Letter 128
 
To Her Son. 30 August 1650.
Victories of the Iroquois. Perfect peace of heart is founded on disengagement from creatures. Humility makes the saints. This is proved by the example of the Jesuit Fathers martyred by the Iroquois.

My very dear and dearly beloved son,

May the life and love of Jesus be your life and love for all eternity! It is a wonderful sign of your affection for me that you wish for me the same destiny as that of the Fathers. Alas! I am not worthy of such an honour and such an exalted grace - although it seems very close to us. Since I wrote and told you something of the extraordinary persecution of the Iroquois there has been another great clash between the French and the barbarians in an encounter which took place near Three Rivers when they were out looking for French men who had been captured and led away. Today the Iroquois intend to take Three Rivers and you will note that they have several Dutchmen to help them. These were recognised during the skirmish, and afterwards a Huron who escaped confirmed this.

After they take Three Rivers, they are determined according to what we have been told, to attack us. Although on the surface there is not so much to fear since our houses are strong, yet nevertheless what has happened in the Huron villages which they have destroyed by fire arms (for they are very powerful) ought to make the French fear a like disaster if speedy help doesn’t reach us. This is the experience of the wisest and most experienced, such as the Fathers who have come down from the Hurons, having borne the weight of the force of these barbarians.

This help can only come from France because there is not enough strength in the whole country to resist then If France fails us, then in a word - we must either leave or die. But since all the French, who number about two thousand, will not be able to find means of withdrawing, they will be forced to die either through want or through the cruelty of their enemies. Furthermore to leave all the goods they have acquired in this country and to see themselves deprived of all means of support in France - this will lead them to choose death in this country rather than want in another. We ourselves, through the Mercy of Our Lord, have other motives. It is not possessions that keep us here, but rather the remnant of our good Christians, esteeming ourselves a thousand times blessed to die with them if that were possible. These are our treasures, our brothers, our spiritual children whom we cherish more than our lives and more than anything under Heaven. Rejoice then if we should die, if someone brings you the news that our blood and ashes are mingled with theirs. There is every appearance that this will happen if a thousand Iroquois who have divided to go to the Neutral Nation return to join those who are at our gates.

Fr. Daran, to whom I am giving this letter, is one of those who have just come from the Hurons. He has suffered all that can be suffered without dying; thus he will be able to tell you at leisure all that happened in this new Church in the last years, and I promise that you will be deeply edified by what you hear. He is going to make a tour of Europe while waiting to be recalled should the affairs of the country be restored, for he is deeply missed here. I miss having him just as the others do, but you must assuage my regret by receiving him as he deserves. Others such as Fr. Ragueneau and Pijart are also going to France to ask for help from his majesty. The former has the greater concern because he is the Superior of the Mission to the Hurons. He is one of the greatest and most zealous missionaries of New France, but I esteem him more for his great sanctity than for all his natural abilities and graces. We hope to see him again next year.

When I finished speaking to you about Fr. Ragueneau just now, someone came to tell me he was asking for me to say goodbye. He has promised to see you, and with this in mind he wrote down your name. He is one of the best friends of our seminary and one who has a deep knowledge of the graces that the Divine Goodness has bestowed there. He has told me again, that in his experience of the strength and fury of the Iroquois, he feels that unless we receive prompt help from France, or unless it pleases God to assist the country in some extraordinary way that all is lost. This is not an exaggeration. From my own small store of knowledge, I tell you the same thing.

You can tell by this that while we wait for help we remain in the pure providence of God. For myself, my very dear son, I am so happy in this state and my spirit and my heart so content that they could not be more so. Should it happen that next year someone brings you news of my death, bless God and offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass for me and also obtain for me the suffrages of your holy Congregation which has always been so dear to me. Should God call me to himself, and should He be pleased to grant me this mercy, your Congregation will be even more dear to me and I will be in a better state to beg his Divine Majesty and to win for it His holy blessing.

I am very happy that God has detached you from creatures and from the love or claim of love that you could expect from them. My dear son, the Kingdom of peace is to be found in a heart devoid of all things and which, through a holy hatred of self, is pleased to destroy the remains of corrupt nature from which even the holiest suffer right up to the moment of their death and which is the true motive of their humiliation.

