From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Resisting Temptation  [VIII]   
      
       In temptations and tribulations a man is proved what progress he   
   has made: and in them there is greater merit, and his virtue appears   
   more conspicuous. Nor is it much if a man be devout and fervent when   
   he feels no trouble; but if in the time of adversity he bears up with   
   patience, there will be hope of a great advancement.   
       Some are preserved from great temptations, and are often overcome   
   in daily little ones: that being humbled they may never presume of   
   themselves in great things, who are weak in such small occurrences.   
   --Thomas à Kempis--Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 13   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   October 19th - St. Isaac Jogues, SJ   
   (1607-1646)   
      
   When France laid claim to Canada, she sent over missionaries to preach   
   the Faith to the Native Americans. Most numerous of these missionaries   
   were the Jesuits, who began their official apostolate in 1633. Some of   
   the Jesuits who were working among the Indians north of Lake Ontario   
   and the St. Lawrence River eventually crossed the border into New York   
   State, and established missions among the Iroquois nations. Their   
   sojourn here eventually had some success, but it was inaugurated in   
   bloodshed. Father Isaac Jogues and his two lay companions, killed on   
   New York State soil by the Iroquois, are today honored as martyrs by   
   the Church.   
      
   Isaac Jogues was born in Orleans, France, in 1607. He entered the   
   Society of Jesus in 1624, taught literature in Rouen, France, for a   
   few years, and in 1636 was sent on the Canadian Mission.   
      
   Destined for work with fellow Jesuits among the Hurons near Georgian   
   Bay, Ontario, he first spent some time traveling through the Great   
   Lakes country to see where to project future Indian missions.   
      
   Thus he and his companions were apparently the first white men to view   
   Lake Superior. On the basis of what he saw, he proposed, on his return   
   to Quebec, that mission centers be set up among the Indians of the   
   western Great Lakes, and even among the Sioux, near the headwaters of   
   the Mississippi.   
      
   Leaving Quebec for the Huron country, Father Jogues and his party, on   
   August 3, 1642, were attacked and seized by a band of Iroquois   
   guerrillas raiding the St. Lawrence River. The Indians tortured them   
   and marched the priest and his lay assistant, Rene Goupil, all the way   
   down to the Mohawk capital Ossernenon, near the present Auriesville,   
   N.Y.   
      
   Here they were again cruelly tortured, and their forefingers chewed   
   off. On September 29, Goupil, a “paramedic” (born May 13, 1008), was   
   killed by an Iroquois for making the sign of the cross on the forehead   
   of a native child. Father Jogues was allowed to live, but as a slave.   
   Ready for martyrdom, he was also ready to accept slavery, for it gave   
   him at least an opportunity to baptize 69 dying children and to stand   
   as a symbol of Christianity.   
      
   After 13 months, however, Dutch Protestant traders from Albany (Fort   
   Orange) warned him that his death was being planned. He therefore   
   accepted their help in escaping.   
      
   The Dutch sent him down the Hudson River to New Amsterdam. (He thus   
   became the first priest to set foot in Manhattan.) They shipped him   
   thence to France, where he landed on Christmas morning 1643.   
      
   France hailed the tortured missionary as a hero, and the Queen Regent,   
   Anne of Austria, received him with honor. Pope Urban VIII also gave   
   Jogues permission to say Mass despite the loss of his fingertips. “It   
   would be unjust,” the pope said, “that a martyr for Christ should not   
   drink the blood of Christ.”   
      
   But Father Jogues ached to return to Canada, and he was able to do so   
   finally in 1644. In 1646, the Iroquois sought peace with the French.   
   The missionary was sent back to his old “killing field” on the Mohawk   
   River as a government representative. (On the trip downward he viewed   
   and gave the name “Lake of the Blessed Sacrament” to the lovely body   
   of water now called Lake George.) When he arrived at Ossernenon his   
   former captors received him well, and an agreement of peace was   
   reached. Jogues then started back to Quebec on June 16. But since he   
   planned to come back as an accredited missionary, he left at   
   Ossernenon a box of religious articles.   
      
   That box was to be his doom.   
      
   On September 27, 1646, the priest set out for Ossernenon once more,   
   with another lay aide, John Lalande. Meanwhile sickness and blight had   
   stricken the Mohawks. Although the other clans refused to think that   
   Jogues’s box was to blame for the pestilences, the Bear Clan insisted   
   that Isaac was a sorcerer.   
      
   A band of Bear clansmen captured the priest, his aide, and a Huron,   
   near Lake George, tortured them, and brought them back to Ossernenon.   
   On the evening of October 18, 1646, one of the Mohawks invited the   
   priest to dine in his lodge. As soon as Isaac stepped inside, a brave   
   split his skull with a tomahawk. They then cut off his head and   
   mounted it on a pole facing north. John Lalande was killed in the same   
   way on October 19. His body was thrown into the river.   
      
   Five Jesuits working within the present Canada were likewise martyred   
   in 1648-49, during the course of the Iroquois-Huron War. In 1930 Pope   
   Pius XI canonized these five, along with SS. Isaac Jogues, Rene   
   Goupil, and John Lalande.   
      
   The blood shed at Ossernenon may not have produced a great harvest,   
   but out of that reddened soil there sprang, a decade later, the   
   wonderful little Mohawk saint, Kateri Tekakwitha.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   When one has succeeded in placing his heart wholly upon God, he loses   
   his affection for all other things, and no longer finds consolation in   
   anything, nor clings to anything except God, forgetting his own honor   
   and every interest of his own.   
   --St. Teresa   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    "In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom   
   which will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not pass into the   
   hands of another race: it will shatter and absorb all the previous   
   kingdoms and itself last for ever.."  Daniel  2:44   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Prayers in honor of St. Joseph for the agonized:   
      
   Eternal Father, by Thy love for St. Joseph, whom Thou didst   
   select from all men to represent Thee upon earth,   
   have mercy on us and on the dying.   
   Our Father...Hail Mary...Glory be...   
      
   Eternal Divine Son, by Thy love for St. Joseph, who was Thy   
   faithful guardian upon earth, have mercy on us and on the dying.   
   Our Father...Hail Mary...Glory be ...   
      
   Eternal Divine Spirit, by Thy love for St. Joseph, who so   
   carefully watched over Mary, Thy beloved spouse,   
   have mercy on us and on the dying.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)