“We begged God to accept our lives and our blood and unite them to His life and His blood for the salvation of these tribes.” St. Isaac Jogues
What a testimony of apostolic zeal! St. Issac Jogues went back to the same Indian tribe that had tortured and nearly killed him, because he felt called in his heart to give them Christ. This account is from the Catholic Encyclopedia: “The Iroquois met him near Lake George, stripped him naked, slashed him with their knives, beat him and then led him to the village. On 18 October, 1646, when entering a cabin he was struck with a tomahawk and afterwards decapitated. The head was fixed on the Palisades and the body thrown into the Mohawk.”
What are we prepared to endure for the salvation of a single soul? We will not be tomahawked or brutally tortured, but we could suffer verbal and emotional abuse for defending and living our Faith. God has providentially placed us in contact with so many souls, and the secret to winning them over is not so much our profound theological knowledge (which can be helpful), but our sincere love and humility as a fruit of our intense life of prayer!
