Saint Stanislaus Kostka, SJ, Born for Greater Things

St. Stanislaus Kostka

 Stanislaus Kostka was born in 1550 at Rostkowo, in Poland, into a family of the nobility. His father, Jan, was a senator and castellan, and his mother, Małgorzata, also came from a distinguished family. Their son’s position offered the prospect of a comfortable and influential future. Yet the direction of his life would lead him away from those expectations. Before reaching adulthood, he would leave familiar surroundings and undertake a long journey to follow his vocation to the Society of Jesus.

In 1564, Stanislaus and his older brother, Paweł, traveled to Vienna with their tutor to study at the Jesuit college. Stanislaus applied himself to his studies and developed a strong life of prayer. A contemporary account from the college describes his perseverance, frequent reception of the sacraments, and progress in rhetoric. His brother reacted harshly to his religious seriousness, subjecting him to insults and physical mistreatment. The years in Vienna brought both an education and a difficult struggle to remain faithful to his convictions.

During a serious illness in 1565, Stanislaus urgently desired to receive Holy Communion. Accounts of his life relate extraordinary experiences during this sickness. He reportedly saw Saint Barbara accompanied by angels who brought him the Eucharist. He also described a vision of the Blessed Virgin placing the Child Jesus in his arms. He understood the Marian experience as a call to enter the Jesuits. These reported visions became an important part of the devotion surrounding him, expressing his deep attachment to the Eucharist and to Mary.

After recovering, Stanislaus sought admission to the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits in Vienna hesitated because his parents opposed the decision and they feared the consequences of accepting him. A surviving account records his repeated requests and his conviction that his family would never grant permission. His wish persisted despite these refusals. Eventually, he decided to seek admission elsewhere. In the summer of 1567, he left Vienna secretly, exchanging the clothing of a young nobleman for the simple garments of a poor traveler.

His departure began a demanding journey on foot. His brother pursued him, but failed to bring him back. Stanislaus traveled toward Augsburg and then continued to Dillingen, where he met the Jesuit provincial, Saint Peter Canisius. He explained his desire to enter the order and presented a letter of introduction from a Jesuit in Vienna. The young man who had encountered resistance now found a superior willing to examine his vocation and help him continue toward religious life.

Canisius tested his determination through humble duties at the college. Stanislaus helped in the kitchen and performed ordinary tasks, accepting work very different from the privileges associated with his upbringing. Canisius’s surviving letter praises his faithfulness to the responsibilities entrusted to him and his perseverance in his vocation. He sent Stanislaus to Rome with two young Jesuits and a recommendation for the superior general, Saint Francis Borgia. His letter ended with a hopeful judgment. “We hope for great things from him.”

Stanislaus reached Rome in October 1567. Borgia received him, and surviving records confirm his admission to the novitiate on October 28. His long journey had brought him into the religious community he had sought so persistently. During his formation, the novitiate moved to Saint Andrew on the Quirinal. There, his vocation took shape through prayer, instruction, and community duties. Accounts of these months remember his joyful service of God. He remained a novice, still at the beginning of his preparation for Jesuit life.

In August 1568, Stanislaus became seriously ill with fever. Early accounts record that he wrote to the Blessed Virgin, asking to celebrate the feast of her Assumption with her in heaven. As his condition worsened, he received the Eucharist and was accompanied by members of the community. He died in Rome during the early hours of August 15, the feast of the Assumption, at seventeen. His novitiate had lasted less than a year. He had reached neither ordination nor a long ministry, but his brief religious life left a lasting reputation for holiness.

Pope Paul V beatified Stanislaus in 1605, and Pope Benedict XIII canonized him on December 31, 1726. His remains are venerated at Sant’Andrea al Quirinale in Rome. The Jesuits celebrate his feast on November 13 and honor him as the patron of their novices. The motto associated with him, Ad maiora natus sum, means “I was born for greater things.” His story gives those words a particular meaning through the sacrifices of a young man who pursued friendship with Christ and faithfully embraced the ordinary duties of his vocation.

For a devotional image of St. Stanislaus Kostka, click here: Maryvale Catholic Press

The North American Jesuit Martyrs

 

St. Jean de Brébeuf, SJ

In the seventeenth century, eight French missionaries crossed the Atlantic to bring the Gospel to the peoples of North America. They arrived at different times, bringing different talents and temperaments. Six were Jesuit priests. Two came as helpers who offered their labor and skills to the missions. Their lives would become joined in the Church’s memory as the North American Jesuit Martyrs.

