Extract from Cozons Postulatum
to the 1880 General Chapter of the Marist Fathers;
translation of the French critical edition of
the Postulatum
[20] I think that all those who spoke with the Very Rev. Father Founder on this topic will see here the ideas which he expressed to them on it, and which are reproduced in the Constitutions he dictated to his two secretaries. Several conclusions may be drawn. Permit me to draw one that I think is most important. In the mind of the Founder, the Third Order ought not to be confined within the limits of the Society. It ought to be, in a sense, a work outside the Society, to which the Society ought to communicate its own spirit, the spirit of the Blessed Virgin. Its development, therefore, ought not to be restricted to the Society; we are not to retain it in our hands, but only let it pass through them. Thus, it is not a part of the mechanism in the Societys clockwork; it should not revolve around us, so to speak, like a planet around its constellation, but should shine out into the Church. It is no longer a valuable way to help the Society, but rather a means of extending the Societys action throughout the world, so that the same thrust, going forth from Mary, passing through the Fathers and the members of the Third Order, may spread out and lose itself in the Church, without any personal consideration.
Context on the third key document
This paragraph 20 is part of the Postulatum sent by Alphonse Cozon to the first session of the 1880-84 Marist Fathers General Chapter. It makes a statement, a synthesis of Colins main idea of the Confraternity. Cozon was a young Marist Father living at Sainte-Foy novitiate, Lyon, and was responsible for the Coadjutor Brothers (SM Lay Brothers, attached to the Fathers Branch and distinguished from the Marist Brothers of the Schools [FMS] founded by St Marcellin Champagnat). When Colin visited Sainte-Foy from 5 February to 10 February 1872, to attend the closing of the second session of the 1870- 72 General Chapter, which took place on 6 February, Cozon visited him on 9 February to ask advice regarding the care of the Brothers. After they discussed various points, Colin gave Cozon the mission of drafting a work on the Brothers. Then he said, And when you have accomplished this mission, Ill have another one to give you.
Cozon made a Retreat at La Neylire in October 1873, saw Colin (who was living in retirement there), and arranged to send him the treatises he had written about the Brothers. On 12 October 1874, Cozon returned to La Neylire. Through Br Jean-Marie, Colins secretary, and his own brother, Jean Cozon, who had been at La Neylire for a pre-ordination Retreat (he was ordained a Marist priest at Belley, 9 July 1874), he had received messages that Colin wanted to see him. Cozon had delayed out of fear and apprehension that the Founder was going to ask him to do something beyond his strength and ability. On 13 October 1874, he met with Colin, who handed him the recently completed Constitutions of the Third Order of Mary and told him to familiarise himself with their contents; then they would talk. On 14 October Cozon asked Colin to give him one more day to study them. He made a copy of them because Colin had instructed him to take [them] away and meditate upon [them].2
On 15 October, the conversation took place, as recorded in LM Doc 335:43- 58. The importance of this whole Document, which contains the notes that Cozon wrote in his personal diary about the Founders remarks (between 9 February 1872 and 27 September 1875) is that a great deal of it is quoted or paraphrased in the Postulatum to the General Chapter of 1880. In the interview on 15 October Colin gave Cozon the mission of writing A Christians Religious Exercises for this Confraternity that is, a new Manual, using Colins Constitutions as a guide.
Colin said clearly that the Confraternity was one of the earliest ideas of the Society. He referred to the Summarium, examined in Rome in 1833 by Castracane, and reported the Cardinals reactions. He said that the Third Order was not an order, but a society, sodalitas, Confraternity a work of the Society, but outside the Society.3 He spoke of the need for it to be a diocesan work, but with the spirit of the Society, Marys spirit.
Cozon was not to write a Rule, but A Christians Spiritual Exercises and to take what was suitable from the present Third Order Manual, published first by Jacquet in 1857. Colin spoke of the three Briefs for the Belley Third Order from Gregory XVI and of writing the Constitutions as a curate at Cerdon, but he did not mention the approbation, obtained through Eymards efforts, which came from the Pope in Rome in 1850 and was authorised by de Bonald, Archbishop of Lyon and Vienne. He encouraged Cozon, spoke of the necessity of guidance by the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin through prayer, of being small, humble and doing what was possible at this stage. Colin also spoke of the future growth of the work, saying God would raise up the one to do it, before giving a special blessing to the young priest.
The next day, 16 October, Colin called him back to his room and gave further important comments4 regarding the director who was to keep the Registers with the members names, but would not be the Superior. He spoke also of the role of parish priests. To Cozons reply that there would not be any unity, Colin answered:
There will be uniformity in the spirit, but not in the practices. Each director will take those that are more suitable. Unity will be in the name and the spirit. The aim is to maintain fervour. If you take care to consider yourself as the Blessed Virgins pen, she will suggest thoughts to you, she will give you the Holy Spirit.
