Life of the Congregation (3)

On May 31, Father Louis-Edouard Cestac, founder of the Servants of Mary and companion of Michael Garicoits in the Seminary, was beatified during a solemn celebration presided by Cardinal Angelo Amato (Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints) in the Sainte- Marie Cathedral, in Bayonne. Our Congregation was present with our Superior General, Fr Gaspar Fernández Pérez scj, the Regional Vicar, Fr Jean-Dominique Delgue scj and the Superior of the community of Anglet, Fr Beñat Oyhénart scj.

Mgr. Amato began his homily with these words...:

« The diocese of Bayonne shines out in the Church by the holiness of two of its priests, St Michael Garicoïts, founder of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram, and Blessed Louis-Edouard Cestac, founder of the Congregation of the Servants of Mary of Apostolic Life and of the Bernardines of Contemplative Life. Cardinal Lavigerie, who had known both priests, considered them really holy and worthy to be proposed as models of priestly virtues and apostolic zeal. (...) »

...and he concluded it as follows: 

« Blessed Cestac offers us three teachings to meditate upon today. Firstly, he invites us to have faith in God and in his divine Providence, present in the history of mankind and the Church and especially in the circumstances of our family and personal life. We are sons of God, who loves us, guides us, forgives us. Let us give thanks daily through the prayer, Our Father. Secondly, Blessed Cestac invites us to turn to our neighbours in need and to those outcast, to be welcoming, generous and merciful. Finally, as much to us as to his Servants of Mary, he strongly recommends to aim at holiness, the ultimate purpose of Christian life. It is the daily holiness made by loyalty, by work, by absence of sin, by connecting ourselves to His Grace, by receiving the Sacraments frequently and especially by communion with Jesus. By ourselves we cannot do a lot, but with the help of the Lord, with the protection of the Virgin Mary and by connecting ourselves to the grace, we can too climb the mountain of the holiness.»

First steps of founders

« Listening to God’s will, without any preestablished plan, each one [Michael Garicoïts and Louis-Edouard Cestac] passed through a long process of discernment to respond to the particular call he received. Michael, in Bétharram, began the adventure with some brothers and in 1835 founded the society of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram (...); Edouard, moved by the girls he met in the streets of Bayonne, welcomed them in 1836, working together with young lay women who would become the first Servants of Mary. When, at the end of 1841, Edouard had to write the Rules of Life of the Servants of Mary, he chose to go back to Betharram: “I needed to gather my thoughts somewhere and work there”. (...) The two friends must have also shared their apostolic aspirations... » Sr Isabelle Lordon, Servant of Mary