André Bessette

André Bessette was born Alfred Bessette on 9 August 1845 in Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Quebec, then in the Province of Canada. He was the eighth of twelve children of Isaac Bessette, a carpenter and lumberman, and Clothilde Foisy. The household was poor, and his childhood was shaped by illness and early bereavement. His father died in a logging accident when Alfred was about nine years old; his mother died of tuberculosis when he was twelve, leaving him an orphan. Relatives took him in, but he received little formal schooling and remained barely literate. Frail from an early age, he worked as a farmhand, baker, blacksmith, cobbler, and factory labourer. In the 1860s he spent several years in New England mill towns in the United States before returning to Quebec.

With the encouragement of his pastor he applied in 1870 to the Congregation of Holy Cross in Montreal. Superiors hesitated because of his poor health, but Bishop Ignace Bourget of Montreal urged them to accept him. Alfred received the religious name Brother André and was assigned as porter at Collège Notre-Dame in Côte-des-Neiges, a post he held for about forty years. He opened the door, ran errands, and received the sick and distressed who came to the college. He fostered a strong devotion to Saint Joseph, whom he called his father and protector. He invited the afflicted to pray to Saint Joseph and to use oil taken from a lamp that burned before a statue of the saint. Accounts of recoveries circulated, and growing numbers of people sought him out. He consistently attributed any good that followed to Saint Joseph rather than to himself.

Brother André hoped to see a shrine to Saint Joseph rise on the slope of Mount Royal opposite the college. In 1904 a small wooden chapel was built there. Pilgrims increased, the chapel was enlarged, and the site developed into Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, which became one of the principal Catholic pilgrimage destinations in North America. The great basilica that now dominates the mountain was begun in his lifetime and finished only after his death. He continued a simple religious routine of prayer, reception of visitors, and visits to the sick even as the oratory grew into a large institution.

He died in Montreal on 6 January 1937, aged ninety-one. Very large crowds came to pay their respects at the oratory. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 23 May 1982 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2010, becoming the first Canadian-born man to be declared a saint. His body is entombed at Saint Joseph's Oratory. The Catholic Church keeps his feast on 6 January; in Canada it is observed on 7 January so that it does not fall on the Epiphany. He is invoked especially as a patron of family caregivers and is remembered for humility, perseverance in illness, and devotion to Saint Joseph.