Jesus reminds us in the Gospel to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Men and women who engage fully in their work of serving the Lord benefit from that mixture of innocence and wisdom. Such was the example of Saint Charles Garnier, one of the eight seventeenth-century Jesuit Martyrs of North America.

Charles Garnier was born to a noble family in Paris on May 25, 1606. His father was an under secretary to King Henri III of France and his mother from a noble family of Orleans. Charles possessed a combination of innocence and a manly character from childhood. He studied at Clermont College, one of the oldest of the Jesuit schools of France, and joined the Jesuits in 1624. He said of his vocation, “It was Mary who carried me in her arms during my youthful years; it was she who called me to the Society of her Son.” 

After ordination in 1635, he expressed a strong desire to join the Jesuit missionaries in New France. His father was adamantly opposed to his son going to the missions. It may have been Charles’ dream, but it meant almost certain death as a missionary. His father eventually relented after he realized that his son was growing more convinced that God was calling him to New France. Finally, a year after his ordination, Charles was assigned to New France with fellow Jesuit, Pierre Chastellain. The ship arrived in Quebec in June 1636. Just a month later, Fr. Garnier left for Huronia. In a letter he wrote from Quebec to France, he said, “The Huron country is [the] holy of holies … let us, therefore, leap for joy in this land of blessing.”

He spent the rest of his life among the Hurons and Petuns, never returning to Quebec. Within several months, Fr. Garnier had mastered the difficult language, thus starting his years of unceasing charity in travelling from village to village in search of those most in need, doing all of it with fearlessness. He and his colleagues tended the souls of the people, but also their bodies.

The Hurons nicknamed Fr. Garnier Ouracha (or rain-giver), because a drought-ending rainfall followed his arrival. Thus he was almost always welcomed in a Huron village. He was greatly influenced by Fr. Jean de Brébeuf, and was known as the “lamb” to Brébeuf’s “lion.” Garnier was a person of gentleness, innocence and purity with a strong devotion to Our Lady.

At the same time he was fearless, refusing to escape from an Iroquois attack on Etharita, his village, on December 7, 1649. Along with many of the Huron families, he was killed by musket fire in the attack. He had often thought of his brother Jesuits who were martyred in the previous year and he knew that he could be next. Yet, he did not look for a place to hide or flee. He continued his missionary work among the defenceless people and calmly awaited his turn, no doubt at peace over all that was to happen as he prepared to give his life for the people he loved and served. Just a few months before his martyrdom, he wrote, “How happy I should be to die with this little flock of the Master, just as three of our fathers dies for Him in the past year.”

Fr. Charles Garnier was canonized on June 29, 1930 and is celebrated by the Church with the other Jesuit Martyrs of North America in Canada on September 26 and October 19 in the United States. St. Charles Garnier, pray for us, that we may share in your faith and strength!