LAST ILLNESS AND HAPPY DEATH OF MOTHER ST. JOSEPH.
In the procession to the new convent, one familiar face was missing:
Mother St. Joseph, the first companion of the Mother of the Incarnation,
was also the first of the little band called home to heaven. Her death
and life were so consistent, that the one who knew her best, summed up
her panegyric in two words--"She lived a saint, and she died one." She
seemed, indeed, to have been specially privileged by Divine grace from
her very infancy, manifesting in early childhood an instinctive love of
the beautiful virtue of the angels, and a singular attraction to the poor
and afflicted. When only nine years of age she was sent, at her own
request, to the Ursuline Convent at Tours, where she made her first
Communion with extraordinary fervour. From the period of His first
sacramental visit to her soul, our Blessed Lord continued to draw her
irresistibly to Himself. Docile to His Divine call, she obtained the
reluctant permission of her fond parents to consecrate herself wholly to
Him, and at the early age of fourteen, exchanged her brilliant prospects
as heiress of two noble houses, for the poverty, seclusion, and
mortification of the religious life. Her choice fell on the monastery
where she had been educated, and here it was her happiness to be placed
under the guidance of the Mother of the Incarnation, at that time in
charge of the novices. After the usual probation, she received the habit,
and with it the name of St. Bernard, and in due time completed her first
sacrifice by holy profession. She continued to edify her sisters by the
example of virtues suited rather to a soul far advanced in religious
perfection, than to one just touching the mysterious threshold; and, as
hers was one of those gifted natures pleasing both to God and man, she
charmed and delighted her companions by her amiability and cheerfulness,
as much as she edified them by her sanctity. Her great fear was, lest the
attention and consideration by which she was surrounded, should prove any
obstacle to her progress in perfection.
Some time after her profession she had a mysterious vision, in which the
world was represented to her under the symbol of a vast enclosure,
abounding in all the delights which here below are wont to fascinate and
captivate the hearts of men. She noticed that all who permitted
themselves to be attracted too closely by the false glare were at once
hopelessly entangled, as if a net had been cast around them, and among
the unhappy victims she even recognised an acquaintance of her own. What
terrified her most was, that having herself taken a few steps forward,
and then, in great alarm, attempted to retreat, she found all means of
egress closed, so that there appeared no alternative but to advance. As
she was on the point of giving herself up for lost, she was attracted by
the sight of a band of young persons arrayed in the costume of Canadian
savages, the foremost of whom bore a banner inscribed with unknown
characters, and she seemed to hear them say, "Fear not, Mary, for through
us you will be saved." Then they formed into two lines, leaving a passage
between them, through which she effected her escape in safety. It was not
until her subsequent appointment to the Canadian Mission, that she
understood the connection between this supernatural warning and her own
destiny; but, although the vision remained for a time unexplained, it
served as a strong stimulus to her already ardent zeal for the salvation
of souls, especially those of the savages. We have already noticed how
manifest was the hand of God in her appointment as the companion of the
Mother of the Incarnation to Canada, and we are, therefore, quite
prepared to hear of great fruit from her labours in that country. The
Almighty seemed, indeed, to have endowed her with some singular
attraction for the Indians, young and old. So great was their veneration
for her, and, in consequence, so irresistible her influence over them,
that the name of "Mary Joseph, the Holy Virgin," soon became a household
word among the Hurons and Algonquins. Charity rendered her an eloquent
pleader, and many and generous were the donations which at her prayer
found their way from her old home in France, to the wigwams of her dear
savages. To the end of life, her greatest earthly joy was to find herself
surrounded by her beloved converts, forty or fifty of whom--men, women,
and children--might constantly be seen gathered round her, listening to
her words with rapt attention. If subsequent exhaustion had not revealed
how much the effort had cost her, it might have been thought, when her
sufferings became acute towards the end of life, that she had forgotten
them in the pleasure of instructing her poor people. When the destruction
of the monastery had reduced the inmates to utter destitution, her
parents employed every argument to induce her to return to France. The
Mothers at Tours joined in the request, but her invariable answer was,
that she would rather share the coarse, scanty fare of the savages to the
end of her life, or even die a thousand deaths, if that could be, than
prove herself thus unfaithful to her vocation and ungenerous to her God.
Fidelity to her calling had been the watchword of her existence, and now
that her time of merit had nearly run, no close observer could fail to
see that this undeviating fidelity had produced rich fruits. To analyse
her character as a religious, would be simply to attribute to her every
virtue which, belongs to a perfect one. Our Lord once showed her her soul
under the figure of a very beautiful and strongly-fortified castle, and
He warned her to watch cautiously over its external approaches, promising
that He would guard the interior of the edifice. In compliance with this
direction, she resolved to surround the mystic castle with the deep
trenches of humility, and so well did she succeed, that unfeigned
contempt of self breathed at last in every act and thought of her life,
inspiring a love and desire of humiliation which secured for those who
tried her, the warmest gratitude of her heart, and the most devoted of
her services. Not satisfied with mediocrity in any virtue, she carried
mortification to an absorbing love of the cross; charity, to the
sacrifice of every natural feeling; obedience, to child-like submission,
spiritualized by faith; reverence for the rule, to most minute observance
of its least prescription. She also attained an eminent degree of prayer
and union with God.
