Dark Was the Wilderness

A darker, dying glimpse of Autumn's Beauty.
Today is the feast of the North American Martyrs.  When I was a young teenager my parents gave me a historical novel, Dark Was the Wilderness by P.W. O'Grady and Dorothy Dunn which tells the story of six French Jesuit priests and two lay associates who gave their lives to bring the Gospel of Jesus to the Huron and Mohawk nations in the early 17th century.  This book had a strong influence on my own desire to become a priest and help people to know God's gracious love.
My own copy was long lost. A friend whose husband had an ancestor who accompanied these Jesuits knew that the book was important to me.  She found a copy online and gave it to me.  It meant a lot to read it again. I am grateful to her.
I know that one of the things that attracted my young imagination was the gory details of the torture and eventual deaths of these great men.  But I hope that I was attracted even more by their strong belief in Jesus and by their desire to help the Amerindians to become aware of God's unearned love for them.
Today as I thought about them I thought that I would like to visit the shrines in their honor.  I want to list their names as a kind of prayer: Fathers Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf, Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel, as well as their lay associates, Rene Goupil and Jean de la Lande.