† Blessed William Joseph Chaminade † (January 22)

† Saint of the Day †

(January 22)

✠ Blessed William Joseph Chaminade ✠

Priest and Religious Founder:

Born: April 8, 1761
Périgueux, Périgord, Kingdom of France

Died: January 22, 1850
Bordeaux, France

Venerated in:
Roman Catholic Church
(Marianists)

Beatified: September 3, 2000
Pope John Paul II

Feast: January 22

William Joseph Chaminade was a French Catholic priest who survived persecution during the French Revolution and later founded the Society of Mary, usually called the Marianists, in 1817. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 September 2000 his feast day is celebrated on 22 January.

The Marianist Family's other three branches—the married and single men and women of the Marianist Lay Communities, the consecrated laywomen of the Alliance Mariale, and the Religious Sisters known as the Daughters of Mary Immaculate—also look to Chaminade as a founder or inspiration.

Early life:
Chaminade was born in 1761 in Périgueux to Catherine Bethon and Blaise Chaminade, in the former province of Périgord, now the Department of Dordogne. He was the 14th child of deeply religious parents. Three of his brothers became priests. Feeling called to serve in this way as well, he entered a minor seminary in Mussidan at the age of ten. He was ordained a priest in 1785 for the local diocese.

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 a student, teacher, steward, and chaplain, William remained there for 20 years.

The 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 the 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.

Death:
The last ten years of Chaminade's life were filled with problems of health, finances, and obstacles to his vision in the administration of the Society. He was replaced in January 1846 as Superior General by a General Chapter, which he considered illegitimate, called by members of the General Council of the Society, with the approval of the Holy See. Partially paralyzed, he thereafter was left in virtual isolation by the government of the Society.

Chaminade died in Bordeaux in 1850, surrounded by members of the Society he had founded, where his tomb is.