". . .Fr. Jogues returned from the missions of North America - where he had endured a year of slavery among the Mohawk people - to his native France on Christmas Day, 1643. Fr. Jogues was much lauded upon his return, particularly because of his extreme suffering. He had, after all, served as a slave for the Mohawk, including essentially acting as a beast of burden during hunting expeditions. He even lost his canonical digits, the forefingers a priest uses to hold the Sacred Host at Mass, in the course of the many tortures he endured.
"To the casual observer, Fr. Jogues' work, despite the acclaim his suffering had won, would seem to have failed. Yet this did not stifle Fr. Jogues' faith. In a letter to a priest friend he attests, 'My hope is in God, who has no need of us for the execution of his designs. It is for us to try to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our own baseness'” Continually hopeful for his missionary work, confident that it belonged totally to God's Providence, Isaac Jogues began to long to return to his beloved Mohawk. . . ."
In a
recent commentary, Father Patrick Briscoe, O.P.,
reflected on the sufferings endured by St. Isaac Jogues and his total confidence in God and on how, in the "face of the sufferings of our own lives we are easily tempted to
cast off our confidence that 'the Lord is God and there is no other.'"
To access Fr Patrick's complete post, please visit:
Aleteia: Fr. Patrick Briscoe, OP: Am I able to find Christ in my sufferings? Do I even look for Him there? (17 OCT 20)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment