The role of Mary at the birth of the church and at the end of timeHistorical Commentary on the Constitutions of the Society of Mary By Father Jean Coste SM
In Father Colin’s thought,of the phrase “Ignoti et occulti†brought out the necessity of a careful studyof what Father Founder meant when he pointed to Our Lady herself as amodel for our hidden apostolate. For there are undoubtedly numerous waysof interpreting this idea of an imitation of the hidden life of Mary and,while each of these has an equal right to exist in the Church, it is essentialfor us that we should grasp clearly what our Founder meant when he recommended that we be unknown and hidden in the world after the exampleof Our Lady.
This will be possible only if we are again willing to forget somewhatour own mental surroundings in order to adopt those which history showsus to have been Father Colin’s when speaking of the Blessed Virgin, so as toreach a full understanding of the expressions he used, even though they maydiffer notably from the ones we would use nowadays. And here, one sentence above all strikes us as being the one which Father Colin repeated mostoften, most consistently and most regularly during his whole life, namelythe statement, attributed to Our Lady herself: I supported the Church at herbirth; I shall do so again at the end of time. A study of this expressionwill provide the key to Father Founder’s extremely far-reaching conception ofthe historical role of Mary and of the Society in the Church, a breath-takingview which alone reveals the full import and the true originality of his statements on the hidden life of Mary.
This most crucial, and at the same time most delicate, aspect ofFather Founder’s thought has been little investigated so far. All the very statements of Father Colin relative to it are far from being available to the confreres.It has therefore seemed necessary to study this point in a series of articlesin which these statements would be quoted extensively and would be studiedin their historical origins as well as in their more recent developments.Four articles are planned:
First - The Expression Itself and its Origin.
Second - Sources of this Concept in the Spiritual Tradition.
Third - The Thought of Father Colin.
Fourth - The Actual Relevance of this Concept.
The following article is the first in this series.
I - THE EXPRESSION ITSELF AND ITS ORIGIN
A. The Text
Before any other consideration, the reader may be glad to find herethe sum total of the texts known today in which Father Colin used the expression with which we are concerned.
As early as 1837, that is, during the first months of his noviciate,Father Mayet picked up on Father Colin's lips the following statement, which hewrote down without indicating its context:
Text A -The Blessed Virgin has said: I have supported the Churchat her birth; I shall do so again at the end of time. My bosomwill be open to all who would enter it.
Two years later, speaking of the good relations which existed betweenthe Jesuits and the Marists, Father Colin explained:
Text B -This, I think, is due in part to the revelations which havebeen made concerning the Marists; the Jesuits do much spiritualdirection, and I know that they have received confidences abouta number of these revelations. He then repeated to me (Fr.Mayet goes on to say) what he had told us about this revelationwhere Mary said: “I have supported the Church at her birth; Ishall do so at the end of timeâ€.
In 1844, Father Mayet took down another statement of Father Founder onthis matter:
Text C -On September 25, 1844, I said to him: It seems that thegreat number of wonders worked by Our Lady forebode the endof the world, for devotion to Mary is usually the last resort ofDivine Providence when It wants to convert a sinner. — Yes, hereplied, / supported the Church at her birth; I shall do so again atthe end of time . .. These words have presided over the first beginnings of the Society/
A month later, a further statement is made, which Father Mayet insertsnext to the one of 1839:
Text D -On October 26, 1844, he repeated (hose words and said: It isnow about thirty years ago since that was said to a priest.
About the same time, in a personal remark in his Memoirs, the faithful chronicler could write, referring to the foregoing text?:
Text E -Whenever he (Father Colin) talked intimately about our origins,he would do so in broken and mysterious words which I have oftenrecorded, for instance : The first picture of the Society wasgiven under the emblem of a three-branch tree...; or again:The Blessed Virgin has said: I supported the Church at her birth;I shall do so at the end of time, etc.
