By Lyn Bennet Wilson
Saint Issac Jogues is one of only eight North American martyrs canonized by the Church. He served as a missionary to the Mohawk tribes in the 1600s. He was a dedicated missionary and willing to endure great suffering for the name of Christ.
Born January 10, 1607 in Orleans, France, St. Isaac Jogues was ordained as a Priest in the Society of Jesus in 1636. He chose to live the life of a missionary in service to Jesus Christ ministering to the Huron and Algonquin tribes in New France (now parts of New York and Canada).
He was the third missionary to venture into Huron and Algonquin territory. After a smallpox epidemic hit the settlement at which St Isaac Jogues was ministering, the settlement was abandoned. The missionaries moved to Sainte-Marie (Canada) where they experienced the growth of Christianity through meeting the daily needs of the people to whom he and his fellow missionaries were ministering. They taught the people how to grow their own food and raise farm animals such as pigs and cattle. The Chippewas were so impressed with the missionaries they invited them to come to establish a settlement among them.
Eventually St. Isaac and his company had to return to Trois-Rivières (Three-Rivers in Quebec, Ontario, Canada) for supplies in the midst of the war between the Iroquois and the French. It was a hazardous journey. The company was eventually captured by the Iroquois and enslaved. They were forced to make the journey to Ossernenon on the Mohawk River (now Auriesville, NY). There the endured terribly painful torture at the hands of their captors. St. Isaac Jogues had his own hands severely damaged by his Iroquois assailants.
During a trading trip to Fort Orange (now Albany, New York), the Dutch who lived at Fort Orange ransomed St Isaac Jogues. When his captor’s anger over losing him as a slave subsided, St. Isaac Jogues made his way back to France where he was celebrated as a living martyr. He visited his mother and then, by the leading of the Lord, St. Isaac Jogues made his way back to New France and to his ministry among the Huron.
While acting as an envoy to the Mohawk with and for the Hurons with whom he’d been ministering, St. Isaac Jogues was captured, tortured and Killed by the Bear Clan of the Mohawk people. His death is remembered on October 18 (1646). God blessed this man with the fortitude to survive many torments and yet he still tried to act as peacemaker.
All this took place not far from my own home. I thank the Lord that many people have been blessed by the testimony of St. Isaac Jogues. He was a man who exemplified love and great tenacity; may we do so too!
