“Three of the Hurons had been burned to death, and
[Fr. Isaac Jogues and lay missionary Rene Goupil] expected to share their fate.
A council was held to pronounce their doom but dissensions arose, and no result
was reached. They were led back to the first village, where they remained,
racked with suspense and half dead with exhaustion. Jogues, however, lost no
opportunity to baptize dying infants, while Goupil taught children to make the
sign of the cross. On one occasion, he made the sign on the forehead of a
child, grandson of an Indian in whose lodge they lived. The superstition of the
old savage was aroused. Some Dutchmen had told him that the sign of the cross
came from the Devil, and would cause mischief. He thought that Goupil was
bewitching the child; and, resolving to rid himself of so dangerous a guest,
applied for aid to two young braves. Jogues and Goupil, clad in their squalid
garb of tattered skins, were soon after walking together in the forest that
adjoined the town, consoling themselves with prayer, and mutually exhorting
each other to suffer patiently for the sake of Christ and the Virgin, when, as
they were returning, reciting their rosaries, they met the two young Indians,
and read in their sullen visages an augury of ill. The Indians joined them, and
accompanied them to the entrance of the town, where one of the two, suddenly
drawing a hatchet from beneath his blanket, struck it into the head of Goupil,
who fell, murmuring the name of Christ. Jogues dropped on his knees, and,
bowing his head in prayer, awaited the blow, when the murderer ordered him to
get up and go home. He obeyed, but not until he had given absolution to his
still breathing friend, and presently saw the lifeless body dragged through the
town amid bootings and rejoicings.”—Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867)
I had heard about Fr. Isaac Jogues before, but the
story of his associate, Rene Goupil—the
first canonized martyr in what is now the United States, in present-day Ossernenon,
N.Y.— only came to my attention this past weekend, when he was mentioned in a
newsletter from Fr. Joseph O’Brien, the current director of Carmelite Missions
who has long been associated with my parish of St. Cecilia in Englewood, NJ.
On this day in 1642, Fr. Jogues experienced one of
the most agonizing days of his life. On September 29, Rene Goupil had been
murdered in the fashion described by Francis Parkman in the above passage. The next
day, Jogues—who had not only witnessed Goupil’s killing but also, like him, had
been subjected to extreme torture by his Native-American captors over the last
few days--found the corpse of his friend at the bottom of a ravine, stripped
naked and gnawed by dogs. Jogues had covered the corpse with stones, intending
to secretly bury it to prevent further desecration.
But a storm overnight disrupted Jogues’ plans, and
when he came out on October 1, Goupil’s remains were gone. A search in nearby
rocks, thicket and forest turned up nothing. By the side of the stream, the
sobbing priest had to chant the services of the dead.
It was not until the following spring that Jogues
discovered that Goupil’s corpse had been carried way not by the storm, but by the
Mohawks, the same tribe that had subjected the pair to relentless beating with knotted sticks, tearing off hair, beards, and nails,
and the biting of their forefingers. Mohawk children told him that Goupil’s
further-decomposed remains were further downstream. Jogues gathered up the
scattered bones and hid them in a hollow tree, hoping to eventually bury them
in consecrated ground.
It was a lonely end for a young doctor filled not
only with religious zeal but also with care and concern for those he treated. Goupil
had intended to be a Jesuit, but had to leave the novitiate because of
deafness. Yet such was his devotion that, after studying surgery, he had
offered his services to the Jesuits in New France (modern Canada). Just before
his murder, he had, in the presence of Jogues, professed vows as a Jesuit lay
brother.
Religious commitment can not only require humility,
but reinforce it in the most devastating fashion. So it was with the prophet
Jeremiah, St. Paul, and Jesus himself, who, while hanging on the cross, asked,
“My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” That lesson was compounded in the
case of the North American Jesuit Martyrs. By 1650, the religious order was
backpedaling on its commitment in North America, with virtually nothing to show for their heroic efforts.
The full story of this awaited a New England
historian—Francis Parkman, who came from venerable Protestant stock and, predictably, evoked
the “contest on this continent between Liberty and Absolutism.” For all his
prejudices against Catholics, though, Parkman had to acknowledge the bravery of
Goupil, Jogues and their Jesuit colleagues, even when it was accompanied by
another slap at a faith he saw as alien and inimical to the United States:
“Let those who have prevailed yield due honour to
the defeated. Their virtues shine amidst the rubbish of error, like diamonds
and gold in the gravel of the torrent.”
Goupil was canonized on 29 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI
along with seven other Canadian Martyrs or "North American Martyrs"
(including Jogues, who met his fate two years after the killing of Goupil)..
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