Commentary on the first key document
Number 109 consists of two sentences — a very long one with a semicolon in the middle and a short final sentence. The long sentence succinctly contains all the major elements of the idea of the Lay Branch written up in the Cerdon Notebook (in French) by Colin when he was a curate. This source, no longer extant, contains the primitive ideas of the entire Marist project. The first phrase gives the general aim of the whole Society. At that time in the mind of Colin, this would include all the branches: priests, brothers, sisters, lay people — and not forgetting Champagnat’s teaching brothers. All were to do their part using — note the superlative — the “best possible” methods of prayer and action to bring to God not only those who were “sinners”, alienated, cut off from the Church for whatever reason, but also those “faithful” (just) who were leading good Christian lives, yet would need encouragement and assistance in persevering to the end in their evangelising mission.
The next section of the sentence gives that mission: the bringing together of all the members of Christ, i.e., the whole world, no matter what age, sex or position, under the “protection” of Mary, who is the Immaculate (pure, sinless, virgin) Mother of God. So already the openness, the mark of inclusivity — helping to evangelise the whole world through Mary — is clear. Today we would not categorise “sinners” and “just”, since we know we are all sinners and wounded people. We have to remember that Colin was writing this at a time when the mentality of the nineteenth century Church in France and of the whole Church towards conversion and evangelisation differed greatly from the Church in today’s world.
France, a Catholic country, was recovering from the intense upheaval of the 1789 Revolution, and a spiritual renaissance was taking place. As proof, one has only to look at the tremendous number of new religious congregations and also some lay associations that began at this time! However, the sense of a triumphalist Church was strong, and the institutionalisation of the Counter- Reformation still dominated the rigid canonical discipline of the nineteenth century. Moreover, in France and elsewhere, Jansenistic narrowness could breed scrupulosity and even smug superiority in the “just” and destroy all hope of redemption for “sinners”.
There was also the Gallicanism of the French Church, which Colin repudiated, taking the “Roman” point of view. He always showed great fidelity to the Pope and the Church in Rome. This was the age of Imperialism, too, of empire-building, when the colonisers and missionaries moved throughout the world superimposing Western culture and religious rituals on the “heathens/pagans” to save them, while exploiting their economic resources quite mercilessly. As John Thornhill says so well, it was impossible for Colin “to understand fully the conflict at the heart of his project — the conflict which put the prophetic contribution Marists can make in the life of the Church at odds with the prevailing ideological ethos of nineteenth century Catholicism”. 3 This is what he faced when he presented his case to the Curia and Cardinal Castracane, and thus, in his lifetime, he was never able “to translate the vision into an organic unity”. 4 Therefore, we find that the inevitable separation of the religious branches, which became autonomous, and the frustrating ambiguity and seeming inaction of Colin’s approach regarding the Lay Confraternity were so difficult for Marists to understand, and particularly for Eymard, when he became Director of the Lyon groups in the mid-1840s.
The next section of the sentence, on the revival of people’s faith and devotion and their nourishment by the doctrine of the Roman Church, sets the mission squarely in the nineteenth Century. Colin’s vision, although far-sighted, could not have envisaged the vast changes in the outlook of the Church towards ecumenism and dialogue with people of all religions and non-believers in the latter part of the twentieth Century, after Vatican II, and into the third millennium. Colin, as Castracane says, “understood his era”, but it is in the next section that his vision opens into a truly eschatological and limitless future: “…so that at the end of time, as at the beginning, all the faithful may with God’s help be of one heart and one mind in the bosom of the Roman Church, and that all working worthily before God and under Mary’s guidance, may attain eternal life”.
Notice that Colin uses the word “all” three times in the complete sentence and, when it is read aloud, one sees its force. “Roman Church” occurs twice with the words “doctrine” and “bosom”. Here I think we see Colin’s tension, his dilemma, the incredible breadth and scope of the vision — “the whole world Marist” — yet still confined by the constraints of the nineteenth century Church. Seeing Mary as the “protector” and guide to assist all to salvation, Colin gives us in this telling sentence a picture of such vast future possibilities.
Perhaps it is only today, in the aftermath of Vatican II and its Documents and in the great Encyclicals that have followed — e.g., Pope Paul VI’s “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (On Evangelisation of the Modern World) and our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II’s “Redemptionis Missio” (On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate) and “Ut unum sint” (That All May Be One) — that Colin’s global vision can begin to be faintly understood. At this point it seems pertinent to quote an example of these shifts and changes of outlook in today’s Church to see that the mission of the Society (include here the whole Marist family) can be very relevant. I quote from No. 10 of “Redemptionis Missio”: The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all it must be made concretely available to all ....many people do not have the opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church ...for such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ. It is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free co-operation…this applies not only to Christians but to all people of good will in whose hearts grace is secretly at work …in a manner known only to God. The words speak for themselves and Marists living in the spirit of Mary, Mother of Mercy, see themselves “like a bridge going to souls, to sinners”.5 We realise that every element of our charism and spirituality can fit the tremendous mission of the Church today and in the future. Like her in her self-effacing hidden way, we can develop a Mariology of hope; we can desire to “win souls by submitting ourselves to them”.6 We can recognise the essential dignity of all and respect their freedom of conscience, for we know that God is working mysteriously in the heart of every human person at levels beyond our knowledge or understanding.
