Marist Fathers seminary in Davao in 2015
When we think of the earliest Church, the newborn Church, we generally think of the Church of Acts. Most of what I have to say about the earliest Church as the sole model of the Society of Mary does refer particularly to the Church after the Ascension of Christ. However, it is good to remember that, when Father Colin speaks of l'église naissante, he may sometimes have another reference in mind. In fact, the newborn Church has at least three faces.
1. Nazareth
One of these faces - or, if you prefer, places where we find the earliest Church - is Nazareth. Nazareth is a familiar image for Jean-Claude Colin, as it is for the whole French spiritual tradition to which he belongs. It is a rich image, with several facets. Coste wrote a long article on 'Nazareth in the Thought of Father Colin' (Acta SM 31, 6 (1961) 297–400). But it is enough to look up Nazareth in FS, where you will see that the reference is mostly to the hidden life of the Holy Family, especially to the thirty years spent there by Jesus before his public ministry. Often there is a particular application to the Brothers (8 §1), or to Marists during their formation (e.g. 49 §1); but the life of obscurity and work at Nazareth is an abiding reference for all Marists (e.g. 44 §3). There is, however, one passage in THE BOOK A FOUNDER SPEAKS (10) that explicitly refers to Nazareth as the cradle of the Church. The Founder is marvelling at the fact that the Society of Mary has come to birth in the remote, little provincial town of Belley. Someone remarks: 'No order has ever begun like this in a small town.' 'Yes, there was one,' replies Colin, 'but only one: the order of the Church. Nazareth was its cradle. Jesus, Mary and Joseph: there you have the Church coming into being. It began there.' That should make us cautious about contrasting Nazareth with the newborn Church as key images for Marists, with the one symbolizing the interior life and the other mission. In fact, Coste shows that, at least in the period before 1850, Father Colin's thought passes easily between Nazareth and the Church after the Ascension as references for the earliest Church (p. 328, where, however, he points out that Colin never uses Nazareth in reference to the external activities of the Society). After 1850, it is true, Nazareth tends to refer rather to the 'hidden life'.
2. Calvary
There is another place where the Church comes to birth, and that is Calvary. It is true that Calvary is not a typically Colinian symbol: there is no reference to it in FS. On the other hand, it is deeply Marist, for it belongs to the 'revelation of Le Puy' as remembered by Jean-Claude Courveille towards the end of his life. As he recounts his own experience, he 'heard' our Lady say: 'I have always imitated my Divine Son in everything. I followed Him to Calvary itself, standing at the foot of the Cross when He gave His life for man's salvation. Now in heaven, sharing His glory, I follow His path still, in the work He does for His Church on earth. Of this Church, I am the Protectress…' (OM 718, 5; Keel, 1). Note how this text has a similar structure to the more familiar 'I was the support of the newborn Church; I shall be also at the end of time'; we find also a similar declaration by Mary: 'Of this Church, I am the Protectress.' As remembered by Courveille, the reference to the end of time comes a few sentences later: '…in this last age of impiety and unbelief…' Where Colin's version has 'the newborn Church', Courveille's speaks of Calvary and Christ's death on the Cross. The two apparently different images come together in the traditional belief that the Church was born on Calvary from the pierced side of Christ (thus Augustine, Tractate in John 120:5; John Chrysostom, Catechesis 3, 13–19). For a magnificent reflection on these themes I refer you to Peter Allen's article in FN 6/1, 2003, pp. 61–79.
3. The primitive Church in Acts
The most familiar face of the earliest Church, which the Marists are to take as a model, is, of course, that of the Church after the Ascension as portrayed by Luke in the first chapters of the Book of Acts. In fact, Father Colin is far from being the only one to see the Church of Acts as a model; it is also central to the Rule of St Augustine and is a reference for many founders and reformers. But what was this Church really like?
A careful reading of Acts leads to the conclusion that the emergence of Christianity in the New Testament came about only gradually. The first two chapters form a synthesis that can be summed up in two phases. First, after the Ascension, the initial reflex of the apostles is to wait passively for the return of Jesus the Messiah, who will come to establish his kingdom and restore the rights of all. An outlook such as that is certainly not directed towards any sort of mission. In the second phase, the Holy Spirit comes upon them; that opens the prospect of a universal mission of conversion - necessarily a long-term programme.
