The Miracle Man of Montreal—Brother Andre
Whose Great Work Has Done Great Good—A
Youth With a Strange Power—Authentic
Accounts of Some of the Miracles—All
Faiths Benefited by Him.
The day of miracles is not past. Ever since Christ raised the dead,
healed His suffering suppliants, gave voice to the dumb, sight to the
blind, and hearing to the deaf; ever since He turned water into wine at
the marriage feast at Cana and fed the multitude with five loaves of
bread and two small fishes, down through the long ages, miracles have
been wrought. There were many sincere believers in them, but there were
more scoffers and doubters. As it was then, so it is with the world
to-day. Time was, especially in recent years, that many non-Catholics
sincerely believed that these alleged miracles existed merely in the
untutored minds of the superstitious followers of the Roman Catholic
Church.
* * * * *
But the wonderful works of divine healers of the Protestant
faith—notably Rev. Mr. Hickson, an Anglican, and Mrs. McPherson, of
another Protestant denomination, in different places in Canada and the
United States—have largely dispelled that idea, and thousands of
intellectual people of different nationalities and of different creeds
are to-day firmly convinced that the healer has an almost supernatural
Divine power which is exercised for the benefit of suffering humanity.
* * * * *
Shrines throughout the world have existed for centuries, and some of
them gained a world-wide reputation for the remarkable cures and
conversions that have been claimed for them. Of these, perhaps Lourdes
in France and Sainte Anne de Beaupré, near the city of Quebec, have
acquired the greatest fame. It is not of these, however, that I am
writing, but of the unpretentious little shrine of St. Joseph on Mount
Royal at Montreal, where Brother André, the Miracle Man, whose great
work relieving the suffering of their ills for many years has been
testified to by hundreds upon hundreds of people who have been restored
to health and happiness by his intercession and prayers. He is a
remarkable man, with no pretensions whatever of being other than the
humble instrument of a higher power through which he is permitted to do
good to his fellow-men. He is not the Miracle Man of the movies, which
is screened from Frank Packard’s remarkable book. Mr. Packard, who is an
old friend of mine, told me that his miracle man was a creation of his
own brain.
A Man Who Mastered Self.
Alfred Bassette was born at St. Gregoire d’Iberville, P.Q., on August
9th, 1845, and in his early youth was always known as “a good quiet
boy.” He was a most dutiful son, a regular attendant at religious
exercises, and in every way was looked upon as an exemplary youth. After
the death of his mother, he entered, in 1870, the Congregation of the
Holy Cross, a famous teaching order of the Catholic Church; was assigned
to, and faithfully performed for upwards of forty years, the duties of a
porter, messenger, etc., at the Côté des Neiges Boys’ College, located
on the outskirts of the city of Montreal. He had not the advantage of an
education that is given freely to the youths of to-day, but he possessed
other marvellous qualities that have brought him prominently before the
world. He is still of a modest, retiring disposition, a recluse who
knows the full meaning of scanty fare—dry bread and water with
sometimes a little fruit—and a hard pallette. But the long years of
fasting and praying, and dealing continuously with the most distressing
cases of disease, accident and trouble, have not given him a gloomy
disposition. He looks upon earthly things with bright eyes, is
light-hearted, jovial at times, and hugely appreciates a good joke. His
position is no sinecure, for at the shrine he is kept busy from early
morning till late into the night listening to the sad tales poured out
by the sick and the maimed and the blind. So heavy has the work become,
that in addition to Brother André, six priests, as secretaries, and five
brothers are constantly engaged in receiving and acknowledging the
never-ending stream of letters from all over the civilized world,
imploring temporal and spiritual assistance. Sometimes as many as four
hundred communications a day have been received. These bequests are read
to Brother André and are also repeated at the daily services in the
church where the congregation unite in prayers for all those imploring
aid.
Youth With Strange Power.
As Alfred Bassette (who had taken in religion the name of Brother André)
grew up, he displayed a mysterious power that was soon heralded around
the countryside. Amongst his earliest miracles was that of healing
several victims of smallpox during the epidemic of forty-seven years
ago. Another is mentioned as having occurred over thirty years ago, when
a young student was badly injured in a game of ball. Before medical
assistance could be secured Brother André successfully applied “first
aid to the injured,” and when the doctor arrived the patient was again
playing ball. Other cures of a minor nature were effected by him, and
these gave him a local notoriety. The first major miracle that brought
him wider fame occurred in 1910, when Mr. Martin Hannon, a C.P.R.
