The North American Martyrs Oratory is located in the Marian Center accross from Our Lady of Grace Chapel. The oratory provides an intimate setting for our weekday Masses in Bristol. It is open daily for private devotion.

The mural was painted by one of our parishoiners, Eileen Cunis. You can view it in detail, as well as her other works at http://www.emcunis.com.

The eight saints known as the North American Martyrs each came from France in the seventeenth century as missionaries to the natives of what are now Quebec and Ontario, some working in upstate New York. As pictured in the oratory mural, from left to right, they were Jean de la Lande, Charles Garnier, Antoine Daniel, Jean de Brebeuf, Rene Goupil, Isaac Jogues, Noel Chabanel, and Gabriel Lalemant. Brebeuf was the first to arrive, in 1625, and the others followed at various times until the last, Lalemant, came in 1646. By the end of 1649, each had been martyred while living with and serving the Native American tribes by preaching the gospel, baptizing and catechizing, and caring for the sick, widowed, and orphaned.

Animated by a deep love for Christ and His Church, these Jesuit priests (except for Goupil and de la Lande, who came as assistants to the Fathers) each believed he was called to bring the light of the Gospel to a spiritually dark continent. This calling brought them out of a comfortable life in a literate society built (no matter how precariously) upon the Christian respect for life and dignity into a vastly different world of harsh living conditions, perpetual warfare, and an often brutal culture. The saints came to live among the natives, some remaining after suffering serious illness, torture, and disfigurement, out of love for the individuals they met and a desire to bring each one into the Kingdom of God. Their zeal for Christ and abandonment to His service brought them to share in His cross and in His glory.