Saint Jean-Gabriel Perboyre

John Gabriel Perboyre, CM (French: Jean-Gabriel Perboyre; 1802–1840) was a French Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians or Lazarists) who served as a missionary in China, where he suffered martyrdom. He was canonized in 1996 by Pope John Paul II. Perboyre was born in 1802 at Le Puech (now in the commune of Montgesty), Lot, France, one of eight children born to Pierre Perboyre and Marie Rigal, who ran a farm. (Five of them would enter either the Vincentian Fathers or the Daughters of Charity.) He led a routine childhood and youth, displaying no particular religious fervor. This changed in 1816, however, after his younger brother, Louis, was accepted into the Vincentian seminary recently founded in Montauban by their uncle, Jacques Perboyre, C.M. John Gabriel was asked by their parents to accompany his brother until he had adapted to his new environment. To his surprise, John Gabriel felt drawn to follow this life himself. When the teachers at the minor seminary saw John Gabriel's intelligence and piety, they suggested that he enroll formally in the seminary. He wrote to his father, offering to return to help on the farm should his father wish, but indicating that he felt that he was called to serve as a priest. His parents gave him their blessing and full support in this. John Gabriel entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Mission established in the premises of the minor seminary of Montauban in December 1818. On the feast of the Holy Innocents 1820, he made the Congregation's four promises, hoping to serve in its overseas missions. He was ordained to the priesthood on 23 September 1825, in the chapel of the Daughters of Charity, by Louis Dubourg, an experienced Sulpician missionary bishop newly returned to France and installed as the Bishop of Montauban. On the following day Perboyre celebrated Mass for the first time. In 1832 he was assigned by the superiors of the Congregation to supervise the novitiate in Paris.