Saint Isaac Jogues

Isaac Jogues SJ (10 January 1607 – 18 October 1646) was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, calling it Lac du Saint Sacrement (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament). In 1646, Jogues was martyred by the Mohawk at their village of Ossernenon, near the Mohawk River. Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf and six other martyred missionaries, all Jesuit priests or laypeople associated with them, were canonized by the Catholic Church in 1930; they are known as the Canadian Martyrs, or the North American Martyrs. A shrine was built in their honor at Auriesville, New York, formerly believed to be the location of the Mohawk village. Their feast day is celebrated on 19 October in the General Roman Calendar and 26 September in Canada. Isaac Jogues was born to Laurent Jogues and Françoise de Sainte-Mesmin on 10 January 1607. He was born in Orléans, France, into a bourgeois family, where he was the fifth of nine children. He was educated at home until the age of ten, at which point he began attending Jesuit schools. In 1624, at the age of seventeen, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rouen in Northern France. Here, his master of novices was Louis Lallemant. The Jesuit community had a strong missionary spirit, beginning in 1625 with their first mission to New France, including missionary pioneers, Énemond Massé, and later, Jean de Brébeuf. Lallement had two brothers and a nephew serving as missionaries in the colony of New France. These Jesuit missionaries inspired Jogues, and he aspired to follow in their footsteps. Jogues professed simple vows in 1626, and went to study philosophy at the royal college of La Flèche. In 1629, he taught humanities to boys in Rouen. In 1633, Jogues was sent to the Collège de Clermont in Paris to pursue his studies in theology. In 1636, he was ordained a priest at Clermont.