Bro. Was One Cool Canadian

I love going back to read old Pope Benedict XVI homilies and talks, particularly what he has to say about holy men and women. Here he is talking about Bro. André Bessette, a Canadian and Holy Cross brother (whose images was all over Notre Dame’s campus last time I was there), who died in 1937. There are so many gems of phrases and sentences to savor, to pray with, to aspire to. This all comes from the homily at the October 2010 Mass when Bro. André was canonized.

First he tells us that Bessette “experienced suffering and poverty at a very early age.”

And that “They led him to have recourse to God through prayer and an intense inner life.”

“As porter of the College of Notre Dame in Montreal, he demonstrated boundless charity and strove to relieve the distress of those who came to confide in him.”

Boundless charity — and obviously people were drawn to him because of it, because of Him.

“With very little education,” Pope Benedict continued, “he had nevertheless understood where the essential of his faith was situated.”

For Brother André, “believing meant submitting freely and through love to the divine will.”

And how about this next one? He was “[w]holly inhabited by the mystery of Jesus.”

May we be wholly inhabited by the mystery of Jesus!

Benedict says Bessette “lived the beatitude of pure of heart, that of personal rectitude.”
May we live the Beatitudes, accepting with gratitude and joy the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

B16 goes on to observe: “It is thanks to this simplicity that he enabled many people to see God.”
And report: “He was the witness of innumerable cures and conversions.”

And then he gives us a line of spiritual direction from the saint: “Do not seek to have your trials removed, ask rather for the grace to bear them well.”

Benedict adds: “For him, everything spoke of God and of God’s presence.”

And a prayer: May we, in his footsteps, seek God with simplicity in order to discover him ever present in the heart of our life!

And a prayer for our neighbors: May the example of Bro. André inspire Canadian Christian life!

May he inspire every one of our lives. Br. André, pray for us.