Page 23 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

Chapter 1
A VOCATION PROBLEM

Fr-lusoponr leuns Rvrrx, Founder of the Xaverian
"*u,
I Brothers, u native of the Province of North
ilrabant, Holland. From his forebears, who could not
be proselytized, he inherited his deep-Faith' To the
Norih Brabanter Catholicity is a way of life.
On September 14, 1629, when the Thirty Years-War
was alreidy eleven years in Progress, the fighting-forces
of the Duich Calvinists breached the walls of 's-flerto-
genbosch,* capital city of North B?bant. Immediately
t"hey expelled the gistrop. His Lordship submitted, but
he madi his conquerors writhe as they watched him and
his clergy take thtir places behind a statue of Our Lady
and then move out in solemn procession.
From that September-day in 1629 down to 1853, the
year of the re-eJtablishment of the Catholic hierarchy
in Holland, 's-flertogenbosch never had a bishop in
residence. By the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia,
which terminated the Thirty Years \Mar, North Brabant
became a permanent conquest of the Dutch Calvinists'
Catholicity did not wither and die. This was territory
evangelized in the seventh century by St. Willibrord and
his eleven companions, English monks trained in lre-
land. The roots of the Faith had struck deep.
Elshout, the birthplace of Theodore Ryken, lying
about ten miles to the northwest of 's-Hertogenbosch,
is one of the oldest parishes in North Brabant' St'
Swithbert, a companion of St' Willibrord, established
it in 698. The village ProPer of the parish of Elshout
* Ser-to-ken-bos