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Saint André Bessette in old age, in the cassock of the Holy Cross Brothers, a photograph from before 1937

Saint André Bessette

Montreal doorkeeper who sent the sick to Saint Joseph and began his Oratory

Western calendar
6 January
Orthodox calendar
Not kept

Alfred Bessette was orphaned at twelve and could not read when he asked the Holy Cross Brothers of Montreal to take him, carrying a note from his pastor: "I am sending you a saint". As Brother André he kept the door of their school, and he joked later that after his novitiate "my superiors showed me the door, and there I stayed for forty years." To the sick who came to him he said, "Go to Joseph. He will help you", and the little chapel he began with five-cent haircuts grew into Saint Joseph's Oratory, and when he died on 6 January 1937 a million people filed past his coffin in a week.

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It is the day each year when the Church remembers a saint in its prayers, and for most saints it is the day they died and went home to God. Many saints here have two dates, because the Western and Orthodox Churches keep their own calendars, and some Orthodox churches still count by the old Julian calendar, which runs thirteen days behind ours.

What is a patron saint?

A patron saint is one we ask to pray for us in a particular place, work or need, as many ask Anthony of Padua for help when something is lost, and as Ireland looks to Patrick. A few patronages were declared by a pope, and most grew from long custom. A card says “Patron of” only where a source we checked names one.

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We began with the saints people search for most, by name, by need and by date, along with the apostles and the saints Orthodox Christians look for. Then we made sure every day of the year has at least one saint. That gives 378 so far, and we keep adding the saints readers ask for.

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