Blessed Frederic Janssoone
Feast day: Aug. 4
“He was the one who made God appear to people who could not see God.”
This is how an acquaintance described Blessed Frederic Janssoone, a humble, joyful Franciscan friar whose mission to promote charity, penance and peace took him from France to the Holy Land and then to Canada before his death in 1916.
Born in 1838 in the north of France, Frederic was brought up in a devout farming family. His father died when he was 9 years old, and a few years later he left school to support his family. He found work as an errand boy and a traveling salesman, honing skills he would later use as a Franciscan. Blessed Frederic eventually was able to complete his studies and enter the novitiate of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in Amiens.
Ordained a priest in 1870, Blessed Frederic was first a military chaplain during the Franco-Prussian War and then an assistant novice director and librarian before becoming superior of the community in Bordeaux.
In 1876, he volunteered to serve in the Holy Land, where the Franciscans have guarded holy sites and served pilgrims for centuries. A few years later, Blessed Frederic was elected vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land and, in this role, promoted the practice of Holy Land pilgrimages. He reestablished the custom of making the Way of the Cross in the streets of Jerusalem, along the Via Dolorosa, personally negotiating with local Arab Muslims to reinstate a practice that had been banned for 300 years.
His skills in diplomacy, conciliation and justice again came to the fore in managing the construction of St. Catherine’s Parish next to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and in revising the rules for using and maintaining the shrines of Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre that had developed over the centuries among the Latins, Greeks and Armenians. He also encouraged care for Holy Land pilgrims and the repair of Catholic shrines in the Holy Land, and he directed the collection of funds for poor Palestinians.
Blessed Frederic saw the importance of publicity and good communication skills in everything he did to promote the Church. Known as “God’s peddler,” he had a natural talent for meeting people and selling a product — talents that he used to bring people to Christ. He expressed his apostolic ambition by this prayer: “Let me bring to you whoever comes to me.”
“Good Father Frederic,” as he was known, made his first trip to Canada in 1881 to give retreats, establish an annual collection for the Holy Land sites and submit to the bishops a plan for the Commissariat for the Holy Land in Canada. In 1888, he returned, settling in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, where he became closely involved with the development of the shrine of Our Lady at Cap-de-la-Madeleine. He was one of three witnesses to the Miracle of the Eyes, when a statue of the Blessed Mother at the shrine is said to have lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight ahead for several minutes.
Blessed Frederic spent the rest of his life in Canada, building up the Church in myriad ways. He assisted in reestablishing the Order of Friars Minor, which had ceased to exist with the death of the last friar in 1812. Admired as a preacher, his talks in several dioceses in Quebec ignited a major religious revival in the province. He held conferences, led pilgrimages and wrote magazine and newspaper articles on the Holy Land, the life of Christ and the saints. He went door-to-door selling pamphlets and books on the faith he had written to raise funds for the poor and for the establishment of several communities of consecrated life, including the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary and the Poor Clares. On pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, he met and befriended the future saint, Brother André Bessette.
Blessed Frederic died of stomach cancer in Montreal in 1916, and his body is entombed in the Chapel of St. Anthony in Triois-Rivières. He was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II on Sept. 25, 1988.
Reflection
Dear God, give me the courage and love of you to evangelize wherever I am called. May I never forget the poor and those in need of learning about our faith in you.
Prayer
O God, who gave increase to your Church through the zeal for religion and apostolic labors of blessed Frederic Janssoone, grant, through his intercession, that she may always receive
new growth in faith and in holiness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