Then, in great simplicity, Colin said he had prayed for Cozon all through Mass, asking my guardian angel to encourage you. I told my guardian angel to speak with yours.6 He encouraged him to make haste slowly and, when Cozon was leaving the following day, told him again to be humble, and that God directs, but does not prevent one from seeking advice (during the first conversation, Colin had suggested Jeantin, Chapel, Epalle one of them or all to help him). Then he blessed him. On 3 January 1875, Colin sent word to Cozon through Jeantin that he had heard of his good ideas, so obviously Cozon had sought advice and shown his work to this priest who, at Colins request, had written the Latin draft of the Constitutions of the Confraternity, using Colins words and oral explanations.
On 27 October 1875 Cozon went back to La Neylire and, in their interview, Colin told Cozon to get Father David to work with him in the definitive form of the printed text,7 as Colins age and infirmities made it impossible for him to continue. He also told him to seek advice from Jeantin, but not from everybody, as that would be too confusing. Cozon showed Colin the summary of the General Plan, which Colin approved, and then the rough draft papers to be blessed by the Founder.
Colin was very pleased with it all and gave him a blessing to help him finish the work and also one for his brother, Father Jean Cozon, and a sick friend, Mr. Beaudenom. Finally, Colin spoke of confidence in the power of the Blessed Virgin. Among other things, he said, The Blessed Virgin used to say to me: You will always be healthy enough to do Gods will.8 In less than two months, Colin died, 15 November 1875.
Cozon presented his Postulatum, based on these interviews with Colin, to the 1880-84 General Chapter. In the reflective commentary, I will deal with what happened at the Chapter and afterwards.
Commentary of the third key document
The first sentence requires comment regarding the two secretaries. The original Latin text of Colins Constitutions for the Confraternity was written by Father Jeantin, working with the notes Colin had made and oral explanations from Colin himself and at Colins request. In the notes were two articles written in 1868 by Father Georges David, Colins secretary. The first was The Spirit of the Society, which became Nos 49-50 in the 1872 text of the Fathers Constitutions and is the source of several phrases in Articles I-IV of the
Confraternitys Constitutions (Nos 5-28). The adapted Latin text of the second, The Devotion which Members of the Society should have towards the Blessed Virgin, became Article V of the Confraternitys Constitutions. 9
Cozon probably thought that both Jeantin and David had helped Colin with the Fathers Constitutions, or that Jeantin, in writing the Confraternitys Constitutions, had used the articles written by David. Preceding this number, Cozon has quoted word for word or paraphrased much of LM Doc 335 his notes on the Conversations he had with Colin (1872-75) wherein are expressed the idea on which the several conclusions may be drawn.10 These have been stated in the Context, so there is no need to repeat them here.
Then follows the conclusion, in which Cozon gives a wonderful synthesis of Colins vision of the Confraternity. Jean Coste, SM, commented that there is no Colin text which is more beautiful or more Colinian.11 Cozon says that the Lay Branch goes beyond the limits of the Society that gives it its spirit that of Mary; the Society allows it to pass through its hands and radiate freely in the Church.
By using the metaphors of a clocks mechanism and a planets constellations, Cozon affirms that it is not a centripetal movement towards its centre (the Society), dependent on it or used by it to assist it in its pious works, but a centrifugal movement, extending Marys work in the Church and in the world to its furthest horizons. The work of Mary is totally open, flexible, inclusive, passing through the Society and the members of the Lay Branch to disappear into the Church and the world. All of the Society (religious and lay) are, as Coste puts it so well, only the hands through which something passes that is going to be melded, identified and lost in the very extremities of the Church.12 When Cozon says, It is a way to extend the Societys action over the world, he takes us further than just the Lay Branch. He is giving us the global mission of the whole Society, the wider Marist family.
Without personal consideration refers to the detachment not merely of individuals, but of the whole Society. Cozons phrase joins the insight expressed by hidden and unknown, which is the permeating and underlying element of the whole charism, to the impact of the phrase, the whole world Marist. The Marist forgets himself (herself) and is true to Colins initial grand vision of Mary, Mother of Mercy, the support of the Church in these last days as she was in the early Church, when it was coming into being.
Therefore, with Nazareth as the place of prayerful discernment, enabling Marists from there to see what they have to do, like Mary, they set out for the hill country, and, like Francoise Perroton and the Pioneers of the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary, they set out and set out again,13 to all peoples, cultures, and places in any age, to build the new Church. All is hidden in the mysterious plan and workings of God, and Colin has left us a charism a mission of infinite possibilities.
