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 Black Robe
Saint Isaac Jogues
"A
Real Indian Story"
The
young Jesuit lay prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament in the mission
chapel in New France. As he begged God for the privilege of suffering
for the sake of the Indians he sought to bring to Christ, he heard his
calling answered as in words: “Your prayer has been heard. Be it done
to you as you have asked. Be comforted, be of strong heart.” Father
rejoiced in these words. He believed that they were a prophecy, “issued
from the lips of him with whom saying and doing are only one and the
same thing.”
This conviction that God had spoken to him sustained Jogues throughout
his ministry, especially during his captivity and torture by the
Mohawks. Ultimately, his prayer would be fulfilled with his martyrdom.
Isaac Jogues was born into a devout merchant family in France on
January 10, 1607. During his boyhood years, Franciscan and Jesuit
missionaries were making their first efforts to evangelize the natives
in the New World. By the time Isaac entered the Jesuit apprenticeship
in 1624, a Jesuit mission had been established among the Indians in
Huronia (the present province of Ontario). Twelve years of discipline,
study, and prayer prepared Isaac well for the life he anticipated as a
missionary--though the hardships he would face in the rugged wilderness
of New France were far different from his cultured French upbringing.
Shortly after his ordination in 1636, the twenty-nine-year-old priest
sailed for Quebec with four other Jesuits.
From 1636 until 1642, Fr. Jogues lived among the natives in Huronia,
who named him Ondessonk (bird of prey) because of his keen eye. There,
under the instruction of the veteran missionary Fr. Jean de beuf, he
learned
the language and customs of the Hurons, and together with the Indians
and
his fellow missionaries, Jogues suffered from sickness, hunger, and the
hardships of the climate. In addition, Huron sorcerers jealous of the
priests’
growing influence blamed them for crop failures, poor hunting, or
defeats
in battle and frequently threatened to kill them. Yet despite all these
challenges, some of the Hurons came to profess their belief in the
Christian
God and accepted baptism.
Under Deaths Shadow In the summer of 1642, while returning in heavily
loaded canoes from a journey to Quebec to replenish the missionaries’
supplies, Jogues, two French lay missionaries, and almost forty Hurons
were ambushed by Mohawks. One of the five nations of the Iroquois, the
Mohawks were relentless enemies of the Hurons. The two laymen and
eighteen of the Hurons--many of whom were Christians--were taken
prisoner. The others were killed or escaped into the woods. In the
melee, Jacques canoe capsized, and he lay hidden
among the reeds. Rather than flee, he surrendered himself to the
Mohawks
so that he could accompany his companions and offer whatever help he
could
in the ordeals sure to follow. Over the course of the next few weeks,
the
captives were paraded triumphantly from village to village, made to run
the gauntlet, and subjected to hideous torture. The Mohawks pulled out
their
hair and beards, cut slices of flesh from them--which they roasted and
ate
in front of them--and tore out their fingernails. They also crushed the
bones of Jogues forefingers between their teeth and sawed off his left
thumb
with an oyster shell. At night, the prisoners were tied spread-eagle to
the ground, and the children were encouraged to throw live coals on
their bare flesh. One of the laymen and many of the Hurons were killed
during these
ordeals. In spite of his own pain, Jogues heard his companions’
confessions, gave absolution and comfort, and baptized the catechumens.
None of them wavered
in their new faith.
When the Mohawks’ fury abated, they decided to hold Jogues --the
“Blackrobe”--hostage and make him a slave. They forced him to do hard
tasks and carry heavy loads. They fed him very little, gave him no warm
clothing, and constantly threatened to kill him. However, he was
adopted into the Wolf clan, and his new “aunt” gave him some measure of
freedom to pray alone and to talk with the villagers. Rather than
hating his captors, Jogues prayed unceasingly for them and
sought to bring as many of them as possible to salvation. Learning the
Mohawks’ language, he entered the lodgehouses--just as he had done
among
the Hurons in search of the sick, so that he might win them to Christ
before
they died. He even nursed the brave who had torn out his fingernails.
During
his captivity, Jogues managed to baptize seventy dying Mohawks. He also
consoled and baptized Huron prisoners who were brought into the village
for
torture and execution.
