Third Key DocumentLM doc. 431, §20 Extract from Cozon’s Postulatum to the 1880 General Chapter of the Marist Fathers; translation of the French critical edition of the Postulatum [20] I think that all those who spoke with the Very Rev. Fr. Founder on this topic will see here the ideas which he expressed to them on it, and which are reproduced in the Constitutions he dictated to his two secretaries. Several conclusions may be drawn. Permit me to draw one that I think is most important. In the mind of the Founder, the Third Order ought not to be confined within the limits of the Society. It ought to be, in a sense, a work outside the Society, to which the Society ought to communicate its own spirit, the spirit of the Blessed Virgin. Its development, therefore, ought not to be restricted to the Society; we are not to retain it in our hands, but only let it pass through them. Thus, it is not a part of the mechanism in the Society’s clockwork; it should not revolve around us, so to speak, like a planet around its constellation, but should shine out into the Church. It is no longer a valuable way to help the Society, but rather a means of extending the Society’s action throughout the world, so that the same thrust, going forth from Mary, passing through the Fathers and the members of the Third Order, may spread out and lose itself in the Church, without any personal consideration. |
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