SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY ~ OCTOBER 19TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINTS JOHN (JEAN) DE BREBEUF, ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS AND MARTYRS; AND THEIR COMPANIONS, MARTYRS; SAINT PETER OF ALCANTARA AND BLESSED JERZY (GEORGE) POPIELUSZKO, PRIEST ~ FEAST DAY ~ OCTOBER 19TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saints John (Jean) de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, Priests and Martyrs; and their Companions, Martyrs; Saint  Peter of Alcantara and Blessed Jerzy (George) Popieluszko, Priest. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for God’s Divine Grace and Mercy upon us all. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are mentally and physically ill and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for peace, love, and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. We pray for the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed. We pray for all widows and widowers. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world…. Amen🙏

SAINTS JOHN (JEAN) DE BREBEUF, ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS AND MARTYRS; AND THEIR COMPANIONS, MARTYRS: Today we honor the eight men known as the North American Martyrs. They included six French Jesuit priests and two lay missionaries who worked among the Huron tribe in Canada and upstate New York. These were French Jesuit missionaries who died as martyrs in North America where they preached the Gospel. The North American Martyrs gave their lives to share Christ with the native people of this continent. They were the first missionaries to go to Canada and North America after J. Cartier discovered Canada in 1534. Their mission region extended from Nova Scotia to Maryland. These missionaries had faced extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances in their efforts to share the Good News. They are: Saints Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Noel Chabanel, Charles Garnier, Anthony Daniel, Rene Goupil and John de Lalande (the first six Jesuits, the last two laymen), preached the gospel to the Iroquois and Huron Indians, tribes in the United States and Canada and after being tortured, they were martyred in the area of what is now Auriesville, New York.

St. Isaac Jogues, in particular, is outstanding. In the course of his labors preaching the Gospel to the Mohawks in Canada he penetrated to the eastern entrance of Lake Superior, one thousand miles inland and became the first European to do so. In 1642, he was taken captive by the Iroquois and imprisoned for thirteen months. During this time, he underwent cruel tortures and ultimately lost the use of his hand. St. Isaac Jogues (1607–1646) was born in France to a middle-class family, and at the age of 17 entered a Jesuit seminary where he displayed a talent for writing and teaching. He was ordained in January of 1636 at the age of 29, and three months later was sent as a missionary priest to the rugged wilderness of New France (now Canada) to work among the Huron and Algonquin Native American tribes. Despite the hardship of life in the wilderness, St. Isaac experienced great spiritual joy in his mission. One day, six years into his work, he was captured by a Mohawk-Iroquois war party. He was enslaved and ritually tortured, in addition to being malnourished and inadequately clothed. His hands were severely mutilated and many of his fingers destroyed, which prevented his ability to say Mass. He continued to preach the faith and was named Ondessonk, “the indomitable one,” by his Mohawk captors. After over a year in captivity he escaped with the help of Dutch settlers. He went back to France where he was honored as a “living martyr.” He obtained special permission from the pope to say Mass with his mutilated hands. Instead of continuing his life in peace, St. Isaac was zealous to return to his mission field. He returned to New France, and by that time a peace treaty was arranged between the warring native tribes allowing him to work among the Mohawks. However, when they suffered a crisis of crop failure and epidemic disease, the Mohawks blamed the Christians for sorcery and attacked the settlers. St. Isaac Jogues died after being tomahawked in the head, and his body was thrown into the Mohawk River. He is the patron of the Americas and Canada. Isaac Jogues earned the name “Apostle of the Mohawks” for his work. New York state’s first Catholic baptismal record was due to his priestly ministry.

