Isaac Jogues

          Isaac Jogues is one of eight French Jesuit missionaries killed for the faith in North America, three in what is now the United States and five in present-day Canada.  Born in Orléans, France, Isaac was raised primarily by his mother after his father died while Isaac was still a child.  In 1617, Isaac began studying at the Jesuit college and he entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1624.  From the beginning of his novitiate, Isaac wanted to serve as a foreign missionary, originally thinking he’d head to Africa. But a spiritual director informed him of the Jesuits’ work in New France among the Iroquois and the Hurons.  After that, serving in New France would be Isaac Jogues’ focus.

          In 1629, while serving as a professor in Rouen, Isaac Jogues met Father John De Brebouf and Father Charles Laelemant, one who was to be a fellow North American Martyr and the uncle of another.  Their stories fortified his desire to serve in New France as a missionary, which he began in Quebec, at the age of twenty-nine, after ordination in 1636.  Father Isaac’s early years in New France introduced him to the difficult but joyous life of the missions.  He suffered serious illnesses but recovered.  He learned the Iroquoian language and accompanied his fellow Jesuits in their visits to villages, baptizing children and instructing people in the faith, often to those at the risk of death.  Isaac was also the first European to see parts of North America.  For example, he named Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains in New York Lac Saint-Sacrement (or “Lake of the Blessed Sacrament”) and it is reported that Father Jogues was among the first Europeans to see Lake Superior.  Interactions with the native people were mixed for the French Jesuits.  Some received them well and converted.  Others blamed the Jesuits for illnesses suffered by their people or pestilence destroying crops.  

          On a journey to Quebec for supplies desperately needed by the mission at Fort Sainte-Marie, Isaac’s flotilla was attacked by the Mohawks.  Several Huron were killed, and Father Isaac and another saint featured on American Saints and Causes, René Goupil, were captured and taken prisoners to the Mohawk village of Ossernenon.  Jogues and his companions were tortured and injured by the Mohawks.  Isaac’s fingernails were torn off, his thumb sawed off, his flesh burned by coals and irons, and was otherwise beaten and brutalized.  On September 29, 1642, he witnessed the martyrdom of René Goupil, who was killed by three blows of a tomahawk.  Some say Father Isaac would have suffered the same fate at that time were it not for the intercession of Dutch traders from around present-day Albany, although they did not secure his release.  Jogues spent 13 months in captivity.  While in captivity, Father Isaac carried on his ministry, tending to new prisoners and baptizing them.  He cared for dying children of the Mohawks.  Writing to the Governor of Quebec, Father Isaac announced he planned to stay “as long as it pleases our Lord, and not to seek my freedom,” because he did “not wish to deprive the French, Huron and Algonquin prisoners of my help which they get from my ministry. I have given baptism to many who have since gone to heaven.”     

          But in time the Dutch were able to ransom his freedom and Father Jogues returned to France in 1643.   Publication of the Jesuit Relations was widely read in France and news that a missionary from North America who had suffered greatly was present in France led to much interest in Isaac.  Because of the mutilation of his hands, Father Jogues had to seek the approval of the Pope to reinstate his privileges for saying Mass, which Urban VIII granted, considering him a living martyr.  While time in France did well for his health, Father Isaac longed to return to the Huron people in New France.  In 1644, he traveled to the nascent Montreal.   Negotiation of a peace treaty between New France and the Iroquois Confederacy took place and, in 1646, Isaac was selected as one of a group of ambassadors to establish a French embassy among the Iroquois. For Father Jogues, this meant returning to the place of his torture and imprisonment, which he did willingly.  The diplomatic trip secured a fragile peace that, unbeknown to Father Jogues, started to fall apart after his return to Three Rivers in what is now known as Quebec.  The diplomatic trip’s other fruit was to reaffirm for Father Jogues his desire to bring the Gospel to the Iroquois.  Before leaving, he left with the Iroquois a box of personal belongings, which he intended to recollect on his return to them.  While he was gone, the Iroquois suffered disease and pestilence, and blamed it on Father Jogues’ box which they superstitiously believed must have contained an evil spirit placed in it by Father Jogues. 

          In September 1646, Isaac set off to return to the Iroqouis in Ossernenon, with Jean de Lalande, another saint featured on American Saints and Causes, and several Hurons. Instead of being welcomed in peace, the Mohawks captured Father Jogues and his companions, beating and torturing them. Isaac Jogues’ captivity and earthly life came to an end on October 18, 1646, when he was tomahawked and beheaded. Today, on the site of that Mohawk village of Ossernenon, stands Our Lady of Martyrs Shrine, dedicated to the witness to Christ of the North American Martyrs.