Later this month, Pope Benedict XVI is slated to canonize Father Jacques Berthieu, a French Jesuit who was martyred in Madagascar in
1896. Fr. Berthieu will be canonized alongside six other blesseds in an Oct. 21 ceremony on World Mission Sunday at the Vatican. The
priest was born in 1838 and grew up with six siblings in a pious
farming family in central France. He was ordained to the priesthood for
Diocese of Saint-Flour in 1864. Fr. Berthieu then felt called to
join the Society of Jesus, and did so in 1873. While in the novitiate,
he became devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which had been
popularized by the Jesuit St. Claude de la Colombiere. Before finishing
his novitiate, he was assigned to the missions in Madagascar in 1875. In
a letter to a friend dated July 28, 1875, he wrote that “I have been
designated as a future apostle to the Malagasy (Madagascar)...probably
to never return, which is fine with me.” The French priest became a
highly successful missionary, nearly tripling the number of mission
stations on the north of the island.
Link (here) to EWTN to read the full piece.
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