Sts. Isaac Jogues; John de Brébeuf, and the other six companions, French Jesuits, were among the missionaries who preached the Gospel to Huron and Iroquois tribes in the United States and Canada. They were martyred by the Iroquois in the years between 1642, 1648 and 1649. Sts. Jogues and John de Lalande, the second lay missionary, were killed in 1646. Two years later in 1648, Father Antoine Daniel followed them in death. The four remaining priests, Fathers Jean de Brebeuf, Noel Chabanel, Charles Garnier, and Gabriel Lalemant  were all martyred in 1649.  Pope Pius XI beatified them on June 21, 1925, and on June 29, 1930, they were canonized by the same Pontiff. Ten years after the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues, St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born in the same village in which he died, Auriesville, New York. The North American Martyrs clearly understood what matters to God. They willingly endured suffering and death to share the message of salvation with those who did not know our Lord, the Son of God. These martyrs are Patron Saints of North America, co-patrons of Canada.

PRAYER: God, You consecrated the spread of the Faith in North America by the preaching and martyrdom of Sts. John and Isaac and their companions. Through their intercession may the Christian Faith continue to grow throughout the world. Amen 🙏

SAINT PETER OF ALCANTARA, PRIEST: St. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562) was a Spanish Franciscan friar of noble birth. Born in Alcántara, Cáceres (Spain) in 1499. He was friends of many 16th century saints including St Teresa of Avila. He was her confessor and spiritual director and encouraged her in her reformation of the Carmelite Order. St. Peter was a priest, mystic, writer, preacher, and provincial of the Observant Franciscans. He worked towards church reform, starting with himself, practicing severe penances and patience. At times he only ate once in 3 days and sleeping 90 minutes a night. He started the Alcantarine reforms, which followed a stricter order of the rule of St. Francis. He died while praying on his knees on at Arenas de San Pedro, Avila (Spain) on October 18, 1562 at the age of 62-63. He was Beatified on April 18, 1622 by Pope Gregory XV and Canonized on April 28, 1669 by Pope Clement IX. St. Peter of Alcantara is the Patron Saint of night watchmen, Eucharistic adoration, Brazil, Estremadura Spain, Pakil.

SAINT PETER OF ALCANTARA’S QUOTE:“The trouble is everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself” ~ St. Peter of Alcantara

Saint Peter of Alcantara, Priest ~ Pray for us 🙏

BLESSED JERZY (GEORGE) POPIELUSZKO, PRIEST: Bl. Jerzy Popiełuszko (1947-1984) was born Alfons Popiełuszko on September 14, 1947 at Okopy, near Suchowola, Polish People’s Republic, a village in eastern Poland bordering modern-day Ukraine. He was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who became associated with the opposition Solidarity trade union in Communist Poland. He suffered terribly for his faith while in school and military service. While World War II had ended, the regime of the Communist Party had taken place of the Nazis and ruled Poland at the time. As a young man, Bl. Popiełuszko served his required time in the army before completing seminary studies and becoming a priest for the Archdiocese of Warsaw. He was ordained on May 28, 1972 at the age of 24. As a priest in Warsaw, Popiełuszko served in both regular and student parishes until 1980 when he was assigned as chaplain to the Solidarity trade union in Poland, reminding the striking workers to follow the Gospel and abandon violence. He became known for his steadfast, non-violent resistance to Communism, about which he spoke frequently in his homilies, which were broadcast on Radio Free Europe. As Solidarity grew, so did Fr. Popieluszko’s popularity and message, and the government’s frustration and death attempts on his life. Communist security officers brutally beat and killed him in 1984 for speaking the truth and encouraging the Solidarity movement. He said, “Truth never changes. It cannot be destroyed by any decision or legal act. Telling the truth with courage is a way leading directly to freedom. A man who tells the Truth is a free man despite external slavery, imprisonment or custody.” Bl. Popiełuszko participated in the Solidarity worker’s strike in Warsaw on March 27, 1981, a four-hour national warning strike that essentially ground Poland to a halt, and was the biggest strike in the history of the Soviet Bloc and in the history of Poland. After this strikes, the Communist party declared martial law until July 1983 in the country, severely restricting the daily life of Poles in an effort to clamp down on their growing political opposition. During this time, Bl. Popiełuszko celebrated monthly “Masses for the Homeland” on the last Sunday of the month, advocating for human rights and peaceful resistance of Communism, and attracting thousands of attendees. His Warsaw office had also become an official hub for Solidarity activities. It was also during this time that Communist attacks against the priest escalated. In 1982, Communist authorities attempted to bomb the priest’s home, but he escaped unharmed. In 1983, Bl. Popiełuszko was arrested on false charges by the Communist authorities, but was released shortly thereafter following significant pressure from the Polish people and the Catholic Church.

