|
He arrived
in Quebec on August 15, 1643, where he remained for a year.
On September 7, 1644, after a treacherous trip through hostile
Indian territory, Noel reached his final destination, Fort
St. Marie, near the present day city of Midland, Ontario.
For the next five years, Noel struggled to bring Christ to
the Huron Indians.
He had
great difficulty in learning the native language. Having been
reared in an educated and upper class family, he also had
a personal aversion to the primitive and base life style of
the Indians. Noel was tormented by doubts of his ability to
be the kind of missionary he wanted to be. As he continued
his work, he was greatly affected by the martyrdom of some
of his fellow missionaries. He came to believe that his own
"martyrdom" was a bloodless one in which he was
asked daily to give his life in service with very little personal
sense of reward or accomplishment.
When Isaac
Jogues, the leader of the Jesuit missionaries, known to the
Indians as the "Black Robes," was slain in 1647,
Noel was offered the choice of returning to France. He resisted
the temptation and made a vow to God in 1647 to remain with
the Indians until his death, despite his personal aversions
to them and their life style. Only two years later, Noel's
"bloodless" martyrdom became the real thing when
he was murdered by an apostate Huron Indian on December 8,
1649. His body was thrown into the Nottawasaga River and was
never recovered.
To learn more about St. Noel please click on one of the links below.
http://www.catholic.org
or
http://www.catholic-forum.com |
