Saint André Bessette

Brother André Bessette spent decades in exactly that humble place. He opened the door to whoever came, listened kindly to every request, and faithfully did the countless small, unnoticed jobs he was given.

Not yet twelve, the orphan had lost everything a family could give him. His schooling was cut short; Alfred could barely read and could hardly write at all. He had to hire himself out for all kinds of heavy work: herding cows, helping a blacksmith, baking bread, making shoes.

Like so many poor young men in Quebec at the time, Alfred followed the stream of migrants to the northeastern United States to work in the textile mills of New England — where French Canadians were then flocking for work in such numbers that they formed whole neighborhoods of their own, known as “Petits Canadas”, in the heart of American industrial cities. The foreign country offered a living, but for an uneducated, sickly worker it was a lonely place. After a few years of struggle he came home empty-handed, like someone who had knocked on many doors in life without finding a place where he belonged.

Young Alfred came to religious life with none of the things a community usually looks for: no health, no education, no special talent. At first the superiors hesitated because of his poor health; only through the intervention of Bishop Ignace Bourget of Montreal was he formally accepted into the novitiate.

On December 27, 1870, he received the habit and a new name: Brother André. As time went on, his superiors came to see in that thin, timid man a deep life of prayer and a complete readiness to serve without a thought for himself.

He was given the job of doorkeeper at Notre-Dame College in Montreal — a school run by the Congregation of Holy Cross itself, near the foot of Mount Royal, the small mountain in the heart of the city that gives Montreal its name. For more than forty years, besides opening the door to visitors, Brother André also swept the corridors, did laundry, cut the students’ hair, carried things, and cared for the boys who were sick.

Later he would recount with a wry smile:

“When I entered the community, the superiors showed me the door, and I stayed there for forty years!”

Day after day, he did the small jobs in front of him faithfully, out of love for God.

Word of answered prayers and remarkable healings spread quickly. The sick streamed in from everywhere. The blind saw again, the paralyzed threw away their crutches and walked, people with incurable diseases recovered.

Yet Brother André never accepted any praise for himself. He insisted:

“I do not work any miracles! It is God who heals, through the intercession of Saint Joseph. I am only Saint Joseph’s little donkey!”

His poor and deeply humble life kept people’s devotion pointed to God rather than to himself.

The crowds grew by the day, sometimes reaching hundreds. Receiving them began to disrupt school life, so the community arranged for him to receive people at an unused streetcar shelter across the road from the school gate.

Behind the visible miracles was Brother André’s immense compassion. The sick need more than relief from bodily pain; they long to be listened to and seen as people with dignity, in a world that often treats the sick as a useless burden. Brother André spent hour after hour sitting with them. The man life had once turned away became a place of refuge and peace for countless suffering people.

He began saving nickels and dimes from cutting students’ hair, then asked permission to collect donations from generous people. On October 19, 1904, a small, simple wooden chapel with room for just a few dozen people was blessed on that hillside. It was the beginning of Saint Joseph’s Oratory — the Oratoire Saint-Joseph — which would later become the largest basilica dedicated to Saint Joseph in the world, its towering dome visible from many parts of Montreal.

From 1909, seeing that his work of charity had grown too large to fit around other duties, his superiors allowed Brother André to devote himself entirely to serving at the shrine. Pilgrims from all over the world came in ever greater numbers. Work on a huge basilica on the mountain began in the years that followed and went on for decades, with the help of countless anonymous hands as quiet as his own.

Yet amid the vast building work and a fame that had spread to every continent, Brother André kept the way of life of a poor brother: eating the plainest food, wearing a threadbare, patched habit, and night after night kneeling to pray for the sick who had come to see him during the day.

Pope Saint John Paul II beatified him on May 23, 1982. On October 17, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI canonized him. The uneducated, sickly doorkeeper of long ago became the first saint of the Congregation of Holy Cross.