French Catholic bishops open cause for beatification of Dominican priest | Catholic National Register

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The French Catholic bishops have approved the opening of the cause for beatification of a little known but discreetly influential Dominican priest.

The bishops made the announcement concerning the cause of Father Marie-Étienne Vayssière (1864-1940) at the end of their plenary assembly on March 26.

Although he is relatively unknown to the Catholic world today, in part due to the lack of available written works on his life and spiritual heritage, the French clergyman remains a revered figure among the Order of Preachers, as well. than in the south of France, where he spent his life.

The model of holiness embodied by Father Vayssière, according to those who knew him or had access to his writings and his correspondence, is that of total surrender to the will of God, of a life lived in a spirit of total self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, in particular the many people he has accompanied spiritually throughout his earthly journey.

“Like many of my Dominican brothers, I have a particular admiration for Father Marie-Étienne Vayssière, who had a profound influence in the region of Provence in the 1940s and whose spiritual doctrine inspired many people, ”Dominican Father Serge-Thomas Bonino, secretary of the International Theological Commission and dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Born October 29, 1864 in Saint-Céré in Occitanie, Toussaint Vayssière (as he was initially called) was orphaned at the age of 4 and was brought up by his aunt. He received his first call to the priesthood at the age of 10, as an altar boy at a funeral.

He entered the neighboring minor seminary of Montfaucon then the major seminary of Cahors, where he decided to enter the Order of Preachers, touched by the missionary fervor of Saint Dominic.

Vayssière took the habit at the Convent of the Dominicans of Toulouse, where the Order of Preachers was founded by Saint Dominic in the 13th century, taking the religious name of Marie-Étienne. This took place in 1887, when he was 22 years old.

The unspeakable joy he drew from his vocation and his theological studies, however, was quickly overshadowed by a terrible ordeal that would change his life forever. In 1888, he was diagnosed with cerebral anemia, a condition that plunged him into a state of physical and mental fatigue and affected him considerably until his priestly ordination in 1892.

“This ordeal, which took the form of deep depression and fatigue, shattered him at the start of his religious life, which could have led him to get out of it, to live in a very basic way” said Father Bonino.

“On the contrary, it made him fully accept the trial and try to make it a gift of love for the Lord.

Father Vayssière is appointed tutor of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Cave de la Sainte-Baume, in the Var department in Provence, in 1900. It was there, where he spent more than 30 years, that his true spiritual stature emerged.

Reduced to a hermit life of prayer and solitude, although he always wanted to devote his life to preaching, he chose to embrace his situation of great poverty and destitution.

His attitude, according to Father Bonino, reflected a sense of the absolute primacy of God:

“In the great Christian tradition of abandonment to divine Providence, he adheres with all his heart to the will of God, convinced that this is the only way to make his life bear fruit and that we can commune with God through each event of our life, that nothing happens outside of Providence.

Father Bonino adds that, although his condition does not allow him to develop a systematic teaching, Father Vayssière will regain enough strength over time to become a great director of souls.

During his three decades of service in the cave, in addition to being a moral and spiritual reference for countless laypeople and ecclesiastics, Father Marie-Etienne has enriched the site with several major projects. He also founded the nearby spiritual retreat house, Nazareth du Sacré-Coeur, in 1929. In addition, he helped inspire the creation of a secular institute, L’Oeuvre de S. Catherine (“The Work of Saint Catherine ”), which would become Caritas Christi in 1937.

In this sense, he is considered one of the inspirers of the rise of lay orders in the twentieth century and, more generally, one of the pioneers of the universal call to holiness, because he was convinced that holiness was for all and granted great spiritual freedom to those he accompanied.

“He had a sense of the greatness of religious life, but for him, holiness was this union of every moment with the will of God and that the laity can do it too”, commented Father Bonino. “Then Vatican II underlined this, but it was far from obvious at the time. “

Another prophetic trait, according to Father Bonino, was Father Vayssière’s constant remembrance that God should remain at the center of all human action.

“It is comparable to what Cardinal Robert Sarah wrote in God or nothing a century later: Christianity can produce great things in the intellectual or social realm, but these things are in vain if we forget that nothing is more important than God ”, he declared.

“It seems a little steep, but it needs to be remembered these days.”

The exemplary life of Father Vayssière led him to be elected Dominican Provincial of Toulouse, first in the Chapter of 1932 and then for a second term in 1936. At a crucial and very sensitive moment in the history of France and the whole world, in on the eve of World War II, he devoted his last energies to his brothers and to the development of his province, before taking his last breath on September 15, 1940. His writings, which were all published posthumously and are long out of print, were in part reposted in recent years. New publications should accompany his cause for beatification.

Solène Tadié wrote this article for the CNA.

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