June 3: Vital Grandin

Vital Grandin

Missionary Bishop at the North Pole (1829-1902)

June 3, 1902, Bishop Vital Grandin died at the age of 73.

His famous words:
“More than for my head, they made me bishop for my legs”;
“In these Nordic lands, more than the miter on one’s head, you have to have snowshoes and walk, walk, walk …”

As a child in mid-nineteenth century France, he prayed the rosary, read the lives of saints and gazed entranced at the beauty of nature while grazing the livestock. Attracted by the missions, at the age of 22 he went to Paris to enter the seminary of the Foreign Missions. Not finding him suitable — among other things he had a slight speech impediment — they recommended that he go home. The Oblates welcomed him! In 1854, soon after his ordination, he left for the missions of northern Canada, where he worked in the diocese of St. Boniface, which at the time was the size of Europe but with only 12 priests. Five years later he was consecrated bishop by St. Eugene. The Canadian bishops had singled him out to Pope Pius IX as “the worthiest among the worthy.” He faced long and exhausting trips amid the snow and ice to proclaim the Gospel.

He never felt up to his mission: sickly, shy, touchy, very sensitive, inadequate cultural preparation; and then the impossible climate, and extreme poverty. In all this his trust in God, his heroic tenacity would shine brightly. It was no coincidence that he chose as his episcopal motto Infirma mundi elegit Deus: God chose what is weak.

Among the thousands of stories that still pass from mouth to mouth about him, the interview with Pius IX must be seen in the context of the times in which it was unthinkable that an oil lamp did not burn beside the tabernacle. The bishop explained to the Pope that in the frigid north the missionaries could not afford such luxury.

– I cannot allow you to keep the Blessed Sacrament without a lamp except in the case of persecution, the Pope replied.

– Most Holy Father, we are not persecuted; but we have to face the cold, hunger, poverty and many other sufferings. If you take away the Lord, what will we do? With tears in his eyes he continued to tell the Pope about the terrible living conditions the missionaries had to endure, the difficulties of travel, the dangers of loneliness.

Pius IX was listening intently and moved. When dismissing him he said:

– You need to have the Lord near. In your life of sacrifice and deprivation you have the merit of martyrdom without having the glory. The next day the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda summoned him and said to him: I do not know what you said to the pope but you missionaries get everything you want. He has allowed you to keep the Blessed Sacrament without the lamp.

Breton, Vital Grandin, La merveilleuse aventure de “L’évêque sauvage”, des Prairies du Grand Nord, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris et Montréal, 1960; F. J. Dolphin, Indian Bishop of the West, Novalis, Ottawa, 1986 ; F. Trusso, Vescovo dei Poveri, Editrice Missioni OMI, Roma, 1971.