† St. André Bessette † (January 6)

† Saint of the Day †

(January 6)

✠ St. André Bessette ✠

Lay Brother:

Born: August 9, 1845
Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Quebec, Canada

Died: January 6, 1937 (Aged 91)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Venerated in:
Catholic Church
(Canada and the United States, and the Congregation of Holy Cross)

Beatified: May 23, 1982
Pope John Paul II

Canonized: October 17, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI

Major shrine:
Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Feast: January 6

Saint André Bessette, more commonly known as Brother André, and since his canonization as Saint André of Montreal, was a lay brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a significant figure of the Roman Catholic Church among French-Canadians, credited with thousands of reported miraculous oil healings associated with his pious devotion to Saint Joseph.

Does God only give grace to smart people? Is holiness directly proportional to intelligence or ability? Obviously the answer is no, but it sure seems like the great saints are all also holy geniuses. St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, St. Augustine, St. Catherine of Siena; the older saints seem academic all-stars. Or our two soon-to-be-saints: St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II; no mean intellects in either of them. The Little Flower, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, with her “Little Way,” might seem a simple mind, but anyone who has read her writing knows the profound wisdom found within; she is a Doctor of the Church after all. St. Martin De Porres? Even he was known for his ability to solve thorny theological questions brought to him by his Dominican brothers and inquiring bishops. Could it be that God indeed loves the poor in spirit, but really favors the rich in intellect?

As usual, St. Thomas offers some help to our question. In discussing the theological virtue of charity, the friendship with God that makes us holy, he asks whether it is infused according to natural gifts and capacities. Given St. Thomas’s famous axiom that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, one might expect him to align charity given in grace with natural abilities. Instead, he offers this:

          The quantity of a thing depends on the proper cause of that thing since the more universal cause produces a greater effect. Now, since charity surpasses the proportion of human nature . . . it depends, not on any natural virtue, but on the sole grace of the Holy Spirit Who infuses charity. Wherefore the quantity of charity depends neither on the condition of nature nor on the capacity of natural virtue, but only on the will of the Holy Spirit Who “divides” His gifts “according to as He will.  (ST, II-II, 24, 3)

Since God through the Holy Spirit is the giver of charity, and since true charity is beyond the capacity of human nature left to its own devices, God can give it without reference to natural gifts like intelligence. And this seems true in the case of the uncharitable: there are plenty of examples of intelligent people who lack charity—the “evil genius” is a standard literary character for a reason. But today also offers us a positive example of a man graced with charity apart from much natural intelligence: St. André Bessette.

Brother André expressed a saint’s faith by a lifelong devotion to Saint Joseph.

Sickness and weakness dogged André from birth. He was the eighth of 12 children born to a French Canadian couple near Montreal. Adopted at 12 when both parents had died, he became a farmhand. Various trades followed: shoemaker, baker, blacksmith—all failures. He was a factory worker in the United States during the boom times of the Civil War.

At 25, André applied for entrance into the Congregation of Holy Cross. After a year’s novitiate, he was not admitted because of his weak health. But with an extension and the urging of Bishop Bourget, he was finally received. He was given the humble job of doorkeeper at Notre Dame College in Montreal, with additional duties as sacristan, laundry worker, and messenger. “When I joined this community, the superiors showed me the door, and I remained 40 years,” he said.

In his little room near the door, he spent much of the night on his knees. On his windowsill, facing Mount Royal, was a small statue of Saint Joseph, to whom he had been devoted since childhood. When asked about it he said, “Someday, Saint Joseph is going to be honored in a very special way on Mount Royal!”

When he heard someone was ill, he visited to bring cheer and to pray with the sick person. He would rub the sick person lightly with oil taken from a lamp burning in the college chapel. Word of healing powers began to spread.

When an epidemic broke out at a nearby college, André volunteered to nurse. Not one person died. The trickle of sick people to his door became a flood. His superiors were uneasy; diocesan authorities were suspicious; doctors called him a quack. “I do not cure,” he said again and again. “Saint Joseph cures.” In the end, he needed four secretaries to handle the 80,000 letters he received each year.

For many years the Holy Cross authorities had tried to buy land on Mount Royal. Brother André and others climbed the steep hill and planted medals of Saint Joseph. Suddenly, the owners yielded. André collected $200 to build a small chapel and began receiving visitors there—smiling through long hours of listening, applying Saint Joseph’s oil. Some were cured, some not. The pile of crutches, canes, and braces grew.

The chapel also grew. By 1931, there were gleaming walls, but money ran out. “Put a statue of Saint Joseph in the middle. If he wants a roof over his head, he’ll get it.” The magnificent Oratory on Mount Royal took 50 years to build. The sickly boy who could not hold a job died at 92.

He is buried at the Oratory. He was beatified in 1982 and canonized in 2010. At his canonization in October 2010, Pope Benedict XVI said that Saint Andre “lived the beatitude of the pure of heart.”