The Catholic - The Servant of God Rev. Fr Alfred Pampalon, C.SS.R. (original) (raw)

‘The Flower of Canada’

(1867-1896)

| | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |

It is said of Fr Pampalon that he made of Our Mother’s Perpetual Succour a perpetual recourse, a saying which rhymes in the French, in which it was coined, rather better than it does in English.

This Canadian child of Mary was born at Lévis, on the bank of the Saint Laurence River opposite Quebec, on 24 November 1867.

It was from his mother’s heart that he gathered those seeds of virtue, that devotion to Mary, which was to remain a characteristic trait of his piety for life. The unspeakable bounty of his earthly mother helped him realise the infinite goodness of his Heavenly Mother. He wrote of this later: “What a happiness it was for me, O Mary, in the early years of my childhood, to hear Thy sweet name on my mother’s lips.”

When he was six years old he lost his virtuous mother who left them with these words: “My dear children God is calling me to Himself. Soon you will no longer have an earthly mother; but raise your eyes to Heaven; there you have a Mother who is of all mothers the best and most powerful. It is to Her that I consecrate and confide you. Love Her greatly and She will love you and always protect you. In heaven I will pray to God to keep you good Christians and I will ask Him to choose priests from my family.”

Alfred listened to the pious recommendations of his dying mother with a heart full of sorrow. But Providence soon chose another mother for our pious youth by giving his father another wife. The virtues of the former seem to be the heritage of the latter and she applied herself with all her heart to closing the wounds in the hearts of the orphans of her new family. Alfred loved her most tenderly, and tried to find occasions for giving her pleasure.

His school years were characterised by virtue, particularly that of modesty. For example although a happy and amicable playmate he could never be persuaded to go swimming out of regard for this virtue. He was also the implacable enemy of any bad conversation and would reprimand it immediately in his companions with indignation by saying: “For the love of God, hold your tongue!”

Until the age of fourteen he seems to have given no thought to his future but at this time he was twice attacked by sickness which brought him close to the grave and he made a promise that if he were to recover his health he would enter a monastery.

His Vocation

In 1886 he finished his schooling and thus the time came for him to fulfill his promise. For some time he had felt an interior attraction towards the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, the sons of St Alphonsus, whom he had seen at work in the sanctuary of St Anne at Beauprès. He liked the Institute’s end: the sanctification of oneself while sanctifying others. Such had always been his soul’s dream.

Yielding to the inclination of his heart, he undertook a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the great ‘Wonder-Worker of Canada’. He took up his pilgrims staff and set out on foot from Quebec to Saint Anne, a distance of 21 miles. All along the way he reverently recited his rosary. At his journey’s end he went and cast himself at the feet of Our Lady’s mother. He prayed for a long time before this saint and conjured her to obtain his entrance into the Redemptorists.

Then with a heart full of confidence he went and knocked at the monastery door. The superior found in him the true marks of a vocation and in spite of his feeble health he acceded to his entry, for in order to become a holy monk it is not necessary to have a robust constitution but a soul pious, generous and resolute.

When he returned home to prepare himself the young man knew that at his final departure he would not weep alone. His old father was too Christian a soul to oppose his son’s vocation but he was also too good a man to see him depart without being crushed with grief. His old age and his infirmities no longer left him hope of seeing him again, the novitiate was to be done in Belgium and Fr Alfred could not return to Canada before several years elapsed. Thus on 21 July through his tears he smiled one last time at his family and boarded the ship that was to carry him across the ocean.

Thus in the year 1886 Alfred entered the Redemptorist Monastery at St Trond. His novitiate and studentate passed in the usual way with the young Redemptorist showing himself ever more virtuous. In this issue of Catholic devoted to Our Mother of Perpetual Succour we will attempt to highlight the episodes in the life of Fr Pampalon which best demonstrate his prodigious love for the Mother of every son of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Novel Lecturer

One of his practices as a student shows the rather original nature of this holy man. He was not an extraordinarily intellectual but none the less throughout the time of his studies he generally obtained high marks. A fellow student once questioned him as to how he managed to banish the boredom and fatigue of the long and arid study of philosophy, which to many a beginner is nothing but an exercise in penance. Fr Alfred replied: “In my cell I have two teachers, the Blessed Virgin, our Good Mother, and St Joseph.” Far from being a simple pious fancy this was in reality how he studied. He would imagine Our Lady asking him the questions from Her holy image and he would reply aloud to Her giving a full explanation of the points in question and upon which he was to be examined.

In October 1892 he received the Sacred Priesthood with the maxim on his lips: “If God gives priests to the world, it is, that they may gain the world for God.” Sadly this zealous apostle was never to exercise any far reaching earthly ministry.

Rather in each monastery to which he was assigned Fr Alfred showed himself to be a perfect subject. His confreres considered him a model Redemptorist. “Give me a religious perfectly observant of his rule”, said Pope Benedict XIV, himself a monk, “and I am ready to canonise him while still living.” That person we feel we can present to the Church in the person of Fr Pampalon.

