Vancouver, Canada, Dec 29, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
If the faithful can’t go to the shrine, bring the shrine to the faithful.
So it will be with the relics of the Canadian Martyrs, usually housed in their Midland, Ontario, shrine, which will make their first tour of western Canada as part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.
The Shrine of the Canadian Martyrs has been designated as an official pilgrimage site for the Jubilee Year of Hope. However, because of Canada’s size, it was recognized that not everyone could reasonably make the trip so the tour was planned, with stops across the Prairies and west of the Rockies.
The major relics of the Canadian Martyrs on tour will include the skull of St. Jean de Brebeuf and bones of St. Charles Garnier and St. Gabriel Lalemant. The three men were among the eight French missionaries who first brought the Gospel to Canada and were martyred during the Huron-Iroquois Wars of the early 1600s.
Joining them will be a relic of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous North American saint and the patron of First Nations peoples.
For the director of the martyrs’ shrine, Father John O’Brien, the Canadian Martyrs harken to an age long gone — before modern history and its complications.
Originally from Mission, British Columbia, and a former instructor at St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi Colleges, O’Brien told The B.C. Catholic that “the Canadian Martyrs retrieve for us an era of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations that obviously precedes residential schools by several centuries.”
“[The martyrs] represent a dream for Christian community which is in some ways very Canadian — if we consider that Christ draws all peoples to himself,” he said. “Their original mission was to have a place where people of different ethnic backgrounds would live together united in their common faith.”
They may “help us recognize that reconciliation can be a process that can be informed by the projects of the past,” he said.
For more information about where the relics will be touring, visit martyrs-shrine.com/relic-tour.
This story was first published by The B.C. Catholic and has been adapted by CNA, and reprinted here with permission.
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“Charles Garnier SJ born Paris was ordained a priest 1635. Initially forbidden by his father from travelling to Canada, where he would face almost certain death as a missionary”, his father later relented. Garnier brought Christ to the Huron, a major tribe and mission of several French Jesuits. Hurons were in deadly conflict with the Iroquois [Confederation of Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga] over the fur trade dominated by the Huron.
Hurons became predominantly Catholic. Allied with the French in 1754 were involved in wars against the British who gained the support of the Iroquois. During 1759 the Huron ceased to exist as a tribe following several deadly attacks by the Iroquois.
Jesuit missionaries Isaac Jogue and Jean de Lalande were martyred by Iroquois a
t Auriesville NY 1646. Jesuit missionary Fathers Jean de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant were martyred by Iroquois at Huronia Quebec 1649, Fr Charles Garnier was martyred by the Iroquois near Mississauga Ontario during 1649.
Today the Mohawk, the most warlike of the Iroquois, are predominantly Catholic, the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation is located at St Regis NY along the St Lawrence. Years past when studying for the priesthood I visited St Regis and met the first Mohawk priest. The blood of the French Jesuit martyrs shed while serving the Huron would not be in vain following the devastation and disappearance of the Huron. As are our sacrifices and suffering for the salvation of persons who may not appear to respond.
A note on Auriesville NY [West of Albany], originally a French Jesuit mission on the banks of the Mohawk River called Ossernenon. There were three martyrs, one a priest, Father Isaac Jogues and two lay Jesuits, René Goupil and John Lalonde. The mission was destroyed by the Mohawks. Today there’s a shrine to Our Lady of Martyrs.