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Noêl Chabanel was a devoted Jesuit priest and academic who longed for a missionary life in New France. But once he arrived at his longed-for destination, his dream was shattered. The territory lifestyle was extremely harsh in his eyes, so much so that his superiors advised a return to France. Noêl Chabanel was adamant; he was a priest at the Society of Jesus. He made a vow to stay.
The Jesuit priest acted out of love and devotion to Christ and became a martyr because of it.
First years of training and ordination
The future saint made his first vows as a novice, consecrating his life to the Society of Jesus, in 1630. He studied philosophy in Toulouse, his first academic training as a Jesuit scholar.
Chabanel went on to teach grammar at the Jesuit College in the city, remaining there for five consecutive years. He also continued his theological studies in preparation for his final vows.
In 1642, at age 30, Noêl Chabanel pronounced his final vows. He was a Jesuit priest, spiritually and academically prepared for practical work in his Jesuit ministry, which for him was the mission to New France.
“A strong vocation”
The Jesuit Relations describes Fr. Chabanel’s enthusiasm:
“God gave him a strong vocation for these countries.”
Thanks to these chronicles, contemporaneous accounts written by Jesuits missionaries between 1632 and 1673, we learn of Father Chabanel’s missionary life.
Noêl Chabanel was aware of the dangers he and his fellow Jesuits faced when he boarded the French vessel bound for Canada, a three-month transatlantic voyage. He arrived in a land that was divided into tribes – the Algonquins, the Inuit (who lived in the northern regions of Quebec and had little contact with the missionaries), the Hurons, and the Iroquois, who were irreconcilable with the other tribes and their fierce enemies.
After spending some time in Quebec (then a small “city” with 500-600 inhabitants), Fr. Chabanel journeyed up the treacherous St. Lawrence River to the remote Huronia region to join the hunting peoples who dwelt there.
Immediate setbacks
At Sainte Marie, he faced the harsh reality of living in the country he had longed to come to.
The respected professor, whom the Jesuit Catholic Register described as “serious by nature, energetic, great stability and better than average intelligence,” was faced with a population that were in his eyes half-naked and living in squalor and poverty.
He was filled with faith, but as the months went by, the wild aspects of the country disappointed him. Chabanel could not get used to the food; there was no privacy, no study room where he could sit down and learn the Huron language.
A communication barrier
Even more challenging was accepting that he could not master the local language, which was understandably a severe obstacle for the work he set out to do. How could he preach, baptize, and carry out the practical aspects of his mission if he could not even communicate with the people he was supposed to serve?
The Relations summed up his dilemma:
“Although gifted with talent, as is evident from the years he successfully occupied the chairs of classics and rhetoric in France, his progress in the study of the … Huron and Algonquin idioms was so slow that at the end of the first winter (1844-1645) he could hardly make himself understood ‘even in ordinary matters.’”
With humiliation and self-doubt, he watched Fathers Brébeuf, Daniel, Garnier, and other brothers become competent in the Huron language and be successful at their work.
The Huron mission was a struggle for Noêl Chabanel at Saint Marie. Still, for five years, he always found tasks to keep him busy: Fr. Chabenel was always willing to accompany his fellow missionaries to different stations, baptizing, and tending to the dying.
Tragic death of a saint
The Iroquois continued attacking village after village.
With Fathers Brébeuf and Lalement murdered at St. Ignace, a Huron village near Ste. Marie, the Jesuit mission was in grave danger.
Father Chabanel, who was at St. Jean at the time, received orders to go to St. Joseph (known today as Christian Island). Iroquois warriors attacked the party on their way. The guides he was traveling with fled. Finding himself alone, the priest decided to walk.
Father Noêl Chabanel never made it to the island, however.
Waiting to cross the river, he was allegedly slain with a hatchet in one powerful stroke, killed by a Huron convert who threw his body into the river.
“I must serve”
On the day of his death, December 8, 1649, Noêl Chabanel had communicated to the Fathers in charge of St. Matthias’ mission. This was most likely his last message:
“I am going where obedience calls me, but whether I stay there or receive permission from my superior to return to the mission where I belong, I must serve God faithfully until death.”
The youngest of the Jesuit saints and the last to die, Noêl Chabanel is often described as the silent hero: obedient throughout his life, faithful to the end, and a man who did not give up despite difficult circumstances and his own limitations and failings.
Sister Marie of the Incarnation, in a letter to her son dated Aug.30, 1650, said of Noêl Chabanel:
“Whatever may be, he died in the act of obedience.”
Pope Pius XI canonized Noêl Chabanel and seven other Canadian martyrs on June 29, 1930.
And today we celebrate...