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This week’s missionary hero was a physician and priest from France. His name was Jacques.
Jacques-Désiré Laval was born on September 18, 1803 in Croth, a village in northern France. His father was a prosperous farmer, and his mother, a homemaker, died when Jacques was 8-years old. His uncle Nicolas, a priest, saw that Jacques had a firm foundation in his Catholic faith.
As a young man, Jacques studied humanities at the College Stanislaus of Paris, and then studied medicine. He did a thesis on rheumatoid arthritis and received his doctor of medicine degree on August 21, 1830.
For the next three-and-a-half years, Dr. Jacques practiced medicine. However, after nearly being killed while horseback riding in 1834, he reevaluated his life and decided to study for the priesthood. In 1835, he began his studies at Saint-Sulpice and was ordained on December 22, 1838. During his studies, he made friends with a man who would one day become known as the “Second Founder of the Spiritans,” François Libermann. In 1840, Fr. Jacques decided to join Fr. François by becoming a Spiritan (C.S.Sp.) priest.
In September of 1841, Fr. Jacques went to serve as a missionary priest in Mauritius, an African island nation in the Indian ocean.
In Mauritius, Fr. Jacques threw himself into mission life with great fervor. He lived with the people, most of whom were formerly enslaved and uneducated, learned their language, and helped them in any way he could. When the people did not have food, he fasted, and he had a packing crate as his bed.
As a physician, as well as a priest, he had a great skill set to offer the people, especially when the population experienced epidemics. He helped the people not only with their physical illnesses, but he helped them improve agriculture thanks to his knowledge base in science. In time, he converted 67,000 people to the faith. Because of his outstanding work helping the poor and ill people of Mauritius, he is often called the “Apostle of Mauritius.”
Fr. Jacques died in 1864. 30,000 people followed his casket to his gravesite near the church in Sainte Croix.
Pope John Paul II celebrated he beatification ceremony for Jacques on April 29, 1979. Blessed Jacque-Désiré Laval’s feast day is September 9. He is a patron saint of physicians, missionaries, and enslaved persons. Blessed Jacques has the honor of being the first member of his order to be beatified.