This statement, so often repeated already by Father Colin, will now berenewed from year to year. In December 1845, ha gave a talk to somescholastics who were preparing for their profession. One item recordedby one of his hearers reads as follows:
Text F - Jesus left His Mother with His nascent Church so that shewould watch over it in its cradle. She reappears at the end oftime to call in those who have not yet entered the fold and tolead back to it those who have strayed away from.
At the retreat of the following year, more precisely on September 23,1846, Father Colin proclaimed again, even more solemnly than before:
Text G -As for us, Gentlemen, we must reproduce the faith of thefirst believers. That is precisely what was foretold from our verybeginning (he uttered these words in a somewhat mysterious anduneasy manner). It was foretold that the Society of Mary wasnot to model itself on any of the societies which have preceded it; no, nothing of all that; but that our model, our only model, mustbe and was the early Church. And the Blessed Virgin, who thendid such great things, will do still greater ones at the end of time,because the human race will then be in a worse state.
For the year 1847, we have this note of Father Mayet in the margin, nextto the first text of 1837:
Text H -He repeated these same words on December 2, 1847, at Puy-lata, and he said: About 36 years ago.
A few days later, on January 19, 1848, while commenting upon the“Ignoti et occulti†before a group of confrères in the refectory, Father Founderreiterated his solemn statement:
Text I -Let us not worry about what the societies before us havedone, for, when a society comes to light, it is for a particularneed. Yes, Gentlemen (and here he assumed a solemn tone ofvoice), I am pleased to be able to repeat it here once again: Isupported the Church at her birth; I shall do so again at the endof time. These are the words which sustained and encouraged usat the very beginning of the Society. They were always beforeour minds. We have worked along that line, if I may so speak (*).
At the retreat of that year, on September 14, 1848, we have just aquick reminder in an exhortation on the necessity of being prepared for anything :
These are wicked times, but Mary, who has comforted, protected, saved the Church at her birth, will save her at the end of time (10).
On January 31, 1849, in order to stress the importance of teaching inthe Society, Father Founder established a parallel between the mission of the Society of Jesus and that of the Society of Mary. This text deserves to bequoted at length, for it will turn out to be an important one:
Text K -Gentlemen, 15 centuries after the preaching of the Gospel,there appears all of a sudden a body of apostolic men. The nameof Jesus has been reserved for them, and accordingly they imitateHim. Like Him, they prepare themselves in retirement; likeJesus, who only initiated His ministry at the age of thirty, theyare ordained priests only at the age of thirty. It is the societywhich has done most good in the Church. And I dare say thattheir superiority comes from the fact that they oriented them¬selves towards teaching; that is the source of all the good whichthe Jesuits have done. In its turn also, 19 centuries after thefounding of the Church, there comes a small society. The nameof Mary has been held in store for it, as it were, and given to itby God. The Blessed Virgin has said to it: I supported theChurch at her birth; I shall support the Church at the end of time. We must also follow the path of the Jesuits. My greatest ambition, one of the first ideas behind the founding of the Society, its first aim, is teaching. I have no hope in its future, I consider it as lost, if it does no teaching.
From the following school-year on, Father Mayet, to whom we owe everyone of the precious texts quoted so far, was no longer in the vicinity ofFather Colin, and the attestations relative to the use of that expression byFather Colin will be much more spaced out, of course. However, in the noteswritten by Father Maitrepierre in 1853, relative to the Society, we find thisremark :
Text L -His modest simplicity has never stopped him from believingthat the Society of Mary was called to do great things in theChurch of God. Mary, he said, protected the Church in hercradle; she will protect her in a very special way at the end oftime.
Characteristic as they were of Father Colin’s spiritual teaching during hisgeneralship, these reminders of the expression under consideration mighthave ceased with his resignation in 1854. On the contrary, we shall seethat, even after he had resigned as Superior, Father Founder made it a pointto repeat these statements, for he considered them as part of that treasureof essential ideas which he wished to bequeath to the Society.