Their mission required more than an ocean crossing. From the French settlements along the Saint Lawrence River, they traveled great distances by canoe and on foot. Rapids forced travelers to carry boats and supplies over land. Winter brought severe cold, while warmer months brought clouds of insects. Food and supplies were often uncertain. The missionaries had asked to serve in these distant places, but their commitment had to be renewed through the ordinary difficulties of each day.

Much of their work centered on the Wendat people, whom the French called the Huron. The missionaries entered communities with their own languages, customs, beliefs, and political relationships. They depended on Indigenous guides and hospitality, studied unfamiliar speech, and learned ways of living far removed from those of France. Their work also unfolded amid devastating epidemics and warfare. French alliances and European competition for trade drew the missions into conflicts that threatened entire communities.

St. Isaac Jogues, SJ

Among the earliest missionaries was Father Jean de Brébeuf, who arrived in Quebec in 1625. Born in Normandy, he possessed considerable physical strength and a patient determination to understand the people he served. During his first winter, he accompanied Indigenous hunters and began learning how to travel and survive in their country. When he reached Wendat territory in 1626, he devoted himself to studying the language, customs, and religious beliefs of his hosts.

Brébeuf’s ability with languages became an important resource for the mission. He prepared linguistic materials and translated a catechism, helping other missionaries communicate the Christian faith. Yet learning the language did not bring immediate success. Years of effort followed. The English capture of Quebec forced him back to France in 1629, but he returned to New France in 1633 and resumed work among the Wendat the following year. He also taught his companions what he had learned, preparing them for the demands of their vocation.

St. René Goupil

Father Isaac Jogues arrived in New France in 1636, shortly after beginning his priestly ministry. He joined Brébeuf’s mission and started learning the Wendat language. In 1642, while returning from a journey to obtain supplies, Jogues traveled with Indigenous companions and René Goupil, a French surgeon serving the Jesuits. A Mohawk war party captured them. Both men suffered torture, and Jogues sustained lasting injuries to his hands. During captivity, Goupil asked to enter the Society of Jesus as a brother, and Jogues received his vows.

Goupil’s path to the mission had already required perseverance. He had entered the Jesuit novitiate in France but left because of poor health. His desire to serve God continued, and his medical skills offered another way to assist the missionaries. He came to New France and placed those skills at their service. Now, as a captive, he remained beside Jogues. After making the Sign of the Cross over a child, a gesture that aroused suspicion, Goupil was killed on September 29, 1642. He became the first of the eight to die.

St. John de Lalande

Jogues survived. With Dutch assistance, he eventually escaped and returned to France. His mutilated hands made celebrating Mass difficult under the Church’s requirements at the time, but Pope Urban VIII granted him permission to celebrate. After all he had endured, Jogues returned to New France and again undertook missionary work. His return gave a particularly striking witness to the depth of his commitment. The country where he had suffered remained the country in which he wished to serve Christ.

In September 1646, Jogues set out for Mohawk territory with Jean de Lalande, a lay missionary helper. Their journey ended in renewed hostility. An epidemic and other misfortunes had intensified suspicion of the missionaries, who were blamed for bringing harm to the community. Jogues was killed at Ossernenon on October 18. Lalande was killed the following day. Through his service and death, this lay companion shared the missionaries’ offering of their lives to God.

St. Antoine Daniel, SJ

Meanwhile, Father Antoine Daniel continued his work among the Wendat. His interest in the missions had grown through encounters with a Wendat youth studying in France and with Brébeuf himself. Daniel became especially effective in teaching children. He set prayers and Christian instruction to music, helping his young listeners remember what they learned. He also directed a school for Indigenous boys near Quebec before returning to the villages, where he spent years preaching and administering the sacraments.

On July 4, 1648, an attacking force struck Daniel’s mission. As the community faced destruction, he remained to minister to those in danger of death. His years of teaching and pastoral care culminated in this final act of service. He was killed, and his body was thrown into the burning chapel. The priest who had taught children their prayers died while bringing the consolations of the faith to his people.

Father Gabriel Lalemant had also long desired missionary work. A scholar and teacher with fragile health, he repeatedly asked to be sent to New France. Permission finally came, and he arrived in Quebec in 1646. After preparation and language study, he reached the mission headquarters at Sainte-Marie in 1648. Early the following year, he began accompanying Brébeuf on visits to neighboring villages. His years of preparation would lead to only a brief period of active ministry.

St. Gabriel Lalemant, SJ

In March 1649, Brébeuf and Lalemant were at the village the missionaries called Saint-Louis. An attack on a nearby settlement warned them of the danger approaching. They remained with the community. On March 16, the village was overwhelmed, and both priests were captured and taken to another village, Saint-Ignace. There they endured prolonged torture. Brébeuf died on March 16, and Lalemant on March 17. The experienced missionary and his newer companion shared the same final witness to Christ.

