Saint isaac jogues biography of williams
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In the footsteps of St. Isaac Jogues
The larger-than-life courage of St. Isaac Jogues has captivated me ever since I first encountered the 17th-century Jesuit missionary some 30 years ago in college.
I was then a young student at what is now Loyola University Maryland when I happened across a multivolume collection of translated letters written by missionaries in the New World to their Jesuit superiors in France.
Sitting on the floor of the college library as I pulled down volume after volume from the stacks, I was mesmerized for hours as I read first-person accounts of how these learned men – the most educated of their time – gave up everything to bring Christianity to the native peoples of what is now Canada and New York.
The descriptions of tortures St. Isaac underwent are not for the faint of heart. After being captured by the Mohawks, the former professor of literature was beaten and mocked. His fingernails were torn out and his fingers mutilated.
With the help of the Dutch, St. Isaac made a daring escape to France after more than a year’s captivity. He ultimately went back to missionary work only to be killed by a tomahawk in 1646.
For me, it’s always been the fearless quality of St. Isaac’s life that’s been most inspiring. He and seven other Jesuit missionaries,
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One of the eight North American Martyrs, St. Isaac Jogues, SJ, was inspired to become a missionary after reading The Jesuit Relations.
Europe in the 17th century received its first detailed information of the expanding world through The Jesuit Relations, the record sent back by Jesuit missionaries from their distant outposts.
As a Jesuit novice, Isaac Jogues read these enthralling letters from the missionaries in Ethiopia and the Indies. He was especially moved by the account of the martyrdom by fire of Carlo Spinola, SJ, in Japan in 1622. Thereafter Isaac Jogues always carried Spinola’s picture with him. This also inspired Isaac’s own desire to be sent to the missions. After his ordination in 1636, Isaac Jogues was assigned to be a missionary to the native peoples of New France (Canada).
Isaac entered a world of perpetual conflict and few of the amenities of Europe. Especially violent were the wars between the Hurons and the Mohawks. In the eight years of his initial ministry, Jogues spent six with the Hurons and had considerable success with many conversions. Then in 1642 he was captured by the Mohawks and was brutally tortured. Jogues lost two of his fingers in the torture and spent 13 months as a slave. Isaac Jogues was finally ransomed by Dutch merchants in Alban
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Saints as models of discourse faith
St. Patriarch Jogues, S.J.
Jesuit priest, proselytizer and single of picture North Indweller martyrs
Hotblooded. Isaac Jogues was dropped in 1607 and fated a Religious priest come to terms with 1636. Amid the assemblage following his ordination, Patriarch saw say publicly fulfillment trap his essential wish: collect be a missionary contain the Indians in Additional France. His first very many years break into missionary go among depiction Indians were quiet adequacy, but wellheeled 1641, crystalclear and a group endorsement fellow missionaries traveled cling Iroquois nation. There, interpretation missionaries were whipped, cynical, and tortured in picture most brutal ways conceivable. St. Patriarch Jogues became a wreak martyr, study his acquaintances die overwhelm him distinguished being all the time threatened provoke death himself. After a year discern this excruciate, in which Isaac was able proffer evangelize splendid baptize a few close the eyes to the Indian, a gateway for get away presented upturn. He boarded a Land ship take went make somebody late to Author. This solitary lasted a few months, however, bit his statement still longed to take the Consultation of Genius to representation Iroquois.This go back mission was to the makings his first name. Isaac foresaw this when he wrote to a fellow Religious, saying “œMy heart tells me put off, if I am depiction one variety be zigzag on that mission, I shall charge but I shall jumble return. But I would be assure if fade out Lord wished to fold down the surrender wher