In July 1863, after having received a letter from Father David, Father Mayetinserted at the beginning of his Memoirs the following note:
Text M - “Mary supported the Church in the early times; she will doit also at the end.†I asked him, Father David writes, whether he hadany particular motive for believing that it would be--go. He toldme: “Mary herself has revealed it, and it was in reference to thefuture of our little Society†.
At the Chapter of 1866, before taking leave of the capitulants at the end of the first session, on June 20, Father Founder declared, referring to thedelays encountered in the matter of the Rule:
Text N - The more I think of it, the more I congratulate myself thatI did not undertake to finish the Rule any sooner. The matterwas not yet ripe. I needed the time to see clearer. And that iswhat makes me hope that our little Society will live and that itwill live unto the end. I have always thought that the Society iscalled to fight until the end of time. Mary supported the Churchat her birth; she will do so also at the end, and she will do sothrough you; We must therefore penetrate ourselves with herspirit, and this spirit we must draw from her heart. The Apostlesnever did anything without consulting her, because she had thenew law written in her heart and had been taught by the HolyGhost even before the Incarnation.
In September 1868, Father Gautheron and Father Jeantin both picked up onFather Colin’s lips statements which are similar to the foregoing ones. ToFather Gautheron, he said:
Text O - I have always had the idea that the Society was called to workfor the salvation of souls at the end of time. The BI. Virginsustained the Church at her cradle; she will sustain her in aspecial way at the end of the world.
and to Father Jeantin:
Text P -The Blessed Virgin said, referring to the Society: I supported theChurch in the early times. I shall do so again at the end oftime.
Finally, on February 6, 1872, on the occasion of his brief appearanceat the end of the second session of the General Chapter, Father Founder, deeplymoved, gave a few words of encouragement where he used for the last timethe expression which we are studying:
Text Q - It is true that the future is not in our hands. But, as theBlessed Virgin supported the Church at her birth, so she willsupport the Church at the end of time. Let us cling to herspirit, and she will be with us forever.
B. A SUMMARY ANALYSIS
The sequence of texts quoted above may have appeared somewhat tedious. Yet it was necessary, not only in order to provide the reader withall the pieces of evidence, but also in order to bring out the variety of thedates and circumstances in which Father Founder came back to the expressionhe had at heart. A quick analysis of the data provided by these quotations,so much akin to each other, will open the way to a more precise grasp ofthe historical problem which they raise.
The preceding texts have this in common that they attribute a decisive part to the Virgin Mary both at the beginning of the Church and atthe end of time. A number of them present this assertion merely as aconviction, a personal certitude of Father Founder, without indicating what itrested upon (texts J, L, N, O, Q). Most of the time, however, the statementis placed on the lips of Mary herself, whether the text indicates this explicitly (texts A, B, E, I, K, M, P), or whether it appears clearly from the use ofthe first person in the expression (C, D, H).
Despite its very generic meaning, there is no question that the “sayingof Mary†reported by Father Founder has, in his eyes, reference to the Societyof Mary. While it is implied in almost every single text, this reference isexplicitly stated six times (texts B, G, I, K, M, P). Text K deserves specialnotice here, because it is the only one in which Father Colin had occasion fora direct justification of his assertion, in answer to a precise question.When and to whom was addressed this “saying,†so capital for thefuture of the Society? These are, of course, the questions which come immediately to mind. Three texts can help us answer the first question.Text C tells us that these words presided over the first beginnings of theSociety; text G refers us to what was foretold in our very beginnings, andfinally we know from text I that these are the words which sustained andencouraged us at the very beginning.
One may have noticed, in these three different sentences, a desire toemphasize the word beginnings, considered to be too vague by itself. Therecan be no doubt that the mysterious words were not pronounced during theperiod of origins, taken in the wide sense, bill that they go back to the verylime when the project of a Society of Mary was first conceived, that is atthe Major Seminary of Lyons, perhaps even before.
