The Blessed Brother André Bessette, C.S.C., chosen for sainthood, congregation's first
By Eliott Boswell
When Fr. Claude Pomerleau's mother was a young girl growing up in Montreal, she and her friends would play a game at the house of a certain Br. André Bessette, C.S.C.
"They'd throw things at his front porch, trying to catch a glimpse of 'the miracle man,'" said Pomerleau, a Holy Cross priest. "And he'd come out and shout, 'Allez-vous-en, les enfants! (Beat it, kids!)'"
Bessette, better known as the Blessed Brother André, rose from humble beginnings to become a revered member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross by the time of his death in 1937, and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest miracle workers of the 20th century.
On Feb. 19 of this year, Pope Benedict XVI approved Bessette for sainthood, the first Holy Cross member to be so honored, although the formal canonization ceremony will not take place until October.
"It's a great privilege for us," said Br. Donald Stabrowski, C.S.C., UP's provost.
As with many saints and holy figures, Bessette was in a category by himself, Pomerleau said, a category that not even the church can fully account for.
"He was like a mystic," Pomerleau added. "He inhabited a different world and used totally different coordinates to measure reality."
Bessette was born on Aug. 9, 1845, to an impoverished family in a small village on the outskirts of Montreal. His early life was marked by physical frailty and lack of education, and when he lost his father at the age of nine and his mother at the age of 12, he could barely read or write.
Bessette was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, and, while working a variety of unskilled jobs over the next 13 years, nursed an increasingly devout spiritual life.
In 1870, he requested admission to the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Though he was initially rejected because of poor health, Bessette joined as a lay brother that same year.
"Initially, he did everything: barber, house cleaner, you name it," said Fr. Bob Antonelli, C.S.C. "Back then though, brothers were sort of considered servants to priests."
His reputation quickly grew, however, as he steadily attracted notice for his piety, austerity, and, by the 1880s, his ability to frequently perform miraculous healings. In one year alone, over 400 healings were attributed to Bessette, according to Antonelli.
"There's a picture of a row of crutches left in the church where people would come on crutches and leave without them," Antonelli said. "Brother André would simply rub some holy oil on the spot of their ailment and tell them to go pray to St. Joseph, and they would be healed."
Pomerleau illustrated further the extent of Bessette's miraculous gift, and the depths of his forgiveness.
"He would sometimes even heal people who didn't believe in him, in his abilities," Pomerleau said. "These were people who'd publicly called him a charlatan and a fraud."
Bessette's humility was legendary, however, even to the point of referring to himself as "only the wire who transmits blessings."
"He would get upset when people ascribed the miracles to him," Antonelli said. "He'd always, always attribute them to the intercession of St. Joseph."
Such was his gratitude to St. Joseph that Bessette founded the Oratory of St. Joseph in 1904 on the top of Mount Royal in Montreal. Initially little more than a wooden shack, the Oratory grew as Bessette's profile increased, and with it, donations to the project, although construction was not completed until the 1960s.
Pomerleau, who grew up in Vermont but whose parents are French-Canadian, has visited the Oratory hundreds of times by his own estimation.
"I remember going as a kid, before the inside had been completed," he said. "There was still scaffolding up and everything."
By the time of his death in January of 1937 at the age of 91, Brother André had performed well over 10,000 cures, and was looked upon as a model of faith and self-sacrifice by the Catholic community of North America. In the week following his death, an estimated one million people filed past his simple wooden coffin to pay their respects.
"Here is a man who showed up to the Holy Cross community, was thought of as sickly and unqualified intellectually, and now he's going to become our first saint," Pomerleau said.
Antonelli, who worked at St. Joseph's Oratory for six months in 1999, testified to Bessette's immeasurable legacy.
"No one goes there without stopping to see Brother André," he said. "It just shows you that great things come from where you least expect them, especially from God's point-of-view."