Father Charles Garnier’s missionary vocation had faced resistance even before he left France. His wealthy father opposed his desire to serve overseas, but Garnier persisted. In New France, he studied the Wendat language and eventually worked among the neighboring Petun people. Early attempts met with distrust, yet he returned and continued his work. When reports of an approaching attack reached him in 1649, he remained with the community he served.

St. Charles Garnier, SJ

On December 7, the attack came. Garnier was wounded by gunfire, but he tried to reach another wounded person before an attacker killed him. His final effort continued the work to which he had devoted his missionary life. Even while gravely injured, he sought to help someone else. He was buried among the people he had come to bring to Christ.

Father Noël Chabanel’s struggles were different. A capable teacher in France, he arrived in New France in 1643 with high hopes. Yet years of effort brought little progress in the Wendat language. The food, housing, smoke, noise, and lack of privacy remained difficult for him. He also endured spiritual desolation. His missionary life offered few of the consolations he might have expected. Still, he continued celebrating Mass and serving as he could.

In 1647, Chabanel made a special vow to remain in the Wendat mission, subject to the direction of his Jesuit superiors. His promise expressed a fidelity that continued through 

St. Noël Chabanel, SJ

discouragement. On December 8, 1649, he was killed. Missionary accounts identified his killer as a Wendat man who had abandoned Christianity and resented the missionaries. Chabanel was the last of the eight martyrs to die. His perseverance completed a story marked by many different forms of courage.

Pope Pius XI canonized the eight together on June 29, 1930. Their feast is celebrated on October 19 in the United States and September 26 in Canada. Shrines at Auriesville, New York, and Midland, Ontario, preserve their memory and welcome pilgrims who come to pray.

Their witness began years before their deaths. It took shape in language lessons, journeys, teaching, prayer, and the repeated decision to continue serving. Some showed remarkable gifts. Others struggled to accomplish what they had hoped. The Church honors them together because each carried his commitment to Christ through suffering to the offering of his life.

For devotional images of the North American Martyrs: 

St. Isaac Jogues, SJ
St. Jean de Brébeuf, SJ
St. René Goupil
St. Antoine Daniel, SJ
St. John de Lalande
St. Charles Garnier, SJ
St. Noël Chabanel, SJ
St. Gabriel Lalemant, SJ

Saint Francis Borgia, SJ, The Duke Who Gave His Life to God

St. Francis Borgia, SJ

Francis Borgia was born on October 28, 1510, in Gandía, Spain, into a family connected to some of Europe’s most powerful people. He was a great grandson of Pope Alexander VI and grew up with the privileges and responsibilities of the Spanish nobility. His life would include marriage, fatherhood, government, and religious leadership. Through each of these callings, he gradually learned to place his gifts at the service of God.

As a young man, Francis entered the court of Emperor Charles V. In 1529, he married Leonor de Castro, a Portuguese noblewoman who served Empress Isabella. They became the parents of eight children. Francis held important positions in the imperial household, where court life brought him close to wealth and authority. Yet the responsibilities of marriage and public service also formed part of the life through which his faith would deepen.

In 1539, Empress Isabella died, and Francis accompanied her funeral procession to Granada. According to the traditional account of his life, seeing her body during its identification confronted him with the passing nature of earthly beauty and greatness. This experience became a turning point in his spiritual life. He devoted himself more intensely to prayer and penance. As viceroy of Catalonia, he continued to carry serious public responsibilities while cultivating a deeper relationship with God.

Francis became the fourth Duke of Gandía in 1543. Three years later, Leonor died, bringing another profound change to his life. Already acquainted with the Jesuits, he sought to enter their community. Saint Ignatius of Loyola welcomed his request but advised him to arrange his children’s affairs and complete his theological studies before making his new vocation public. Francis’s movement toward religious life therefore unfolded gradually, with attention to the responsibilities he already carried.

He made his Jesuit vows privately in 1548 and completed a doctorate in theology in 1550. In 1551, he relinquished his ducal title to his son Carlos and was ordained a priest. The former court official now served through preaching and ordinary priestly ministry. The Church remembers his humility, his demanding life of prayer, and his devotion to the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. His surrender involved both his position and his daily way of living.

Francis’s experience in government became valuable to the growing Society of Jesus. He received responsibility for its work in Spain and Portugal and, in 1565, was elected its third superior general. He strengthened the training of young Jesuits, supported organized novitiates and houses of study, and encouraged schools for students outside the order. These efforts helped give the expanding community the preparation and structure needed for its work. His practical abilities became instruments of a much wider mission.

