St John de Brébeuf and his fellow missionary Father Gabriel Lalemont, both Jesuit priests, were martyred in North America in the seventeenth century. Their mission was to convert the indigenous American Indians and they underwent terrible hardship and eventual death for their beliefs. Perhaps if we were to meet them now we would think them unbelievably stubborn but they were men of undeniable spirituality and no little courage.

There is a reading from the Second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians Chapter 4, which relates well to these two men.

Brothers and sisters:
We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.

When I think of our little problems compared to the steely courage of these two martyrs I really do feel that the things that trouble us in today’s society are often much ado about nothing.