By JAMES MONTI
Readers who regularly read this column may recall that last December we presented an account of Christmas among the American Indians of the frontier Northwest as celebrated by the Jesuit missionary, Fr. Pierre Jean DeSmet (1801-1873). It is truly a blessing to posterity that Fr. DeSmet left a vast paper trail of his life in the form of journal accounts and letters describing in the minutest detail all he saw and witnessed during his many years of missionary labors. These include utterly fascinating descriptions of the natural wonders he witnessed not only across the vast wilderness of the American Northwest, but also during his long sea voyages as he traveled to Europe and back to recruit more missionaries.
But what most poignantly emerges from the pages of Fr. DeSmet’s journal entries and correspondence are the “human interest stories” that reveal the action of divine Providence in leading souls to a life-changing encounter with the missionary. It is a story of sacrificial love winning over receptive souls willing to listen with childlike docility.
Fr. DeSmet did not embark upon his labors among the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and the American Northwest expecting their evangelization would be easy. It would mean everything from persuading the tribes to renounce polygamy and superstitions to overcoming a formidable language barrier. As he observed in a letter dating from July of 1838, whatever success the missionaries might achieve would be “altogether a work of God”: “This portion of the divine Master’s vineyard requires from those who tend it a life of crosses, privations and patience” (letter of July 20, 1838, in Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, SJ, 1801-1878, ed. Hiram Martin Chittenden and Alfred Talbot Richardson, New York, Francis P. Harper, 1905, volume 1, p. 163).
When success did come, it brought a sublime joy to Fr. DeSmet that he can scarcely describe:
“How consoling it is to pour the regenerating waters of baptism on the furrowed and scarified brows of these desert warriors — to behold these children of the plains and forests…embrace the faith and all its sacred practices, with an eagerness, an attention, a zeal worthy of the pristine Christians” (Life, Letters, and Travels, vol. 2, p. 472).
“Here, indeed, the Indian missionary enjoys his greatest consolations: here he obtains his strength, his courage, his zeal to labor to bring men to the knowledge of the true God, in spite of the poverty, the privations of every description, and the dangers with which he has to contend. . . . The trifling things he abandons are nothing to be compared with the blessings he finds in the wilderness” (ibid., volume 2, p. 469).
One of the most striking characteristics of the Indian converts was their acute sense of sin. The renunciation of Satan and all his empty promises made at Baptism was for them a solemn resolution never to be broken.
Commenting upon the exceptional fidelity of the Indians to their baptismal promises, Fr. DeSmet observes that the majority of these catechumens were to “preserve their baptismal innocence, to the hour of their death”:
“When I have afterward asked them if they have not offended God, if their conscience does not reproach them with some fault, how often have I received this touching and consoling answer: ‘Oh, Father! In baptism I renounced sin, I try to avoid sin, the very thought of offending God frightens me!’” (ibid., volume 2, p. 470).
Equally remarkable was the deep attraction that prayer held for the Native Americans to whom Fr. DeSmet brought the Gospel. On an April 1842 visit to the Coeur d’Alene tribe, Fr. DeSmet at the invitation of their great chief delivered a two-hour instruction to the people, concluding by reciting before them several prayers he had translated into their own language. After supper the leading men of the tribe wanted to hear still more, and so the missionary continued his instructions well into the night. The following day brought the missionary quite an unexpected sight:
“On awakening the next morning, I was surprised to find my lodge already filled with people. They had entered so quietly that I had not heard them. It was hardly daybreak when I arose, and they all, following my example, placed themselves on their knees, and we made together the offering of our hearts to God, with that of the actions of the day. After this the chief said: ‘Black-gown [i.e., Black-robe], we come here very early to observe you — we wish to imitate what you do…’” (ibid., volume 1, p. 376).
Similarly receptive to prayer were the Flathead Indians, who eagerly took to heart Fr. DeSmet’s advice to pray whenever awaking from sleep:
“The Flatheads are fond of praying. After the regular evening prayer, they will assemble in their tents to pray or sing canticles. These pious exercises will frequently be prolonged to a late hour; and if any wake during the night, they begin to pray” (ibid., vol. 1, p. 324).
