As the Spiritans prepare for our 300th Anniversary on Pentecost 2003, it may be useful to look back on where we were on our 200th Anniversary in 1903...

 

The Second Centenary of the Foundation of
the Congregation of the Holy Spirit

(1703-1903)

On 20 May 1703, the feast of Pentecost, a young and brilliant student of 24 years, Claude Poullart des Places, who would not be ordained a priest until 1707 and whom death would claim two years later, gathered together in Paris near the Sorbonne twelve "poor students". His plan was to support and guide them, to prepare them for the priesthood, and for the most humble, the most difficult and the least sought after ministries.

The project was consecrated to the Holy Spirit and confided "to the protection of Mary Immaculate"

It was from this beginning that we set forth.

Soon Poullart des Places felt the need to enlist the help of collaborators. After his premature and holy death, it was one of these, Jacques-Hyacinthe Garnier, who succeeded him, only to die himself six months later. He was immediately replaced by a deacon from St Malo, Louis Bouic, who had arrived on the scene only four months previously. Louis Bouic and Francois Becquet, were then to successively guide the enterprise from 1710 to 1788.

During this long period the Seminary was established at rue des Postes, where it still is today. The present buildings and the chapel were built, the Society was organised and the rules set down. Mgr de Vintimille, archbishop of Paris, gave official approval to the rules (1731) and later (1824) The Holy See would judge them "prudent, wise and very suitable for forming missionaries". The constitutions were approved by the civil authority and "the poor students", only 12 in 1703, gradually increased to 80.

As for the Directors themselves, who alone made up the Society or Congregation of the Holy Spirit, they were never numerous ,nor did they want to be. Only 62 had been received at the time of the Revolution(1792). But their priestly and apostolic activity was admirable. Not one of them nor any of their students fell into Jansenism, so strong and widespread at the time. Nor did anyone compromise himself during the troubles of every sort brought about by the French Revolution.

From the beginning it was the students of Holy Spirit who provided blessed Grignon de Montfort with the first members of his Congregation, Missionnaires de la Compagnie de Marie, a group which soon gave birth to the Freres du Saint-Esprit (later to be called Freres de Saint Gabriel - named after Gabriel Deshayes, who led their renewal of 1820) as well as to the Soeurs de Sagesse (1703), who today have 5000 members.

Another disciple and friend of Poullart des Places, the outstanding missionary Fr Lenduger founded in 1706 near St-Brieuc the congregation, Filles du Saint Esprit.

Several (past students of Holy Spirit) entered the Missions Etrangeres. Among them were Mgr Blandin,Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, and Mgr Pothier, considered to be the founder of the great mission in Su-Tchuen in China.

Others went to Acadia and to Canada. Mgr Dosquet, bishop of Quebec from 1733 to 1739, was one of the principal benefactors of the Seminary.

Indeed it was to the Congregation of the Holy Spirit that the French Government turned for the evangelisation of its colonies of St Pierre et Miquelon, French Guinea, Senegal, etc.

But now the French Revolution was about to erupt, spreading debilitating upset, and the first centenary of the foundation (1803) came to a close with the death of the venerable Jean-Marie Duflos, fifth Superior General. He died at the age of 78 after the painful experience of the dispersion of his confreres and of the students confided to them.

It seemed that the Congregation itself was entering the tomb with this old man, but the Holy Spirit that gave it birth, would bring it back to life.

Among the rare Spiritan survivors (of the Revolutionary dispersal) was Jacques-Madeleine Bertout, the nephew of Fr Duflos, a strong character with a deep faith, who combined irrepressible energy with remarkable flexibility. Through his initiative, his connections and his tenacity, he singlehandedly and without resources succeeded in re-establishing the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, enabling it to recover its property at Rue des Postes. He secured the approval of Napoleon in 1805, that of Louis XVIII in 1816 and that of the Holy See in 1824. The Seminary (of the Holy Spirit) resumed sending missionaries to the colonies.

