St. André Bessette

Alfred Bessette was born on August 9, 1845, in Saint-Grégoire-d'Iberville, Lower Canada, the eighth of twelve children in a family shaped by poverty and premature loss. His father was a woodcutter who died when Alfred was still young, and the family struggled to make ends meet. Because of the demands of rural life, he received only about two years of formal schooling. He worked as a farm laborer, a shoemaker's apprentice, a blacksmith's helper, and at various other trades during his youth, and he also spent time in the United States looking for work. Chronic stomach problems plagued him from an early age, and several religious communities turned him away before he found a home, reportedly because of his poor health and limited education.

His vocation began to take shape when he met Father André Provencher, a parish priest in his home village, who encouraged him to consider religious life. In 1870, at the age of twenty-five, Bessette was received as a novice in the Congregation of Holy Cross at the novitiate in Saint-Laurent, near Montreal, and was given the religious name Brother André. Even there he met resistance; the order accepted him only on a trial basis, and he was assigned the humble role of porter, or doorman, at the Collège Notre-Dame in Montreal. He would remain in that role for roughly forty years, greeting visitors, delivering messages, mending clothes, and quietly praying with anyone who came to him for help. He also became the chief cook, infirmarian, and laundry worker at the college. As word spread about his holiness, Brother André began to spend long hours in the college chapel and, after 1880, in a small chapel across the street dedicated to St. Joseph, where he anointed the sick with oil from a lamp burning before the saint's statue. He often said, "Go to St. Joseph; he will help you," and pilgrims began to arrive in growing numbers seeking his prayers. The Congregation of Holy Cross formally opened a small office to coordinate the healings attributed to him, and pilgrimages to his chapel were soon drawing thousands. He attributed every cure to St. Joseph rather than to himself, and he urged the sick to pray with faith.

Brother André's most enduring achievement was the construction of St. Joseph's Oratory on the slopes of Mount Royal. He began gathering funds as early as 1903 by going door to door, often being dismissed or even insulted. The oratory grew in stages, from a small chapel to a modest basilica and finally to the great domed church that today dominates the surrounding neighborhood. He lived to see construction reach a significant point, though the massive dome was completed after his death. He continued receiving pilgrims and praying with the sick until late in life, even after he was moved to rooms on the upper floors of the oratory complex. Brother André died on January 6, 1937, at the age of ninety-one. He was buried in a small vault beneath the oratory he had founded. In 1982, after a thorough examination of the alleged healings, Pope John Paul II recognized a miracle attributed to his intercession, and he was beatified that same year. A second miracle led to his canonization by Pope Benedict XVI on October 17, 2010. He is honored as the patron of doorkeepers, the sick, and the Archdiocese of Montreal, and the oratory remains one of the most-visited pilgrimage sites in North America, drawing roughly two million visitors a year.