Hello, welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary McGeehan and I am joined with Dr.

Elizabeth Klein. Thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. We're here for another

episode of Catholic Saints. Can't get enough. So many saints keep coming so we keep having more

episodes about the wonderful lives of the various saints

that we can look to and learn from. So today's episode, we are going to learn about St. Andre

Bissette. Yeah. So under Bessette, if you guys listen regularly, watch regularly, you know that most

of the saints I do are patristic saints, early church saints. Sometimes I do medieval saints. So this is a

modern saint. This is a little out of mind. I forced her. I was like, we need a modern saint. Yeah, this is a lot of my, but I do make exceptions for Canadian saints because I'm Canadian. So I have done a couple Canadian saints. And actually, Andre Bissette, I feel like he's, you know, how sometimes people say like, Saints stock you or whatever. I feel like I've had a couple encounters with Andre Bissette that I wouldn't have expected. So I, if you will indulge a little personal anecdote, I was visiting a friend in Montreal before I was Catholic. He wasn't Catholic either. And he had like some bike like tour planned. Of course, like I'm terrible biking. I'm an academic. What am I even doing? So he like

borrowed this like street bike from somebody and as soon as I got on it, I'd know where the brakes were

and I like smash the bike. And so we couldn't go on the bike tour. And I was like, well, I'd really rather go to St. Joseph's Oratory anyway. So we took the bike to the bike shop and then we went to St. Joseph's Oratory, which is the beautiful church in Montreal that Andre Bisset raised

money for and ultimately helped build.

Okay.

And while we were there, I'd never heard of Andri Bessette, but while we were there, his relics are there, including, like, fragments of his heart. So we had a really interesting conversation about, like, relics and, like, you know, religious objects and things. And, of course, I became Catholic. And actually, this friend of mine

is now like Orthodox Marx. So, you know, this is kind of like, Andrewisett, I was there. And then right after I got to Notre Dame was right after Under Beset's canonization. Okay. And Underbisset is a Holy Cross brother. And Holy Cross is the order that runs, Notre Dame. And so there was all kinds of stuff about him in the basilica. And so I feel like he's like kind of like cropped up a couple

times. Yes. the order that runs, Notre Dame. And so there was all kinds of stuff about him in the Basilica.

And so I feel like he's kind of like cropped up a couple times. So I'm happy to talk about 100%. You've been leading you along the path and following you as you go. Yes, exactly. Canadian Canadian Saints. So I'm assuming he is also from Montreal to start. Yes. So he's from Montreal, all Quebec. So for those of you who don't know, that's the French-speaking province of Canada that's close to the East Coast of the United States. Okay. Thank you for Yes. So it's not, it's not like too far from like, I don't know, I don't know the American States at well. Maine. Yes. Massachusetts. It's up north. Yeah. It's close to those. So Andre Bissette is, as I said, a modern state,

so his dates are 1845 to 1927. So, yeah, really just died about 100 years ago.

Do you know, well, actually, I wrote his dad. He was canonized in 2010. Yes. So decently recent.

Yeah, so I think he was beatified in the 70s and then, but then not, yeah, not canonized until 2010 by bed at the 16th. So it's a fair, it's kind of interesting. Like while I was researching, I knew a little bit about him, but like, I mean, really in his own life, he was like insanely famous. And so it's interesting that this is like, what about a hundred years ago, it's not actually that far away. And yet, like, I don't think that a lot of people necessarily know.

It's true. I guess it would have been my great grandmother would have potentially known.

Yes. His name. Yeah. And so he's actually the first Canadian national to be canonized because

Canada didn't become a country until 1867.

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