S.G.PETER JOSEPH MARY CHAUMONOT, SJ

Born: March 9, 1611
Died: February 21, 1693

Peter was born in the small Burgundian village of Sainte-Colombe-sur-Seine, France. At the age of six, his father, a vinegrower, sent Peter to live with his maternal grandfather, a school teacher, so that he might learn to read and write. At twelve Peter studied Latin in preparation for college with an uncle, a priest living in Chatillon-sur-Seine. There Peter met another student who was keen in Church music and this lad talked Peter into running away with him to Beaune to study Gregorian chant with the Oratorians. Since Peter had no funds of his own, he stole a hundred sols and left town hastily. He was seventeen years old.

While at Beaune, Peter soon spent all his money and became a pauper. As he could not face returning home and being branded a thief, he chose to become a vagabond and headed for Rome “to seek pardon.” He lived by begging along the way, sleeping in barns or in open fields. He crossed the Alps in Italy, walked through Lombardy, down to Ancona and finally to Loreto. On his arrival he was without shoes and his clothes in tatters; his scalp was scabby, purulent, and covered with lice.

While kneeling at the shrine at the Holy House of Loreto, Peter poured out his heart to our Lady and prayed that she have pity on him in his affliction and to send someone who could relieve him of his present misery. As he was leaving the church, a young man approached him and said: “What’s wrong with your head? Let me work on it and help you.” The young man took him behind the church, cut off his hair and rubbed his scalp with a white cloth. When he replaced his hat, he found his scalp thoroughly clean without a trace of his former malady. Peter was certain the young man was an angel and that our Lady had worked a miracle on his behalf.

After three days he set out for Rome, but along the way to Terni an elderly gentleman hired him as his valet. One day Peter went for confession at the local Jesuit church but not knowing Italian sufficiently, he made his confession in Latin. The Jesuit was so impressed by the youth’s knowledge of Latin that he encouraged him to continue his studies and offered to help him enter the Jesuit school. Peter declined as he feared that the priest was trying to turn him into a Jesuit. At Terni, Peter, to improve on his Italian, read about the lives of saints which led him to decide that he would live a life of a hermit when he returned to France.

Peter’s visit to Rome was short and on his return to Terni, he was again engaged as valet to his former employer. He now attended classes at the Jesuit college and one day at Mass in the Jesuit church he heard a sermon on the recently beatified Francis Borgia which deeply moved him. As a result, he asked for admission into the Society of Jesus. Thus at age twenty-one, he entered the Roman novitiate of Sant’ Andrea on May 16, 1634. He taught for two-and-a-half years in Ferno, about
twelve miles from Loreto. This enabled Peter to make a second pilgrimage to our Lady’s shrine.

At the Roman College Peter befriended Fr Antoine Poncet, a fellow Frenchman, who showed him a letter from Fr John de Brebeuf describing missionary life among the Huron Indians in New France (Canada). Hearing that Fr Poncet was assigned to that same mission, Peter requested Fr General Muzio Vitelleschi to let him go along. The latter acquiesced although Peter had not begun his study of theology. Peter and Fr Poncet made a pilgrimage to Loreto to place their coming voyage under the Virgin’s care. Peter also promised to build a chapel in honour of Our lady of Loreto and resolved to adopt the names of Joseph (as St Joseph was the patron of New France) and Mary because of his love for her.

After Peter was ordained in Rome on March 19, 1638, he and Fr Poncet together with nine other missionaries left for France and on May 4, 1639 sailed from Dieppe and arrived in Quebec on August 1 after encountering a fifteen-day storm and frightful icebergs. Fr Poncet and Fr Chaumonot left a few days later with the Huron Indian traders who were on their homeward trip to Huronia after coming to Quebec to trade. They arrived at the Jesuit missionary station of Sainte-Marie on September 10 where their religious brethren welcomed them.

