Jesuit priest, missionary and one of the North American martyrs
St. Isaac Jogues was born in 1607 and ordained a Jesuit priest in 1636. During the year following his ordination, Isaac saw the fulfillment of his dearest wish: to be a missionary to the Indians in New France. His first several years of missionary work among the Indians were quiet enough, but in 1641, he and a group of fellow missionaries traveled to Iroquois country. There, the missionaries were whipped, bitten, and tormented in the most barbarous ways imaginable. St. Isaac Jogues became a living martyr, watching his friends die around him and being constantly threatened by death himself. After a year of this torment, in which Isaac was able to evangelize and baptize a few of the Iroquois, a chance for escape presented itself. He boarded a Dutch ship and went back to France. This only lasted a few months, however, as his heart still longed to bring the Word of God to the Iroquois. This return mission was to be his last. Isaac foresaw this when he wrote to a fellow Jesuit, saying “My heart tells me that, if I am the one to be sent on this mission, I shall go but I shall not return. But I would be happy if our Lord wished to complete the sacrifice where he began it.” He was killed with a tomahawk in 1646, and canonized a saint in 1930 by Pope Pius XI. He is the patron saint of the Americas and Canada.
From the spiritual diaries by Saint John de Brebeuf, priest and martyr
May I die only for you, Jesus, who willingly died for me
For two days now I have experienced a great desire to be a martyr and to endure all the torments the martyrs suffered.
Jesus, my Lord and Savior, what can I give you in return for all the favors you have first conferred on me? I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name. I vow before your eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, before your most holy Mother and her most chaste spouse, before the angels, apostles and martyrs, before my blessed fathers Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier—in truth I vow to you, Jesus my Savior, that as far as I have the strength I will never fail to accept the grace of martyrdom, if some day you in your infinite mercy would offer it to me, your most unworthy servant.
I bind myself in this way so that for the rest of my life I will have neither permission nor freedom to refuse opportunities of dying and shedding my blood for you, unless at a particular juncture I should consider it more suitable for your glory to act otherwise at that time. Further, I bind myself to this so that, on receiving the blow of death, I shall accept it from your hands with the fullest delight and joy of spirit. For this reason, my beloved Jesus, and because of the surging joy which moves me, here and now I offer my blood and body and life. May I die only for you, if you will grant me this grace, since you willingly died for me. Let me so live that you may grant me the gift of such a happy death. In this way, my God and Savior, I will take from your hand the cup of your sufferings and call on your name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!
My God, it grieves me greatly that you are not known, that in this savage wilderness all have not been converted to you, that sin has not been driven from it. My God, even if all the brutal tortures which prisoners in this region must endure should fall on me, I offer myself most willingly to them and I alone shall suffer them all.
VIDEO – Saints Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf
A video biography of the saints.