HURON CAROL

This lovely Christmas Carol was written, in the Huron language, by the French Jesuit, St Jean de Brebeuf who was martyred in Canada in 1649. This version is sung in English by the Canadian Tenors.

I WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS

& MANY BLESSINGS IN 2012.

BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND THE ENGLISH MARTYRS

TODAY'S MARTYRS

TODAY'S MARTYRS

HERE IS AN EXCELLENT SITE ON MARTYRS. STEPHEN OVER AT 'THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS' POSTS SOME EXCELLENT ARTICLES ON MARTYRS OF THE PAST BUT HE ALSO KEEPS US INFORMED OF THE MANY PLACES IN TODAY'S SO CALLED ENLIGHTENED WORLD WHERE CHRISTIANS ARE STILL SUFFERING DEATH FOR THEIR FAITH.

CHECK OUT THE LINK BELOW.

http://thebloodofthemartyrs.blogspot.com/2010/04/arshed-masih.html

ST JEAN DE BREBEUF

The first thing I would like to do is say a very big THANK YOU to all of you lovely people who have left messages of support and prayers since I have been away. I am still with my family and will be until about the middle of May. Today, I have a touch of the sniffles so I thought it unwise to visit the sick in case I add to their problems. That brought me to my brother’s computer and the thought of (since I am in Canada) posting on Canadian Martyrs. As it turns out, the Canadian Martyrs, Jean de Brebeuf, Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel, like St David Lewis, were Jesuits and very brave and faithful men. Like all our Holy Martyrs, their stories are worth the telling. Here, briefly, is the story of one of those martyrs.

Saint Jean de Brébeuf (March 25, 1593 – March 16, 1649) was a Jesuit missionary, martyred in Canada on March 16, 1649. He was born in Normandy, France, studied at Caen and became a Jesuit in 1617. In 1623 he was ordained 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). Because of war between France and England, Fr Brébeuf returned to France but when the peace was signed, he returned to the Hurons in 1634, travelling 800 miles from Quebec via the Ottawa River. Fr Brébeuf told many of his experiences in Canada in the "Jesuit Relations", which are an invaluable source of early Canadian history. He was head of the Huron mission until 1638 when he relinquished the position to Fr Jérôme Lalemant. The Jesuits were frequently blamed for disasters like epidemics, battle defeats, and crop failures so his success as a missionary was very slow and it was only in 1637 that he made his first converts. However, by 1647 there were thousands of converted Huron.

The Iroquois , at war with the Huron, destroyed a large Huron village in 1648 and on March 16, 1649, 1,200 Iroquois captured the mission of St. Ignace and then a few hours later captured another Huron village where they seized Fr 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 with boiling water, fire, necklaces of red hot hatchets and mutilation. Fr Brébeuf made no outcry while being tortured and he astounded the Iroquois, who later cut out his heart and ate it in hopes of gaining his courage. The remains of fifty-five year old Fr Jean de Brébeuf were buried with Fr 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, near Midland, Ontario.

Jean de 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", pronounced like "Ekon" – meaning "Healing Tree", because of how much he had helped the Hurons and of the medicines he brought them from Europe. Fr Jean de Brébeuf was canonized in 1930 with seven other missionaries, known as the Canadian Martyrs. His feast day in Canada is celebrated on September 26, while in the United States it is celebrated on October 19.

STAINED GLASS WINDOWS

Now that the snow has gone (we hope) and everyone is able to get out and about again, I thought I would do some posts on places associated with St David Lewis. If you are in the area, you might like to visit the sites and see them for yourself. If that isn't possible, then I hope you will enjoy seeing them in photographs. I will start with some lovely stained glass windows which commemorate St David Lewis.

This beautiful window is in the Catholic Church of Our Ladye and St Michael, Abergavenny. In the window, St David Lewis is referred to as 'Charles Baker S J'. In those extremely dangerous times, it was the prudent custom of Catholic priests to work under an alias. 'Charles Baker' was the alias used by Fr David Lewis. St David Lewis was born in Abergavenny in 1616. He was the son of Morgan Lewis and Margaret (Pritchard) Lewis.

This colourful window is in the Baptistry of the Catholic Church in Usk. In 1679, St David Lewis was executed on or near the site of this church. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970. The church was originally dedicated to St Francis Xavier but in 1974 it was rededicated and it now bears the name of 'St David Lewis and St Francis Xavier'. This beautiful window honours these two Jesuit Saints.

This window is in the Catholic Church in Tenby. As well as honouring St David Lewis, it also commemorates two other Welsh priests, Fr John Lloyd and Fr Philip Evans, who were martyred as a consequence of the fabricated Popish Plot. The fourth person depicted is St Stephen, the very first Christian Martyr.

(TO BETTER APPRECIATE THE THREE PHOTOS, ENLARGE THEM BY CLICKING ON EACH ONE.)