’s financial situation while working as a carpenter and lumberjack.
"I PRAYED TO HER"
Sadly, when Andre was nine years old his father was killed by a falling tree. His mother died three years later of tuberculosis, leaving ten children to be cared for. St Andre later said that he “seldom prayed for my mother, but I often prayed to her”.
At the age of twelve St Andre was forced to leave school to learn a trade and to seek work; he could barely read and write. In spite of his frail health he went from job to job as a labourer. Like many French-Canadian emigrants he went to the United States of America and worked for four years in a textile mill. Then in 1867 he returned to Canada and, after seeking advice from his parish priest, St Andre presented himself as a candidate at the novitiate of Holy Cross in Montreal.
HIS RELIGIOUS VOCATION
Because of his frail health, his superiors had great doubts about his religious vocation but eventually they made him the door-porter and gave him menial tasks to perform in the community.
St Andre soon welcomed many sick people and those with needs to the door of the religious house and he encouraged them to pray to St Joseph. Many people reported having their prayers answered.
PRAYERS TO ST JOSEPH
For the rest of his life, St Andre received visitors, many of them sick, and rumours of miraculous healing were circulated by those whom the doctors could not explain what had caused the improvement. But St Andre always said that he was nothing and only a tool in the hands of Providence, a lowly instrument. He also said that “people are silly to think that I can perform miracles it is God and St Joseph who can heal you, not I”. St Andre died in 1937, at the age of 92, and newspapers at that time reported that more than a million people attended his funeral. Today St Andre’s body lies in a simple tomb in the Basilica at Mount Royal and the inscription reads: Pauper, servis a humilis (a poor and humble servant).
SEEKING GOD WITH SIMPLICITY
Pope Benedict in his homily at the Canonisation Mass said of St Andre that “he experienced suffering and poverty at a very early age. That led him to have recourse to God through prayer and an intense inner life. As a porter in Montreal he demonstrated boundless charity and strove to relieve the distress of those who came to confide in him. With very little education, he had nevertheless understood where the essential of his faith was situated. For him, believing meant submitting freely and through love to the divine will. It is thanks to this simplicity that he enabled many people to see God. He was the witness of innumerable cures and conversions. ‘Do not seek to have your trials removed’, he said, ‘ask rather for the grace to bear them well’. May we, in his footsteps, seek God with simplicity in order to discover him ever present in the heart of our life!
(From "Spiritual Thought from Fr Chris")
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