Notwithstanding this missionary prospect, the reader of Acts is — or should be — struck by the stability of the community of disciples in Jerusalem. The Risen Lord had given them this commission: 'You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and right to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1:8). However, they do not show any haste to begin missionary activity, even among their fellow Jews. In fact, growth in numbers seems to have been slight; instead of counting the 'thousands' of 2:41 and 4:4, it might be better to take seriously the comment in 5:13: 'no one dared to join them, but the people praised them.' The Book of Acts suggests the picture of a little community, growing only slowly, following its own way of life and occupied with its own affairs. Even more surprising: the event of Pentecost does not change things, at least not immediately. Instead of leaving on mission under the impulse of the Spirit, the apostles stay - with Mary - in the heart of the Jerusalem community.
According to 8:1, a violent persecution broke out after Stephen's martyrdom and caused many believers - but not the apostles - to flee Jerusalem. This was the origin of different missions, although no strategy was established in advance. Here we have both facts and a thesis. The thesis is quickly stated and recurs throughout Acts, namely that the mission makes progress only thanks to persecutions. The first case, directed against Jesus, allowed Scripture to be fulfilled, thanks to Judas and the Jewish and Roman authorities, who did not know what they were doing. The second case brought about an exile from Jerusalem that turned into a mission to Jews and to Samaritans, and then to the Gentiles as far as Rome.
Obviously, nothing would have happened without the events surrounding the death of Stephen. In this sense, Paul was already helping the primitive community to develop even before his conversion. The facts thus interpreted by Acts were certainly less clear in reality, and may even have been less significant: a repression of Messianic agitation in Jerusalem, perhaps noteworthy at the time, but difficult to date, probably on the occasion of a pilgrimage. Without these events, however, the Church might still be in Jerusalem waiting for the return of Messiah Jesus.
Cor unum et anima una - One heart and one soul
The feature of the earliest Church in Jerusalem that is most emphasized in the first chapters of Acts is the quality of its community life. This life is summed up in Acts 2:42 under four headings: the preaching of the Apostles, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. 'Fellowship' is not just a good feeling of togetherness: the apostles and their companions have a common life and share their material goods (cf. 2:44–45 and 4:32–35). The first believers practised - perhaps following more than one detailed model — a real sharing of material goods and a kind of social welfare system. Luke sees them as fulfilling in this way the demands of the Covenant, that there should be no needy people among them (cf. Acts 4:34, referring to Deut 15:4); at the same time, they were fulfilling the duties of friendship as conceived by the Greeks — 'among friends all is common.' The community of goods would have been one of the most attractive features of the primitive Church for its contemporaries (cf. Brian J. Capper, 'The Church as the New Covenant of Effective Economics: The Social Origins of Mutually Supportive Christian Community', International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 2 (2002) 83–102).
The quality of the common life of the first believers is expressed in the phrase that we read in Acts 4:32: 'one heart and one soul'. This phrase comes frequently to the lips of Jean-Claude Colin, generally in its Latin form: cor unum et anima una. We have already seen some examples. Luke in Acts makes it clear that this unity is not simply wishful thinking or vague sentiment. Nor does it exist automatically. It does not just happen. On the contrary, unity has to be constructed, sometimes painfully. Furthermore, the unity of which Luke writes is not simply uniformity. Finally, the unity of the first believers is constructed around, and even by, Mary.
All this is implied by the way Luke describes the scene in the upper room immediately after the Ascension, in 1:12–14. After naming the Eleven disciples — Judas, of course, is missing and has not yet been replaced by Matthias — he continues: 'All these persevered unanimously in prayer, together with some women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and his brothers.'
Notice that Mary is not situated 'in the midst of the apostles', as is so often said — nor is this the scene of Pentecost, which does not occur for a page or so of text. Rather, Mary is 'in the midst of the community', of which the Eleven disciples form part, and if she is 'in the midst' of any particular group it is that of the women. Luke, it seems, in composing this scene, is not simply portraying the apostles awaiting the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. He intends to depict the earliest Church itself as a community. Further, this community is complex, made up of several groups and tendencies, and it finds its centre of unity in Mary.
Let us look at the scene more closely. Observe the twofold 'and' before and after the mention of Mary. The first 'and' links her with the disciples and the women - these will be the women who accompanied the apostolic group (cf. Luke 8:1–3); the second 'and' links her with the brothers of Jesus - these are his 'folk', his clan, led by James called 'the Lord's brother', who is not named here. Now these two extremes - disciples and believing women on the one hand, and Jesus' brothers on the other - are far from being unanimous in the gospels, even if Luke does not emphasize their opposition as strongly as do Mark (3:21) and John (7:5). In our passage from Acts, the very structure of the sentence (1:14) gives Mary a mediating role between these extremes. The third gospel has already prepared the ground for this mediating role. There, it is clear, Mary belongs to both groups. By blood, of course, she belongs to Jesus' natural family, along with his 'brothers'. By faith, she belongs to his new family, consisting of those who hear God's word and put it into practice (Luke 8:19–21; cf. Mark 3:31–35).
