St André (Br. André) Bessette, religious (January 6th)

Of the Saints and Feast Days commemorated this week:

Jan 4 SUN- THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD - Solemnity

Jan 4 - Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious (USA)

Jan 5 - St. John Neumann, Bishop (USA)

Jan 6 - Saint André Bessette, Religious (USA)

Jan 7 - Saint Raymond of Penyafort, Priest, Religious

Jan 11 SUN - THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD - Feast


I’m choosing to write about Saint André Bessette.


The future St André Bessette (Br. André) was born on Aug 9, 1845 as Alfred Bessette in Mont-Saint-Grégoire in Canada East (Québec) some 25 miles south east of Montreal, Canada.  The eighth of twelve children, his father, Isaac, a lumber man / carpenter died after a tree fell on him when the future St André was nine, his mother, Clothilde, died a few years later of tuberculosis when he was twelve.   


The future St André was put then under the care of the Nadeau family of another small Quebecois town, Saint-Césaire, some 8-10 miles away.  It was during this time he learned his catechism and acquired two life long devotions: to St. Joseph and the Christ’s Passion / Stations of the Cross.   


The Nadeaus originally hoped to put him in school to get him educated.  However, after a year of school, he only learned how to read and sign his name.  Afterwards, he was taken in by Louis Ouimet, the mayor of Saint-Césaire and took on some common laborer tasks.  Eventually he joined a number of his relatives and moved for a time to the United States, working in the textile mills of Rhode Island and Connecticut.  He returned to Canada in 1867 at age 22 where he became involved in his local parish.


His pastor, André Provençal, wrote a recommendation letter to the Congregation of the Holy Cross, writing them that he was “sending them a saint.”  The future  St André Bessette’s frail health and lack of education did not much impress said congregation, but after some challenges, they did accept him as a lay brother, and received the religious name Br. André.  Again, largely uneducated, he worked as a porter at the Congregation’s Collège Notre-Dame in Côte-des-Neiges section of Montreal.  


It was during this time that  Br. André began to be known as a healer.  He had taken up the ministry of praying for the sick.  He would also rub oil on them from a lamp that he used, and people started to get healed.  


Soon all kinds of people from around Montreal and Quebec were coming to the College, not to inquire about their educational services but to get healed by Br. André.  


So many were coming that the good Congregation asked that he continue his ministry by a nearby railroad station rather than at the entrance to their school.  


Devoted to St. Joseph, he asked that a humble chapel be built in his honor for this purpose.   It was built but soon the much larger St. Joseph Oratory was built on a commanding hilltop to meet the demand.


The Oratory has since become something of Montreal’s version of Lourdes, with the humble St. André becoming something of Quebec’s version of St. Bernadette or perhaps even Mexico’s St. Juan Diego.


While on a visit organized by the (French) Canadian Province of my religious order, the Servites, I visited the Oratory about 20 years ago, I could not but be moved by the _mountains_ of crutches, left by those who had found healing in the place.  I would definitely recommend visiting it if in one’s travels one finds oneself traveling to Montreal, Canada.


St André Bessette serves as a reminder to all of us that God created us, loves us and has a purpose for all of us, and that Jesus’ words “many times the first shall be last and the last shall be first” and “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” are indeed true.


St André Bessette, God’s humble door-keeper, pray for us!



Picture: Stained glass window with Andre Bessette at the Stinson Remick Chapel at the University of Notre Dame, IN (wikipedia commons)

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