Jean de Brébeuf
| Saint Jean de Brébeuf | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Martyr; Apostle of the Hurons; Echon | |
| Born | 25 March 1593, Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy, France |
| Died | 16 March 1649 (aged 55), Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, near Midland, Ontario, Canada |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholicism, Anglican Communion |
| Beatified | 1925 |
| Canonized | June 29, 1930 by Pope Pius XI |
| Major shrine | Martyrs' Shrine, Midland, Ontario, Canada |
| Feast | October 19 |
| Patronage | Canada |
Saint Jean de Brébeuf (March 25, 1593 – March 16, 1649) was a Jesuit missionary, martyred in Canada on March 16, 1649.
|
|
Brébeuf was born in Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy, France, a son of farmers. He was the uncle of the poet Georges de Brébeuf. He studied near home at Caen allowing him to work on the family highway. He became a Jesuit in 1617, joining the Order. He was almost expelled from the Society because he contracted tuberculosis—an illness which prevented both studying and teaching for the traditional periods.
In 1622 he was ordained. Against the voiced desires of Huguenot Protestants, officials of trading companies, and some native North Americans, he was granted his wish and in 1625 he sailed to Canada as a missionary, arriving on June 19, and lived with the Huron natives near Lake Huron, learning their customs and language, of which he became an expert (it is said that he wrote the first dictionary of the Huron language). He has been called Canada's "first serious ethnographer." Because of a war with England, Brébeuf was forced to return to France but when the peace was signed, he returned to the Hurons in 1634, travelling 1 280 km (800 miles) from Quebec via the Ottawa River. Brébeuf told many of his experiences in Canada in the Jesuit Relations, an invaluable source of early Canadian history. He was head of the Huron mission, a position he relinquished to Father Jérôme Lalemant in 1638. His success as a missionary was very slow and it was only in 1637 that he made his first converts. The Jesuits were frequently blamed for disasters like epidemics, battle defeats, and crop failures and once Brébeuf was condemned to death and another time beaten.
He unsuccessfully attempted to convert the Neutral Nation on Lake Erie in 1640. After this failed mission, he returned to Quebec in 1641 and stayed there for three years. He returned to the Hurons in 1644 and finally experienced some success. By 1647 there were thousands of converted Hurons. In 1643 he wrote the Huron Carol, a Christmas carol which is still, in a very modified version, used today.
Brébeuf’s charismatic presence in the Huron country helped cause a split between traditionalist Huron and those who wanted to adopt European culture.
Montreal-based ethnohistorian Bruce Trigger argued that this cleavage in Huron society, along with the spread of disease from Europeans, left the Huron vulnerable.
However, the Iroquois began to win their war with the Hurons. They destroyed a large Huron village in 1648 and on March 16, 1649, 1200 Iroquois captured the mission of St. Ignace and then a few hours later captured St. Louis where they seized Brébeuf and his fellow Jesuit Gabriel Lallemant and brought them back to St. Ignace. There they were fastened to stakes and tortured to death by scalping, mock baptism using boiling water, fire, necklaces of red hot hatchets and mutilation. According to Catholic tradition, Brébeuf did not make a single outcry while he was being tortured and the astounded Iroquois later cut out his heart out and ate it in hopes of gaining his courage.[citation needed] Brébeuf was fifty-five years old.
Brébeuf’s body was recovered a few days later. His body was boiled in lye to remove the flesh, and the bones became church relics. They were buried, along with Lalemant's in one coffin, and today rest in the Church of St. Joseph at the reconstructed Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons across Highway 12 from the Martyrs' Shrine Catholic Church near Midland, Ontario.
In September, 2004, Pope John Paul II prayed over Brébeuf's skull. This was the second trip Pope John Paul II made to the Midland area, the first being in 1984 when he said an outdoor Mass on the grounds of the Martyrs' Shrine. Thousands of people came to hear him speak from a platform built especially for the day. It stands there still, and by looking up from the platform, a little owl may be seen carved into the rafters.
Brébeuf was said to have been massive in body, hugely strong, yet gentle in character. He was known as "The Apostle of the Hurons". The Natives called him "Echon". ["Echon" pronounced like "Ekon" - This name meaning "Healing Tree", as a representation of how much Brebeuf had helped the Hurons and of the medicines he brought them from Europe.)
Brébeuf was canonized in 1930 with seven other missionaries, known as the Canadian Martyrs. He is the patron saint of Canada. His feast day in Canada is celebrated on September 26, while in the United States it is celebrated on October 19. Many Jesuit schools are named after him, such as Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Brébeuf College School and Brebeuf High School.
It is said that the modern name of the Native North American sport of lacrosse was first coined by Brébeuf who thought that the sticks used in the game reminded him of a bishop's crosier (crosse in French, and with the feminine definite article, la crosse). [1]
