Constitutions Project

Constitutions Project

Fr Craig Larkin SM has been asked by the General Administration to prepare material on the Constitutions of the Society of Mary. He plans to do it through stories and extracts from the LRO which illustrate the Marist spirit.

This page and the links from it are set up as a "collection point" for suggestions. If you find a good story, good phrase or something memorable in any of the letters or documents on the site, please put a link to it, or note about it below.

Bishop Douarre, his style, his crest and his motto

I like the way Bishop Douarre styles himself as "your little bishop" in doc 460 his letter to a benefactress. His crest of a little boat being tossed on a stormy sea, and the motto of "Save us we are perishing" is revealing of his character (and sense of humour?). In doc 457 Verguet talks of drawings he made of Bishop Douarre's house, do we have those? There is also this paragraph about him in Girard0452

Having no material resources, we set about securing our food by the sweat of our brow. Monseigneur Douarre set aside his bishop’s insignia; first, he gave us the example of work like other virtues, from that moment and right up till this day, he forgot that he was a bishop so that he could mix with the brothers, or rather he remembered that he had the burden of the bishopric; father in time of need, he wanted to secure a few morsels of bread for his hungry children. From that moment, nothing was any trouble to him, the most difficult and most humiliating work were his share. The episcopate has some glory about it in the outside world, that is in our civilized lands, but in the missions, especially those just setting up, the title has about it dedication and generosity of spirit which accepts this heavy mitre. One has to have been in the missions fully to understand what I have said and what I am not saying.

When the going got extraordinarily tough in New Caledonia he recounts (in a doc not in LRO) that he made this offer to his priests:

However much difficulty I have in parting from them, I had suggested to these good missionaries that they go and work either in Monsignor Bataillon’s curacy, or in the diocese of Monsignor Viard, not one of them wished to part from me and they are awaiting for a decision from Rome and Father Superior.

- Merv

Paragraph from Pierre Rougeryon

In Girard0452 there is this great paragraph:

When the time arranged for the departure arrived, the lighter Bucephale set sail and left the port of Ballade, taking leave of Monseigneur with seven cannon shots. Thrown onto wild shores, among a foreign people, the only whites in a large island 80 leagues long and 20 wide, without help what was going to become of us after the departure of the protecting ship, what fate was in store for us? If I hadn’t been a missionary, and a Marist missionary at that, I would have let myself become discouraged, but at this very moment, Mary rekindled our faith, and our life’s sacrifice was renewed. However, oh human weakness! huge tears flowed in my eyes when I saw the masts of our mother country’s ship disappear over the horizon. At 7,000 leagues from France, one still loves France and all that reminds one of France.

- Merv

Article 13 & Br Germanique

13. Guided by the Gospel, the doctrine of the Church, and the insghts of Father Colin on education, they devote themselves to all forms of education, especially among the young.

Germanique was the first brother sent out to the missions specifically to teach. In Clisby142 he writes:

I was preoccupied with many thoughts during the day I spent alone among the savages. I saw around me old men come almost to the end of their days without having known the good God who gave them existence; children scarcely started on life’s path, left to themselves, deprived of Christian and civilized education. I compared the lot of these poor children to that enjoyed by those attending our schools in France, and I was moved by the unfortunate state of these poor little creatures.