Independence Day [In the Dioceses of the United States]
St. Antoine Daniel, a Jesuit missionary, was martyred on this date in 1648, in Midland, Ontario, about a hundred miles north of Toronto. The Jesuit left Europe when he was thirty-one and died there after 16 years of ministry. While assigned to a mission Church of the Huron Indians, the Iroquois suddenly attacked the village. Realizing that the defenders were outnumbered, St. Antoine Daniel went into the church, gave absolution to the Christians there, baptized the catechumens, lifted up a crucifix, and walking towards the attacking Iroquois, was shot by them.
The Jesuit missionaries in Canada willingly undertook such missions. Even if they escaped torture and execution, what kind of lifestyle remained for them, in a foreign land and a foreign language? Always the outsiders. No dentistry, little or no medicine, little or no art, books, or music. Primitive food and drink. Cold. Dirt. Hunger. Disease. Discomfort everywhere, risk everywhere. It was poverty in the eyes of the world, but riches in the eyes of God. Somehow, those men found satisfaction.
Most of us, as long as we are in this world, will never obtain their level of self-denial or their level of happiness. Only in the next world, if God wills it, can we meet them and ask them: how did they do it?