Remembering Fr. Germain Legere, C.P.

By Stephan A. George

Your faith moves you to belief, a belief that presents one with a hope for immortality. It takes faith to get there and no amount of realism or science will ever change that. However, there is something all of us know: a small slice of immortality resides with us every day. When we recall a long ago deceased grandparent, parent, sibling, or friend we bring them alive in that moment of remembrance. So it is now with Father Germain.

Sydney, Nova Scotia, fronting northward on Spanish Bay, a village of 32,000 today, saw the birth of this man on a likely frigid day, April 24, 1915. The Panama Canal would not open for another three years. The world had fallen into the horror of the "War To End All Wars." A non-descript village in a non-descript province of Canada? Hardly.

North Sydney, NS provided the critical communications link between North America and Europe as this was where the Transatlantic Cable surfaced with the Morse Code of secrets and horror that eventually motivated our hemisphere to rise to the goodness in all men and push back the shadow of brutality and death.

Germain entered a troubled world on that day and in the end, November 15, 2006, he passed from a world still troubled. A world, however, richer for his short visit upon it. A world of men and women who now give witness to having been touched by a man great beyond his stature, rich beyond his means, and loving beyond condition for all those he called his sons and daughters.

He died on the Feast day of St. Albert the Great. The following is excerpted from The One Year Book of Saints by Rev. Clifford Stevens and purports to describe Albertus Magnus:

"He was known as the 'teacher of everything there is to know,' was a scientist long before the age of science, was considered a wizard and magician in his own lifetime, and became the teacher and mentor of that other remarkable mind of his time, St. Thomas Aquinas....

...St. Albert the Great was convinced that all creation spoke of God and that the tiniest piece of scientific knowledge told us something about Him. Besides the Bible, God has given us the book of creation revealing something of His wisdom and power. In creation, Albert saw the hand of God."

I give you, as well, Father Germain Legere, C.P., professed July 25, 1935, ordained May 30, 1942, gone back to his God, November 15, 2006. A holy man I will remember until the day I die.

Download a Pictorial Tribute to Father Germain (PDF file, 780 Kb)