Haitian Buried Under Altar
Toussaint, was a prominant hairdresser, but first a slave of the Berard family. He was more fortunate than other slaves, since he knew how to read and write. After learning the art of hairstyling, he became well-known for his fine skill and wealthy New Yorkers frequently sought him out. But Pierre did not use his money to become rich himself, instead, he used all the money he earned to free other slaves, and to live a life of humble but extraordinary charity.
He was a deeply spiritual man who, for sixty years, walked to daily Mass at St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan (the church that is a block away from the Twin Towers, and is also where Fr. Mychal Judge was laid). He also helped raise money for the construction of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Pierre's faith led him to offer financial aid, shelter, and encouragement to countless orphans, poor refugees, priests, plague-stricken people, and weary travelers. And Pierre's charity went beyond giving money. Toussaint went fearlessly into the quarantined, yellow fever sections of New York City to search out people who had been abandoned by fleeing relatives.
Instead of retiring from his lucrative coiffure business, he kept working well into his eighties because, he said, “I would not have enough for others.” The priest who delivered his eulogy said, “There are few left among the clergy superior to him in zeal and devotion to the Church [and] among laymen, not one.” And isn’t that who we are too, lay men and women, not canonized saints, just people who try to love and serve from one day to the next?
Prayer
Venerable Pierre, pray with us, for your homeland and its people. So many are in such dire need that we ask you to beg for God's mercy with us. Pray that food, water and medicines be multiplied. Pray that the mercy of Jesus be showered on Haiti and that people from the United States be moved by the same compassion and charity that you expereinced for poor and rich alike. We ask this through our Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead to share his resurrection with us. Amen.
Which altar? A poor Haitian, named Pierre Toussaint, is not trapped under rubble in Port-au-Prince, but instead, is the only layman buried in the crypt below the altar in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, where Archbishops and Cardinals are laid to rest. The current Archbishop, Timothy Dolan, invited Catholics in the Archdiocese and beyond to pray to Pierre for the safety and support of the people of Haiti, in a recent statement about the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The archbishop reminded us that the Archdiocese of New York is working toward the canonization of Venerable Pierre Toussaint, who was born in Haiti in 1766, was brought to New York as a slave and lived a life of extraordinary holiness and charity, until his death in the New York in 1853.
