Le Rosey- Marlhes- La Valla - Hermitage

MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNET was born in the hamlet of Le Rosey, parish of Marlhes ( Loire) on 20th May 1789. Undoubtedly something of his ability as a leader and a man of action had come from his father, who during the worst years of the Revolution was selected by the people of the area for the position of town clerk. His mother had a strong and robust faith. She attended clandestine worship even while her husband’s office required that he preside at the secular rituals prescribed by the Revolution. More than once she accompanied Marcellin on foot to the shrine of St Francis Regis at La Louvesc, when adversity threatened Marcellin’s seminary course. Marcellin enjoyed a wholesome family life as a child, quite the contrary of Jean-Claude Colin’s. The house where Marcellin was born still stands in Le Rosey.

The windows of the chapel at Le Rosey were done by the famous Parisian artist Borghetto, and they portray the following incidents: (a) Marcellin’s baptism in the old church; (b) Marcellin offering a bouquet to Our Lady; (c) the shrine at Fourvière; (d) Marcellin in the apostolate at Marlhes and La Valla; (e) the “three first places” that Marcellin desired for his Brothers; (f) a “thank you” window from Marist pupils around the world; (g) Pius XII who consecrated the world to Mary and beatified Marcellin on 29 May 1955; (h) Our Lady of Lourdes.

The church of Marlhes where Marcellin was baptised has been re­placed by the present one, built in 1889. The population of Marlhes was 2700 in Marcellin’s time.

One of the earliest schools opened by the Marist Brothers was at Marlhes. Improper treatment by the parish priest caused Marcellin to pull them out, but they eventually returned, and still have an elementary school there today.

Marcellin Champagnatfirst studied under a brutal local schoolmaster and then, having decided upon the priesthood, at the minor seminary of Verrières, which he entered in 1805. There he was a contemporary of Jean-Claude Colin and Jean-Marie Vianney. In 1813 he entered the major seminary

of Saint Irenaeus in Lyons where in his last year he took part in discussions about a future Society of Mary. The project seemed to him to provide an opening for the creation of a congregation of teaching brothers to which he had already given thought - and such an idea upon his suggestion became part of the plan for the multi-branched society, responsibility for this branch being left with him.

On 22 July 1816 he was ordained priest along with other Marist aspirants including Colin, Courveille, Declas and Terraillon, and the following day took part in the Mass and ceremony of commitment to the project which took place in the marian shrine of Fourvière, and which is regarded as the formal origin of the Marist Family.

After ordination, on the 15 th August 1816, Champagnat was assigned to La Valla as a curate. He was a tireless and compassionate priest. Within 6 months of ordination, impressed more than ever with the need for education for young boys, he had gathered a couple of young men from the area, and set up the first Brothers’ community in a house he had bought. Eventually he moved in with his Brothers, and later (1824) began building the Hermitage, in the valley below the town, as a house of formation and headquarters for the community.

The Church of Champagnat’s time was located in the empty space in front of the present Town Hall. The presbytery, behind the present church, is the one in which he lived. The Brothers’ house attached to the school is the original house bought by Champagnat and later expanded — the “cradle of the Institute” as the Brothers call it, and rightly. This was the Institute’s home for nearly 8 years. Here, much experimental work was done regarding school matters, Catechism, manner of life, work, and relations with others.

It is worth looking at the gardens at the back of the house. They were cut from the hillside and terraced for support: a vast amount of stone had to be quarried and carved. In itself this perhaps is a parable of Champagnat’s personality and heritage.

Incidents occurred in those La Valla years which have become part of FMS history: the Memorare in the snow; the 8 Postulants; the death of the first Brother; the Inspector’s visit; the Bochard trouble; a scandal

An event which brought great joy and relief to Champagnat was the appointment in 1823 of Mgr Gaston de Pins as Apostolic Administrator of Lyons. “It was time to move away from the cradle into more challenging situations.

The Hermitage

Everyone moved from La Valla to the Hermitage in 1825. The community consisted of 20 Brothers and 10 Postulants. There were another 22 Brothers already in the schools.

The situation remained nonetheless delicate, for he was plagued by the unpredictable and tragic interference of Jean-Claude Courveille who arrogated to himself the position of superior and staged a confirmatory election among the Brothers. Unfortunately the Brothers made their loyalty to their founder abundantly clear and Courveille withdrew, only to return once more during a serious illness of Marcellin at the end of 1825. This time he was rebuffed again, and in the face of clear opposition from priests and brothers and the disfavour of the diocesan administration, he settled his affairs finally in June 1826 and with­drew.

With varying degrees of support and assistance from other priest aspirants, for whom his novitiate foundation was a natural gathering point, he continued to direct his expanding congregation. In 1830 the priest aspirants of Lyons elected him their provincial, a post he exercised for two years until the regrouping of the priests at Val­benoite called for other arrangements. His active correspondence with Jean-Claude Colin whom he had helped to be elected central superior of the priests in 1830 continued unabated and he took an active role in the progress of the priests’ branch. In 1835 he made over his personal possessions by means of a corporate deed to the nascent Society. With the offer of the Oceania Mission and consequent approbation of the priests’ branch in 1836, he hastened to express his readiness to make profession in the new congregation and acceded without delay to the request for Brothers to join the first band of missionaries. Joining the profession retreat at Belley that September, it was he who in the name of his confreres admonished the newly elected Superior General Colin on the duties and burdens of his office and who minutes later became the first member of the priests’ branch to make religious profession.

At the retreat of 1837 he tendered to Colin his resignation as superior of the Brothers, in recognition of his new status as religious priest of a juridically autonomous congregation and was immediately formally reappointed. In that same year he published his Rule, the first such printed text of the Marist Family. On 12 October 1839, dogged by ill health, he resigned his post and witnessed the election of Brother Francois as first Superior General. Having dictated and signed a moving spiritual testament on 18 May 1840, he died that same year on 6th June at the age of 51. He was beatified by Pius XII in 1955.

Marcellin Champagnat was from beginning to end a practical man. His background formed him to be the sort of person who had a sense of what is a good tool and how to use it; what is a good stone and where best to put it. Coste writes:

We see this even in his spirituality. He is certainly of all the Marist Founders the most Christological one, the one who spoke more of Christ as the foundation of spirituality, precisely because he was able to look at the good corner stone and see really what it has to be. He was direct, straightforward. He was a very humble man, but with a different type of humility from FrColin - a man who knows exactly who he is and what he is and what he is not. Here I am, this type of small stone, of this size, or this nature, and I have to be in this part of the building and not in another. That was the type of humility of Champagnat... And then, if we ask ourselves, what was the world for this boy, we would say: the world is a place in which one operates and creates for the glory of God. With a great tenacity, in spite of opposition from his parish priest, from his director, from the govern­ment, the university, the vicar general, from everybody - he will realize the foundation of one of the branches of the Marist Family, the strongest and the most numerous of the Marist Family. If you ask me how it is that the Marist Brothers are almost 10,000 and we are only 2,000, I could give you a series of geographical, psychological, historical and sociological reasons; but none is better than that they have been founded by Champagnat and we have been founded by Colin!

(Jean Coste - NZ Retreat 1972)

(The art work on this page can be found at 'The Hemitage'