The Other Founding: The Blood of the Martyrs
- Jared Staudt
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
This summer has led me on an unexpected pilgrimage related to the founding of the United States. I wrote previously about traveling some of the paths taken by Spanish explorers in 1776, including the trek through Colorado and Utah by Domínguez and Escalante, and Antonio Garcés’ desert journey in northern Arizona. For the 250th anniversary itself, I found myself on the other side of the country, in upstate New York, praying at the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville.
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” This ancient quote from Tertullian has proved true time and time again. Even as the U.S. celebrated its political founding, it’s important to remember the other founding, the spiritual founding in blood that saturated its soil. As surprising as it may be, the United States is a land of martyrs, with more than 100 spread throughout its territory. The first, America’s proto-martyr, is Father Juan de Padilla, killed in modern-day Kansas in 1542 while traveling with Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, a Spanish conquistador. Many of the martyrs likewise came from the Spanish in the south, such as the 58 martyrs of La Florida who died between 1549 and 1715 (and included Native Americans) and the Franciscan martyrs of New Mexico stretching from 1542 to 1696.
But martyrs also came from the north. The Jesuits established missions among the Huron tribes in New France, but traveling between them and Quebec City exposed them to dangerous raids from other tribes. In 1642, Father Isaac Jogues was captured by Mohawk warriors along with a lay brother, René Goupil, and a group of Huron catechumens, who were all exposed to intense torture. Jogues later described the ordeal:
“They bore us off, as captives towards their own land. We were twenty-two, three had been killed. By the favor of God our sufferings on that march, which lasted thirteen days, were indeed great; hunger and heat and menace, the savage fury of the Indians, the intense pain of our untended and now putrefying wounds, which actually swarmed with worms. No trial, however, came harder upon me than to see them five or six days after approach us jaded with the march, and, in cold blood, with minds in nowise excited by passion, pluck out our hair and beard and drive their nails, which are always very sharp, deep into parts most tender and sensitive to the slightest impression. But this was outward; my internal sufferings affected me still more, when I beheld that funereal procession of doomed Christians pass before my eyes, among them five old converts, the main pillars of the infant Huron Church. Indeed I ingenuously admit that I was again and again unable to withhold my tears, mourning over their lot and that of my other companions, and full of anxious solicitude for the future.”
As a priest, he also endured the great trial of losing the fingers he needed to celebrate Mass: “They burnt one of my fingers, and crunched another with their teeth; others already thus mangled they so wrenched by the tattered nerves, that even now, though healed, they are frightfully deformed.” He and Brother René would be spared death to become slaves in the Mohawk Village of Ossernenon (now Auriesville, New York), though the latter would be martyred shortly after when making the Sign of the Cross over a village boy. Jogues, however, was able to escape, assisted by the Dutch, and, after returning to France, he received special permission from the pope to celebrate Mass with his remaining fingers. What is truly remarkable, however, is that St. Isaac Jogues voluntarily returned to the place of his torture and captivity, arriving back at Ossernenon in 1646 as an emissary of peace. Temporal peace would not last, and he was martyred soon after, along with another lay brother, Jean de Lalande, though he obtained a greater peace through his blood.
The original collect of the Feast of the North American Martyrs, which encompasses also the Jesuits martyred in Canada, recognized the spiritual founding that took place as these pioneers of faith gave their lives for the Lord. “O God, who didst consecrate the first fruits of the faith in the northern regions of America by the preaching and blood of thy blessed martyrs Isaac, John and their companions: vouchsafe unto us, we beseech thee, that through their intercession the fruitful harvest of Christians may everywhere daily receive an increase.” The literal first fruit of their blood was the Lily of the Mohawks, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, who was born only ten years after Jogues’s death in the same village of Ossernenon.
Even if we remain largely unaware of the blood that was shed in previous centuries, it, nonetheless, continues to make an impact on the growth of the Church in the United States, providing us a legacy that can continue to produce a spiritual harvest. The massive shrine church in Auriesville was built in the shape of the Coliseum (and bears that name) and also has 72 doors to represent the disciples sent out into the world. Visiting there for the Fourth of July weekend struck me vividly with the sense that we continue the battle for faith in our culture today. Even if we don’t encounter the same level of violence, we must fight to persevere. But we must not remain on the defensive. Rather, like Jogues, we must be bold. Like the original disciples, we must go out from the place of the Cross to carry the Kingdom out into the world to sanctify it.
This is the heart of the other founding, a spiritual trail blazed by the great martyrs of America, who call us to walk in their footsteps.
