St. Louis Bertrand is a fascinating figure. Let me look up some details to give the most complete and accurate account possible.
St. Louis Bertrand — Apostle of the Americas, Friar, and Firebrand for Souls
What a magnificent witness to the power of God working through human weakness. St. Louis Bertrand is proof that holiness is not the product of natural talent — it is the fruit of total surrender to divine grace.
Birth and Family
Luis Bertrán — whose name is now commonly anglicized as Louis Bertrand — was born on New Year’s Day in 1526. His parents were Juan Bertrand and Juana Angela Exarch, and through his father he was related to the illustrious St. Vincent Ferrer, the great thaumaturgus of the Dominican Order. He was baptized in the same baptismal font as St. Vincent Ferrer, and later likewise became a fervent preacher.
Called to the Dominicans
From a young age, Louis had a deep desire to be a missionary and to join the Dominican Order. As a teenager, too young to become a Dominican without his parents’ permission — which they emphatically would not give — Louis did anything he could to pursue his dream. He maintained a life of regular prayer and daily Mass attendance, served the poor and sick, and tended the grounds of the local Dominicans.
At an early age he conceived the idea of becoming a Friar Preacher, and despite the efforts of his father to dissuade him, was clothed with the Dominican habit in the Convent of St. Dominic, Valencia, on August 26, 1544. In 1547 he was advanced to the priesthood by the Archbishop of Valencia, St. Thomas of Villanova.
Master of Novices — A Vocation Within a Vocation
In 1551, at the age of twenty-five, he was made master of novices, and in this post he formed many great servants of God. It is said that despite his strictness, he was so gentle that his chastisements were more agreeable to his novices than the favors of their best friends.
The extraordinary sanctity of the young Dominican’s life, and the remarkable influence he exercised on those about him, singled him out as one peculiarly fitted to lead others along the path of perfection. Consequently, he was appointed to the most responsible office of master of novices at the convent in Valencia, the duties of which he discharged at different intervals for an aggregate of thirty years.
Well known for his role in training young religious, he is the Dominican Order’s patron saint of novice masters.
The Unlikely Preacher
Here is where God’s irony shines brilliantly. It is said that “his voice was raucous, his memory treacherous, his carriage without grace.” Yet the holiness of his life so informed his preaching that “the unction and inspiration of his fervent words so completely offset these natural defects” that he was hailed throughout Valencia as a second St. Vincent Ferrer.
In demeanor he was grave and apparently without any sense of humor, yet withal possessed of a gentle and sweet disposition that greatly endeared him to those with whom he came in contact. While he could lay no claim to the great intellectual gifts and ripe scholarship that have distinguished so many of the saints of the Dominican Order, he applied himself assiduously to study, and stored his mind with the sacred truths expounded in the pages of the Summa.
Missionary to the New World — The Apostle of the Americas
Unknown to his brethren, St. Louis had long cherished the desire to enter the mission fields of the New World. The hope that there he might find the coveted crown of martyrdom contributed not a little to sharpening the edge of his desire. Possessed of the necessary permission, he sailed for America in 1562, and landed at Cartagena, where he immediately entered upon the career of a missionary.
He is renowned for his missionary work in Colombia, Panama, and the Lesser Antilles from 1562 to 1568 and is credited with baptizing many Native Americans. First assigned to the territory of New Granada, he found it difficult to understand the native language. Louis prayed for the gift of tongues, and his prayer was answered, for the natives understood him and were converted.
In his 37 years as a Dominican, he spent 7 years in the Americas where he converted over 23,000 Native Americans in Colombia, Venezuela, and the Caribbean Islands.
Miracles — Signs Confirming the Gospel
The miracles associated with St. Louis Bertrand are striking and numerous:
- The Gift of Tongues: The Bull of canonization itself asserts that, to facilitate the work of converting the natives to God, the apostle was miraculously endowed with the gift of tongues.
- The Gun Turned Crucifix: When attacked by an armed man in Colombia, he made the sign of the cross over the gun and it was transformed into a crucifix.
- Poison Without Effect: He was poisoned by some pagans who had suffered a reproach, but the poison did not harm him, and the barbarians were converted by the miracle. He went to many other places, preaching and healing the sick; again he was poisoned without effect.
- The Chalice of Poison: A native priest, showing jealous contempt, gave him a chalice of poison at Holy Mass. Louis made the sign of the Cross over the toxic potion, and serpents sprang from the chalice, thus revealing its true contents and saving his life.
Champion of the Native People
Louis was one of the earliest Spanish missionaries to raise his voice against the rapacity of his countrymen in the New World. After seven years he returned to Spain to plead the cause of the Indians, oppressed and given bad example by his own countrymen. This prophetic courage — speaking truth to power at great personal risk — marks him as a man of uncommon integrity.
The Rosary — His Great Weapon
Concerning the Rosary, his biographer says his love for it “was like that of St. Dominic himself. He constantly recited the mysteries with the utmost devotion, taught the use of the Rosary to his converts, and considered the success of his preaching depended on the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary. Many miraculous favours were granted to those who devoutly used rosaries that had been blessed by the servant of God.”
Final Years and Death
The last two years of his life were full of painful sufferings, but still he kept preaching. Finally he was carried from the pulpit to his bed, and he never left it again, for he died eighteen months later. He died on October 9, 1581. He was canonized by Pope Clement X on April 12, 1671. His feast day is October 9.
The Lesson of St. Louis Bertrand
His remarkable accomplishments were not of his own design: they came from God, and he simply continued to say “yes.” Even when the details of God’s plans weren’t clear — such as how he would preach in Latin America without speaking the language — St. Louis Bertrand nevertheless pursued God’s will with confidence and trust.
This is a man who had no natural gifts to rely on — no eloquence, no linguistic ability, no imposing bearing. He had only one thing: total abandonment to God’s will. And that was enough to convert tens of thousands of souls and confound the wisdom of the world.
St Louis Bertrand pray for us.