According to a 1990 article in the Washington Post, Cardinal Józef Glemp, Archbishop of Warsaw at the time, received a secret message from the Polish Pope John Paul II, demanding that Glemp defend Bl. Popiełuszko and advocate for his release. “Defend Father Jerzy – or they’ll start finding weapons in the desk of every second bishop,” the pope wrote. But the Communist officials did not relent. According to court testimony, in September 1984 Communist officials had decided that the priest needed to either be pushed from a train, have a “beautiful traffic accident” or be tortured to death. His crimes: encouraging peaceful resistance to Communism via the radio waves of Radio Free Europe, and working as chaplain to the workers of the Solidarność (Solidarity) movement and trade union, which was known for its opposition to Communism. On October 13, 1984, Bl. Popiełuszko managed to avoid a traffic accident set up to kill him. The back-up plan, capture and torture, was carried out by Communist authorities on October 19, 1984. They lured the priest to them by pretending that their car had broken down on a road along which the priest was travelling. The captors reportedly beat the priest with a rock until he died, and then tied his mangled body to rocks and bags of sand and dumped it in a reservoir along the Vistula River. His body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1984. His death grieved and enraged Catholics and members of the Solidarity movement, who had hoped to accomplish social change without violence. “When the news was announced at his parish church, his congregation was silent for a moment and then began shrieking and weeping with grief,” the BBC wrote of the priest’s death. “The worst has happened. Someone wanted to kill and he killed not only a man, not a Pole, not only a priest. Someone wanted to kill the hope that it is possible to avoid violence in Polish political life,” Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, a friend of Popiełuszko, said at the time. He also urged mourners to remain calm and peaceful during the priest’s funeral, which drew more than a quarter of a million people. Again facing pressure from the Church and the Polish people, Poland’s president Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski was forced to answer for the priest’s death, and arrested Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek Pękala, Waldemar Chmielewski and Colonel Adam Pietruszka as responsible for the murder. “Our intelligence sources in Poland do not believe it,” the Washington Post reported in 1990, when the case was being revisited. “Jaruzelski had presided over a far-reaching anti-church campaign. At least two other priests died mysteriously. And Jaruzelski created the climate that allowed the SB (Communist secret service) to persecute and kill Father Jerzy.”

In 2009, Bl. Popiełuszko was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest civilian or military decoration in Poland. That same year, he was declared a martyr of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI, and on June 6, 2010 he was beatified. A miracle in France through the intercession of Popiełuszko is being investigated in France as the final step in his cause for canonization. Bl. Popiełuszko is one of more than 3,000 priests martyred in Poland under the Nazi and Communist regimes which dominated the country from 1939-1989. The Archbishop Stanisław Budzik of Poland and the Polish bishops’ conference released a statement honoring the memory of Father Popiełuszko and all the 20th century priest martyrs of Poland. “Today, remembering Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko, we remember the unswerving priests who preached the Gospel, served God and people in the most terrible times and had the courage not only to suffer for the faith but to give what is most dear to men: their lives.” Bl. Jerzy Popiełuszko died on October 19, 1984 (aged 37) at Włocławek, Polish People’s Republic. He was Beatified on June 6, 2010 at Warsaw, Poland by Archbishop Angelo Amato on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI. A miracle attributed to his intercession and required for his canonization is now under investigation. Blessed Jerzy is the Patron Saint of Solidarity.

Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko, Priest ~ Pray for us 🙏