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 St. Nicholas Owen - Martyr of England
      March 2

Nicholas Owen (birthday uncertain, 1606) was a Jesuit brother whose talents as a mason and carpenter provided priests with concealed hiding places in the homes of Catholics and enabled the priests to avoid capture despite the most thorough of searches. The son of a carpenter and the brother of two priests, Owen served as Father Edmund Campion's servant and was briefly arrested in 1582 when he spoke out on behalf of Campion's innocence. Then he came to work with Father Henry Garnet, the mission superior.

Owen employed great ingenuity in devising the priest-holes, and even hid his activities by working openly during the day as a regular carpenter, and working on the hiding places only at night. The house servants would be ignorant of his real activity and only he and the owner of the home would know where he had created a hiding place by chipping through stone walls or burrowing into the earth. Some of the places were big enough to accommodate six to 10 people; others concealed inside another hidden room to throw the priest-hunters off the scent. It was hard work to do by oneself, and he suffered injuries in the process. The carpenter was briefly detained in 1594 when he was caught with Father John Gerard, but the police did not realize they had in custody the mastermind behind the hiding places. They released him, and he immediately returned to his work.

Father Garnet wrote a letter in 1588 expressing the hope that his carpenter might someday enter the Society. No names were used, so it is not certain that he was writing about Nicholas Owen, who never did make a formal novitiate; the date he became a Jesuit remains unknown. His final moments, however, are quite clear. He accompanied Garnet to Hinlip Hall, near Worcester, seeking shelter during the crisis provoked by the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament. Jesuits were blamed for the plot even though the actual conspirators had been apprehended.

Garnet and Owen met Father Edward Oldcorne and Brother Ralph Ashley; all four went into hiding holes in Hilip Hall, the two priests in one place, the two brothers in another. The sheriff searched the house for several days without finding the Jesuits until the brothers were forced to leave their hiding place because of hunger and thirst. They tried to pretend to be the priests but could not fool the searchers who uncovered a dozen hiding places before finally apprehending the two priests.

The Jesuits were taken to London, and Owen was put into Marshalsea Prison before being moved to the Tower to be tortured. The king's men realized they had the only person who knew the location of the hiding places and residences of priests all over the kingdom. They were eager to force him to uncover the Catholic underground, but he was even more firm that he would not betray those whom he had spent so much time protecting. He was tortured on the rack for hours a day, several days in succession but maintained his silence. In frustration the torturers kept adding weight to his feet but went beyond all limits. On March 1 his abdomen burst open and his intestines spilled out. Owen lingered on for one painful day before dying in the early hours of March 2. The rack-master tried to cover his behavior, excessive even under the harsh standards of the day, by saying that the Jesuit had committed suicide. Clever and hard-working in his life, Nicholas Owen remained courageous and faithful in his death.

 St. John de Brébeuf - Martyr of North America
      March 16

John de Brébeuf (Jean de Brébeuf, 1593-1649) was the first Jesuit missionary in Huronia (1626) and a master of the Indian language. He founded mission outposts, converted thousands to the faith and inspired many Jesuits to volunteer for the missions of New France. Massive in body, gentle in character, with the heart of a giant, he was known as the apostle of the Hurons.

Brébeuf was born in Normandy, France and entered the Jesuits after he finished his university studies. In a spirit of humility, he asked to be a brother, but his superior convinced him to study to be a priest. He taught at a secondary school-level college in Rouen and then was ordained a priest on Feb. 19, 1622. That same year he became the treasurer of the college. The tall, rugged Jesuit responded to an appeal made two years later by the Franciscan Recollects who asked other religious orders to help evangelize the native peoples of North America. Along with four other Jesuit companions, Brébeuf arrived in Quebec June 19, 1625. While Brébeuf waited for the Hurons to arrive, he joined a group of Montagnais in a hunting expedition that lasted from that October until the following March. The young French priest learned to accommodate himself to the native way of travel and diet.

When summer came a group of Hurons came to Cap de la Victoire to barter for trade goods. Brébeuf, another Jesuit and a Franciscan went to meet them and asked to accompany them back to their homelands. The Hurons were willing to take the first two, but not Brébeuf who towered over them and was much too big for their canoes; they were afraid he would be too much work to carry. The missionaries offered enough gifts to overcome reluctance, and Brébeuf was permitted into a canoe on the condition he would not move. On July 26, 1626 Brébeuf began his journey to Huronia. When the travelers came to cascades or places where they had to carry the canoes and all the gear overland, Brébeuf's great strength won his hosts' admiration. They named him, "Echon" ("the man who carries the load").

The party arrived in Huronia in late August, and the missionaries settled in Toanché, a village of the Bear Clan of the Huron nation. Brébeuf first had to learn the Huron language, which he devoted two years to studying, along with the people's customs and beliefs. He had a talent for languages and wrote a Huron grammar, translated a catechism and prepared a phrase book. His success with language did not carry over into converting adults; the only converts he made during the winter of 1628 were the dying whom he baptized.

Brébeuf's missionary efforts were cut short when he was sent back to France after the French and English ended their war. An English blockade had kept the French from resupplying the colony, so Brébeuf took 20 canoes loaded with grain to Quebec on July 17, 1629. Two days after he arrived, the French capitulated and he was expatriated with other missionaries to France.

