March 20

Spiritual Bouquet: If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of His household! St. Matthew 10:25

SAINT BROTHER ANDREW
Miracle-Worker, Apostle of Saint Joseph
(1845-1937)

Little Alfred Bessette, born at St. Grégoire, Quebec on August 9, 1845, had his roots in our own soil. The future Saint Brother Andrew of Mount Royal was a son of this land and of the French Canadian family. The infant was baptized conditionally the day after his birth in the village “church”, which at that time was a stone house serving as the only sacred dwelling. He was so frail that his parents had “undulated” him immediately after his birth.

Since the family was poor, they went four years later to Farnham, where the father could earn his living more readily. One fatal day he went with the lumberjacks to the forest and, as Brother Andrew would say later, “the tree he was cutting became locked in the branches of another, and my unfortunate father was crushed to death.” The child was nine years old and remembered that his mother “remained as though frozen”. A widow with ten children, she scarcely recovered from the shock of the accident. She “faded away” and died three years later of tuberculosis, at the age of 43. “I rarely prayed for my mother, but I have often prayed to her,” Brother Andrew used to say.

Then the family was scattered. Alfred at the age of twelve had to face life, using his initiative. For him began, then, thirteen years of a wandering life which would take him even to the United States, looking for work. An orphan without schooling, he had to search where he should go and how to survive. Like many boys from large families, he had to leave school at thirteen or fourteen years and earn his bread. And it was also because of his uncertain health and lack of money that he could never undertake prolonged studies. His mother had given him something of her own knowledge, but it was only with great difficulty that he finally learned to sign his name and to read a little. He had only his two arms to offer an employer as guarantee, but despite his frail health, he put his whole heart into his work. He himself said later: “In spite of my weakness, I didn’t let myself be outdone by the others at work.”

After he entered the Community of the Holy Cross as a lay Brother, he spent forty years washing the floors and windows, cleaning the lamps, entering the firewood, acting as porter and commissioner. Then, for more than twenty-five years, he received visitors in his little office — during six to eight hours a day, in all kinds of weather, and this until the age of 91. One day he was asked how he had managed to live so long with so little health. With humor he explained his recipe for health: “By eating as little as possible and working as much as possible...”

An immense work was being realized; crowds which became increasingly dense were pressing to the Oratory of Saint Joseph, for which heaven had chosen him as founder. The great skeleton of the largest sanctuary in the world dedicated to Saint Joseph could already be seen rising on the hilltop. And yet Brother Andrew never talked of “my work... my project.” On the contrary: “I am nothing, only a tool in the hands of Providence, a poor instrument of Saint Joseph.” “The good Lord took me to humiliate the others. He took the most ignorant one to humiliate the people and the Community of the Holy Cross. If there had been one more ignorant than myself, God would have chosen him instead.”

What care he showed in receiving and meeting people! He spent long hours in the office where thousands came to see him. And Brother Andrew remarked one day: “It is astonishing! They often ask me for cures, but rarely for humility and the spirit of faith. Yet these are so important. If the soul is sick, we have to begin by caring for the soul. Do you have faith? Do you believe the good Lord can do something for you? Go and make your confession, go and receive Communion, then come back to see me.” Such were the words that always returned to his lips, when he was asked for favors and cures. If he suggested making a novena to Saint Joseph, to use the oil or a medal of Saint Joseph, it was because “those were as many acts of love and faith, confidence and humility.” In general, he encouraged the people to see doctors; sometimes he wept with those who were suffering. But he never ceased to say, “How good the good Lord is! God loves you. God is love.” And Brother Andrew knew how to bring forth sprouts of hope in the hearts of those he met.

In the night of January 5-6, 1937, an old Brother 91 years old was dying in a modest room of Saint Laurent Hospital, in a suburb of Montreal. The few persons present at his bedside felt, however, that from this little man came an impression of strength, humanity, and moral power such as they had never known before. The dying man moved his head a little: “The great Almighty One is coming...” Then he raised his eyes to heaven... “O Mary, my sweet Mother and Mother of my Jesus, deign to help me!” Finally, they heard a few words scarcely intelligible, which were repeated again and again: “Saint Joseph, Saint Joseph, Saint Joseph...” At 12:50 AM, Brother Andrew breathed his last. The news of his decease was quickly relayed, and the following morning, all of Quebec knew that Brother Andrew was dead.

“He spent his life talking to others about God and to God of others,” a friend said. This testimony gives a just appreciation of what his life was, filled with faith and love.

Source: Gerald Champagne, E.C., Nos Gloires de l’Église du Canada, extracts, pp. 78-81. Translation O.D.M.

SAINT WULFRAN
Archbishop of Sens
(647-720)

Saint Wulfran’s father was an officer in the armies of Dagobert, a powerful King of the Francs. The Saint spent some years in the court of King Clotaire III and his mother, Saint Bathildes; but he occupied his heart only with God, despising worldly greatness as empty and dangerous, and daily advancing in virtue. He renounced the world and received sacred orders; his estate he bestowed on the Abbey of Fontenelle, or Saint Wandrille, in Normandy. He was nonetheless called to the court, where he served until his father died. Then, because the archbishop of Sens also had recently died, he was chosen in 682 to replace him, by the common consent of the clergy and people of that city.

He governed that diocese for two and a half years, with great zeal and sanctity. It was a tender compassion for the blindness of the idolaters of Friesland, and the example of the zealous English preachers in those parts, which moved him then to resign his bishopric, with proper advice, and after a retreat at Fontenelle to enter Friesland as a poor missionary priest.

On the voyage by water, the deacon who served him at the altar, accidentally dropped the paten into the sea. Saint Wulfran told him to place his hand where it had fallen on the waves, and it came up to him by a miracle. For long years that paten was conserved in the monastery of Saint Wandrille. On this mission he baptized great multitudes, among them a son of their King, Radbod, and drew the people away from the barbarous custom of sacrificing human beings to idols.

On a certain occasion, one such unfortunate, a young boy, had been selected by lot as the victim of a sacrifice to the gods, or demons of the land. Saint Wulfran earnestly begged his life of King Radbod, but the people ran tumultuously to the palace, and would not suffer what they called a sacrilege. After many words they consented, but on condition that Wulfran’s God Himself save the victim’s life. The Saint prayed God to resurrect him, and the child, after hanging on the gibbet two hours and being left for dead, fell to the ground by the breaking of the cord. The servant of God went to him and told him to stand, which he did, and he was given to the missionary. He later became a monk and priest at Fontenelle.

Saint Wulfran, after praying, also miraculously rescued a poor widow’s two children, seven and five years old, from being drowned in honor of the idols; he walked out across the water in the sight of all the people, to take their hands and bring them back to land. The religion of Christ began to take root in this pagan land, and many were converted by these prodigies. He retired to Fontenelle that he might prepare himself for death, and expired in peace there on the 20^th of March, 720.

Reflection. In every age the Catholic Church is a missionary church. She has received the world for her inheritance, and in our own days many missionaries have watered with their blood the lands where they labored. Help the propagation of the faith by both alms and by prayers. You will strengthen your own faith and participate in the merits of the glorious apostolate.

Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).