Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs

In the 17th century French Jesuits worked among the Huron (Wendat) people around Georgian Bay, in today's Ontario. Jean de Brébeuf, there from 1626, learned their language, wrote a grammar and, by tradition, the Huron Carol. Isaac Jogues was captured by Mohawks in 1642, tortured and his fingers mutilated; he escaped, returned to France, and came back, only to be killed at the Mohawk village of Ossernenon in 1646. During the war between the Iroquois and the Huron, Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were tortured to death at St Ignace in March 1649, and Antoine Daniel, Charles Garnier and Noël Chabanel were also killed. Two lay helpers, René Goupil and Jean de La Lande, died near Ossernenon. The eight were canonized in 1930.