Sep 26 – Ember Sat / N. American Martyrs

It's the Feast of Ember Sat of Sept, 2nd Class, with the color of Violet. In this episode: the meditation: "Purity of Intention", today's news from the Church: "The SSPX Renews the Consecration of Germany to the Immaculate Heart of Mary", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? [email protected] Sources Used Today:

"Purity of Intention" — From the Assumption to Adventhttps://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption

"The SSPX Renews the Consecration of Germany to the Immaculate Heart of Mary" (FSSPX.news) https://fsspx.news/en/news/sspx-renews-consecration-germany-immaculate-heart-mary-61222

The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press) https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook: Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

The North American Martyrs were eight French Jesuit missionaries who entered seventeenth-century North America knowing that the work might kill them.

For several of them, it did so in extraordinarily brutal ways.

The best known are Saints Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf, and their six companions. They worked primarily among Indigenous peoples in what is now Canada and the northeastern United States, especially the Wendat, or Huron. Their mission unfolded amid warfare, epidemics, and fierce conflict among Native nations, so their story is inseparable from a very complicated period of North American history.

Brébeuf arrived in New France in 1625.

He threw himself into learning the Wendat language and culture. He became so fluent that he compiled dictionaries and translated prayers and catechetical material. The famous Christmas hymn known today as the Huron Carol is traditionally attributed to him, originally composed in the Wendat language.

Isaac Jogues had an even stranger story.

In 1642, he was captured by Mohawk warriors, tortured, and held captive for months. Several of his fingers were mutilated, creating a serious problem for a priest because Church law at the time normally required intact hands for celebrating Mass.

Eventually Jogues escaped.

He made it back to France.

At that point, most people would probably consider the mission complete.

Jogues asked to go back.

The pope gave him special permission to celebrate Mass despite his damaged hands, and Jogues returned to North America, knowing exactly what might happen.

In 1646, he was killed in present-day New York.

Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were killed three years later during attacks on the Wendat missions. Others among the eight died at different mission stations during the same violent period.

But there are fascinating pieces of their world still visible today.

Near Midland, Ontario, the Martyrs' Shrine stands near the reconstructed Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. In Auriesville, New York, another shrine remembers Jogues and his companions near the area traditionally associated with his captivity and death.

And there is an extraordinary connection to another saint.

At the Mohawk settlement where Jogues had once been held prisoner, a girl was born about ten years after his death.

Her name was Kateri Tekakwitha.

The missionaries died without knowing what would become of their work. Their missions were destroyed, communities scattered, and years of labor seemed lost.

Yet the faith they planted didn't disappear.

Saints John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, and the Holy North American Martyrs, courageous missionaries of the New World, pray for us.

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