Alongside these responsibilities, Francis urged his fellow Jesuits to cultivate their interior lives. In an April 1569 letter to the Society, he emphasized charity, purity of intention, and familiar union with God. He encouraged meditation on Christ crucified as a remedy for spiritual weakness. For Francis, the work of teaching, preaching, and guiding others depended upon a living relationship with Jesus. His leadership joined careful organization with the conviction that prayer must sustain the community’s activity.

In 1571, Francis accompanied Cardinal Michele Bonelli on a papal diplomatic mission. The journey proved exhausting, and Francis became seriously ill. His return to Rome required periods of rest along the way. He finally reached the city in September 1572, with his health failing. On September 30, he died at the age of sixty one, after seven years of leading the Society of Jesus.

Pope Urban VIII beatified Francis in 1624, and Pope Clement X canonized him on April 12, 1671. The Jesuits celebrate his feast on October 3. His life offers a witness to faith expressed through family responsibilities, prayer, humility, and service. The nobleman who once helped govern territories eventually helped prepare others to carry the Gospel across the world, placing the abilities developed throughout his life in God’s hands.

For a devotional image of St. Francis Borgia, click here: Maryvale Catholic Press

Father Sébastien Rale, SJ, The Shepherd of the Kennebec

Fr. Sébastien Rale, SJ

Sébastien Rale was born in Pontarlier, France, in 1657. In 1675, he entered the Society of Jesus at Dole, beginning the years of study and formation that prepared him for missionary priesthood. He taught in France before volunteering for the missions of North America. In 1689, he crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Quebec. His vocation would eventually carry him to the banks of the Kennebec River in what is now Maine.

His first missionary assignment brought him among the Abenaki near Quebec. To teach the faith, he needed to learn their language. He spent time listening closely to conversations, studying unfamiliar sounds, and recording the words he learned. This patient work became the beginning of his Abenaki and French dictionary. After serving for about two years among the Illinois people, he returned east, bringing his experience of learning, teaching, and adapting to life far from France.

During the 1690s, Father Rale began the ministry at Norridgewock that would occupy most of his remaining life. The Abenaki village stood beside the Kennebec, at a site now within Madison, Maine. There, he preached, instructed converts, and administered the sacraments. A church became a center of the community’s Catholic life. His knowledge of the language allowed him to explain Christian teaching and hear the concerns of the people he served.

His letters describe the daily responsibilities behind that ministry. People came to him with grief, troubled consciences, marriage questions, and disagreements within their families. He tried to console them and restore peace. He also cared for the sick and provided medicines. In a letter to his brother, he described the community’s prayers, its chanting of the Divine Office, and its participation in confession and the Eucharist. Some days became so crowded with requests that he had to withdraw to find time for his own prayer.

The mission existed amid the competing ambitions of France and England. English settlement along the Kennebec threatened Abenaki control of their homeland, and Father Rale supported resistance to those encroachments. He also maintained connections with French colonial authorities, whose interests included preserving Abenaki alliances. His pastoral responsibilities became entangled with diplomacy and warfare. English officials regarded him as a dangerous agent of French influence, while he understood the community’s land and continued access to Catholic ministry as matters requiring defense.

Violence repeatedly disrupted the village. In 1705, an English expedition burned its church. In January 1722, another force raided Norridgewock, seeking to capture Father Rale. He escaped, but the attackers seized his strongbox and papers. His dictionary manuscript also passed into English hands and eventually reached Harvard. The manuscript survived the destruction surrounding its author, preserving a record of the language he had spent years learning from the Abenaki themselves.

As danger increased, members of his community urged him to seek safety in Quebec. In a 1722 letter to his nephew, Father Rale explained why he remained. He asked what would happen to the flock without its shepherd and wrote, “Death alone can separate me from them.” He requested prayers that Christ would strengthen this resolve. His words reveal the conviction that sustained his decision to continue serving people whose lives were increasingly burdened by war and insecurity.

On August 23, 1724, a force of New England militia attacked Norridgewock. Father Rale was killed, along with many Abenaki, and the village was destroyed. Accounts differ about his final moments. His Jesuit superior, reporting information received from an Abenaki survivor, described him drawing the attackers’ attention to help others escape. English accounts placed his death inside a cabin. These conflicting reports leave the precise circumstances uncertain. What is established is that the priest died during the attack on the community he had served for decades.

Survivors returned to bury him near his ruined church. Catholics have long remembered Father Rale as a martyr, although he has not been beatified or canonized. Pilgrims still gather at Old Point to remember his ministry and pray. His letters preserve the voice of a priest occupied with teaching, reconciliation, sickness, prayer, and the sacraments. They also preserve his expressed determination to remain with his people, even when staying placed his own life in danger.

For a devotional image of Fr. Rale, click here: Maryvale Catholic Press