Born: Fayance (Var), March 25, 1833.
Took the habit: N.-D. de l’Osier, August 1, 1856.
Priestly ordination: Nancy, July 5, 1857.
Vows: Nancy, August 4, 1857.
Died: Jaffna, Sri Lanka, December 28, 1897.
Boniface Gourdon was born on March 1833 in Fayance, diocese of Fréjus, France. He studied in the minor seminary of Grasse and the major seminary of Fréjus, which was then under the direction of the Oblates. At the end of his fourth year of theology he began his novitiate in Notre-Dame de l’Osier on August 1, 1856. At the end of September he was chosen, together with some other novices, to be the first group in the new novitiate in Nancy. It was there that he was ordained priest by Bishop de Mazenod on July 5, 1857, and that he took his vows on August 4. In his notes for the month of November 1856, the novice master wrote: “Gourdon, a good candidate, dependable in everything”, and in December: “very good, always pious and zealous, … he is active and does his duties well … he really wants to become a saint.”
Father Gourdon wished to go to Africa. At first he received his obedience for the seminary in Marseilles where he taught liturgy and especially philosophy from 1857 to 1860. He left for Ceylon after Fathers Pierre Crousel and Gabriel Salaün. In the Personnel register of 1862-1863 the following is written after his name: “strong in health, of muscular and robust build, a little overweight; his imagination is excessive and strong, of sound virtue, genuine piety and right minded, an active mind and argumentative.”
In Ceylon Father worked in many missions: Jaffna and Valigamam in 1860-1862 while he was learning Tamil, the difficult mission of Mantotte in 1862-1865, Trincomalee during the cholera epidemic of 1865, Kalpitiya in 1865-1866, Tettapolai in 1866, Point Pedro-Valigamam, Kilaly in 1868, Jaffna cathedral in 1870-1874, Pesalai in 1874, the shrine of Madhu in 1875. There he was involved in the building of the church. Then he ministered in Valigamam West in 1876-1879 during which time he began the building of the church of Saint Francis de Sales in Chankanai. He always wanted to work among the Buddhists. That dream was fulfilled from 1879 onwards. He was appointed to the mission of Kammala in the south of the vicariate (1879-1882) and of Haldanduwana from 1882 to 1891. There he worked and he built chapels and schools in about ten Buddhist centres where there were a few Christians. He made quite a few conversions especially in the period before 1887 when a Buddhist reform movement began.
He suffered from anaemia, rheumatism and insomnia and was sent to the orphanage in Jaffna in 1891. On December 23, 1897 he was struck with paralysis. He died on the 28th of that month. His body lies in the Saint Mary’s cemetery, Jaffna. Father Célestin Augier who had been his companion in the minor and major seminaries, ends the necrology note on Father Gourdon by saying that “he was an ardent and zealous missionary, untiring and filled with love for souls”. His love for the Rule was well known as were his humility, his obedience and his fraternal charity.
Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i.
