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The grace of Le Gros Bill

  • FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA

Quebec held its national funeral for Jean Béliveau yesterday.


beliveau1 It buried the best of itself.  Whether what Béliveau stood for is truly dead in Quebec is an open question, and a matter rather more sad than the death of a great and good man.

Michael Farber, the superlative hockey writer, did the annual hockey cover story for Sports Illustrated a few weeks back, a profile of current Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban.  The article argued that Subban was next in the line of Habs heroes stretching back to Maurice Richard in the 1950s, Jean Béliveau in the '60s, Guy Lafleur in the '70s, and Patrick Roy in the '80s.  It's absurd, of course, not least because Subban, for whatever he may one day accomplish on the ice, cannot be the standard-bearer for a culture to which he does not belong.  One of Béliveau's eulogists yesterday, Ken Dryden, wrote the most insightful analysis of Montreal's hockey culture in The Game, but even he could not embody it, for he was not Québécois.

That is why Béliveau was mourned like none since the Rocket died in 2000.  For in Richard and Béliveau, Quebecers found expressions of their identity as a people.  Richard expressed the passionate assertion of a proud French Canadian, brilliant and raw.  Béliveau was the cultured gentleman, undoubtedly Québécois, but open to a world of literature and opera, not only a man of Catholic devotion but also a man of truly catholic interests.  It would be too much to argue that Richard embodied the path Quebec took, while Béliveau was the model of what Quebec aspired to be, but there is more than a little to that.

"He summarizes elegance and confidence, an image of what we all would like ourselves to be," said Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard.  Neither Richard nor Béliveau made the mistake of thinking that prowess on the rink qualified them to be political figures or social commentators, but it is not hard to see them as representatives of competing trends in Quebec's contemporary cultural and political development.

For the most part, the proud, combative approach has dominated.  Béliveau's elegant grace was such that he transcended his own particularities, so much so that it was entirely reasonable that he would serve as governor-general.  He declined, to the benefit of his family but to the detriment of Canada, as he would have brought back to the viceregal office something of the nobility of Georges Vanier, Rideau Hall's most august occupant.

About Béliveau the word most fitting was grace — both natural and supernatural.  In the Quebec that formed Béliveau, it was widely accepted that the latter gave rise to the former, that a grace-filled man found there the mandate to be gracious to others.  That Quebec was buried long before yesterday, and it remains a question whether a Quebec severed from the life of grace can easily give rise to the graciousness that Béliveau lived.

About Béliveau the word most fitting was grace — both natural and supernatural.

Élise, his widow of 61 years, insisted on greeting personally each of the thousands who came to pay their respects as Béliveau lay-in-state.  It was a remarkable, even regal, performance, worthy of her husband and an indication that it was not hockey alone that made Béliveau who he was.  Faith and family, not mere fame, set Le Gros Bill apart.

Farber acknowledged in his profile that Subban is "still mostly famous for being famous."  That is a long way down from Richard and Béliveau.  The mark of a culture is not that it can produce famous people, but rather citizens of such character that it serves the common good for them to be famous.  Fame was no doubt a burden at times for Béliveau, but it was a blessing for Quebec, for it drew attention to the best of its culture, to a model worthy of emulation.

The obsequies for Béliveau were appropriate, as one would expect.  Farber once wrote elsewhere that "only two organizations in Western civilization truly get ceremony: the House of Windsor and the Montreal Canadiens."  Jean Béliveau's funeral did not take place in a hockey arena but at Montreal's Mary Queen of the World cathedral, where ceremony of a transcendent kind has long been offered.

One report had it that the cathedral was a suitable site because it was only blocks away from the arena, which is to get it precisely backwards.  When the Béliveaus bought their house in Old Longueuil in 1955 — and where they lived ever since — they chose precisely to live close to the local cathedral.  He wanted to live his life in the shadow of grace.  His achievement was to do just that, while always being in the spotlight.  Requiescat in pace.

This is Meaghen Gonzalez, Editor of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.

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Acknowledgement

Father Raymond J. de Souza, "The grace of Le Gros Bill." National Post, (Canada) December 11, 2014.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post and Fr. de Souza.

The Author

Father Raymond J. de Souza is the founding editor of Convivium magazine.

Copyright © 2014 National Post