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Bl. William Joseph Chaminade


January 22, Blessed.


Source: Catholicsaints.info



Roman martyrology:  In the city of Bordeaux in France, Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, a priest who worked boldly with great pastoral zeal during times of persecution and eager to attract the laity to devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to promote the Missions, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate and the Society of Mary (1850).

Etymology: From the Germanic name Willahelm, which was composed of the elements wil "will, desire" and helm "helmet, protection".

Beatification date:  September 3, 2000 by Pope John Paul II at Saint Peter's, Rome, Italy.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Born April 8, 1761 at Perigeux, France. Second-youngest of fifteen children of Blaise Chaminade and Catherine Bethon; a deeply religious family, three of his brothers were also priests. Took the name Joseph as his Confirmation name, and preferred it to William. At age ten he went to the College of Mussidan where one of his brothers was a professor; as student, teacher, steward, and chaplain, William remained there for 20 years.



Priest during the persecutions and violence against the Church of the French Revolution. He refused to swear allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1791, and was forced to minister to his flock in secret. Beginning in 1795, he had the job of receiving the returning priests who had taken the Civil oath, but later saw their error; he helped about 50 reconcile with the Church, and return to work in the diocese.

Exiled to Zaragoza, Spain from 1797 to 1800 during the French Directorate, the only time he lived anywhere outside his native Bordeaux. Near the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar, Chaminade received a message, telling him to be Mary's missionary, to found a society of religious to work with her to restore the Faith in France. On his return to Bordeaux in November 1800, he founded the Sodalities of Our Lady.

Chaminade's concept of the Sodality was to gather all Christians - men and women, young and old, lay and clerical - into a unique community of Christ's followers unafraid to be known as such, committed to living and sharing their faith, dedicated to supporting one another in living the Gospel, working under the protection of the Virgin Mary. To the usual religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Marianists add a fourth vow of stability, faithfulness to the congregation, and special consecration to Mary. As an outward sign of this fourth vow, they wear a gold ring on their right hand.

Apostolic Administrator for the diocese of Bazas. Named Missionary Apostolic by the Vatican in 1801. As his own insights developed, Chaminade saw the Sodality as the Marianist Family, dedicated to sharing Our Lady's mission of bringing Christ to the world. It was characterized by a deep sense of the equality of all Christians, regardless of state of life, by a spirit of interdependence, by concern for individual spiritual growth, and by the desire of presenting "the amazing and attractive reality of a people of saints."

Some Sodality members later formed the nucleus of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, founded by Adele de Batz de Trenquelleon and Father Chaminade in 1816, and the Society of Mary, founded in 1817. The institutes grew, and members began teaching in primary, secondary, and trade schools. Father William tried to start a network of teacher's schools for Christian education, but it failed due to the 1830 Revolution. In 1836, the Daughters of Mary established rural schools for women throughout southwestern France. The Society of Mary spread into Switzerland in 1839, then into the United States, becoming established in Dayton, Ohio in 1849, the Marianist Sisters in Somerset, Texas in 1949.

He died on January 22, 1850 of natural causes in Bordeaux, France and buried in the Carthusian cemetery in Bordeaux.

 








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