Saint Andre

                                                 Saint Andre

    On August 9 1845 Andre Bessette was born to a poor family that lived in the village of St. Gregoire, Quebec. Andre was born the eighth child out of twelve, he was very sick from birth. Andre's father died in a lumbering accident when he was six years old. Four years later at the age of ten his mother became sick with tuberculosis. She was unable to care for her twelve children by herself so she put them up for adoption. She only kept Andre because he was sick. Together Andre and his mother went to live with her sister in St. Cesaire. After two years of being ill Andre's mother died when he was twelve. When he's mother died he continued to stay with his aunt and uncle. His uncle made him work on the farm, but with his illness he could not. Since he could not work on the farm his uncle sent him to to a cobbler to learn how to make shoes, this did not last long because he kept pricking his finger on the cobbler's awl.
     Later in life Andre decided he wanted to devout his life to God, unfortunately he was not educated so he could not be a priest. He was assigned as a porter in a college. The college was called Notre- Dame- du- Sacre- Coeur and was in Cote des Neiges, Quebec. While people would wait to see the priest the would talk to Andre and he would pray for them and their problems would go away. He preformed so many miracles that people started to come to see him. Andre told the people he preformed the miracles for to thank St. Joseph not him. Andre wanted to build a shrine to St. Joseph on the mountain in Montreal. He prayed for six years that St. Joseph would arrange for someone to buy the land on the mountain. In 1896 the Holy Cross Congregation purchased the land. Brother Andre put a statue of St.Joseph in a cave on the property and a bowl in front of him so he could collect alms which he would use the alms to build a church. The work on the church started in 1904 and was finished in 1966. The church was big enough that it needed a full time guardian which Andre's job since 1909. When Andre died on January 6, 1937, at the age of 91 doctors believed he died of what was an acute gastritis. The Oratory of St. Joseph that Andre dedicated his life to now has St. Andre's remains.
On the 17th of October 2010 Blessed Brother Andre became a saint 73 years after his death.



Christina P