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People continued to be cured or helped without
seeing brother Andre' at all, simply by coming to the
Oratory to pray, or after his death, by visiting his
tomb. A long-time journalist with La Presse as their
Ottawa correspondent lost his job. Desperate for work
he came to the Oratory to pray, and was offered the
task of writing the history of Saint Joseph's Oratory.
After completing this, he never failed to find work
again in his chosen profession.
From early in his life, Brother Andre' used to
visit those too sick to come to him, walking or taking
the streetcar until he was seventy. Eventually, by
1915 friends sometimes arranged a car pool to shuttle
him around on his 17 hour working days. At the end of
the day, the brother would invite his friends to the
Oratory for prayers and meditation. He placed on a pew
a candle that burned for an hour. Then he knelt
before the Sacrament for that time, motionless in
ecstasy.
On a visit to his sister in Rhode Island he cured
an eighteen-year old girl of blindness. Doctors and
specialists had pronounced her incurable, the result
of uncontrollable eczema. He simply told her that she
would see again clearly, and within a year her sight
was restored, and thirty years later was still
perfect. She had not been given any further medical
treatment.
Also while in the States he cured a victim of
tuberculosis of three spinal vertebrae. Specialists
had pronounced him an invalid, giving him crutches.
Brother Andre got him to put down his crutches and
start walking without support, which he did, faster
and faster. After that he had no further problems.
Another man, from Chicopee, Massachusetts, had been
lying in bed for four years in a partial coma, unable
to speak and with no memory. After Brother Andre's
visit he woke up the following day singing a French
song. He thought he had been asleep for only one
night!
In many cases we could say that Brother Andre' was
also effecting a kind of mental healing, implanting
thoughts that there was no disease, or that it would
soon be gone. This is similar to the method used by
hypnotist Milton Erickson, and Ernest Holmes and his
Science of Mind. Mary Baker Eddy and her Christian
Science probably strays too far in this direction,
implying that disease doesn't exist at all. This is
to turn a blind eye to the suffering we see all around
us. There is no doubt perfection in the highest
spiritual dimensions, but down here on earth, with the
checks and balances of everyday living, we need a lot
of love and compassion to get through our life. To
say on the one had that this life is perfect, the
"best of all possible worlds" or on the other hand
that we are all sinners needing redemption, otherwise
we are destined for eternal damnation - these are two
extremes that ask the impossible of us. Simple,
humble workers for spirit like Brother Andre or our
own healers, and doctors and nurses saving lives every
day with their treatments and operations, all take a
positive and practical approach to tackling disease
and daily living. Most doctors will accept the
emotional and mental causes, but will not go so far as
to recognize the spiritual dimensions, the help
obtainable from there as well as causes originating
there, from previous lives, or from the influences of
ancestral or national history, with its fears, feuds
and obsessions.
On 31st August, 1924, the three hundredth
anniversary of the naming of Saint Joseph as the patron
saint of Canada was celebrated at the Oratory by
35,000 people, the largest congregation on the
mountain until then.
Brother Andre' received hundreds of letter every
day, telling him of their woes. Brother Hyacinth, his
secretary, answered them in a general, unless there
was a difficult problem, in which case Brother Andre
was consulted. When the Great Depression came in the
early 1930s, and people lost everything, the brother
said, "Money is nothing. You ought to be worrying
about your soul. You might lose it as well."
As he grew older, Brother Andre's cures became
more frequent, and doctors began to support him,
testified to his work and often sought his help in
difficult cases. Dr. Lamy thought his cures were
extraordinary. He cites a case in which another doctor
phone the brother, saying that his wife had not slept
for a long time. Brother Andre' replied by saying,
"your wife is asleep now." The doctor checked, and
found his wife in deep sleep. This kind of
clairvoyance at a distance is also to be found amongst
our Spiritualist mediums, Shinto priests, shamans, and
with some of the Indian Swamis: Paramahanse
Yogananda, Swami Rama or Satya Sai Baba, for example.
Brother Andre' treated people of all faiths or none.
He once cured a Preemason from Los Angeles of
intestinal cancer. He remarked, "Notice that this man
came a long way to Saint Joseph's Oratory, that he
took six days and six nights for his journey. His
Masonic Insignia is nothing but a piece of tin, but
there was great confidence in his heart and that is
what matters."
On his ninety-first birthday, August 9th, 1936,
it is said that half the world paid tribute to him. He
sent a message through the reporters to the people of
Canada's great neighbor: "The United States is ever in
my prayers. Always I pray for everyone in America.
She must have faith; even more faith. When chaos
prevails in the world we, each one of us, are to
blame. We are lacking in faith. Always be prepared to
die! We think least of the most important thing that
is to happen to us."
In October 2010 the humble brother was canonized in Rome, and has now rightfully become Saint Andre'
Reviewed from "The Miracle of Mount Royal" by Alden Hatch. Hawthorn Books, New York, 1959.
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