A man faithful to God in an age of crisis

2. Europe during Marcellin’s life-time, 1789 to 1840, was the scene of great cultural, political and economic upheavals, a time of crisis in society and in the Church. This was the context in which he grew up and was educated, the setting which elicited his response of founding the Institute of the Little Brothers of Mary, known as the Marist Brothers.

- in his youth

Marlhes (1789-1805)

3. Marlhes, ^* the village where Marcellin was born, was a setting of backwardness and ignorance. Most of the adults and young people were functionally illiterate. During his childhood, however, there was a mood for change. Ideas about social progress and solidarity, flowing from the revolution taking place in France, were having their impact even in such isolated villages. Indeed, for a time Marcellin’s father himself played an important role locally in this social movement.

4. Marcellin’s character was shaped in particular by three people from within his immediate family circle. His father, an intelligent, hard-working, enterprising man, contributed to his formation as a future citizen. His mother and his aunt served as models and guides to strengthen his first steps as a believer, to deepen his faith and prayer life, and to awaken his devotion to Mary.

5. Young Marcellin's intellectual formation proved to be extremely difficult for lack of competent teachers. In fact, he refused to return to the local school after just one day when he witnessed the cruelty of the teacher towards another student, ¹ and devoted himself instead to his work on the family farm. It was as an almost illiterate adolescent, then, that he generously answered God's call when invited to become a priest. What he lacked in formal education, he made up with abundant common sense, strong piety, strength of character, practical skills, and unshakable determination. ²

Lyons (1813-1816)

6. From 1805 to 1813 Marcellin attended the minor seminary in Verrières where his vocation overcame many temptations to take the easy way out or to give in to discouragement. He then entered the major seminary in Lyons for his spiritual and theological formation by priests who had suffered during the French Revolution and its aftermath. During these troubled times, this town, a Marial center of ancient origin, was to be the starting point for a number of new missionary and apostolic ventures.

7. It was in this Christian and Marial soil that the idea of the Society of Mary was conceived and promoted by a group of seminarians including Marcellin. ³ From the start, he expressed his conviction that the Society should include Teaching Brothers to work with children deprived of a Christian education in remote rural areas because others were not going to them. ⁴

- during the foundation period

La Valla (1816-1825)

8. After his ordination as a priest on 22 July 1816, Marcellin was appointed curate at La Valla. The isolation and cultural poverty of the people in this mountainous rural area immediately weighed on him. ⁵ In the country as a whole, a middle-class, liberal, self-centered society was emerging and the politicians were primarily interested in creating an elite who could furnish military, political and economic leaders. Even in the Church, there was little happening for the pastoral care of young people in the countryside. Moreover, the teaching profession was held in such low esteem and so poorly paid that it attracted only candidates whose ability and character left a lot to be desired.

9. At the end of October 1816, Marcellin was called to the bedside of Jean Baptiste Montagne, who at the age of 17 was about to die without ever having heard much about God. In the eyes of this adolescent, he saw the calls for help of thousands of other youngsters, who, like him, were victims of tragic human and spiritual poverty. This event spurred him into action. ⁶

10. On 2 January 1817, Marcellin brought together his first two followers. Others soon followed. La Valla thus became the birthplace of the Marist Brothers. A wonderful spiritual and educational adventure was to begin amid human poverty and trust in God and Mary.

11. The first Brothers were young country boys, most of whom were between 15 and 18 years old, more accustomed to hard work in the fields than to contemplation, intellectual reflection and working with children and other young people: Jean Marie Granjon (Br. Jean Marie), Jean Baptiste Audras (Br. Louis), Jean Claude Audras (Br. Laurent), Antoine Couturier (Br. Antoine), Barthélemy Badard (Br. Barthélemy), and Gabriel Rivat (Br. François), Jean Baptise Furet (Br. Jean Baptiste).

12. Marcellin enthused these adolescents with his apostolic and educational zeal. He lived among them, like one of them. He taught them reading, writing and arithmetic, how to pray and to live the Gospel in ordinary life, and how to be teachers and religious educators themselves.

13. Very soon he sent them into the most remote hamlets of the parish, to teach the children, and sometimes the adults as well, the basics of religious knowledge, and of reading and writing. Between 1817 and 1824, he started a traditional primary school at La Valla and used it as a sort of teacher training center for his young Brothers, including opportunities for teaching practice. ⁷

The Hermitage (1825-1840)

14. By 1824-1825, the little community had grown, and Marcellin built a large formation house in a valley near the city of Saint Chamond. This was called Notre Dame de l'Hermitage -- Our Lady's Hermitage – which was part monastery and part teacher training center for the Brothers.

15. Stretching possibilities to the limit, and in accordance with the legal requirements of the day, Marcellin offered his followers an initial and ongoing human and spiritual formation with a special focus on increasing their intellectual knowledge and teaching skills. The Hermitage, then, can be described as the crucible of Marist educational principles and practice.

16. It also gradually became the centre of a network of elementary schools, which increased in number and became better organized. The option taken by Marcellin and the Brothers was to reduce the payment they asked to a minimum, and to live austerely themselves as a consequence. ⁸ The first printed edition of the Rule of Life of the Little Brothers of Mary (1837) gave structure to both their life as a religious community and their life-work as educators.

17. The Hermitage was also the source of the missionary activity of the Institute, beginning in 1836 when three Brothers sailed to Oceania with a group of Marist Fathers⁹. Marcellin himself wrote to a Bishop who asked for Brothers, "Every diocese in the world figures in our plans". ¹⁰