employee at Quebec, who was the victim of a serious accident two years
previously by which his legs and feet were terribly crushed through
heavy marble blocks falling upon them, visited him. Hannon had been
unable to walk without crutches, and on crutches he went to Brother
André, who rubbed his mangled limbs with holy oil and prayed over him,
and then told him to throw his crutches away, for he was cured. Hannon
dispensed with his crutches and walked then and since without even the
use of a cane. The following day he visited _La Patrie_ office, told of
his miraculous cure, and Brother André’s reputation as a Miracle Man
spread afar. I could not tell you of the multitudes that have sought
Brother André’s intercession and prayers, comparatively few
unavailingly, but I have seen two instances myself, in each of which
what appeared to be serious cases, were restored to health. One, a young
lady from Plattsburg, N.Y., who had walked on crutches for seventeen
years, after a visit to Brother André, handed her crutches to her maid
and walked several yards to her automobile. Another was a young lady
from near Tupper Lake, N.Y., who was cured of paralysis, and who told me
in Windsor St. station how, after seeing Brother André, she was able for
the first time in several years, to use her limbs freely. But a still
greater miracle, to my lay mind, was one of more recent date, and word
of it came from London, England, in a letter from an old friend who is
the wife of an Irish nobleman, once a member of the British House of
Commons, and who while visiting Montreal last autumn, accompanied me to
the shrine, and carried away with her oils and images of St. Joseph and
other souvenirs. But here is her letter referring to the miracle:
“I have a little story you may like to tell Brother André. When I came
home in November, I found a letter from a young friend I had not seen
since he was in a perambulator. It was to ask my prayers for his mother
who was dying from the effects of an accident. Her foot caught as she
was going down a very steep flight of stairs to the Underground Railway,
at Baker street, and she fell the whole length of it, hitting her head
and one of her knees very badly. When she was conscious she was taken
home, and for three or four days declared she was only severely bruised
and shaken. Then suddenly she went clean out of her senses and knew no
one and raved about people dead long ago, and she called for me in my
maiden name, as I used to know her when I was a girl. It was that that
put it into her son’s head to write to me that she was not supposed to
live very long, and the doctors had very little hope of her. I was told
she was in a mental hospital, and that she did not know her son when he
went to see her. I asked permission to go there, and was given leave.
They told me she could utter nothing but gibberish, and was very weak.
When I came to her bedside, I would not have recognized her, but I
looked straight into her eyes and told her I was ‘Alice.’ Then she
caught my hand and held it convulsively, and her poor tongue and lips
were uttering an incomprehensible jumble over and over again. At last I
hit upon it; she was repeating over and over again a prayer in Polish
her mother had taught her as a child. I recognized two of the words (her
mother was a Pole, a Princess). . . I told the nurse she was saying a
prayer in Polish and she was not able to say anything else. I sat by her
for some time, and as her memory of years ago seemed to be the only
workable part in her brain, I asked her in French was she suffering
pain? And at once she responded and said ‘No, not at all,’ and then went
off in the ejaculatory prayer. The nurse moved off, and I put my hand
into my pocket and brought out Frère André’s little bottle of blessed
oil, and I made the sign of the Cross with a little of the oil on her,
and St. Joseph’s medal in my hand. And I just asked if there was any
merit in Frère André’s prayers that this poor woman might be restored to
health for her only son’s sake. I came away. The nurse thought it a bad
case. I went to Ireland for three weeks, and on my return sent a ’phone
message to the son, fearing he would tell me his mother was dead. But to
my joy he said she had completely recovered, and was now at a rest home
to get up her strength. Tell Brother André that. You must also tell him
to pray for peace in Ireland.”
All Faiths Among Patrons.
You would be surprised if I were to tell you that, in proportion to the
number that have applied, probably more Protestants than Roman Catholics
have successfully procured aid at this now well-known shrine. And yet it
is true.
From the primitive little Oratory of St. Joseph, on the western slope of
Mount Royal, there has grown a crypt of large dimensions, in which
divine service is daily held, and in the magnificent stained glass
windows, the statuary, and other handsome offerings are evidences of the
deep and fervent gratitude of those who have been made whole.
Overshadowing this is shortly to be erected an imposing massive
structure which is to be dedicated as a Basilica in honor of St. Joseph,
the holy Patriarch of Nazareth, and which is to be one of the world’s
grandest and most magnificent edifices, and to which immense pilgrimages
of the maimed and the halt and the sick and the distressed and
heavy-burdened will hopefully come for spiritual comfort and bodily
relief.
And all this magnificent grandeur of marble and gold and silver and
precious stones, picturesquely environed by the wealth of the scenic
splendor of the historic mountainside, springs from the unfathomable
work of the poor little habitant lad whose whole simple life has been
devoted to humbly and faithfully following in the footsteps of the
Master.