Born: Romans (Drôme), August 15, 1835.
Took the habit: N.-D. de l’Osier. August 21, 1852.
Vows: Sicklinghall, August 24, 1853 (N. 348).
Priestly ordination: Ajaccio, December 17, 1859.
Died: Lachine, Canada, August 5, 1912.
Calixte Mourier was born on August 15, 1835 in Romans, diocese of Valence, France. His parents were Jean Calixte Mourier, a landowner, and Marie Mélanie Monestier. Before he had finished his studies in the minor seminary in Valence, he began his novitiate at Notre-Dame de l’Osier on August 21, 1852 and he continued in Sicklinghall in 1853. It was there he took vows on August 24, 1853. The novice master in Notre-Dame de l’Osier, in his report in September 1852, wrote: “Mourier, good in literature, a poet, ordinary virtue for a minor seminarian, a good aptitude for piety … character somewhat brusque, cutting, at least outwardly, deep down he is good, open, frank; if he were not here he would be in a military academy.” The scholastic studied philosophy and theology in Sicklinghall (1853-1858). He spent some months in Montolivet in the spring of 1858. Writing about him, Father Mouchette, moderator of scholastics, had this to say: “This Brother is in a pitiful state, as though he were obsessed; at certain times he seems to have lost his head … he is incapable of getting down to work, and nevertheless idleness is disastrous for him … he has left for Vico.” He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Jean Sarrebayrousse, coadjutor of Ajaccio, on December 17, 1859.
He taught in Vico, Corsica (1859-1862), and was then sent to Canada where he lived at Saint-Sauveur, Quebec (1862), Ottawa college (1862-1863), Témiscamingue (1863-1864), in the parish of Saint Peter, Plattsburgh, New York (1864), again in Ottawa college (1864-1866), in Betsiamites (1866-1875), in Notre-Dame in Hull (1875-1879), in Ville-Marie (1879-1897) and finally in Pointe-Bleue (1900-1906). The author of his necrology note wrote: “Thanks to constant and serious study he mastered the Montagnais and Algonquin languages and it was in these languages that he did immense good to hearts and souls … Father Mourier’s ministry was not flamboyant and his work with souls never made the headlines. On the other hand, who can measure the good he did in the intimacy of his house, or in the huts of the native peoples, or in the parlour or the confessional? Since, by disposition, he was a man of great patience, profound humility and with an ardent love of God and the Church, we can well believe that the amount of good brought about by our missionary surpasses the ordinary.”
Struck down with paralysis, he retired to the novitiate in Lachine (1906-1912). That is where he died on August 5, 1912. He is buried in the Oblate cemetery in Richelieu.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Gaston Carrière, o.m.i.
