The Vatican plans to canonize a man who began his life as an ailing orphan in Canada as a saint.

Blessed Brother Andre Bessette of the Congregation of the Holy Cross will be canonized Oct. 17, according to an announcement released by Pope Benedict XVI in February.

His journey to sainthood began in 1978, when the church declared him to be Venerable, and continued in 1982, when he was declared Blessed. Bessette’s canonization comes over 70 years after his death at age 91 in 1937.

Bessette will be the first member of the Holy Cross to be declared a saint, which would seem like an unlikely turn from his early relationship with the congregation. Bessette was burdened throughout life with ill health and poor education, and he was almost turned away for those reasons.

“He was a simple man, and that speaks a lot about who we are,” said Fr. Rick Wilkinson, director of Campus Ministry.

After moving from Canada to the United States, Bessette worked at the University of Notre Dame as a doorman and soon became known as a healer.

Bessette devoted his time and services to St. Joseph, and he is credited for founding St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal in 1904. His humble life and his dedication to the church through prayer and service to those with poor health reflected the mission of the Holy Cross.

“The service of the brothers from the Holy Cross is often unnoticed; therefore, a member being recognized in such high regard speaks volumes to the vocation,” Wilkinson said.

St. Edward’s University has a building named for Bessette—Andre Hall—that houses faculty and adjunct offices as well as the School of Humanities.

Fr. Lou Brusatti, dean of the School of Humanities, said that Bessette’s canonizations almost certainly wouldn’t lend itself to Andre Hall being renovated, despite some expressing the hopes that an update to the building would occur.

“When the announcement was made about [Andre’s] canonization, I said to Sr. Donna [Jurick], ‘Does this mean that there will now be a miracle and we’ll be able to renovate Andre Hall?'” Brusatti said. “The answer was, ‘I don’t think so.'”