For more than four years before her happy death, she had to endure the
two-fold martyrdom of anguish of soul and great physical suffering. Yet
while the wearing fever of prolonged consumption slowly undermined her
life, so wonderfully did her great courage sustain her, that she seldom
kept her bed, or relinquished her work. If sometimes compelled to yield
to exhaustion and pain, she received the attention of her Sisters with so
much humility and gratitude, that all felt it a happiness to render her
any service. Far from complaining, she was confused when others showed
compassion for her, and in return for their offers of kind offices, was
always ready to remark that they themselves required indulgence more than
she did. She learned at last to rejoice in the sufferings which she
looked on as precious pledges of the love of her Divine Spouse, and that
she should lose no part of her treasure, she desired to suffer without
consolation or relief, indemnifying herself by practices of voluntary
mortification for the occasional alleviations forced on her by charity.
Towards the end, dropsy was added to her complicated maladies, and so,
for the last two months, she was compelled to yield to the claims of
utterly worn-out nature. Let us visit her in the humble lodging where
those two closing months of life were passed, and we shall feel
constrained to own, that the scene before us is one very grand and
beautiful in the eyes of faith, whatever may be its aspect in those of
the world.
She whose still young life is thus gradually ebbing away, might be now
enjoying in her luxurious home all the comforts which wealth can
purchase, but because she preferred the poverty of Jesus Christ to the
treasures of earth, she is surrounded in lieu of them by unmistakable
traces of abject indigence. Her bed of death is formed of one of the
narrow wooden shelves which run in tiers all round the small apartment as
a substitute for bedsteads, the highest reached by a ladder. Adjoining
this common dormitory is the chapel, and as the one serves as a passage
to the other, she is perpetually disturbed by the noise of the heavy
wooden shoes, which since the conflagration, the whole family have been
obliged to adopt for want of leather. Her wearying cough is irritated by
the constant smoke of the ill-contrived chimney; her oppressed breathing
additionally impeded by the closeness of the overcrowded room; her rest
interrupted by the voices of the pupils, the ringing of the bells, the
chanting of the Office, and the various other sounds inevitable under
existing circumstances. Far from murmuring, she will assure us that she
is amused rather than inconvenienced by these unwanted surroundings of a
sick room, and that she considers herself specially favoured in the
opportunity which her position affords of assisting at the holy Mass,
joining in the Office, hearing the sermons, and thus in some manner
keeping up to the end the observances of common life.
For her final and more entire purification from the dross of earth, her
all-merciful Father permitted that she should be afflicted with
desolation of soul, such as with all her experience of it, she had never
known before. To interior anguish was added the intensity of bodily pain,
yet in her sharpest pangs, even when the surgeon's knife gashed her
flesh, piercing to the bone, no sound betrayed her agonies, save once, a
gentle invocation of the name of Jesus: for this impulse of nature as she
considered it, she reproached herself as for a want of patience, and
begged pardon as if it were a cause of disedification. Her sufferings
reached their height in Holy week, and this coincidence she looked on as
a particular privilege, thanking our Lord for thus associating her to His
cross. To her visitors, she spoke only of the happiness of heaven, the
riches of religious poverty, and the fidelity with which those who have
embraced it, should cling to it for ever. "Tell all our friends in
France," she said to her Sisters, "that I rejoice in death at having left
them for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and assure them that I feel
myself infinitely privileged in having been called to this savage land."
Our Lord did not permit His faithful servant to die in utter bereavement
of spirit. For the three days before her end, she enjoyed a foretaste of
paradise; her interior pains vanished; her physical tortures were
alleviated. "I know," she said to her director, Father Lalemant, "that
our good God has promised a hundred-fold in this world, and eternal bliss
in the next to those who renounce all things for His love. As to the
hundred-fold, I have had it; eternal happiness I hope through His
infinite mercy soon to enjoy." She renewed her vows, asked pardon of the
assistants, and returned thanks to the Rev. Father Ragueneau, Superior of
the Missions, for his charity to their community especially since the
conflagration. She also expressed her gratitude to the physician, for
whom she promised to pray in heaven, and most of all to the Mother of the
Incarnation, who had watched and tended her night and day with untiring
care and love. She retained perfect consciousness during her long agony
of twenty-four hours, and about eight o'clock on the evening of the
Thursday in Easter week, April the 4th, 1652, her happy soul returned to
the God who all through life had been the only Object of her love. The
Mother of the Incarnation remarks, that the beauty of her countenance
after death, appeared to her Sisters like a reflection of the glory of
which she was already in possession; while the heavenly peace and unction
which at the same time filled their own hearts, seemed to say, that over
those remains no tears should be shed, but tears of holy joy and
gratitude. The impulse of each was to invoke her intercession, of which
all very quickly experienced the power and efficacy. She was but thirty-
six years of age, yet considering the frailty of her health, the wonder
was that she had been able so long to resist the rigour of the climate
and the privations attending the foundation of the monastery. Her remains
were followed by the whole population both French and Indian, to their
temporary resting-place in the garden of the convent, whence twelve years
later they were transferred to the vault in the new church, which by that
time was ready to receive the precious and venerated deposit.
