Posted on 10/12/2010 6:33:19 AM PDT by marshmallow
He was unassuming and frail, a humble man who could not even hold down a job in the textile mills of Connecticut because of his poor health.
Yet there was something about the diminutive religious-order brother known to millions as Brother André that made people wonder if he might not be a living saint.
Born Alfred Bessette, and assigned as a porter at the College Notre-Dame in Montreal for 40 of his 91 years, he was dubbed the Miracle Man of Montreal for his seeming ability to call on divine intervention to heal the sick. It was a story attested to not only by many in Canada, but by relatives and acquaintances in Rhode Island with whom he visited frequently.
And now, 73 years after his death, Brother André is to be canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday.
The import has not been lost on the people of Canada, who have arranged a series of celebrations culminating with a giant Mass of thanksgiving in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium on Oct. 30. Nor has it been lost on the relatives in Rhode Island who tell stories about how Brother André came to visit their parents, grandparents, great aunts and great-grandparents in the 1920s and ’30s.
Aurore Lawrence, whose grandmother, Leocadie, was one of Brother André’s sisters, recalled in 1984 how, in the early part of the 20th century, he would often attend Mass at St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph’s churches in West Warwick, and stay at her grandmother’s home on Summit Avenue in the town’s Phenix section. “But when you looked into his room the next morning, it was untouched. He slept on the floor.”
(Excerpt) Read more at projo.com ...
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