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AUGUSTA — The Kennebec Historical Society will host “Go Set the World on Fire: The Tragic Story of How a Jesuit Mission to the Abenakis of Maine Went Up in Flames.”
The porgram will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, at St. Mary’s Church, 41 Western Ave.
“Go and set the world on fire” was St. Ignatius of Loyola’s call to the Jesuits to preach the gospel to the far corners of the world.
The Rev. Sebastian Rale followed the call of his order’s founder and left France in 1689 to bring the mission to the Northeast’s Abenaki. He spent 30 years in a small mission village amidst the Abenaki people in what is now Norridgewock.
The mission was not to last. In those few decades, Rale’s village got caught in a blaze of controversy that ended in the mission being burned by a Massachusetts militia and its pastor being shot.
Joseph Moreshead, a seminarian for the Roman Catholic diocese of Portland, will discuss the origins of the conflict between Rale, the New England colonists, and the Abenaki people and how competing interests among the three parties led to a tragic end.
Moreshead is a native of South Portland and a student at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., studying to be a priest.
A graduate of Cheverus High School and Fordham University, Moreshead was educated for eight years by Jesuits. After extensive research on Jesuit relations, he led a pilgrimage to Rale’s grave last August. He holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy and classical language.
For more information, call 207-622-7718.