This love for prayer was manifested even more intensely on Sundays, accentuated by the Flatheads’ assiduous observance of the Lord’s Day as a day of rest:
“On Sundays, the exercises of devotion are longer and more numerous, and yet they are never fatigued with the pious duty. They feel the happiness of the little and the humble is to speak with their Heavenly Father, and that no house presents as many attractions as the house of the Lord. Indeed, so religiously is the Sunday observed here, that on this day of rest…the most timorous deer might wonder unmolested in the midst of the tribe” (ibid., volume 1, p. 325).
The lessons of faith and religious devotion taught by Fr. DeSmet and his fellow missionaries came to pervade the entire way of life and life decisions of their catechumens. Regarding marriages among the Indians, one of Fr. DeSmet’s co-workers in the Native American missions observed, “Piety is what a young man seeks in her who is to be his future wife — and what a young woman desires to find in him who is to become her husband” (ibid., volume 2, p. 460).
Then as now, a priest’s fidelity to the wearing of his clerical attire was time and again instrumental in bringing about very providential happy meetings for the salvation and sanctification of souls. As Fr. DeSmet was journeying up the Missouri River by steamboat in 1838, during one of the brief stops that these ships were accustomed to make for gathering firewood, he decided to avail himself of this opportunity to do a little botanical exploring along the shore. Scarcely could he have imagined that this spur-of-the-moment diversion would prove to be the answer to an elderly man’s prayers:
“. . . I took a walk along the bank alone in search of rare plants. I had seated myself on a rock when a negro of eighty years came up to me. He seemed to stare at me attentively and with astonishment because of my black coat, and asked me if I was not a Catholic priest? Having replied that I was, he said to me with tears in his eyes, ‘I too have the happiness of being a Catholic, but it is five years since I had that of seeing a priest of my religion. Often have I said my prayers that I might have the consolation of confessing once more before I die. Sir, would you not have the kindness to hear and help me?’ I made him sit down beside me, and I had hardly uttered the words of absolution when the steamboat bell gave the signal for starting. The poor old man wept for joy and pressed my hand, unable to speak a word. I cannot express to you the consolation that this little meeting yielded me” (ibid., volume 1, p. 152).
As mentioned earlier, Fr. DeSmet’s writings are filled with colorful descriptions of the beauties and wonders he witnessed in the course of his travels, as if seen through the eyes of a naturalist explorer, yet set in their true context as manifestations of the handiwork of God, serving as an invitation to the contemplation of the Creator of these wonders. Reflecting upon all he had seen of the Great Plains and the American Northwest, Fr. DeSmet observed:
“It would be impossible for me to describe the somber silence that reigns in this vast desert. You may pass weeks there, on the march, without meeting a living soul. And yet we become habituated to it — like it. Solitude seems to give scope to man’s intellectual faculties; the mind seems more vigorous, the thought clearer. It has always seemed to me that when one travels over the plains, he feels more inclined to prayer, meditation, confidence in God, more disposed to resign himself into the hands of Him who alone is our refuge amid perils, and who alone can provide for all our wants” (ibid., volume 2, pp. 647-648).
Wishing to explain to his readers why in recounting his missionary journeys he so often pauses to tell of the natural surroundings he passed through, Fr. DeSmet adds,
“You will excuse these little digressions on the localities I traversed. They will show, withal, to our unbelievers in Europe, that science and civilization may find their account in voyages undertaken for the good of souls and the glory of the Church. And then, too, all these fair and varied objects make us incessantly bless heaven and say, with the Psalmist, ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof’” (ibid., volume 2, p. 648).
A Calm Faith
In 1844, as Fr. DeSmet was returning by ship to the missions following a trip to Europe to recruit more missionaries, the vessel he was aboard encountered imminent peril along the South American coast as the winds were hurling it toward a potential shipwreck on the rocks of Patagonia. Fr. DeSmet decided to go below deck to warn a group of nuns aboard who were also en route to the missions. He found them praying to the Blessed Virgin, very much aware of the situation, yet totally at peace about it:
“…I went below to inform the sisters of the danger…they all answered, with a smile upon the lips, and with only that tranquility, that unalterable calm, which only a heart pure and inflamed with the love of God can give, ‘We are not disturbed about anything. Let the Lord dispose of us as seems good to him.’ I had hardly reached the deck again when the wind suddenly changed and bore us in an exactly opposite direction” (ibid., volume 2, p. 420).
Amid all the worrisome troubles besetting the Church in our own age, it is precisely this sort of calm faith that will steer us all to safety and the blissful shore of eternal life.
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