Marcellin Champagnat

Marcellin Joseph Benedict Champagnat was born on 20 May 1789 in the hamlet of Le Rosey, in the commune of Marlhes in the Loire region of central France, the ninth of ten children of Jean-Baptiste Champagnat and Marie-Thérèse Chirat. His childhood coincided with the French Revolution, which disrupted parish life and religious schooling in the countryside. The family remained Catholic: his father was a farmer who also took part in local civic affairs, while his mother and an aunt who had been a religious sister formed him in piety. He received little regular schooling as a boy and later found academic work difficult. At about sixteen he entered the minor seminary at Verrières, persevered despite weak preparation, and went on to the major seminary of Lyon. There he came to know Jean-Claude Colin and other seminarians who hoped to found a religious family dedicated to Mary. He was ordained a priest on 22 July 1816 and, the next day, joined companions in a pledge at the shrine of Our Lady of Fourvière that marked the beginning of the Society of Mary.

Assigned as curate to La Valla-en-Gier, he found that many rural children after the Revolution had almost no Christian instruction. A pastoral encounter with a dying young man who knew scarcely anything of the faith confirmed his determination to provide schooling and catechesis for the poor and neglected. On 2 January 1817 he founded the Institute of the Little Brothers of Mary, later known as the Marist Brothers, beginning with two young recruits in a small house at La Valla. He meant the brothers to be teaching religious who would live simply, take Mary as their ordinary resource, and bring elementary education and the catechism to children in country districts who would otherwise go untaught. He himself formed the first brothers, joining manual labor, prayer, and pedagogy, and he soon opened village schools.

As numbers grew he acquired land and, working with the brothers, built Notre-Dame de l'Hermitage near Saint-Chamond, which became the motherhouse and a house of formation. The congregation expanded amid poverty, local opposition, delays in ecclesiastical recognition, and Champagnat’s own recurring ill health. He stressed a family spirit, presence among the young, love of work, and confidence in Mary. Though he remained a priest of the Society of Mary, the training and government of the brothers were the main work of his life; he drafted a rule for them and sought canonical standing for the institute. By his final years the brothers were conducting numerous schools in France.

Champagnat died at Notre-Dame de l'Hermitage on 6 June 1840, at the age of fifty-one, and was buried there. The Hermitage remains a place of pilgrimage and the site of his tomb. After his death the Marist Brothers spread beyond France and in time received papal approbation. He was beatified by Pope Pius XII on 29 May 1955 and canonized by Pope John Paul II on 18 April 1999. His feast is kept on 6 June. He is venerated especially as a model for teachers and Catholic educators and as founder of the Marist Brothers.