Jean De Brebeuf, 1593-1649

By Joseph Peter Donnelly

Study of the Jesuit "Black Robe" in particular Jean Brebeuf and the Huron or Wendat. Great cover illustration of Four Hurons meeting three Black Robes. Insightful, academic with notes published by the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0829402330
• ISBN13: 9780829402339
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Loyola Pr
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A life of Jean de Brebeuf

A thoroughly researched solid account of the life of a Saint who shared his life with his Huron flock. Jean de Brebeuf was an amazing lexicographer, an ardent missionary and a complete man. His death at the hands of the Iroquois is remarkable, and one of his torturers, "Poudre chaude," became an exemplary Christian. Donnelly's account is excellent. Readers may also be interested in Talbot's account of de Brebeuf's life, "Saint Among the Hurons," as well as his account of Isaac Jogues in "Saint Among Savages."

What makes a hero? or a saint?

Jean De Brebeuf was born a noble in France. He was a giant of a man, physically as well as spiritually, and blessed with an uncanny knack for learning languages. He gave up the comfortable life and food of France to travel to America to try to convert the Hurons, none of whom welcomed him. The suffering he endured during the next few years is simply unbelievable. Time and again, he broke bones, ignored tormenting pain, crawled through snowdrifts, was abandoned, starved, beaten, and rejected, and yet he still persevered. At some point, he began to have visions. He saw the Virgin Mary, "a ravishing beauty...decorated with gold embroidery..I experienced great admiration and love of God" (p 171). His death at the hands of the Iroquois makes for grim reading. Yet Brebeuf and his companion, Father Lalemant, endured it with patience. "The Iroquois could elicit no moan of pain from Jean de Brebeuf who suffered...without uttering any cry" (p 277).

Saints, Settlers and Indians

"Jean de Brebeuf" is a very interesting biography of one of the most prominent of the North American Jesuit martyrs. Born in France in 1592, de Brebeuf, after having been ordained into the, then, relatively young Jesuit order, began his missionary career in Canada in 1625 which continued among the Huron Indians until his martyrdom on March 16, 1649. The story of St. Jean de Brebeuf is inspiring enough, but this book provides the reader with much more. Author Joseph P. Donnelly, S. J., introduces the reader to the other martyrs, Sts. Isaac Jogues, Gabriel Lalemant, Antione Daniel, Charles Garnier, Noel Chabanel, Paul Gupel and Jean de La Lande. The family background of each of the main characters as sell as the situations in New France and among the Indians are all explained in varying degrees of detail. This book gives the reader a much better understanding of life in New France and in the Indian villages, as well as the economic relationships among the French, Hurons, Iroquois, English and Dutch. For anyone with an interest in the North American Martyrs, the early history of New France or the relationships between Indians and the settlers in the Seventeenth Century, "Jean de Brebeuf" is a must.