Saints John de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests and Martyrs and Their Companions, Martyrs

John Brebeuf and companions lived in harsh conditions with significant opposition but they acknowledged the Son of Man before others and earned their promised reward. They could see the glory of God and they knew that this revelation was true for the Native American as for the European settler and so they built the church. We need to keep this in mind in these waning decades of our culture, the liberal experiment, by not identifying with any side of the contemporary debate but being clear that we are for the Son of Man and therefore hold to Catholic Social Teaching . Then we too will experience the glory of the presence of Jesus.

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Title

The Glory and the Honor

Outline

The reality that St John de Brebeuf and companions lived was far from the glories of the angelic realm

It was tough living in what is now Quebec and Ontario, especially in winter, let alone dealing with vicious politics between the Iroquois and the Hurons stoked by the English - French rivalry. And the English certainly did not mind the killing of Catholic priests.

And yet those men left home in France with their one-way tickets to “acknowledge the Son of Man before others of any ethnicity, and now they are acknowledged by him before the angels of God. And where are those who opposed them and the Holy Spirit now? And those who still oppose them as colonialists etc.?

Those men has “a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.”

They knew themselves fallible and surely were, but they also knew “what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens. . .” And they knew that this revelation was true not only for them but also for the Native Americans of whatever tribe, which was a thought that never crossed the typical colonial settler mind in those days. But they persevered and did build “his body” “the church” in which the fulness of Jesus dwelt.

And after their suffering they experienced the fulness of this revelation.

We need to keep this in mind

We live in the waning days or decades of liberalism in which right and left are as bitterly divided as the Iroquois and the Hurons and yet are both different instantiations of the same Native American tree. The culture around us at least verbally rejects us as John and his companions were rejected.

The question for us is whether, when asked which party or ethnicity or policy we are for, however menacing the tone, we respond, “None of the above; we are for the Son of Man; let the chips fall where they will.”

That is what gave John Brebeuf and his companions glory and what will, in the end, after we too suffer, give us the glory of the presence of Jesus.

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