As a mark of their respect and affection, the Hurons residing on the Isle
of Orleans had a solemn service celebrated for her on the morning, of her
interment. The tradition of Quebec speaks touchingly of the gratitude of
these poor children of the wilderness towards their dear Mother St.
Joseph, recording that they continually came to inquire for her in her
illness, and brought her presents of every thing delicate which they
could procure by the chase. "Here, Mother," they would say to the Mother
of the Incarnation, "give these birds to Mary the holy virgin, that she
may eat, and live to instruct us again."
The Almighty was pleased quickly to reveal the glory of His servant, as
many trustworthy witnesses bore evidence. Among the first of these was a
lay Sister at Tours, named Elizabeth, from whom Mother St Joseph had
received maternal care in her childhood. Almost at the hour of her
decease, the Mother appeared to this Sister, bidding her prepare for the
great journey to eternity, on which she would soon be called to enter.
Without the loss of a moment, the Sister informed the Superior that the
Mother St. Joseph was dead, and had come to forewarn her of her own
approaching end. In effect, she was summoned away in a few days, and
later accounts from Canada fully corroborated the truth of the Sister's
vision.
The Rev. Father Paul Ragueneau, Superior of the Missions at Quebec,
testifies that about an hour after her venerated remains had been laid in
the grave, Mother St. Joseph appeared in vision to a person bound on some
errand of charity. Her air, he says, was full of majesty; her countenance
resplendent with glory; rays of light seemed to pass from her eyes to his
heart, as if she would thus have shown her desire to impart a share of
her happiness to him. The effect of the vision was to fill his soul with
Divine love and heavenly consolation in such abundance, that he felt as
if without supernatural support, he must have died. On his return from
his journey of charity, the Mother appeared to him again in the same
glory as before, and revealed to him admirable secrets, which the Mother
of the Incarnation who records the above fact, has not seen fit to
disclose. Of the veracity of this witness also, there can be no doubt.
The same person having the next day to cross the frozen river, and not
knowing that the ice was too thin to bear his weight, walked on for some
distance unconscious of danger. Suddenly he heard a warning voice bidding
him stop; then he looked round only to see himself surrounded on all
sides by water. The slight sheet of ice on which he stood, had no depth
or solidity; it was a mere superficial crust floating on the surface of
the terrible abyss. In an agony of terror, he recommended himself to the
care of her who had arrested him on the way to destruction, then retraced
his steps, and on reaching the river bank, perceived that he had actually
walked for a considerable distance on water, as if it had been dry land.
His first act was to relate the wonder to the Mother of the Incarnation,
assuring her that he attributed his marvellous escape to the charity of
Mother St. Joseph.
The love which this good Mother while on earth had shown for her
neighbour, was assuredly not diminished in heaven, where charity is made
perfect. That it survived the grave, was manifested in at least one
singular instance, which occurred some years after the present date of
our history. Among the captives whom Governor Tracy compelled the
Iroquois to set free in 1666, was a young French girl named Anne
Baillargeon, who had been made prisoner at the age of nine. So
naturalized had she become to life in the woods, that when her companions
in misfortune were about to return to their families she refused to
accompany them, and lest she should be constrained to do so, she
concealed herself in the forest at the moment of their departure. Just as
she was exulting at the supposed success of her stratagem, a lady wearing
the religious dress suddenly stood before her, and in a tone which
admitted of no reply, commanded her to rejoin the French, threatening her
at the same time with punishment if she hesitated. Having no other
alternative, she reluctantly obeyed. When she arrived in Quebec, the
Governor confided her to the care of the Ursulines. The moment she
entered the house and saw the portrait of Mother St. Joseph, she
exclaimed, "Ah, there she is! There is the person who spoke to me in the
woods, even the dress is exactly the same." The exclamation convinced the
witnesses of the strange scene that it was indeed Mother St. Joseph who
had acted the part of guardian angel to the truant, and conducted her to
the haven of safety.