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Views from the Choir Loft

Without Sacraments • How Saint Isaac Jogues Survived

Jeff Ostrowski · April 11, 2020

Excerpt • The Life of Father Isaac Jogues

ECAUSE Father Jogues was ordered by his superiors to write an account of his captivity, we have the vivid record of his life, which Francis Parkman [an atheist historian] has described as a living martyrdom. The priest was assigned the most degrading work and treated with greater contempt than the most despised squaw. He was made a beast of burden; heavy loads were placed on his bruised shoulders, and he was compelled to tramp 50, 70, or even 100 miles after the Indians. They paraded their prize exhibit wherever they went. His wounds were gangrened, his bare feet left tracks of blood on snow and ice, the deerskin he wore was alive with vermin. He could well have said, with Saint Paul, “We are fools for Christ’s sake… We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.”

Late that fall, a band of Mohawks set out on their annual deer hunt. Father Jogues was ordered to accompany them. Loaded down with burdens, half-famished, he trekked through the November cold and shared the Mohawks’ mountain bivouacs. The game they caught was offered up to Areskoui (god of the chase) and eaten in his honor. Father Jogues, in consequence, would not taste the meat, because to do so would be to participate in the worship of the demon. At night, when the kettle was slung and the savages were celebrating their success in the hunt, Jogues would crouch in a corner of the hut, shivering and starving in the midst of plenty.

His conduct mystified and annoyed the Mohawks, and if they returned in the evening with no game, they blamed it on the Blackrobe: he had offended Areskoui. Like a squaw, Father Jogues brought in firewood; he carried their loads; he was their slave in all things but one: when they mocked at his God—or when they ordered him to worship theirs—the slave would assume a tone of authority and a steadfast attitude that astonished them. While humbly submitting to every caprice of his tyrants and appearing to rejoice in abasement, a derisive word against his Faith would change the lamb into the lion, and the lips that seemed so tame would speak in sharp, bold tones of menace and reproof.

At times Father Jogues would escape “this Babylon,” as he called the camp site. Wandering off into the wilderness, he would recite the Rosary, repeat passages from the Scriptures, and read from The Imitation of Christ. In some lonely spot, he would carve the figure of the Cross into the trunk of a tree and there kneel in prayer for long periods. “This living martyr,” observes Parkman, “half-clad in shaggy furs, kneeling on the snow among the icy rocks and beneath the gloomy pines, bowing in adoration before the emblem of the Faith (in which was his only consolation and his only hope), is alike a theme for the pen and a subject for the pencil.”

From Parkman’s external portrayal, Father Jogues himself allows us to penetrate into his interior condition:

In this sadness, I had recourse to the help of the Scriptures, my accustomed refuge. The passages that I recalled in memory taught me how I should think of God in His infinite goodness. Although I was not upheld by sensible consolation, nevertheless I would know that “the just man lives by faith.” I searched the Scriptures; I followed their streamlets, desiring, as it were, to quench my daily thirst. “In the law of God I was meditating day and night,” and, indeed, unless the law of God had been my meditation, I would then perhaps have perished in my abjection.

In his forest retreats, Father Jogues would experience a desolation of soul that reflected the intellectual and spiritual isolation of his lot, intensified now by the loss of René Goupil. Having no contact with his fellow countrymen, without the consolation of the Mass, without altar or chapel or any of the conventional aids to formal religious worship, physically beaten and mentally harassed, Jogues yet did not break down. So deep and unshakable was his supporting faith that he often cried out with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

[This excerpt was written by Father John A. O’Brien, S.J.]

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: St Isaac Jogues Last Updated: May 5, 2020

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

[on Latin] “No change in Mass: people have missals and can read. More vernacular can be useful in the Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Extreme Unction, Matrimony.”

— Cardinal Spellman (one of the Vatican II fathers)

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

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