Brebeuf's Religious Conversion: Mission Impossible?

Religious Conversion: Mission Impossible?

The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, had remarkable zeal for missions and they wanted to impact the world by winning souls. The Recollects sent an invitation to the Order that in New France (now Canada) there were Native Indians that needed to be Christianized. The church chose to send Jean Brebeuf who had entered the Society in 1617, a man who devoted his life to serve the Lord. This endeavour would not be easy, awaiting them was a group of unchurched, uncivilized, “savage” people who had different cultural beliefs and language that could impede the effectiveness of their evangelism. When de Brebeuf arrived in New France there was a political and cultural crisis among the Hurons. Over the years
Since they had no comparable concept in their own traditions, it was hard for them to understand. It was widely accepted that the French spirits would inhabit a separate “village of souls,” but the suggestion that the Huron would be punished by French standards was a concept that was untranslatable to them. The Huron believed that the French had come from a different world, and this was why their conceptions of the afterlife were so different from their own. Brebeuf sought to adapt his faith to the Huron culture. He learned their language and translated scriptures and liturgical material and he implored other Jesuit to adapt to the Native culture without complaints. The Huron had a very open sense of community, which was apparent in most aspects of their life. When the Jesuits arrived, the whole village helped to build their lodgings. The Jesuits, by contrast, were from a culture that valued privacy and many of their habits and customs were strange to the Huron. They put doors on their residence and requested that the Huron only visit them during specific times. Their locked doors and their withdrawal from village life made the Huron suspicious. Although the Jesuits were considered to be aloft at times Brebeuf used the opportunities when the Hurons came to their cabin to "gain their affection, and to render them more docile when we introduce the admirable and incomprehensible mysteries of our Faith: for the belief they have in our intelligence and capacity causes them to accept without question what we say to them." De Brebeuf was called by the Indians “Echon.” He and the other missionaries, using the primitive medical knowledge of those days, would do what they could to alleviate the sickness and pains of the Indians whom they were evangelizing. If a sick Indian recovered “Echon” was hailed as a great medicine man. If the Indian