St. André Bessette relics to visit St. Cecilia Parish

By Msgr. James P. Moroney
Special to The CFP

When Alfred Bessette was born in the small town of Mont-Saint-Grégoire, the whole Province of Quebec was in the grips of an economic depression. So great was the concern for the little baby that he was baptized within hours of his birth.
The 12 children of Isaac and Clothilde Bessette lived in such deprivation that a third of them died. While Alfred was still a child, his parents died.
Alfred was sent to live with a pious couple, Timothée and Rosalie Nadeau, who saw to it that the parish priest would introduce the 12-year-old to the faith. Father André Provençal’s devotion to St. Joseph soon rubbed off on his young protégé.
Alfred was always better at praying than studying and picked up only rudimentary reading skills and the ability to write his name.
The 18-year-old then decided to join the more than 200,000 emigrants from Canada to the United States in the late 19th century in search of work in the textile mills of northern Connecticut and Rhode Island. Letters from the time report that while he was a hard worker, his health led him back to Canada four years later.
Meanwhile, a growing number of immigrants from Acadia and Quebec were settling among the textile mills along the Nashua River in Leominster. While no documentary evidence has been yet discovered that the young Alfred visited French Hill in Leominster, local traditions speak of his having recovered from pneumonia there sometime during his itinerant youth.
Having returned to Quebec, Father Provençal recommended him to the Congregation of the Holy Cross with the words, “I am sending you a saint.” Alfred took his final vows as Brother André at the age of 28.
Because he lacked talent for most of the other posts, he was assigned to be the door man, sacristan and laundry worker at the Collège Notre-Dame, just outside Quebec City.
The sick and the poor were drawn to the simple doorman, who would welcome them with quiet prayers to St. Joseph and anoint them with oil from one of the lamps in the chapel. When some returned with stories of their miraculous healing, Brother André would insist that they thank St. Joseph, since he was the only one who healed.
The little doorman would save the donations people would bring to be used toward the building of a chapel and what is now the largest church in Canada, in honor of St. Joseph. By the end of his life, he would receive 80,000 letters a year, and when he died, a million people are said to have paid their respects to him.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI canonized the little doorman, making him the first saint of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and the first Canadian saint born after the Confederation in 1867 when Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada joined together to form the Dominion of Canada.
St. André Bessette provides us with the example we need in an age of instant gratification and pursuit of the cult of personality. We each have a great deal to learn from his profound humility and trust in God, which are the secret to his sanctity.
He was often quoted as saying that God chose him because he was the lowliest and most ignorant of men: “If there was anyone more ignorant than I am, God would have chosen him instead of me.”
On Sunday, the major relics of St. André will be honored at St. Cecilia Church in Leominster. His relics will be exposed in the main church for veneration at 8:30 a.m. A short talk on the saint’s life will be given by the custodian of the relics, Father Roman Kalladanthiyil, CSC, followed by an anointing with St. Joseph oil from the shrine in Montreal. Following the 9:45 a.m. Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will take place, with benediction at 11 a.m. Following the 11:15 a.m. Mass, the veneration will conclude with another anointing with the oil of St. Joseph.

– Msgr. Moroney is pastor of St. Cecilia Parish.