After a year as a slave of the Mohawks, Jogues was able to escape when
he was taken along to a settlement where the Mohawks traded with the
Dutch. He remained in hiding for weeks until the Dutch could transport
him down the Hudson to Manhattan and on to where he landed on Christmas
Eve 1643. Jogues was welcomed as a living martyr by his fellow Jesuits.
Queen Anne received him as an honored guest and examined his mangled
fingers with tears in her eyes. A humble man, Jogues was distressed by
these honors and longed to
be back among the Indians. In the spring of 1644, after only a
three-month stay in his own country, Jogues’
superiors allowed him to return to New France. In the year after Jogues
return, the Iroquois, Mohawk and French began to negotiate a peace
treaty. Governor
Montmagny asked him to be an ambassador representing the French. As the
Jesuit understood the Mohawk language and the Iroquois knew of his high
standing among the French, there could be no better peace envoy. Jogues
readily agreed, though this meant returning to the Mohawk village where
he had been tortured and enslaved.
Jogues and his companions reached the village in June 1646. A
great multitude gathered to see the party, and those who had once made
life
so miserable for him now pretended to have forgotten their past deeds
and
greeted him cordially. An assembly of the chiefs was held,
compassionate speeches were given promising peace, and furs and belts
of wampum were exchanged. The council ended favorably, and Jogues again
began to administer the sacraments to Christian captives and baptize
the dying. The mission of diplomacy completed, the peace envoy returned
to Quebec , but Jogues left a chest containing Mass supplies and
personal effects, hoping to return the next season. He showed the box
and its contents to the villagers, assured them there was nothing
harmful in it, and entrusted it to them.
Though eager to establish a Mohawk mission, Isaac and his superiors
were cautious. Not long afterward, however, conditions seemed favorable
and it was decided that Jogues should winter among the Iroquois. He
wrote to a friend in France, “My heart tells me that if I have the
happiness of being employed in this mission, I shall go never to
return; but I shall be
happy if our Lord will complete the sacrifice where he has begun it,
and make
the little blood I have shed in that land the pledge of what I would
give
from every vein of my body and my heart. In a word, this people is ‘a
bloody
spouse to me’--‘In my blood have I espoused them to me’ May our good
Master
who has purchased them in His blood, open to them the door of His
gospel,
as well as to the four allied nations near them. Farewell, dear Father;
pray
to him to unite me inseparably to him.”
On September 24, Jogues left for his third journey to the Five Nations,
accompanied by a layman, John de Lalande, and some Huron companions. As
they approached the village, the group was attacked by a war party and
taken captive. Jogues reminded the Indians of their invitation for him
to return and of the treaty, but to no avail. They angrily accused the
Blackrobe of having put a curse on them--they had experienced a scourge
of disease and a plague of worms that destroyed their crops--and they
blamed the chest he had left among them for their misfortunes. Jogues’
“adoptive” Wolf clan defended him, and the chiefs’ council honored the
treaty and let him live. The Bear clan, however, decided to kill Jogues
on their own.
On the evening of October 18, 1646 Jogues
was invited to a feast in one of the Mohawk lodgehouses. As he stooped
to enter through the low door, the brave following behind him split his
skull with a tomahawk. The traitors immediately cut off his head and
displayed it on the palisades of the village. The next day, they killed
John de Lalande and the Hurons. News of the martyrdoms did not reach
Quebec until June
1647.
The Iroquois broke the treaty with the French and, in the following
years, mercilessly attacked the Hurons. They destroyed all their
villages and the Jesuit mission posts among them. Fathers Jean de beuf,
Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Anthony Daniel, and Noel Charbanel
were martyred in Huronia between July 4, 1648 , and December 8, 1649.
Within months after these martyrdoms, fourteen hundred Hurons were
converted to Christ. The seed of faith was
watered by the blood of these martyrs, and an abundance of souls
harvested
for heaven. The brave who tomahawked Jogues and another who had been
wounded
attempting to deflect the blow from the victim were later converted to
Christianity. The murderer took “Isaac” as his baptismal name and died
repentant, satisfied that he was going to heaven. Ten years after
Jogues was martyred, Kateri Tekakwitha was born
in the same village and became a firm
witness to Christ through the undaunted efforts of the Jesuits who
followed the first North American martyrs. The first native American to
be beatified, Kateri is among the fruits for whom Isaac Jogues shed his blood in the hopes that
his holocaust would hasten the conversion of the Mohawks.
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