January/February 2019 13Religious Life

By Anne Tschanz

Following in the Footsteps of Ven. Jean-Claude Colin—The Marist Laity—

Members of a “Third Order” strive to attain Christian

perfection while under the direc-tion of a religious order and in the spirit of the great founders. Men and women who are part of the Society of Mary (Marists), however, follow the school of Mary with the Holy Family as their model. “In all things, let us look to Mary,” said their founder, Fr. Jean-Claude Colin, “let us imitate her life at Nazareth…Let us unite silence and prayer with action. The Society of Mary desires that we, her children, should be missionaries of action and missionaries of prayer.” Marists are meant to go out to the whole world under Mary’s mantle, echoing the refrain: “The whole world Marist!”, i.e., the whole world under Mary’s maternal protection with her heart for all souls.

The Marist Laity take their in-spiration from Jesus, Mary and Jo-seph, who as the Holy Family lived quietly and humbly in Nazareth, with faithful dedication to ordinary duties and love for neighbor. There are Marist priests, brothers and sisters, while lay people may belong to groups such as the Marist Laity, Marist Associates, and the Third Order of Mary. The Marist family is broad and dispersed to the four corners of the earth, where each, called by Mary, seek to make Je-

sus known, loved and served. The spiritual attributes desired are those exemplified in Our Lady: simplic-ity, modesty, meekness, humbleness and charity.

The Marists came into being during 19th century, the great Marian age of the Church. Among Mary’s devotees were a group of seminarians who pledged to dedi-cate themselves towards the estab-lishment of a Society of Mary. The inspiration for such a society came from Jean-Claude Courveille (1787-1866) who believed that Our Lady of Le Puy in France had cured him of his blindness. Later, while pray-ing in Le Puy before the famous statue of Our Lady, Jean-Claude received the inspiration to assist the Church through the establish-

ment of a society dedicated to her and in her name. The day after his ordination in Lyons, Jean-Claude and eleven other seminarians and priests went to the ancient shrine of Notre-Dame de Fouvière in Lyons, where a pledge, signed by all, was placed under the corporal on the altar during his first Mass. In this pledge, they declared their sincere intention and firm will of consecrat-ing themselves to the founding of a pious society of “Maryists.” They did not do this lightly or for the hope of some material benefit. They did it “solely for the Glory of God and the honor of Mary, Mother of the Lord Jesus.”

Among the newly-ordained men who went to their various as-signments was Ven. Jean-Claude Colin, who received further insights from Our Lord about the proposed Society over the course of some years. Since he was not the one who received the original inspira-tion (Jean-Claude Courveille later became a Benedictine monk), he experienced some reluctance to as-sume leadership over the venture, but he wrote the first draft of the constitutions for the priests and sisters, including thoughts about a secular third order. Meanwhile, another from the group, St. Mar-cellin Champagnat, founded the brothers’ branch of the Marist

Holy orders”For lay PeoPle

12-28 P Jan-Feb 2019.indd 13 12/28/18 12:45 PM

14  January/February 2019  Religious Life

family, humbly saying that it was Mary “who does everything.” Meanwhile, Fr. Pierre Colin, brother of Jean-Claude, founded the Marist Sisters in 1823 with Jeanne-Marie Chavoin. The Marists, while of one heart and mind, allowed the Holy Spirit to send out branches of the same tree in many different directions.

In 1825, the Bishop of Belley in France, asked the two brothers and two other aspiring Marists to become roving missionaries, going to the remote mountainous areas of the diocese where the Faith needed to be revived after the devastation wrought by the French Revolu-tion. The men preached missions, recatechized the weak in faith and administered the sacraments while enduring great hardships.

The redrawing of the diocesan boundaries left the Marists divided between two dioceses. In 1830, as they strove for official recognition from the two bishops, Father Colin was unofficially elected superior of the Marists. From earliest days, lay people gathered also around the Marists seeking spiritual direction. In 1833, when Father Colin and St. Peter Chanel met with the Holy Father, Pope Gregory XVI, seeking approval for the new society, they included a request for approval of the lay branch, that is, people “who live in the world.” The hoped-for approval did not happen at this time because of various concerns but Father Colin never stopped believing that “Mary wants to cover the whole world with her mantle.” Providentially, the area of Western Oceania in the Pacific Ocean was in need of its first bishop and an

aspiring Marist was chosen. Father Colin volunteered other Marists for the mission, and they were entrusted with this vast missionary field. Eventually, under his genera-late (1836-1854), 74 men were sent to Oceania.

Surprisingly, the Holy Father in 1834 issued decrees granting indulgences to the lay branch. One group established a boarding school. In Lyons, a group of women began meeting together in 1836. That same year, Pope Gregory XVI granted pontifical approval for the new Society of Mary. Jean-Claude Colin was elected Superior General, professed vows and wit-nessed the vows of 19 others, four of whom had made the original Fouvière pledge.