No-One I love as Much as Mary

His spiritual Father said to him one day in jest: “Brother I think you love the Blessed Virgin more than God Himself.” “No”, he replied, “but after God there is no-one I love as much as Mary.”

“I do not wish,” he said on another occasion,” that others should love thee more than I, O Mary. I wish to love thee without return, without reserve, and with an undivided affection. I wish to love you in life and to love you in death, O my good Mother.”

He found his principal devotions in Our Holy Father St Alphonsus’ book the Glories of Mary. There was no other important book on the Blessed Virgin that he had not read, with a view to better knowing Her who was the continual object of his thoughts and affections. When reading a saint’s life he paid particular attention to how he or she had been devoted to Our Lady in order to imitate them.

Morning and evening, even when very ill, he recited, in the manner of all Redemptorists, three Hail Marys kneeling with his forehead on the floor, in order to preserve intact the lily of his purity and to obtain the grace of a good death.

Apart from the many other traditional devotions of the Congregation to his good Mother such as fasting on Saturdays, praying the Hail Mary at each strike of the clock and the many different chaplets which he recited, he always carried on his breast a large image of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour, so as to obtain Her powerful protection against the enemies of his soul. He always kissed Her picture which hung on the doorpost of his cell every time he entered or left it.

He himself had wished to write a book about the grandeurs of the Queen of Heaven but death cut him short in this endeavor. None-the-less he exercised over his monastic brothers a discreet but fruitful Marian Apostolate. One could not confer on him a greater boon than to ask him at the evening recreation for an edifying story. Our Lady was sure to hear from his lips praise both sweet and persuasive, and to find in the hearts of all a greater love for Her.

Fr Alfred was possessed of a mischievous, though innocent, bent of character, something which gave him a rather novel and appealing approach to a very traditional regime of sanctity. For example a fellow priest was writing a necrology of a deceased Redemptorist. He asked all those he could for a short poem on this subject and in jest he even asked Fr Pampalon, to whom he promised a rosary for every verse he wrote. Fr Pampalon had never written a poetic line in his life but in view of such a fortune of rosaries he felt himself ‘inspired’. Some days later he brought the Father a poem of three hundred verses! (Its metre was perhaps doubtful but the sentiments were exquisite.) On this occasion he certainly wore out the knees of the necrologer.

On another occasion Fr Pampalon’s desire to have rosaries prayed for his intention nearly killed him. It happened when a brother priest asked Fr Alfred to preach a sermon in his stead for the recompense of five decades. Fr Alfred was then in the beginnings of a terminal illness and certainly deserved every Hail Mary he received for his great pain in obliging.

The consumption or tuberculosis, which slowly began to kill him, eventually saw him sent home to Canada in order to breath his native air. His health however continued to fail him and he was reduced to sitting nearly all day in an armchair beneath the image of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour praying rosary after rosary.

The angelic sweetness of this soul extended to the very last. In the end as his confreres crowded round his deathbed he sighed with difficulty through his decayed lungs: “O good, sweet and loving Mary come then and take me. It is not that it costs me to live, I am ready to suffer even to the Last Judgment, but I desire to contemplate you O amiable Mother. Come and take me out of love for those around me.” He wished to spare the assembly the inconvenience of his prolonged agony and they could not restrain their tears at hearing his prayer.

In his last hours again Fr Alfred showed his firmness and resolution in things which few souls take much trouble over or think to be important. At half-past-one in the morning as he lay dying he intoned at the top of his voice, the Magnificat and sang it through to the end. At its conclusion he exclaimed in a very loud voice: “Viva Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, St Anne and St Alphonsus! Paradise forever!” When warned that such loud exclamations would tire him he replied: “How can I be fatigued in the presence of Paradise?”

As the monastery bell was striking eight Fr Alfred opened his eyes for the last time and raised them heavenwards. An angelic smile played on his lips and he gently gave up his beautiful soul. He was holding his Mission Crucifix, Holy Rule and the image of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour .

He was 28 years old and had lived eight years in the monastery.

Miracle-worker

Of the many miracles worked after his death the following is perhaps one of the most striking:

In the parish of St Honore-de-Beauce a great conflagration had ravaged the woods and was threatening the town’s sugar refineries as well as some of the homes of the inhabitants. They fought the fire with all their strength but could not stop it. The parish priest immediately thought of Fr Alfred and nailed his image on a tree some distance from the approaching fire. The fire continued to advance but stopped at the very spot where the image hung, scorching the roots of the tree but leaving undamaged the picture of the Servant of God. The entire town agreed that they had witnessed a miracle.

O good Fr Alfred, model of purity, worthy son of St Alphonsus, faithful and loving servant of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour, obtain for us the grace of having towards Her a perpetual recourse. †

[After an anonymous, hand-written translation of the published 1930 Life of the Servant of God.]