LOOR, ISIDORE OF SAINT JOSEPH DE, BL.

Passionist priest; b. April 18, 1881, Vrasene, eastern Flanders, the Netherlands; d. Oct. 6, 1916, Kortrijk (Courtrai) Monastery, Belgium. As the eldest of three children of subsistence farmers, Isidore received six years of elementary education at the local school. At the suggestion of a Passionist missionary, Isidore joined the passionists at Ere, Belgium (April 7, 1907) and became brother Isidore of Saint Joseph. After his religious profession in 1908, he served the community as cook, gardener, custodian of the preparatory school, and later (1914) as porter. Intense penitential prayer helped Brother Isidore to cope with several crises: cancer that required the removal of his right eye (1911); the conversion of the monastery into a German military hospital and its abandonment by all but five brothers and three priests during World War I; and the metastasis of cancer to his intestines (1916). This simple, diligent "Brother of the Will of God" suffered his final illness with great fortitude. He was buried next to the Passionist Church, where those remembering him came to pray for his intercession and received his help. The official process for his beatification was opened in 1950, leading to his beatification by Pope John Paul II on Sept. 30, 1984.

Bibliography: Isidore of St. Joseph (Kortrijk 1960). m. clayes, The Life of Brother Isidore de Loor (Chicago 1976). h. gielen, Het diepste lied zingt binnenin: de zalige broeder Isidoor de Loor (Tielt, Netherlands 1984). c. van hemelen, Blessed Isidore de Loor, Passionist (Dublin 1984). Acta Apostolicae Sedis 78 (1986): 965–968. L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. ed. 44 (1984): 6–7.

[k. i. rabenstein]