Saint André Bessette, CSC, born Alfred Bessette and since his canonisation sometimes known as Saint André of Montreal, was a Holy Cross Brother and a significant figure of the Roman Catholic Church among French-Canadians, credited with thousands of reported miraculous healings. He was declared venerable in 1978 and was beatified in 1982. Pope Benedict XVI approved sainthood for Blessed André on February 19, 2010, with the formal canonization taking place on October 17, 2010.
Early life
Alfred Bessette was born in Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Quebec (then Canada East), a small town situated 40 kilometers south-east of Montreal. He was so frail when he was born that the curé baptized him on an emergency basis and then conditionally the following day. He was from a working class family; his father, Isaac Bessette, was a carpenter and lumberman and his mother, Clothilde Foisy Bessette, saw to the education of her ten children (two others died in infancy). In 1849, with employment scarce and his family living in poverty, Alfred’s father decided to move to Farnham (in Quebec) where he hoped to earn a living as a lumberman. Tragically, he lost his life in an accident, crushed by a falling tree, when Alfred was only nine years old. His mother found herself widowed at the age of forty with ten children in her care. She died of tuberculosis within three years, and Alfred found himself orphaned at the age of twelve. Later Brother André would say, « I rarely prayed for my mother, but I often prayed to her. » He was sent to live with his mother’s sister, Rosalie Nadeau, and her husband Timothée, who attempted to establish Alfred in various trades, but the boy’s fragile health (which would afflict him throughout his life) made sustained manual labor difficult. Since he obviously did not have a trade, Alfred began a thirteen-year odyssey wandering from job to job with few belongings and little education. He was barely able to write his name or to read his prayer book. At various times he worked as a tinsmith, blacksmith, baker, shoemaker and wagon driver.
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