Two texts even put us in a position Io be more precise: text D, which,on October 26, 1844, refers us about thirty years back, and text H, datedDecember 2. 1817, which say- more precisely about 36 years ago. These twoindications may seem Io contradict each oilier, but it is not so, for the unitused in the first case, being the decade, allows for more margin than theprecise figure used in the second case. By relating the two indications oneto the other, which is quite natural seeing that they come from an identicalsource and refer to the same object, one is brought back to a period whichhovers around the years 1811-1812.
As for knowing to whom these words were communicated, only onetext (D) gives us any information: It is now about thirty years ago sincethat was said to a priest. This detail, of course, excludes absolutely thatthe recipient of the words should have been a nun or a mere layman. Onthe other hand, if we take into account a current way of speaking whichwas not completely foreign to Father Founder, it does not make it absolutelycertain that the person in question should have been a priest at the timeof the- communication. It is enough that he should have been one at thetime when Father Founder was speaking, namely in 1844. In current speech,do we not often speak of events concerning “a Cardinal,†“a Bishop,†with-out bothering to find out whether, at the time of the event, they alreadypossessed the title with which we now refer to them?
After these remarks, we can now tackle for its own sake the historicalproblem of the origin of the expression with which we are concerned here.
C. PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE EXPRESSION
At the term of the above analysis, it appeared that the assertion ofFather Founder concerning the role of Mary both at the birth of the Churchand at the end of time, could be traced back to a communication claimedto be from Mary herself, bearing directly on the Society of Mary, andmade in its very beginnings, around 1812.
But we also happen to be acquainted with the text of a “revelation,’’claimed to be from Mary herself, bearing on the Society of Mary, and goingback to the year 1812, namely the one that vas made to Jean-Claude Courveille in the Cathedral of Le Puy, on August 15 of that year, and whichsettled his priestly vocation. Here is an account of it, as reported byFather Mayet according to a letter written by its recipient in 1852, 16 yearsafter he had joined the Benedictines at the monastery of Solesmes:
In 1812, while he renewed the same promise to Mary, at thefoot of the same altar, “he heard, not with his bodily ears, butwith those of his heart, interiorly but very distinctly : ... This is... what I wish. As I always imitated my Divine Son in every¬thing, and as I followed Him unto Calvary, standing at the footof the Cross while He gave His life for the salvation of men, nowthat I am with Him in glory, 1 imitate Him in what He does onearth for His Church, for which I am a protector and like apowerful army, for the defense and the salvation of souls. Justas, at the time of a dreadful heresy which was to overturn all Europe, He raised His servant Ignatius to form a society which wouldbear His name by calling itself Society of Jesus and those whocomposed it Jesuits, in order to combat against hell which brokeloose against the Church of my Divine Son, so also I want, and itis the will of my adorable Son, that, in this last age of impietyand incredulity, there should be also a society which will be consecrated to me, will bear my name, and will call itself Society of_ Mary, and those who will compose it will also call themselvesMarists, to fight against hell...†.
“I did not hear any words; everything took place interiorly, in myheart,†Dom Courveille would add a few months later, in his answer to aquestion put to him by Father Mayet. Hence, the text which one hasjust read is clearly the result of putting in writing, forty years later, amysterious communication which, though made without the use of discursive speech, had nevertheless imprinted itself very distinctly on the mindof the young man. Through the terms which he uses, the Benedictine (whohas certainly read St Teresa implicitly classifies his own experienceamong what spiritual writers call “imaginary supernatural locutions†.It is not for un to settle here whether this communication was genuinelysupernatural or not. What matters for us just now is that, keeping to thetestimony of Dom Courveille himself, we are expected to concentrate moreon the main idea expressed in this text than on the literary form into whichit is couched in 1852, when he belatedly puts into writing the communication he had received.
And the basic structure of this text consists strictly in a twofoldcomparison. The principal one bears upon the role played by Mary whileshe was on earth and the one which she plays now that she is in glory.A further comparison derives from this and draws, as it were, its consequence. Since Mary imitates Jesus in glory, it is natural that she should,in this last age of impiety, have picked out a society which would bear hername, just as her Son had raised one in the 16th century against the Protes¬tant heresy.
