The North American Martyrs

Here's an uplifting little tidbit from a transcript of a nice talk given by Fr. John A. Hardon S.J. on the North American Martyrs. He incidently was the spiritual director of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The National Shrine of the North American Martyrs is in Auriesville, N.Y. The Jesuits were primarily spreading the Gospel among the Hurons, who were bitter enemies with the fierce Iroquois Nation. The Jesuits were caught in the middle and suffered great loss and gained great glory for Christ. The full text of the following quoted material can be found at http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Martyrs/Martyrs_003.htm

"Isaac Jogues was first taken as a slave by the Mohawks in doing the most humiliating tasks among the Indians. He was tortured, in the process had his fingers chewed off. He managed to escape, went back to France and the question was--would he be able to say Mass. Pope Urban the 8th gave him permission. The Holy Father declared it would be unjust for a martyr of Christ not to drink the blood of Christ. So Isaac Jogues was, when he came back to the New World, was tomahawked to death. Anthony Daniel was offering Mass when the Iroquois attacked a Huron village. The Hurons were interested in the faith and Daniel was preaching among them and most of the people were interested in being received into the Church, but the Iroquois attacked. Daniel during the attack, ran around baptizing everybody in sight. Well, he baptized quite a few, but, he still saw a crowd that he had not reached so he took some wet rags and squeezed the water on these people while pronouncing the words of baptism. He himself did not try to escape. He was pierced with arrows and then all the people were huddled into a Church, the Church was set afire and the pierced body of Daniel, still breathing, was thrown into the Church where he had been offering Mass. From all accounts the worst tortures were reserved for Brebeuf and Lalemant. Among other excruciating pain which they had to suffer, they had their hands lopped off, had red hot hatchets applied to their bodies, then the Indians made belts of bark, soaked these belts in tar, bound their bodies with this resin dipped bark and set the bark and tar on fire. They were still not dead so pieces of their flesh were cut off with huge knives and miraculously they stayed alive so then the Indians to finish them off had cauldrons of boiling water poured on their bodies. It is no wonder given the circumstances of their martyrdom that the Indians were so impressed by the courage of these two men that after they died, the Indians drank their blood in order to acquire some of their courage."