The presence of Jesus' brothers in the upper room tells us that they have learnt to believe in him — the same is implied by the apparition of the risen Jesus to James (cf. 1 Cor 15:7). But, even though they are now believers, they have not become his disciples: when Peter, freed from Herod's prison, rejoins the community that is praying for him, James and the brothers are not there (cf. Acts 12:17). If Jesus' disciples and his brothers are found together after the Ascension — at least as Luke paints the scene — they still remain two distinct groups. The way that Mary is mentioned between them suggests that it is she who has brought them together. Luke seems to imply that, if their potential rivalry has been settled peacefully, it is thanks to Mary, who occupied the middle ground between both parties and knew how to use it in order to keep the peace.
We are entitled to infer that, for Luke, Mary has, even more generally, a role that is central and mediating in the newborn Church, a body that he knew was made up of several blocs that were different and liable to disagree, even violently. That is, of course, the literal meaning of the Greek word ekklesia that we translate as 'Church': it is literally an 'assembly', which brings together distinct groups or parties. By exercising this role of mediation, or even reconciliation, Mary 'supports' the newborn Church. This is the paradigm of the 'work of Mary', in which Marists are called to take part.
What sort of model for the newborn church?
So what sort of model does the newborn Church - taken by itself - offer the Society of Mary? It seems to me that it is the model of a community that possesses an intense life of prayer and brotherhood, but which is not precisely 'missionary' in the sense of existing for the sake of mission. It is a community that does not refuse opportunities to 'witness', or to proclaim its faith to those among whom it lives; but it does not seek to 'go on mission', or at least not very far. It is a community that has a definite influence on its surroundings, even a community from which members go out for the salvation of souls and to which they return. Such activity does, of course, come within the theological understanding of 'mission', but the accent is not there.
This is perhaps the model lived at Cerdon and Belley at the time of the missions in the Bugey, the model of the Hermitage in the early days of Champagnat and Courveille. It is also the model reflected in the 'primitive rule' and in certain numbers of the 1872 Marist Fathers Constitutions in which Colin 'returned to his earliest ideas', such as n. 217 (see Coste and Lessard, Autour de la Règle, I, doc. 22, 71). This number, which is partly inspired by Mary of Agreda, evokes the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who 'left her solitude briefly only at God's command or for the service of her neighbour', and prescribes that Marists are not to 'leave the community house except out of obedience' in precise circumstances or for precise reasons, including the 'duties of the sacred ministry.' As Jan Hulshof observes ( Marist Fathers Constitutions , New and Old, p. 72), 'Colin's Marist Fathers Constitutions do not draw a picture of a missionary community… 'Mission' is not the key word which determines the life of a Marist community.' The emphasis is on the internal life of the community — which has, of course, an effect beyond its four walls. It is a model that seems to attract young people, if you look at the new communities that have arisen in the Church in the last thirty years or so: with many variations, you find the same style everywhere, bringing together believers — often of every category: married, celibate, priests, those with vows — in a life of prayer and sharing that 'overflows' in ministries of service or evangelisation. Perhaps the first Marists would recognise certain features of the Society of Mary of their dreams. It is a model that might still serve to renew the Society.
But A Tension
In any case, it is easy to see that the earliest Church is not the most obvious model for a missionary Congregation precisely as missionary — no more than Nazareth, for that matter. We have seen (THE BOOK A FOUNDER SPEAKS 159) that, when speaking of those sent on mission, Father Colin refers to the 'apostles', whose journeys are recorded in Acts, precisely in contrast to the 'first Church', which is the model for those who remain in France. No doubt that is the reason why he sometimes has recourse to the image of Mary, who — in imitation of Jesus in Matt 28:19 - sends the Marist on mission while promising to remain with him. Thus, to resume a passage we have already seen (THE BOOK A FOUNDER SPEAKS 143, 2): 'Yes, Messieurs, cor unum et anima una: we shall not be united in body, in the same place, since Mary does not wish it, but very much so in heart and mind.' Father Colin continues: 'It seems to me that we must shut ourselves up in the castle of our soul. And what is that castle? Is it not the heart of our good Mother? I like what was just said' — by the retreat preacher — 'Yes, it is Mary who gives each one his mission, his task, the position he must fill. Just as her divine Son once entrusted a mission to his apostles, calling them his friends, telling them Euntes docete omnes gentes and to go their separate ways, just so does this divine Mother, at the end of time, say to us: 'Go, proclaim my divine Son to the world. I am with you. Go, we shall still be united.''
