Vigils: Bl. Virgin Martyrs of Orange

THE MARTYRS OF ORANGE
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The Martyrs of Orange were a group of 32 beatified religious women
martyred at Orange, France, during the French Revolution between July 5 and
26, 1794. Two were Cistercian nuns from Avignon, the others were from
Bollene, near Avignon. The others…included 16 Ursulines, 13 Sacramentine
nuns and one Benedictine nun. For refusing to take the oath of Liberty of the
new regime, the nuns were expelled from their convents, arrested and held in
La Cure prison in Orange. These and other nuns formed a kind of religious
community and spent hours in prayer and religious exercises daily until
condemned for fanaticism and superstition…

The martyrs of the prison ships of Rochefort died in 1794, the same year
as the nuns of Orange, and were declared martyrs in 1925. On October 1, 1995,
Pope John Paul II beatified three other Cistercians at the same time as 61 other
priests and religious of various Congregations. They were not the only
Cistercians who died of starvation or illness in the slave ships or on the islands
off the shore of La Rochelle. Our Menology mentions several others. Yet for the
cause of beatification, only 64 among the 547 who died, were retained as
martyrs, namely, those who were explicitly mentioned in the list of the
deported.

The three Cistercians were: Br Elias Desgardin, Dom Paul Charles, and
Dom Gervais Brunel. Br. Elias Desgardin was a lay Brother from Sept Fons. He
cared for his sick companions. A martyr of charity, he died of typhoid fever at
the age of forty-four. He was buried on the island of Aix… Dom Paul Charles
was the Prior of Sept Fons. Detained on the ship Les Deux Associes, he died at
the age of fifty-one, esteemed and loved by his companions in captivity. He was
buried on the island called Madame. The third beatified martyr was Dom
Gervais Brunel, Superior of La Trappe, who died at the age of fifty in a
provisional hospital on the island Madame. Stricken with typhoid fever, he
arrived there on the point of dying, dying on the very day of the disembarkment.

One of them made a statement that can be applied to all these beatified
religious and to many others condemned to die on the prison ships: “If we are
the most unhappy of men, we are also the happiest of Christians”.