Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
The words of today's Gospel call to mind the saint that we celebrate today,
Saint André Bessette.
The Gospel says,
At the age of 91, he was the ninth of 13 children.
And right from the day of his birth, he was always of frail health.
In fact, they thought he was going to die immediately after his birth,
and so he was baptized immediately.
And he had his father, who was a lumberjack.
Okay.
As God often does with the saints,
he has them experience all kinds of trials,
and he didn't spare Saint André Bessette from his childhood with the bad health,
but also with losing his parents when he was relatively young.
So his father was a lumberjack and died in an accident at work.
He was basically crushed by a tree when Saint André was only nine years old.
And then three years later, when he was 12,
he lost his mother to tuberculosis.
Okay.
So at 12 years old, he finds himself without his parents.
Nevertheless, he still had the faith.
So he overcomes these trials by faith,
and he trusts in God's providence,
and he keeps himself busy doing what kind of work he can.
He was a very simple man,
never really learned how to read,
and write.
And actually, he's specially celebrated here in this diocese of Norwich,
because he came down,
and when he was 18 years old,
came down from Canada,
and worked in the textile mills,
and also as a farm hand in the Moosup, Putnam,
and Danielson, those towns.
And, but he eventually returned to Canada,
and decided to enter religious life.
He applied to the Congregation of the Holy Cross
at the request of his pastor.
His pastor thought he was a saintly man.
In fact, the letter of recommendation
that he sent to the Congregation,
he said,
I am sending you a saint.
He was well known for his prayer,
his piety,
his goodness of heart.
But the Congregation didn't want to accept him.
Why?
Because of his frail health.
Okay, you see the trials that God sends to his servants.
So it actually took the intervention of the bishop
in order for the Congregation to accept him.
So he enters,
and again, with simplicity,
is assigned as a brother to be porter.
And Saint Andre used to joke that
40 years ago,
when I entered the Order,
they showed me the door,
and I have never left.
And so he stays there,
fulfilling his duties faithfully,
and visiting the sick.
And he had a great devotion to Saint Joseph.
He used to use the oil from the lamp
that burned near the statue of Saint Joseph
to go and just bless the people with it
when he was visiting the sick.
And some of them began to be cured.
Right?
And so he was contributing the cure
to the holiness of Saint Andre.
He, of course, in his humility,
would attribute it to the intercession of Saint Joseph.
And so his reputation as a miracle worker
and a healer spread,
and gradually thousands of people
came to visit him at Saint Joseph's.
And he received, at the end,
80,000 letters a year from the faithful.
And he had to have four secretaries employed
to help him deal with all of this correspondence.
At his funeral, he had a million people
show up to pay their homage and respect.
So he's known, again,
just for his simple prayer,
practicing the presence of God,
his charity towards his neighbor,
especially those who are suffering,
and who are sick.
And in this sense,
he's an example for all of us,
just simply living the faith
in the vocation that God has called us to,
and persevering to the end.
Saint Andre, pray for us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
© transcript Emily Beynon