When a soul enters into this truth and is convinced of it by personal experience, she humbles herself not only before God in her interior and exterior operations where she is forever discovering new faults but also before creatures taking pleasure in accusing herself publicly of her faults and undergoing the penance and the confusion. She does not reject the fault although somebody else may be partly to blame. She attributes all to herself and is convinced she is full of malice which she is unaware of and which others have not discovered. She is persuaded that she alone deserves punishment on the part of God by being deprived of His great favours and on the part of creatures who, taking the side of God correct us, each in her own way. There are many other means of practising humility which derive from their contraries. The glorious Father St Benedict, speaks of it, as well as practising it. He is your patron and your Father, who draws on you the influence of this spirit which is experienced interiorly better than it can be spoken of. Ask him to obtain for me this great virtue because it makes saints. The five servants of God, who were martyred, were so humble before martyrdom that they astonished those who had the privilege of living with them. I’d have to write a very long letter if I were to give you all the particulars - but time does not permit me to write at greater length.

I have answered in another letter the means you suggest for training some Indians so that they would win their companions to the Faith. In addition to what I am writing to you, you should speak about this to Fr. Daran. He will tell you that even should the country recover, it would always be necessary to depend on Europe for preachers of the Gospel, for the nature of the American Indians, even of the most holy and spiritual, is not suited for ecclesiastical roles but rather to be taught and led gently to the path of Heaven. It is this that makes one wonder in this collapse if perhaps God wishes to have here only a transient Church.

It is true that Fr. de Brébeuf had received that sacred gift I have spoken to you about. Fr. Gamier, one of those who won the crown this year, had it eminently. My dear son, you will never know this through study, or through the power of speculation but only through humble prayer and in submission of soul before the feet of the crucifix. This Adorable Word, Incarnate and Crucified, is the living source of this spirit. It is He who apportions it to chosen souls who are most dear to Him so that they will follow and learn His Divine maxims and by this practice, I repeat, consume themselves to the end in imitation of Him.

This Holy Spirit, this union of which I have spoken, is not that of glory but only a foretaste. And do not think that it always makes work easy, for it does not always make itself felt in the senses. But it does give, in the depth of the soul, an invincible strength for bearing heavy and painful things. It would be necessary to have a large book to describe the life of this Father, animated by this Holy Spirit. He was eminently humble, gentle, obedient, and filled with virtues acquired through great labour. It was gratifying to see the consequences of his virtues in practical affairs. He was in a continual colloquy and familiar conversation with God. Pierced with wounds he was still moved by charity making an effort to drag himself towards a poor woman who, having received a number of hatchet blows, was in a desperate plight and needed to be helped to die well.

Fr. Chabanel, one of those who was massacred this year, had the strongest possible aversion to living in the cabins of the Indians. On this account one had often wished to exempt him and send him to other missions where he would not be so engaged in this kind of life. But through an extraordinary generosity of spirit he made a vow to persevere there and to die there if it pleased God to show him His Mercy Nevertheless, his superior, knowing that he was extremely tired with the work of the mission, recalled him, it was during this return voyage that he was taken and killed. No one knows who his murderers are or what they have done with his body. Whatever happened, he died in an act of obedience.

The other Fathers who have returned from far off missions have suffered so excruciatingly that there is no human language to express it. I do not exaggerate; and if Fr. Daran does not conceal it through his profound humility, ask him for some of the details of his sufferings, for his experience has made him an authority. I give you these examples in order to convince you that our union is never stronger than in the works suffered in imitation of and for the love of Jesus Christ who at the moment of his suffering and especially at the point of death reached the highest degree of union with God, His Father for the love of mankind. This sweet and loving union is beatitude already begun in mortal flesh and its merit is in acts of charity towards God and neighbour and the other Theological virtues. But in the union of which I speak which is a consequence of those acts of charity there is a question of giving one’s life m a consummation of work which leads to a resemblance to Jesus Christ. Certainly one must give this first place while waiting for another life to understand its merit and its excellence, for at present our language is unable to describe it properly.

I bless you for the desire he has given you to suffer martyrdom. You are still young, my dear son, and if you wish to be faithful to grace, you will suffer a long one, even though you remain in your solitude. This desire ought to be for you a powerful goad to lead a life penitential mortified and regular. This is the martyrdom you must suffer and which God asks of you while waiting, perhaps, for some opportunity that his Divine Majesty keeps for you and which you can neither expect nor foresee. You must arm yourself, however, with the virtues required for such an elevated grace; yet after all your good dispositions, you must still acknowledge yourself as unworthy.