The final short sentence sums up the entry of lay people as an “equal constitutive” part of the project, and Colin uses both titles, “Confraternity” and “Third Order of the Blessed Mary”. He and the first Marists were not aware of the different shades of meaning in the Church’s use of words such as “lay”.7 Suffice to say that popular speech places clergy and religious in one category as the “professionals” and all others in another as “lay people”, and this is the sense in which the words “lay” and “laity” are used in the 1833 Summarium. Note, however, that there were exceptions later, with the admission of diocesan priests, e.g., the Curé of Ars, into the Third Order of Mary and the early separate fraternity of the priests in Lyon. The term “Third Order” presents a difficulty. Perhaps Colin was thinking of the Third Orders of Seculars attached to great religious orders like the Dominicans and Franciscans, etc., but already the project had four branches, and Colin learnt in his first visit to Rome that his Society was not to be an “order” with solemn vows. So, strictly speaking, it could not have a Third Order. Although this name had been used earlier by Courveille (Verrières 1816-17), by Colin and the Marists (Belley 1832-33), and by the Tertiary Brothers of Mary (Lyons 1832), it still continued to be used after the 1833 visit to Rome, Colin replaced the phrase with “Confraternity” in drafting another petition (see LM. Doc12) before leaving Rome. The name, Third Order of Mary, continued to be used in the 1840s, 50s & 60s, even by Colin. He avoided using it in the Confraternity’s Constitutions of 1872, as did Cozon,8 who made valiant efforts throughout his lifetime to keep Colin’s ideas for the lay Branch alive.
Neither name really captures Colin’s global vision, although today both are still used and various others as well, e.g., Marist Fraternities, Marian Apostolate, Marist Way, etc., which have come into usage in the latter part of the 20th Century. The teachings of Vatican II and further papal writings have stressed the importance and status of lay people and affirmed “co-equal discipleship, a universal call to holiness and the autonomy of earthly realities”.
The names “lay Marists” and “Marist laity” seem to have the most universal application; the simple name “Marists” can be used if there is no problem regarding distinction or ambiguity of roles. Marist comes from “Mary”, with “ist” (a suffix meaning “adhering to”). I like Duffy and Girard’s explanation in Like a Bridge: “persons who belong to Mary and promote her way”, and also the story in Larkin’s A Certain Way, where the young high school girl at the Retreat says “…It’s easy. The word Mar-ist is composed of the first three letters of Mary’s name and the last three letters of Christ’s name. You may begin by looking at Mary, but you always end up looking at Christ”.10 We too, like Larkin, are reduced to silence!
The important thing is not being over-anxious or too precise regarding the name, but never losing sight of our Marist mission and the dynamism of Colin’s vision, which he never lost from those early days, to which this Document belongs, to the end of his life.
Let us listen to the words of the text of 1872, “the brief overview” which he addressed to the Fathers’ General Chapter. The vision is still as clear as when he wrote it down in the night hours near his bed at Cerdon. “The Church calls the Blessed Virgin ‘Gate of Heaven’….and since she is the mother of all God’s children and since she wants to save them all, her Society ought to open its bosom to all her children who want to be saved and lay claim to her help. That is why the Society takes all kinds of people into association with itself through a Third Order, under the name of Confraternity of Mary for the Conversion of Sinners and the Perseverance of the Faithful”.
1 LM, doc. 322,§16.
2 See J. Coste, Lectures on Society of Mary History (pp. 104 – 109) for account of this.
3 J Thornhill, SM, “Will Our Marist Way Live on in Tomorrow’s Church?” Forum Novum, vol. 5, no. 3, October 2000.
4 A Greiler, SM, “Marcellin Champagnat - a Marist Saint” (Rome, 1999) p. 30.
5 LM, doc. 334,§36.
6 FS, doc. 102,§33.
7 See LM, pp. vii and viii, “Lay Marists: A Problem of Terminology” for an explanation.
8 See Context of document 3 for detail on Cozon.
9 L Duffy & C Girard, Like a Bridge, p.6.
10 C Larkin, A Certain Way, p.91.
11 LM, doc. 332, initial phrases in § 2 and 3. | |
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