APAC29
From Marist Studies
A firm spiritual director
- Most of the missionaries had already taken leave of their parents and gathered in Belley when the retreat opened there on 20 September. The rules for the retreat stipulated that prior to the profession everyone should have a talk with the provisional superior, i.e. with Jean-Claude Colin.[1] In this conversation Claude Bret admitted that the encouragement he had been given by Bishop Devie had not taken away all his hesitations. Colin gave him Bossuet`s Discourse on the Act of Self-Abandonment to read, a text he often recommended.[2] We can assume that other missionaries were given the same text, or at least were guided along similar lines. Chanel knew it, and during the same retreat, he gave it to his friend Bourdin to read.[3]
- `Only one thing is necessary`. Only God is necessary: he is everything, the rest is nothing. Whatever might be, fades before His face, and all nations are a void and a nothing in His eyes. He alone is necessary for man. Him alone we must desire and to Him alone we must bind ourselves. `Fear the Lord and observe his commandments`… Everything else is alien to man …This is the ground of his being. …Whatever you might lose, o man, you have lost nothing provided you do not lose God, you have lost nothing that could have been your own. Let go of everything else: keep only to the fear and the love of God. … (p. 535)
- I have abandoned everything for you, O Lord, do with it what You want. I leave my life in your hands; and not only the life I lead here, in … exile upon earth, but also my life in eternity… (p. 535)
- I have surrendered everything. I have nothing for myself. ... (p. 536)
- We must let ourselves fall into the welcoming arms of our God, our Saviour and our Father. That is when we learn to use the name `Father` properly, like children, innocent and simple, without effort, without anxiety, without worrying about the future. ……… (p. 538)
- It is this act of total surrender that creates room for the Spirit to move us, and to turn us entirely into action for God. … (p. 539)
- .....
- The meditation of this little known text seems to have lifted Claude Bret over the threshold. Smiling and joyfully he set out for the journey that, for him, was not to be long.[4]
- It was this spirit of total commitment, based on radical self-denial and flowing from the passionate love of God and of God alone, that Jean-Claude Colin wanted to see in his missionaries as he sent them out into the unknown Pacific. In fact, he sent them not only to the other side of the world, but also up the road to instant holiness, which he found more important. The same thing that Mother Saint-Joseph also meant to convey to Peter Chanel with the firmness that Colin admired in her.[5] Only men driven by such saintly determination were able to set their hands, without looking back, to the formidable task of opening up the missions of Oceania.
Notes
- ↑ OM I, doc. 402, 7.
- ↑ OM II, doc. 727. Reading Bossuet appears to have been not unusual at the time, cf. EC, 21, and there must have been several copies available. Perhaps it should be added to the list of classical sources of Marist spirituality, cf. Colin Studies I, pp. 27 – 47.
- ↑ OM II, p. 605, n. 1. These excerpts are from Bossuet, Discours sur l`acte d`abandon, in Oeuvres complètes, éd. F. Lachat, t. 7. Paris 1882. Of the earlier edition used in 1836, no copy has been found back.
- ↑ ‘avant de tomber malade je lui avois souvent entendu dire qu`il n`avoit plus rien à coeur dans ce monde que de gagner le ciel, après cela, ajoutait-il, peu importe que nous soyons mangés par les vers ou par les poissons pourvu que nous arrivions là haut’. Bataillon to Étienne Séon, 30.07.37, doc. LRO, 19, [1].
- ↑ RMJ, docs. 105 [3] & 138.
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