In October a small-pox epidemic broke out in the Huron village and Fr Chaumonot learned how arduous missionary life could be. He accompanied Fr Paul Ragueneau to La Conception mission but they ended up baptizing dying infants and a few adults.
They were forced to leave after five frustrating months. Fr Chaumonot’s next assignment was learning the Huron mother tongue under Fr Anthony Daniel and was able to pick up a sufficient command so as to preach in it within a remarkably short time given his great facility with languages. Years later he compiled a Huron grammar and vocabulary which was of great benefit to new missionaries. Fr Chaumonot worked with veteran
missionaries such as Frs Brebeuf, Francois du Peron and Rene Menard and together with them they visited various villags and preached to those listening. He likewise learned to endure rejection and insults and to expect martyrdom.

As the hatred of the Iroquois for the Hurons increased so did their determination to destroy them. In 1648 the Iroquois initiated surprise attacks on Huron villages, during which three Jesuits were martyred. (Fr Daniel in July 1648) and Frs Brebeuf and Lalemant in March 1649) and thousands of Hurons were massacred or taken captives many sought refuge at the Jesuit headquarters of Sainte-Marie. As there was no way to halt the advance of the Iroquois, the missionaries burned their mission HQ and took the
remaining Hurons to Ile Saint-Joseph, today’s Christian Island in Georgian Bay. With the harsh winter and the ever-present Iroquois threat (Frs Charles Garnier abd Noel Chabanel were martyred in Dec 1649) the Jesuits and some three hundred Hurons led by Fr Chaumonot left the island in June 1650 for Quebec. They settled on nearby Ile
d’Orleans in March 1651 where Fr Chaumonot devoted his time and energy to the homeless Hurons. When the new settlement became a thriving community, many of the Hurons who had gone to the Petuns or the Neutrals, joined them in Quebec.

Since 1653 the Onondagas, one of the five Iroquois nations, sent ambassadors to Quebec requesting missionaries. Fr Chaumonot was chosen to go to them because he alone had the best command of their tongue. His companion was the newly arrived
Claude Dablon and they departed in Sep 1655 but the Onondagas’ insincerity soon became obvious as they thought the Hurons would follow the missionaries After months of vexatious treatment the missionaries returned to Quebec in April 1658.
Fr Chaumonot’s Hurons had meantime migrated to Quebec. Fr Chaumonot remained with his Hurons until his death and migrated with them when the
community moved; first to Beauport in 1666, then Sillery in 1667, and finally to Lorette in 1673.

Throughout his almost fifty years in New France, Fr Chaumonot worked for the spiritual good of those under his care. To ensure Christian quality of family life, he founded the Confraternity of the Holy Family in 1663 and promoted it wherever he
travelled. He built a chapel honouring Notre-Dame de Foy. Then in 1671 he received from Fr Poncet, visiting Italy at that time, a statue of our Lady of Loreto together with plans of the Holy House so that Fr Chaumonot’s promise of bulding a chapel in
honour of Our Lady of Loreto could now be fulfilled. The chapel, an exact replica was built after the Hurons had migrated to a place that Fr Chaumonot had named Lorette and was dedicated on November 4, 1674. Within a short period that chapel became a
place of pilgrimage for the native population as well as for the French. Fr Chaumonot spent the last seventeen years of his life there instructing his parishioners, visiting the sick and praying for their needs.

Fr Chaumonot celebrated his fiftieth anniversary of his ordination on March 20, 1688 and was the first priest to achieve that milestone in the New World. That same year he wrote his autobiography at the reques of his superior, Fr Dablon. He fell ill
in Oct 1692 and was transferred to the Jesuit college in Quebec. On Feb 21, 1693, after months of illness, he suddenly sat up in bed, gazed at the foot of his bed, stretched out his arms and said: “Jesus, Mary, Joseph.” He breathed his last at
about 1 pm. Fr Chaumonot, the most famous and most beloved Jesuit in New France, was eighty-two years, had been a Jesuit for sixty and spent fifty-three years on the Huron mission.

His Jesuit contemporaries saw him as a man of peace and prayer, revered him for his holiness and acknowledged that miracles were performed through his intercession. Among the Hurons he was considered another John de Brebeuf, equal to him in sanctity and courage. After his death the Hurons changed his Indian name of Aroniatiri (Heaven-bearer) to that of Echon, the same name that the great Brebeuf was known among them. Fr Chaumonot’s cause is under consideration in
Rome.