The first group of Oceania mis-sionaries, led by St. Peter Chanel and also including lay people, left in December of that year. Twenty years earlier, Peter Chanel had promised with Mary’s help to ac-cept all trials, sufferings, inconve-niences, and even torture, to save souls. In 1837, Peter arrived on an island northeast of Fiji, where after several years of missionary work, he was killed by an emissary of the king, who was angry that his son desired to be baptized. Marie Françoise Perroton, a lay Marist who volunteered for the rugged

and dangerous missionary work in Oceania, labored alone for 12 years until other women joined her. “Count-ing on Providence who has never abandoned me,” she and other lay women became the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary.

Others too were drawn to the Marists. St. Peter Julian Eymard was initially

a diocesan priest who joined the Marists and became director of the Third Order. In 1851, Peter Julian received what he called the grace of Fouvière, leaving the Marists, who remained very dear to him, to found the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. A little-known lay Marist was St. John Vianney who had studied with the Marists at the seminary in Lyons. He admired their work, calling it “a work after God’s heart because it has humility, simplicity, and trials.” He added: “Were I more talented, I would become a Marist.” Peter Julian Ey-mard received him as a lay member of the Order in 1846.

The lay Marist Marie Elizabeth Blot (d. 1871) described the lay branch as a bridge to souls. Father Colin referenced Elizabeth’s im-age when he spoke to his priests in 1872: “I have a great ambition and that is to take hold of the whole world, under the wings of Mary, by means of the Third Order…The Blessed Virgin has given it to you to be like a bridge (the expression is not mine) to go to souls, to sinners.”

Dominique Meynis, the lay Marist who became the Secretary General for the Association for the Propagation of the Faith in 1834, wanted to become a priest in the Society of Mary. Father Colin told

12-28 P Jan-Feb 2019.indd 14 12/28/18 12:45 PM

January/February 2019 15Religious Life

him no, that the work he was doing as a layman was far more valuable. (Ven. Pauline Jaricot, the foundress of this Society, was another who experienced the grace of Fouvière after hearing a sermon preached at the shrine one Christmas Eve.)

Louise Bouffier was a member of the Marist Laity who popular-ized the term St. Anthony’s Bread, now known for collections of money raised for the poor in St. Anthony of Padua’s name. Louise prayed to the saint for assistance and in thanks-giving for prayers answered, gave bread to the poor in his name. In time, her work expanded to include collections for the missions.

A beautiful custom that arose out of the Third Order of Mary was that of entrusting children in the womb and their mothers to Our Lady of Good Hope. Beginning around 1850, people could inscribe the names in a special register and thus partake of the prayers and sacrifices of the Third Order for a safe deliv-ery and the grace of Baptism. Par-ents promised to pray a Hail Mary, invoke Mary as Our Lady of Good Hope and to give their children the name of Mary (or Joseph) as part of their baptismal name.

What differentiates the Marists from other Third Orders is that they do not take their charism per se from their founder. The spirit that ani-mates the Marists is the spirit of the early Church. Father Colin said: “As for ourselves, we do not take any congregation for our model; we have no other model than the new-born Church….We must be like the Apostles and those who joined them; one heart and one soul. They loved each other as brothers. And then, ah!, no one knows what devo-tion, what tenderness the Apostles

had for this Divine Mother!....Let us imitate them.” Imitate the spirit of Mary—“a spirit of humility, self-denial, intimate union with God and the most ardent love of neighbor…So they must think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things.” Their hope as they worked in churches, orphanages, hospitals, schools and prisons in Lyons, was to be “exem-plary Christians in public, religious in private.”

The Marist Laity’s formation program consists of the study of

Marist history and spirituality as they gather together regularly to support each other in the mission. Their mission is to be attuned to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and be instruments of God’s mercy in the world. They were not be extensions of the priests and sisters, rather, they were intended to be in every diocese, but with guidance from the Marist priests. As it says in the Marist International Newsletter (May 2018): “We receive our Marist identity as a gift and call from Mary; it is she who invites us to bear her name and to continue our journey as Christians under her protection.”

Father Colin, reflecting that Our Lord left His Mother on earth after His Ascension to guide the early Church, believed that she would be with His followers until the end of time. “The Apostles needed her to guide them, and to be in a sense the foundress of the Church.” He had confidence that “at the end of time, humanity will need a great deal of help, and the Blessed Virgin will be the one to give it.” Said Father Colin: “Ah, gentleman, let us come alive, our undertaking is a bold one; we want to invade everywhere. When will the time come?”

Founder: Ven Rev. Jean-Claude Colin, approved in 1850

Motto: Sub Mariae Nomine (“Under the name of Mary”)

External Sign: The Marist badgeSpirituality: Think as Mary, judge as Mary,

feel and act as Mary in all thingsMission: To gather the world to her Son

Formation Program: The study of Marist history and spirituality

Website: MaristLaity.com

The MarisT LaiTy

12-28 P Jan-Feb 2019.indd 15 12/28/18 12:45 PM