St. Peter Chanel and conversions

I don’t know much of his life. I write here what I heard from others.

They said Fr. Peter once made a humble rating of himself in his report to his superiors that he was a failure as a missionary. His reason? Very few natives wanted to be baptized. But a year after he was murdered the natives, one-by-one, asked for baptism, until the entire island became baptized Catholics. I don’t know how he was murdered and made to suffer. But I was struck by the report on the avalanche of conversion.

I just want to state here my personal belief in the salvific power of suffering with Jesus while praying and forgiving, as He did, for those who cause their suffering and the resulting death. I am sure Fr. Chanel prayed for his murderer and forgave while enduring suffering and death as the martyrs did.

The other reason is to re-assert one essential demand of missionary discipleship: no one matures to perfection without pain or something similar to pain. Or just to repeat: there is no authentic Christian witnessing without the Cross.