For many years I have been receiving the excellent newsletter of the monks of Saint Joseph de Clairval Abbey. It always focuses on the life of a particular saint, often very obscure ones, and what we can learn from their life and teaching and the times in which they lived.
The March 2015 letter features a priest of whom I had never heard: Père Ernest André (1826–1903), who later took the name Emmanuel as a Benedictine monk, the originator of the devotion to Our Lady of Holy Hope.
What I found most striking is how tirelessly Father André worked to catechize his rural flock, which he found in a state of unbelievable ignorance, error, and apathy. Here are his own words, explaining his policy, which was to preach and teach the unadulterated Catholic faith, week in, week out:
