Comments of the Cure on the Society of Mary
Claude Mayet tells of his experience of being uncertain about joining the Jesuits or the Marists and consulting the Cure. This is what he was told:
‘The Marists, they are a foundation according to the heart of God, for there is humility there, as well as simplicity and difficulties; they go about their work simply, beginning their missions with first communion and catechism. Were I to choose between the Jesuits and the Marists, I should prefer the Marists, for the Jesuits are too well known, while, if you are a Marist, you are hidden. Another thing which is good is that the Superior of the Marists does not accept these brilliant candidates etc. if I were more gifted, I would have become a Marist.” OM, doc.419
M. Vianey had gone straight to the essentials and he knew thoroughly the congregation of which he spoke having learned to appreciate it, no doubt, through his conversations with Fr. Declas as well as with the parish priests who had had recourse to the ministry of the Marists. (pp. 391-93).
From these and remaining texts, Coste comments, “it is pleasant to note that at the end of Fr Colin’s generalate, the favourable impression of the Cure had not changed, and still concerned itself with the essentials, namely the particular way in which the Marists united the spirit of the hidden life to the apostolate, having made humility itself the most efficacious means of this apostolate. One can say without hesitation that the Cure d’Ars knew the SM well, and as it were, from the inside. (p.393).
The Cure d’Ars to retire in the Society of Mary
In March, 1844, Fr Mayet wrote the following in a page dedicated entirely to the Cure d’Ars:
“In 1843, following the example of those saints who fled from honours, he escaped from his parish. He told Fr Seon and myself how happy he would be to retire among the Marists. His parish was disconsolate; they looked for him everywhere; finally he was forced to go back.” Mayet, Memoirs 4, 363.
The flight of the Cure in 1843 is a fact that is duly attested to by his biographers. He left Ars during the night of 11-12 September, and went to his native village of Dardilly, with the intention of going to Fourviere a few days later to say a Mass in order to know God’s will.
In fact, Fr Mayet, in his Personal Notes, says that he was in Ars from 5-9 September 1843 and from other sources we know that he did not return there before May of 1845. Thus it seems clear that it was during that first week of September, only a few days before his flight, that the Cure had expressed his wish to retire among the Marists.
After 1846, but without any specific date, Fr Mayet added the following note in his Memoirs in the margin next to the preceding text:
“Several times he made plans to retire in the Society of Mary. Fr Colin let him know that he could choose whichever house of the Society pleased him most. In 1846 they were waiting for him.”
In a letter dated 2 September 1912, upon request, Fr Piel de Churcheville reiterated in writing the following:
“I liked to speak with the Marists who were contemporaries of the holy Cure, the better to understand his relations with the Society of Mary. This is what I did at La Neyliere, where I made my retreat in preparation for my priestly ordination, from 31 July to 21 August, 1892. I had several occasions to speak familiarly, in the garden, with the venerable Fr Jobert. When I asked him whether, to his knowledge, the Cure d’Ars had desired to become a Marist, he answered: “Certainly, and I am a witness of this fact. He had begged Fr Colin to admit him to the novitiate at La Neyliere. Fr Colin had accepted him. The day and the hour of his coming had been fixed, so that everything was in readiness for his arrival. I was a witness of Fr Colin’s anxiety when evening had come, and the Cure d’Ars had not arrived. And the venerable Founder said: ‘What can have happened to M. Vianey? It is certainly today that he was to come to the novitiate. His room is ready. I am most anxious…’ Several days later, continued Fr Jobert, we learned that his parishioners had obliged him to return to his presbytery.”