“The LORD hath done great things for us: we are become joyful. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as a stream in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.”

–Psalm 125:3-7

This Psalm of David, which treats of the joy of the captive Jews upon their return from Babylon, is accommodated by the Church to express the rejoicing of the just upon their entry into Heaven. It is therefore a Psalm which expresses the redemption of mankind. It is an appropriate Psalm to introduce our Conference for tonight which is entitled: “The Saints Behind The Saints”. In the end, nobody gets to Heaven without help from the Communion of Saints on earth. We are meant to be vessels of grace for one another, and God in His dispensations arranges the intersections of our lives accordingly. This is an important awareness to protect us against a stark and reductive idea of God’s election, as if it were a plucking of individual souls here and there while allowing the mass of men to sink into damnation. The actual record of sanctity shows something else altogether.
Frere André Bessette was revered in his lifetime as a miracle-man, un faiseur des miracles, a “thaumaturge”. People had great faith in his prayers. He is now a canonized Saint of the Catholic Church.
But we can see the human links which shaped him and enabled God to fill him with that extra unction which transformed him into “Frere André”. I would like to focus on three human links–two individuals, and one collectivity. They are: Father André Provençal, the Parish Priest of Saint-Césaire, who sponsored him for Holy Cross, his mother Clotilde Bessette, who died when he was 12 years-old, and the faithful Catholic people of French Canada, who shaped his world, both in Quebec and in the U.S. New England migration.
Who was Fr. André Provençal? It would seem he was a hard-working parish priest in a rural community, esteemed by his parishioners as a true man of God. He was a “builder”, presiding over the building of a new parish church, a convent, and a “commercial college” for boys.
Fr. Provençal took notice of the young man Bessette who hung around the parish house, available for odd jobs and spending a great deal of time praying in church. He took Alfred under his wing, mentored him and wrote the strong letter which got him in the door with Holy Cross. Fr. Provençal wrote to the college authorities: “I am sending you a saint...”
Clotilde Bessette was a brief presence in the life of child Alfred, but he remembered her motherlove with great feeling for the whole of his long life. He remembered her sweetness to him. As Frere André recalled: “Probably due to the fact that I was the most sickly, my mother showed more affection to me than to the other children and also took greater care of me. She kissed me more often than I deserved...And I, also, how I loved her!” It was thanks to his mother that he got his deep inclination to be devoted to Saint. Joseph. Near the end of his life, he revealed: “I’ve rarely prayed for my mother, but I’ve often prayed to her.”
Finally, we must take a look at the collective faith-world of Catholic French Canada. We cannot adequately estimate the great advantage of being in a society infused with the ethos of Catholic faith and practice, as Quebec was at this time. Was it a perfect society? No. Was everybody a model Catholic? Of course not! Were there no counter-examples, shades of dark to challenge the light? No doubt there were plenty. But it is easier, far easier to learn how to become a Saint in a world where the Catholic imagination is so rich, so tangible, so re-assuring. The sanctity of Frere André is in a real sense an expression of the sanctity of so many just souls of French Canada, who both lived in his day and preceded him, and who now rejoice with Him in the land of Heaven.
Sanctity, you see, is not a divine work of splendid isolation. It comes out of our most familiar human bonds. These are the Saints behind the Saints.