In 1830, at the age of forty, Jean-Claude Colin accepted the call of his colleagues to take charge of the Society of Mary (Marists). He had joined this project as a seminarian in Lyons, France, in 1816, along with Marcellin Champagnat, future founder of the Marist teaching brothers. Since ordination, he had been an assistant priest at Cerdon (photo below), preached revival missions in rural districts and been principal of a high school-seminary. Colin always insisted that he was only a temporary superior until someone more capable could take over. Yet, by the time he resigned in 1854, he had obtained papal approval of the priests' branch, established the Society firmly in France, especially in education, and sent fifteen expeditions of missionary priests and brothers to the remote and scattered islands of the southwest Pacific. There they planted the Catholic Church in New Zealand, Wallis and Futuna, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and New Caledonia. Between his resignation and his death in 1875, Colin wrote Constitutions for the priests and brothers of the Society of Mary and for the Marist sisters. He also left a rich spiritual teaching. For this achievement, the Society regards him, despite his reluctance, as its Founder.

This book is an examination of matters to do with the spirituality of the Catholic religious order founded in Franc in 1800s by Jean-Claude Colin, the Marist Fathers, as distinct from the Marist Brothers founded by Marcellin Champagnat. The book examines a few words in the Constitutions: 'to think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things.' Nearly one hundred years later, in the opinion of Marist historian Jean Coste, this sentence (with two others) were themes 'of the first part of the Constitutions since 1836'. But, in its present form, it had 'such an original and direct sound', 'a vigour and striking power' of a 'mind sure of itself', and a consistency with the Founder's style that it (with the other two) were, clearly, 'dictated by Fr. Colin himself '. In this 'handful of words', we have, then, what can rightly be described as the Marist axiom: 'To think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things'. At the very end of Coste's touchstone commentary, it is interesting to note the specific aspect that he highlights (in italics): we call the Marist spirit that common way of feeling and reacting ...

Jean-Claude Colin and some companions were not yet 30 years old when they started a religious family that would become the Society of Mary (Marists). Having experienced the turbulent French Revolution as children, they felt the need to proclaim the Good News with a greater sense of compassion and humility. These meditations invite you to reflect upon the courage and selflessness that imitate Mary and that continue to draw people to the Marist life.

Biography of this early 19th century French Marist.