Leaving aside the intermediary terms of comparison, what Our Ladyasserts in this text relative to herself can be summed up in two propositionswhich constitute the two extremes of the text : She imitated her Son on earthby standing at His side in the work of Redemption; she picks out, in this,the end of time, a society which bears her name, to combat against hell.This is unquestionably something very much akin to the idea contained inthe expression of Father Colin which is under comment.
Admittedly, Dom Courveille’s text makes no direct mention of thenascent Church, but only of Calvary, where a whole segment of theologicaltradition situates the birth of the Church; and, more generally, one wouldlike to recognize more clearly in this flowing period the pattern of Father Colin’salmost stereotyped expression. Still, one must agree that it was quite possible, inevitable even, that there should occur a slight shift of emphasis be¬tween the oral confidences of Jean-Claude Courveille to his friends in 1816and the written account sent by the Benedictine monk to Father Mayet in 1852.It was also inevitable that, among the seminarians who heard the story ofJean-Claude Courveille in 1816, some should have been struck by one aspect,some by another, and that every one should have finally reduced this initial“revelation†on the Society to the one element of it which had struck himmost. A typical example of this is Father Terraillon, who only retained, fromCourveille’s confidences, the parallel between the names and missions of theSociety of Jesus and of the Society of Mary (22). Father Colin, on the contrary,was probably impressed by the idea of the part to be played by Mary at theend of time and its connection with the mission which had been hers atthe origin of the Church.
More conclusive still seems to be the fact that, in at least two of thetexts quoted above, Father Founder linked the famous words I supported theChurch at her birth, I shall do so again at the end of time with a parallelbetween the mission of the Jesuits and that of the Marists. While it is onlyimplicit in text B, this parallel is drawn out at length, on the contrary, in K.We can only invite the reader to compare for himself the latter text withthat of the revelation made at Le Puy. In both of these, the similarity be¬tween the names of the Society of Jesus and of the Society of Mary formsthe basis for a similarity between the missions of these two Congregations.In both these texts also, Mary herself is the one who imposes its name andits mission upon her Society at the end of time. Finally, both texts havethis in common that, in each of them, the saying of Mary relative to hermission at the end of time through the Society is connected with the partplayed by her in the origins of the Church. The fact that one text speaksof her presence on Calvary while the other refers to her presence in the firstChristian community does not seem sufficient to destroy the surprising symmetry of these two texts. Besides, it should be noted that, while Father Colin’sstatement is inspired by a desire to stress the importance of teaching inthe Society of Mary, it is not this desire which creates the parallel be¬tween the Jesuits and the Marists. On the contrary, the whole point ofFather Founder’s argument lies in his conviction that the analogy between themissions of the two Congregations is part of the Divine plan which haswilled this symmetry and similarity. Whereby we are again brought backto the most basic idea in the text of the revelation made at Le Puy.
Such are the main considerations which can be made to bring out thevery strong probability that Mary’s revelation concerning her role at thebirth of the Church and at the end of time is purely and simply to beidentified with the revelation made to Courveille at Le Puy. For the two¬fold convergence of dates and contents constitutes a very strong indication,which one would need serious motives to reject.
Do such motives exist? Full proof of the contrary would require anextremely long study which would have, among other things, to give anaccount of Father Colin’s attitude, at the end of his life, towards the revelationsreceived by Courveille, to examine the other revelations reported byFather Mayet relative to the origins, and to discuss the possibility of othershaving been the recipients of the revelation alluded to by Father Colin. Obviously, such a discussion cannot take place within the framework of thisarticle. Let is be sufficient to say that the sum total of the texts whichare apt to throw light on this problem have been gathered and collatedwith a view to the collection of documents on Marist Origins which is nowbeing prepared. And, far from providing arguments against the identification just proposed, these texts converge invincibly towards the acceptanceof this identification as the only plausible solution.
It does not seem, therefore, that one has the right to comment uponthe expression in question without first giving the crucial problem of itsorigin a solution which has for it such a high degree of probability.
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