ST. PAUL – Relics of the Canadian Martyrs will be in St. Paul on Jan. 23 as part of a winter tour of Western Canada for the 2025 Jubilee Year.
The relics include the skull of St. Jean de Brébeuf, and the bones of both St. Charles Garnier and St. Gabriel Lalemant. The three men are French missionaries who were martyred during the Huron-Iroquois Wars of the 1600’s, according to the website for Martyr’s Shrine in Midland, ON where the relics are ordinarily kept.
Also joining them will be a relic of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first North American indigenous saint and the secondary patroness of the Diocese of St. Paul.
According to Bishop Gary Franken, venerating relics is an ancient Catholic tradition which goes back to the Hebrew Scriptures. In 2 Kings, there is a story of “someone who died a soldier, and he was placed on the on the bones of the prophet Elisha, and that brought him back to life.”
He said the story reflects the pre-Christian understanding and recognition of the bones as a way to connect with the person and “more importantly, and especially with God’s work in that person.”
“This person responded to the Holy Spirit, to the grace of our Lord Jesus in their life, and lived and often died as a martyr in a way that was exemplative of God shining through. And we can see these relics as we call them, these bones, and by way of that physical reality be brought back to the spiritual reality of God had worked in this person, and I'm asking God to work in me as well. And asking that saint who is with God to pray for us to God, that God will work in us as well,” said Franken.
The relics will be exposed in the Cathedral from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. People are invited to come and pray with them during the day. An evening mass which is open to all will follow.
St. Jean de Brébeuf
St. Jean de Brébeuf was a Jesuit priest and missionary who came to Canada in 1625 and lived in Wendake for nearly 25 years. A friend of the Wendat, especially the Bear Clan, Brébeuf wrote a French-Wendat dictionary and composed The Huron Carol, a hymn which tells the Christmas story. Brébeuf was captured, tortured, and killed with his companion St. Gabriel Lalemant in 1649.
St. Gabriel Lalemant
St. Gabriel Lalemant was a Jesuit priest and missionary who came to Canada in 1646. He spent two years in and around Trois-Rivières, QC before being sent to join St. Jean de Brébeuf in Wendake as an assistant. He studied the Wendat language diligently and became head of the Saint-Louis mission. Lalemant was captured, tortured, and killed alongside Brébeuf in 1649.
St. Charles Garnier
St. Charles Garnier was a Jesuit priest who came to Canada in 1636. He was a missionary to the Tobacco Nation on the shores of Georgian Bay, which is part of Lake Huron. He was killed by the Iroquois during an attack on the village of Saint-Jean in 1649.
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, also called Lily of the Mohawks is the first North American indigenous saint in the Catholic Church. She survived a smallpox epidemic which killed her brother and parents, but left her face deeply scarred. Tekakwitha became Catholic when she was 19 and fled her community. She never married and is regarded as a consecrated virgin. When she died in 1680 at age 23 or 24, the smallpox scars disappeared.
