William Joseph Chaminade
1761-1850
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Founders Mary Chaminade de Trenquelleon de Lamourous Meyers |
William Joseph Chaminade (he took Joseph as
his Confirmation name and preferred it) was the second-youngest of 15 children
of Blaise Chaminade and Catherine Bethon. Born in Perigueux, some 60 miles
northeast of Bordeaux, he went at the age of ten to the College of Mussidan (20
miles closer to the port city), where one of his brothers was a professor. First
as a student, then as teacher, steward, and chaplain, he remained at the college
20 years. The turmoil that marked the beginnings of the French Revolution forced
him to leave. Except for three years in exile, he spent most of his long life in
Bordeaux itself.
It was during the most trying period of the Revolution, when persecution had
forced him to go underground because of threats on his life, that Chaminade met
Marie Therese Charlotte de Lamourous. She was a very important part of the
Catholic community that continued to carry on its spiritual mission in most
difficult circumstances. The Archbishop de Cice, was in exile; the churches,
when they were open at all, were in the hands of Constitutional clergy - those
who had taken the schismatic oath of allegiance to the revolutionary government.
Priests such as Chaminade, who refused to take the oath, were forced into hiding
and had to go about in disguise. It was the laity - women in particular - who
preserved and passed on the teachings of Christianity; formed a communication
network for the priests who refused to take the civil oath; distributed the
sacraments and provided moral encouragement to the dying, including imprisoned
priests awaiting execution; instructed the young; supported the weak; and
witnessed, sometimes at the cost of their lives, to the power of Christ at work
within them.
Chaminade carried on this ministry in Bordeaux from 1791 to 1797, openly when he
could, secretly when he had to. So successful was he in disguising himself and
concealing his hiding places that the police, after numerous fruitless attempts
to find him, declared he must have left the city. That meant his name was
carried on the official lists of the emigres, which contained the names
of those banned from returning to France. In a moment of relative tolerance in
1797, he came out of hiding to exercise his ministry openly. But a sudden shift
in the political situation caught him off guard.
He was falsely accused of having returned from exile without permission and was
forced to leave France. Taking refuge in Spain, he spent three years in
Saragossa praying at the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar, sharing life with
thousands of other exiles, and planning for an unknown but hoped-for return to
France.
With the end of the Revolution in 1800, he returned to Bordeaux. Appointed
administrator of the badly-devastated Diocese of Bazas, he managed to restore it
to some semblance of normalcy within two years. At the time, he began in
Bordeaux a work that would occupy him for the next 50 years.
Chaminade gathered together a number of young men and women, many of whom he had
known before and during the years of persecution and formed a "community" of
mutual support and Christian outreach that attracted people from all sectors of
society and parts of the city. He first worked in limited and temporary
quarters, but in 1804, he established the permanent headquarters for his work in
the former chapel of the Madelonnette Sisters. The site became the center of the
Sodality of the Madeleine. It remains today in the hands of the Marianists and
is a vital urban church in Bordeaux.
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, and dedicated to supporting one another in living the Gospel to the
fullest. The enterprise was placed under the patronage and protection of the
Virgin Mary. As his own insights developed, he came to see the Sodality as the
Marianist Family, dedicated to sharing her mission of bringing Christ into the
contemporary world. It was characterized by a deep sense of the equality of all
Christians, regardless of state of life; by an energizing spirit of
interdependence; by effective concern for individual spiritual growth; and by
the desire, in Chaminade's words, of "presenting to the world the amazing and
attractive reality of a people of saints." Side by side with him in this
endeavor was Marie Therese, who headed up the Young Women's and Married Women's
sections of the Sodality.
At the same time that Chaminade was administering the Diocese of Bazas and
inaugurating his work with the Sodality, he was also encouraging and assisting
Marie Therese in her efforts to provide an environment where prostitutes
desirous of changing their lives might find the support they needed. In 1808 he
became aware of the work that Adele de Batz de Trenquelleon and her associates
were doing in the Agen area, some 60 miles upstream on the Garonne River.
Similar in many ways to the Sodality of the Madeleine, her Association
affiliated with his in Bordeaux. Out of the Sodality developed the Institute of
the Daughters of Mary and the Society of Mary - the two Marianist religious
orders in the Marianist Family. These three foundations - The Sodality of the
Madeleine, the Institute of the Daughters of Mary, and the Society of Mary - are
considered the wellsprings of the Marianist Charism. They have common
characteristics, a common spirit, and the same goals and purposes. And they all
continue today as various segments of the Marianist Family.