Today’s main feast day is the Epiphany. See thought on main page for more. But today is also the feast day of Andre Bessette. Brother Andre is famous as a saint because of his devotion to St.Joseph. He joined the congregation of the Holy Cross at 25. In his little room near the door, he spent much of the night on his knees. On his windosill facing Mount Royal, was a small statue of St.Joseph to whom he had been devoted since childhood.

One day when he heard that someone was ill, he visited and prayed with the sick person. He would rub the sick person lightly with oil taken from a lamp burning in the college chapel. Word of healing began to spread. When an epidemic broke out at a nearby college, Andre volunteered to nurse. Not one person died. The trickle of sick people to his door became a flood. His superiors were uneasy. The diocesan authorities were suspicious and doctors called his a quack.


“I do not cure” he said again and again. “St.Joseph cures”
In the end he needed four secretaries to handle the 80,000 letters he received each year. Land was bought, a church was built and the people came in numbers. Some were healed, some not but the pile of crutches, canes and braces grew. Andre lived to the grand age of 92.

Today we ask his many blessing on us. Amen