For two years Brébeuf resumed his work at the college in Rouen, but returned as soon as possible to Canada when it was restored to France by a treaty with the English. He arrived in Quebec in May 1633, but could not get back to Huronia until the following summer when the Hurons came with a small flotilla of 11 canoes rather than their normal one of more than a hundred. They had suffered from an epidemic and did not want to be burdened carrying missionaries back with them, but Brébeuf and Father Anthony Daniel prevailed upon them. The two were separated from their hosts during the journey but found the Hurons at a village named Taendeuiata. They welcomed Brébeuf back, delighted that he had kept his word to return. The Jesuits constructed a cabin just outside the village to house the three priests and five lay helpers who made up the missionary community. Brébeuf taught the others the Huron language and customs. Finally in 1635, he and Daniel began their missionary work, working with children during the day and adults at night. After a year of hard work, they had baptized twelve people, four infants and eight adults just as they were dying.

Competition between Christianity and native religion was a constant fact of life. When drought hit the land, native religious leaders blamed it on the crucifix on the priests' cabin; the Jesuits countered with a novena and a procession around the village. When which rain the prayers, the Jesuits interpreted this as an answer to their prayers. When Father Isaac Jogues arrived in 1636, a smallpox epidemic broke out among the Jesuits and their helpers and then spread to the Hurons. The epidemic lasted all winter; during that time the Jesuits baptized more than a thousand people, all at the point of death. Some Hurons accused the Jesuits of causing the epidemic in order to make conversions. When Brébeuf started a mission at Ossossané, the council of village chiefs blamed him for the disease that lingered on there and decided he should die. That same conclusion was reached for all the Jesuit missionaries during a council of the Huron nation which met in March 1640.

Brébeuf then moved to the mission headquarters, Sainte-Marie, and started working with another tribe, the Neutrals, but he had to flee to Quebec after he was accused of plotting with Hurons' enemies, the Seneca Clan of the Iroquois, to betray his hosts. From June 1641 to August 1644 Brébeuf took care of getting supplies for the mission. Finally he was able to return to Sainte-Marie, but the danger from the Iroquois was escalating. Fathers Isaac Jogues and Anthony Daniel had already been martyred. In September 1648 Father Gabriel Lalemant joined the mission. He and Brébeuf left Sainte-Marie for their weekly tour of the missions on March 15, 1649 and spent the night at Saint Louis village. The Iroquois attacked a nearby village during the night, so the Hurons sent their women and children to hide in the forest. The two Jesuits chose to remain with the men, who were mostly Christians. At dawn the next day, Iroquois swarmed over the palisades and took the Hurons who remained as captives. A renegade Huron among the attackers let the Iroquois know that they had captured the mighty Echon, most powerful of the Jesuit medicine men.

After some preliminary torture, the Jesuits and the Huron captives were forced to run naked through the snow to a nearby village where others waited. The captives had to run the gauntlet and then the two Jesuits were led to two posts where they were to be killed. First the captors heated a string of hatchet blades and then placed the red-hot iron on Brébeuf's shoulders. He did not yell for mercy, so his tormentors covered him with resinous bark which they set aflame. He continued encouraging his fellow Christians to remain strong. Then the Jesuit's captors cut off his nose and forced a hot iron down his throat to silence him; they poured boiling water over his head in a mockery of baptism and then successively scalped him, cut off his feet and then tore out his heart. He was 46-years old and had spent 20 years in New France.

 St. Gabriel Lalemant - Martyr of North America
      March 17

Gabriel Lalemant (1610-1649), a Jesuit at 19 and a priest at 27, was a scholar, professor and a college administrator, delicate in body but strong in desire for the mission of Huronia. After seven months there he was able to speak the native language. He was assistant to John de Brébeuf for one month and then his companion in martyrdom for 17 long hours.

Inspired by the example of his uncle, a missionary in New France, Gabriel Lalemant desired to be a missionary himself and took a special vow to devote himself to the missions when he pronounced his vows at the end of the novitiate. Despite his enthusiasm, his mission was teaching. Every year he requested the missions, and every year he was refused, probably because of his weak health. Finally, his petition was accepted, probably through the intercession of another uncle, a Jesuit who had just been made superior of the missions.

On June 13, 1646 Lalemant set out with three other Jesuits from La Rochelle, France, and reached Quebec on Sept. 20. Before he could begin his actual pastoral work, he spent two years learning the Huron language and customs. Finally in August 1648 he set out for Sainte-Marie, the mission headquarters, with a party of Hurons who had come to Quebec to trade furs. He devoted another few months to language study and then in early 1649 started accompanying Father John de Brébeuf on a weekly schedule of visits to neighboring villages. Despite the years of asking to become a missionary and his thorough preparation for the work, his actual ministry did not last long before he was called to add his sacrifice to the one he celebrated daily in the Mass.

Only six months after he came to Sainte-Marie, he set out with Brébeuf for the village of Saint-Louis. During the night the Iroquois attacked another village not far away, and the two Jesuits knew that Saint-Louis would probably be next. On the morning of March 16, the Iroquois attacked the Huron village and easily overcame the defenses. The two Jesuits were taken prisoner because they had refused to flee into the forest before the attack. Attackers pulled out the finger nails of the two Jesuits and chewed their fingers before forcing them to run naked through the snow to a another village where other Iroquois warriors waited. The captives had to run the gauntlet and then the two Jesuits were led to two posts where they were to be killed. Apparently Lalement had to watch the torments that Brébeuf suffered before the time came for his own torture at six in the evening. His tormentors set a fire around his feet, then burned him with heated metal hatchets and poured scalding water over his head. After they cut off his hands and gouged out his eyes, they placed hot coals in the sockets. Then they stopped for the night so that their victim could endure another day of torture. The next day they shoved burning wood into his mouth and sliced off his tongue, but Father Lalement proved as courageous as his Jesuit companion and refused to shriek for mercy. Finally, they tore his heart out and ate it to gain his courage. The young Jesuit, only 36 years-old, died after 15 hours of unbelievable torment. Together with Brébeuf, his body was buried near the chapel door at Sainte-Marie.