The example of our holy founders,

who built our Church,

can mightily motivate us to put

God’s project at the center of our life.

If God has a love project for the human beings He has created as a unity, He also has one for each and everyone of us because He wants us to enjoy life abundantly. Every event, every person is an occasion to achieve God’s project during the lifetime we have received.
By remaining watchful to providential events and faithful to the grace of the present moment, we will more easily discern the path God has drawn for us so we can invest ourselves in it with the utmost freedom and a full conscience.
However, in order to progress in this commitment, space is needed in our life to better grasp the movements of the loving Spirit, better forget ourselves, so that our involvement will be complete and fruitful.
The example of our holy founders, who built our Church, can mightily motivate us to put God’s project at the center of our life.
Following the founders of the Canadian Church, let us commit ourselves to be sowers of peace and love in our own time, so that God’s project will be realized, welcoming all of humankind fully in His Life.

Citation of Marie de l’Incarnation Listen to the video

I know well I won’t go [in Ontario] but the desire for the Glory of God in gaining souls consumes me […].I am thinking not of the present but of the future, making myself happy to be employed in laying the foundation of this great Church. You will say that I am not wise in declaring these feelings at the age of fifty-three. But think as you please, if someone was to say to me : ‘You must now go to the Indies, or to China, or to the Iroquois“, I am ready to go, dear Mother.

Lettre CLI de Québec à la Mère Françoise de S. Bernard, Religieuse Ursuline à Tours

septembre 1653

Excerpt from the testimony of Father Da Silva, Jesuit, taken hostage for four days in Haiti, in 2020. He returns here to this event. Listen to the video

I plunged totally into the hands of God. (…) Totally at the mercy of my powerlessness, hostage, I was left with only the intimate tabernacle of my heart. (…) My cell gave me the opportunity to make a retreat. (…) I reread my whole life. I also projected myself into the future (…)

During these days, we even prayed together, the seven hostages who were living in the same situation as I in this room. It was an opportunity for us, belonging to different religious confessions, to learn the way of ecumenical prayer. 

P. Rogério Mosimann da Silva,
23 septembre 2021 www.jesuites.com

Citation of François de Laval Listen to the video

There are three things a missionary must use in a successful mission: prayer, study and good example. Study alone is without unction, stifles the spirit and bears no fruit. Prayer alone, without knowledge, is not enough to teach, but knowledge animated by prayer enlightens the spirit and inflames our will; and when they are accompanied by method, success is assured.

Instructions de François de Laval et les responsables du Séminaire de Paris aux missionnaires du Séminaire de Québec 1663-1665

Citation of Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin Listen to the video

Catherine’s commitment for the mission in Canada was a gift constantly renewed in time, until it became a vow of stability for her new country.

It seems to me that I want, or do not want anything else, but the fulfillment of his holy will for me. In this, I find my peace and my rest, and also a joy that nothing in this world can take away from me. (…) Moreover, my dear aunt, do not doubt of the stability I found in this country. We must remain faithful to God until the end, (…) It is for me a certainty, that I will never depart, unless everybody leaves also (…).

Paul Ragueneau, Vie de la Mère Catherine de Saint-Augustin, Paris, 1671, p.47

Citation of Gabriel Lalemant Listen to the video

I abandon to your example all those things for the sake of the salvation of souls whom you consider to be yours, whom you loved to the point of death, and of whom you said: “What you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Mt. 25:40). I would do it with all my heart, in consideration of the greatness of your adorable Majesty, who deserves that a man should generously abandon himself in order to faithfully accomplish what he judges to be your will for him and the particular inspirations which you are pleased to give him for the sake of your greater glory.

Les Écrits des Saints Martyrs, choix de textes, Montréal 1999 (La Compagnie de Jésus, Montréal)

Citation of Marie de l’Incarnation Listen to the video

You are right in thinking I want to die in this new Church. Lassure you my heart is so attached to it that unless God intervenes, I’ll not leave it dead or alive. […] It is true that while our cloister does not allow us to follow our Gospel Workers […] Yet being incorporated as I am in this New Church, Our Saviour, having done me the honour of calling me to it, binds me so strongly to them in spirit that I seem to be everywhere and am working with them to effect such rich and noble conquests.

Lettre CCXIII, de Québec, à la Mère Angélique de la Conception, Religieuse Ursuline à Tours, 19 août 1664

Citation of François de Laval Listen to the video

He must be firmly convinced that he is employed on divine, rather than human, work and that being above human forces, we can no more succeed by ourselves than a branch can bear fruit unless it be attached to the tree. “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. […] If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Instructions de François de Laval et les responsables du Séminaire de Paris aux missionnaires du Séminaire de Québec 1663-1665

Citation of Charles Garnier Listen to the video

Here is what Charles Garnier wrote to his superior three days before his death:
It is true that, sometimes, I suffer from hunger […]. It is not of this aspect that I fear; what I would fear more would be that by leaving my flock, in these times of misery and fears of war, when it needs my presence more than ever before, I would miss the opportunities that God gives me to abandon myself to him […]. If I should notice that I was about to lack the necessary strength, since Your Reverence commands me to do so, […] I am always ready to leave everything in order to die in obedience where God wants me to.

Charles Garnier au Père Ragueneau, 4 décembre 1649

Citation of Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin Listen to the video

Catherine de Saint-Augustin identified very early during her youth the project God had for her of a religious and missionary vocation. Concerning her noviciate period in Bayeux, France, she wrote the following at the age of 14:

Whatever may be said or done to me, I will remain firm in the thought that I will assuredly become a religious and I told the novices’ mother: « Do to me whatever you may want to, you will not make me remove my habit and I will not leave from here, unless it is to go to Canada. » The Blessed Virgin had given me the firm hope that nothing could make me lose it or make me mistrust it.

Paul Ragueneau, Vie de la Mère Catherine de Saint-Augustin, Paris, 1671, p.31

Crédit photo Fonds-Daniel Abel