[Officium] Sts. Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf and Companions, Martyrs [Oratio] O God, You have consecrated the first fruits of the Faith in the northern parts of America by the preaching and blood shed by Your holy Martyrs, Isaac, John and their Companions; grant, we beseech You, in Your mercy and through their intercession, that the fruitful harvest of Christians may increase everywhere from day to day. $Per Dominum [Lectio94] From among those members of the Society of Jesus, who in the middle of the seventeenth century cultivated the most difficult mission of New France, and greatly illustrated the early Church in North America, God chose for himself eight very pure victims, sacrificed in the present regions of New York and Ontario in Canada. Among these noble leaders and teachers are Jean de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, energetic and apostolic men enflamed with the zeal for souls, most devoted to mortification, and most united with God in prayer. The priests Antoine Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier and Noël Chabanel, as well as René Goupil and Jean de la Lande, the assistants of the Fathers, were adorned with not inconsiderable virtues. Because of the nature and miserable way of living of the natives of the Huron, like martyrs, they all shed their blood in a common way for one cause of religion, though not in one place or time; some, however, endured tortures, scarcely believable, and even with invincible fortitude, so that the barbarian butchers themselves marveled at them. Famous for their miracles, Pius the Eleventh enrolled them amongst the Blessed, and soon afterwards, in the number of the Saints.