Saintly Saturday - St. Andre Bessette

Today is our first post for "Saintly Saturday", where each Saturday, we will tell you about one of the saints The Catholic Church celebrated within the past week. We start with St. Andre Bessette.

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This past Thursday (January 6), we celebrated the feast of St. Andre Bessette. Born as Alfred Bessette on August 9, 1845, in Quebec he grew up with little formal education and was orphaned by the age of twelve. He began his novitiate into the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1870, after he was encouraged to consider a vocation to religious life by his childhood pastor. Alfred had always had poor health, something he would suffer from throughout his whole life, which prevented him from first being admitted into the Order, however, they finally relented with the help of the Archbishop of Montreal. After his childhood pastor, he took the name Brother Andre and was assigned the job of porter at the Notre Dame College. It was there that his reputation began to spread as people began to experience healing after his prayers. All of this he humbly attributed to St. Joseph’s intercession, who Brother Andre had a great devotion to and who he knew was responsible for the healings. It was from this great devotion that sprang his desire to found a shrine to the Saint. By 1904, Brother Andre had constructed a simple shrine with just two hundred dollars, and was assigned the full-time caretaker of it in 1909, a position that he held for the rest of his life. During this time many miracles were credited to his intercession by the countless pilgrims who visited the Oratory of Saint Joseph. On January 6, 1937, Brother Andre passed away at the age of ninety-one and he was canonized on October 17, 2010.

St. Andre Bessette is an example of God’s incredible ways. God does not require us to be rich, famous, or strong in order to share in His life of love. He does not ask us to go above and beyond. St. Andre was a simple man, with very little learning and poor health, which prohibited him from doing many things and carrying out a lot of the duties that his fellow brothers had to do. For him, being unable to do and understand things that are deemed great was no cause to hinder him from having great love. 

St. Andre Bessette, pray for us!

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