Explore the Saints
St. Jacques Berthieu
St. Jacques Berthieu was a French Jesuit priest martyred in 1896 while he was spreading the faith in Madagascar.
He was born in 1838 in France to a simple farming family. He studied at seminary and was ordained a diocesan priest in 1864, then went on to serve at a local parish for nine years. He had a thriving and well-developed prayer life grounded in St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises. When he heard a call to become a missionary he joined the Jesuit order in 1873.
Two years later, Jacques sailed to an island just off of Madagascar, where he studied the local language with several other Jesuits and some nuns. At the age of 37, the new climate and culture challenged him. “My uselessness and my spiritual misery serve to humiliate me, but not to discourage me,” he wrote. “I await the hour when I can do something, with the grace of God.”
He did what he could with his limited language and skills—he started a garden to help feed the missionary station and offered what pastoral service he could to the people there.
In 1881, the French government closed French territories to the Jesuits, so Jacques and the team of missionaries he was living with moved to the larger island of Madagascar, which was an independent kingdom. They built a church and began serving and teaching the people.
Within a few years, the kingdom of Madagascar was at war with the French. Soon a revolt targeted Christians, who were seen as complicit with the colonizers. Jacques asked a French colonel to help protect the Christian community he was working with, but was refused because Jacques had criticized the colonel’s treatment of the village women. The group fled instead, but were soon caught.
On this date in 1896, Jacques was found, stripped, and beaten. One rebel grabbed his crucifix and said, “Is this your amulet? Will you continue to pray for a long time?” Jacques replied, “I have to pray until I die.” He was struck on his head by a machete.
Wounded, he was marched some six miles to the village where he had been living, and was further tortured. His captors decided to kill him. Jacques knelt at the sight of the approaching gunmen, but they missed when they first fired at him. Jacques made the sign of the cross.
One approached him and offered to spare him if he gave up his faith—in fact, he said, they would make Jacques their counselor. “I cannot consent to this,” Jacques replied. “I prefer to die.”
They fired again, missing once more. Jacques bowed his head in prayer and was finally killed. His body was dumped in the local river. He was 57.
After his death, the people of the village noticed that miraculous healings began to happen when they drank the water of the river into which Jacques’ body was thrown. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
St. Jacques Berthieu, you were the missionary to Madagascar who preferred death to denying your faith—pray for us!