However his nephew and successor, Fr Fourdinier, as well as Fr Leguay and Fr Monnet later on, found themselves soon beset by a painful problem: the impossibility, with their meagre personnel, of undertaking the evangelisation of the people confided to them, especially of the Blacks, whose liberation from slavery, decreed at a stroke by the Revolution of 1848, was a big (missionary) problem.

But, for six years already, missionaries known as the "Peres du St-Coeur de Marie" had tackled this apostolate with admirable fervour and zeal and no little success. In Mauritius, in Reunion and in Haiti they had done wonders. Led by Providence to the west coast of Africa, these new arrivals had inherited from Mgr Barron, whom the young churches of the United States of America had sent to pagan Africa, the immense Vicariate Apostolic of the Two Guineas. Already their tombs marked the place where future churches would sping up, in Senegal, at Cape Palmas, at Grand-Bassam, in Gabon.... Their founder was a saint: he was Fr Libermann.

In the minds of each group, the idea of a "fusion" emerged spontaneously. It took place on 10 June 1848, on the eve of Pentecost, though it was only on the following 26 September that Propaganda made it official. According to a decree of that date, the Society of the Holy Heart of Mary ceased to exist and its members entered the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

On 3 October , Fr Monnet, Superior General, was named Vicar Apostolic of Madagascar. He died there a few months later. On 22 November, he resigned as Superior General. The following day, 23, the old and the new members of the revitalised Congregation unanimously chose as his replacement the one whom, with grateful and warm affection we refer to today as our "Venerable Father". Providence had destined him, at the appointed time,to give to the work of Poullart des Places its definitive shape and the apostolic thrust that would be its distinctive mark.

Under Fr Libermann and his successors, we see the Congregation in the process of reorganisation. While it tightened the bonds that united it through a better adapted infrastructure, it also clarified the proper role of the colonial clergy as such, so that it could concentrate on its own special apostolate. It extended its base of operations in France. It expanded to Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, attentive to the guidance of the Spirit of God which urged it to send its new offspring to infidel lands which Europe had conquered and to which she now owed civilisation's benefit and the Christian Truth.

When religious persecution led to its (the Congregation's) expulsion from Germany in 1874, that turned out to be an opportunity, arranged by Providence, to go and set foot on the welcoming and fruitful land of the United States of America.

At this very moment, a similar storm is gathering in France. It has already scattered many religious families. Maybe it will be for us, as well as for others, after trials which may be hard to bear, a starting point for useful reforms and more widespread activity?... At any rate our own history - a history of 200 years - should teach us to never despair, for we have no reason to live unless we live only for God, and God does not abandon those who remain steadfast in his service....

The present circumstances, however, do not allow us to celebrate this second Centenary of our foundation with the joy and solemnity that we would wish. But our giving thanks for it should not be diminished and our prayers for the occasion will be the more fervent.

And so we will do our utmost throughout the Congregation to observe the following instructions:

1. The preparatory novena for the feast of Pentecost, prescribed by His Holiness Leo XIII, will be celebrated in our houses this year with a special solemnity. Every evening at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrement, the Veni Sancte Spiritus will be sung.

2. On the evening of the feast of Pentecost the Te Deum will be sung with its accompanying prayer. The Sub tuum will be added in honour of the Blessed Virgin.

3. In houses of education, in parishes and in the various works for which we have responsibility, to the extent that it is possible and appropriate, a conference or an instruction will be given on the Congregation and the action of the Holy Spirit in its growth.

4. Distant communities who receive this communication after the feast of Pentecost will at least sing a Te Deum in thanksgiving as well as the Sub tuum praesidium on the feast of the Holy Heart of Mary.

5. As a souvenir of this anniversary, a portrait of the Servant of God, Claude Poullart des Places and one of Venerable Fr Libermann will be distributed to members of the Congregation.

The Life of our first Founder, already begun, will be published as soon as possible. Finally, a historical account of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit will appear, we hope, during the present year.

Paris 15 April 1903
+ Alexandre Le Roy
Bishop of Alindo, Superior General

(Extract from the General Bulletin of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit no. 195 May 1903)

(translated B K Jan 2002)