“Ask God for my conversion and my sanctification… so that I may accomplish at least a part of His designs for me and grant me His mercy for the rest,” Jean Gabriel wrote in a letter to his brother, in charge of the sacristy at Saint-Lazare, the Mother House of the Congregation of the Mission. This is the way of speaking of a man whom we would call “a living saint” (Fr. Song).
| 1802, 5 January | Birth near Montgesty, Diocese of Cahors |
| 1818, 15 December | Entrance into the Congregation of the Mission |
| 1926, 23 September | Priestly ordination in the Chapel of the Daughters of Charity, rue du Bac, Paris |
| 1832 | Called to Paris to serve as the Director of the Internal Seminary |
| 1835, 21 March | Departure for China |
| 1839, 16 September | Imprisonment |
| 1840, 11 September | Martyrdom |
| 1889, 10 November | Beatification by Pope Leo XIII |
| 1996, 2 June | Canonization by Pope John Paul II |
| 11 September | Liturgical feast |
Jean Gabriel was born in Puech, a village in the parish of Montgesty. He was the first of eight children born to Pierre and Marie Perboyre. He grew up in a very Catholic agricultural family whose farm ensured their livelihood. The parish priest, who recognized Jean Gabriel’s intelligence in catechism, liked to ask him the more difficult questions, saying, “We’ll ask our little doctor!” In the family, Jean Gabriel had the example of his uncle Jacques, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, a man of great courage at the time of the Revolution. From him, Jean Gabriel learned how to live for Jesus Christ and serve him until death.
In 1816 Jean Gabriel accompanied his younger brother to the Seminary of Montauban and stayed there also to continue his studies.
In December 1818, Jean Gabriel entered the Congregation of the Mission. In September 1826, he was ordained a priest in the Chapel of the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity in Paris. After serving as a professor of theology at Saint-Flour Seminary, he was called to the Mother House of the Congregation of the Mission in Paris as Director of the Internal Seminary.
The Epiphany, the star that shone at the time of his birth, would continue to show him very distant horizons. Despite his weak health, he asked to go to China. Under the Lord’s protection, he set off in March 1835, arriving on 29 August in Macao, the gateway to the missions in China. His apostolic activities in Ho-Nan were numerous in spite of dangers and persecutions until the moment of his betrayal and imprisonment in September 1839.
After months of physical and emotional suffering, of long and terrible torture, Jean Gabriel Perboyre would offer his final witness on 11 September 1840. He was hung on a cross and strangled with a rope.
Many witnesses declared that, at the moment of Jean Gabriel’s death, “a large, well-defined and luminous cross appeared in the sky.” This marvel recalls the mystery of the Epiphany and the words of the prophet Daniel: “Those with insight shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever” (Dn 12:3).
His body was brought to Saint-Lazare, the Mother House in Paris, twenty years after his death.