There is a noticeable tension here between the ideal of the cor unum and the missionary impulse. This may very well be the origin of the problem of the missions in Oceania in Colin's time - that is to say, a conflict between the needs of the mission, keenly felt by the Vicars Apostolic, and the demands of religious life in community, as perceived by the Founder. Perhaps we touch here a tension that is deeply rooted in Father Colin's thought, a tension that is characteristic of him and distinguishes him from other founders of the time. In fact, the Society of Mary, in Colin's mind, is far from being just a copy of the Society of Jesus. The model of the earliest Church — which Colin liked to imagine in terms of the house of Mary - has to be married with that of the apostles sent on mission. The same Marist Fathers Constitutions of 1872 that contain the text we saw a moment ago restricting the movements of Marist religious outside their community house also have texts such as n. 4, which says that 'their vocation is to go from place to place for the greater service of God and to spend themselves working for the salvation of the neighbour… They must show themselves most ready… to undertake such works in any corner of the world where results can be expected and for as long as obedience requires.' This number also goes back to the 'primitive rule'.
This tension between community life and mission is obvious and uncomfortable; but eliminating or devaluing one of its elements is not the way to resolve it. Turning the Society of Mary into a quasi-monastic order is no solution - but let us not be too quick to reject as 'monastic', and therefore 'not for us', concrete practices of common life and prayer. On the other hand, emphasizing mission in a one-sided way that reduces community life to a minimum, or even practically excludes it, results in a Society of Mary that is far from the Founder's intentions. In particular - despite the impression that one might get from the title of Chapter 3 of our Marist Fathers Constitutions , 'Forming a Communion for Mission' - I do not think that a purely utilitarian view of community life is adequate. Here, if anywhere, we need 'creative fidelity' as we try to do justice - not simply in theory but in lived practice — to Father Colin's insight of a society that would imitate both the newborn Church of Jerusalem in its intense sharing of life and prayer, and also the apostles 'going from place to place' to bring God's salvation to all.
Journal and reflect on the following questions
- The talk identifies three 'faces' of the earliest Church - Nazareth, Calvary, and the community of Acts. What does each one emphasise, and why might Colin have moved more firmly towards 'the hidden life' reading of Nazareth after 1850?
- Luke places Mary 'in the midst of the community' rather than 'in the midst of the apostles.' How does this distinction change the way we understand her role, and what does the structure of Acts 1:14 suggest about her function between the disciples and the brothers of Jesus?
- The talk argues that, in Acts, 'the mission makes progress only thanks to persecutions.' How does this thesis sit alongside the apostles' apparent reluctance to leave Jerusalem - and what does it imply about how God's purposes work through human resistance?
- Cor unum et anima una is described as something that 'has to be constructed, sometimes painfully,' and is 'not simply uniformity.' What is the difference between unity and uniformity here, and why does it matter that Mary is the one around whom unity is built?
- The final section names a real tension between community life and mission, warning against resolving it by collapsing either side. Where might that same tension show up in a Marist community - or a parish, school, or family - today, and what would 'creative fidelity' actually look like in practice?
Pause and listen to the song “Set a Fire”
Please join the following prayer
God of communion,
you brought your Church to birth in the quiet of Nazareth, in the hour of the Cross, and in an upper room where your friends waited together in prayer. Make us, like that first community, one heart and one soul, cor unum et anima una, one heart and one soul, not in mere agreement but in a unity patiently built, often costly, and always your gift. Gather us as you gathered them: around the breaking of the bread, in the company of one another, and beside Mary, who stood in their midst not above them but among them, holding together those who might otherwise have drifted apart. Where there is division in our communities, our families, and our own hearts, let her quiet mediation become ours, and let your Spirit breathe upon us the love that makes many into one body.
And when you send us out, Lord, do not let us mistake distance for separation. As your Son once entrusted his apostles with their mission and promised to remain with them, so may we go to wherever we are needed, from place to place, for the salvation of all, yet remain united in heart and mind, carried in the heart of our good Mother. Teach us the creative fidelity that refuses to choose between a life of prayer together and a life poured out for others, that holds the two as you intended them to be held. Keep us faithful to the Society you dreamed of and the Church you still love: hidden enough to be holy, sent enough to be of use, and bound together always in your name. Amen.
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