What was the aftermath of Cozons Postulatum? Colin had warned him that he would have to be a saint to carry out the mission, but he died in 1924 without being able to overcome the opposition to his presentation of Colins ideas on the Marist laity. The General Chapter of 1880 rejected his Postulatum, despite the efforts of Father David to get it a fair hearing at the second session of 1884. When it was presented again at the General Chapter of 1900, Fr Louis 55 de Mijolla was the main opposition, basing a very severe critique of it on faulty historical evidence all of which Father Coste has shown to be inaccurate. The Chapter opted for the status quo, retaining the Eymardian model and the Manual, reprinted many times from the Jacquet 1857 edition, because it seemed to be working well.
However, I agree with Fr Frank McKays comments that the underlying reason was much deeper and rested on a faulty understanding of Marist spirituality at that time, which overemphasised Nazareth and the Hidden Life, with a limited understanding of the phrase, hidden and unknown. This prevailed in the Society till extensive historical research into the Founders insights was done by Fathers Jean Coste, Gaston Lessard and others from the 1950s onward. The research helped to restore Marists understanding of Marys role as the support of the new-born Church and also at the end of time, with hidden and unknown, as Coste says, the super image unifying the whole charism. This gave a clear apostolic approach that focused on the whole world Marist, the work of Mary, the Nazareth theme (with its simultaneous connection with the early Church and the end of time), and on Marists as instruments of the divine mercy. Thus, the full richness of the Marist spirit, charism and mission was rediscovered.
It was de Mijolla who, as General Director of the Third Order of Mary, reviewed Cozons 1918 plan for a new Manual, which he (Cozon) had submitted to Raffin, then Superior General of the Fathers. After de Mijollas death, a series of letters passed between Cozon and Srol (from September 1921 on, the new General Director), who seemed more open to Cozon and his mission. Cozon sent him the draft for his projected manual of the Third Order of Mary14 but, two months later, he withdrew it, saying that his Commentary on Colins Constitutions was more suitable for Directors, and the actual Manual for the Confraternity needed to be much shorter and simpler. He was working on this till his death.
So we see that Cozon never gave up he went on writing and trying to keep Colins ideas alive till the very end. However, his legacy is the apostolic work he founded in his lifetime, The Catechists of Mary,15 a successful model of Colins ideas. In 1906 Cozon had been given charge of most of the fraternities of the Third Order in Paris. With the help of a Marist laywoman, Mlle. Francoise de la Rupelle, he organised a group of parish catechists with the aim of obtaining women catechists to give religious instruction to the children of the poor and to form the catechists spiritually. This group grew and developed till 1912, when it became independent of the Third Order and, under the name of Catechists of Mary, began to admit people who did not belong to the Third Order of Mary. The laywomen also developed an outreach for children and adolescents who did not come to the parish catechetical centres, by making contact with non-practising and non-baptised children, winning their confidence and that of their families. After 1919 its members became part of the Parisian Archconfraternity of Catechists; Cozon remained their spiritual guide till 1922.
This initiative, I feel, was a concrete example of putting Colins ideas into practice: a merciful work of Mary, one giving help and restoring faith to many needy people, passing through the hands of Marists and disappearing into the Church, without any personal consideration.
1 LM, doc. 335, 31.
2 LM, doc. 335, 42.
3 LM, doc. 335, 47.
4 LM, doc. 335, 59-64.
5 LM, doc. 335, 61.
6 LM, doc. 335, 62.
7 LM, doc. 335, 68.
8 LM, doc. 335, 78.
9 LM, doc 431; see note 24.
10 LM, doc 335, 38-61; also, for the explanation of why Jeantin was unable to write the Manual and Cozon attempted to do so, see note 24 in doc. 335.
11 J. Coste, A Marian Vision of Church , Appendix C, Valpr Lectures, p.328.
12 J. Coste, ibid, p.330.
13 SMSM Constitutions, no. 16.
14 LM, doc. 474, containing a preface and commentary on the Confraternitys Constitutions.
[20] I think that all those who spoke with the Very Rev. Father Founder on this topic will see here the ideas which he expressed to them on it, and which are reproduced in the Constitutions he dictated to his two secretaries. Several conclusions may be drawn. Permit me to draw one that I think is most important. In the mind of the Founder, the Third Order ought not to be confined within the limits of the Society. It ought to be, in a sense, a work outside the Society, to which the Society ought to communicate its own spirit, the spirit of the Blessed Virgin. Its development, therefore, ought not to be restricted to the Society; we are not to retain it in our hands, but only let it pass through them. Thus, it is not a part of the mechanism in the Societys clockwork; it should not revolve around us, so to speak, like a planet around its constellation, but should shine out into the Church. It is no longer a valuable way to help the Society, but rather a means of extending the Societys action throughout the world, so that the same thrust, going forth from Mary, passing through the Fathers and the members of the Third Order, may spread out and lose itself in the Church, without any personal consideration.