I agree with you that the lack of money may well hinder the expedition at Rome. Besides, I see that the affairs of the country will keep things in suspense. There are three things one must consider in our circumstances. The first is that neither we nor all of Canada can exist for two more years without help. The second, according to the most knowledgeable, people must either die or return to France. Nevertheless, I feel if our enemy goes to war with the Neutral Nation and the Andastoue this will provide a diversion that will enable us to subsist a little longer. But if they continue their conquests and victories, there will be nothing more for the French to do here. Trade will not be able to be carried on; if there is no trade no more ships will come. If the ships no longer come everything necessary for living will be lacking - such as cloth, linens, the greater part of our food, bacon and flour, which the garrison and the Religious houses cannot do without. It is not that people do not work hard and that no food is produced, but the country still does not produce what is necessary to subsist.

The third thing which slows our affairs is that, if trade decreases because of the constant warfare, the Indians, who only stop here in order to trade will slip off into the woods. Thus we will not need a Bull any longer since there will be nothing for us to do, we who are here only to attract the Indians to the Faith and win them for God. You can see from this that a Bishop would never come here in a period so full of disaster. In addition, the Church being only transitory would have no need of a pastor. I am speaking according to the conjecture that God will permit the crises that we fear. Since this Church is in such obvious danger, do me the kindness of performing some devotion before a statue of the most holy Virgin so that she will be pleased to take it under her protection. Pray for me too and for our election which we will have during the Pentecost week.

This danger and these fears do not in any way diminish the worship which the French and the Indians are accustomed to offer to God. You would have been deeply touched to see the procession in Quebec on the day of the Assumption of the Mother of Goodness. Two Fathers of the Company of Jesus carried her picture raised on a litter, nicely decorated, to the three Religions houses designated as stations. As the places are a good distance from one another, too other Fathers were prepared to take their place and relieve them in their duty. Besides a large number of French, there were about six hundred Indians walking in order. The devotion of these neophytes was so profound that it drew tears from the eyes of those who watched them. Out of courtesy I had watched from a place where I could not be seen; and I assure you that I have never seen in France a procession so orderly and apparently so devout. With the Indians this always strikes me anew, for I think of what they were before they knew God and of what they are now that they know Him. This touches me more than I can tell you. From this you can imagine how much I suffer to see the power that the barbarous Iroquois exercise over them. My dear son, how happy I would be, how content if all this persecution would fall on me. Present this desire to the Holy Virgin to whom I will gladly present yours.

I have written this letter in several stages and in the meantime there is always some news. The captive who escaped from the Iroquois reports the warriors from the Andouesteronon and the Neutral Nation have taken two hundred Iroquois prisoners. If this is true they will treat them horribly and this will be an added threat for us. This captive will be here for a fortnight before revealing all he knows, for it is the custom of the Indians to say what they know only little by little over the course of several days. This makes the French impatient, for they are quick in spirit and would like to know everything all at once, above all when it concerns important matters reported by a single messenger.

Since I wrote the above, two more Hurons have escaped from the captivity of the Iroquois. They are both good Christians in their hearts and catechumens in fact. Their desire for baptism led them to make strenuous efforts by long journey through the woods without any provisions. They reported that our two Algonquins from Sillery who were captured last June were burned manifesting profound sentiments of Faith and Religion. One of them, for love of whom I write you this note, was particularly marked by zeal and fervour. He was about twenty-two years old, and was my spiritual son who loved me as much or more than his own mother. He was three days and three nights in the most horrible torture in ridicule of the Faith which he confessed with his last breath. These Indians said to him in mockery, “Where is your God? He doesn’t help you.” Then they would begin to torture him again, mocking him saying, “Pray to your God and see if he will help you”.

This courageous servant of God redoubled his prayers and his praise of Him for whose love he suffered. He sang naturally very well and this enraged these Indians. He was named Joseph and had been raised in the Faith by Father Le Jeune almost from his infancy. In your opinion, don’t I have a good son? He is rather my father and my advocate with God; I am overcome in my love for him at the exalted grace he has received in persevering with such generosity. He was a young man perfectly formed and extremely modest, but I praise only his fidelity. If one came to tell me the same news of you, my dearest son, who could express the joy that I would feel! But it is not within our power to choose these signal graces; they are among the treasures God gives to chosen souls.

I must end this letter with this final wish which is one of the greatest evidences of my affection for the person who is dearest to me in this world.
From Quebec. 30 Aug. 1650.
p. 153 – 157.