André, << AHN dray, >> Brother, (1845-1937), is a Canadian saint of the Roman Catholic Church. He founded St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, a shrine dedicated to Saint Joseph in Montreal, Canada. Saint Joseph was the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Brother André also is credited with miraculous cures and admired for his humility, his strong faith in God, and his devotion to Saint Joseph.
Brother André was born as Alfred Bessette on Aug. 9, 1845, in Saint-Grégoire d’Iberville, in Quebec province. From an early age, he suffered from poor health. Bessette’s parents died when he was a child, and he went to live with an aunt. He became known as a prayerful boy. As a teenager, Bessette worked at a number of jobs, including baker, blacksmith, coachman, construction worker, farm worker, shoemaker, and tinsmith. From 1863 to 1867, he worked as a laborer in textile mills in the northeastern United States.
Bessette returned to Canada in 1867. In 1870, he joined the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Catholic religious order in Montreal, and became known as Brother André. Because of his poor health and lack of education, Brother André was assigned the position of doorkeeper at Collège Notre-Dame, a secondary school.
Brother André began counseling the sick. He spent many hours each day receiving and visiting sick people. Many people credited Brother André with miraculous cures. But he denied having any special ability to heal and gave credit for such cures to God and Saint Joseph. While working as doorkeeper, Brother André obtained permission from his superiors to earn money by giving students haircuts. In 1904, he used his earnings to build a tiny chapel devoted to St. Joseph on Mount Royal.
Brother André’s reputation as a healer grew, and more and more people visited his chapel. As a result, the chapel was expanded and other structures were added to the site, including a grand basilica constructed from 1924 to 1967. The basilica is the largest church in Canada. Its dome is the second largest in the world, after the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
