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Excerpt |
William Joseph Chaminade, His Apostolic Intent and His
Engagement with Schools, Instruction, and Education: An Historical PortraitMonograph 42
Joseph H. Lackner, SM
58 pp., $5.00
No charge to members of the SM or FMI
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on Image to Order
Partly because this mission was conceived in an inclusive manner, the composition of the Society of Mary differed from that of the Christian Brothers. It was not a community of lay religious schoolmasters. It was constituted by lettered and unlettered laymen of all social classes and by priests—all of whom enjoyed a relatively equal status and membership in the Society, engaged in a variety of works all focused by participation in Mary’s eternal role of doing for people in every age what she had done in the fullness of time: nurturing Christ. According to Chaminade, this role of Mary was Christian education conceived in a broad perspective. Furthermore, unlike the Christian Brothers, the Society of Mary was complemented by a female religious congregation and by lay organizations (Sodalities), and all parts were joined together by the common mission shared.
This difference between the Society of Mary and the Christian Brothers can be ascribed partially to the different ecological contexts from which they arose. Jean Baptiste de la Salle was laboring in the highly stratified, aristocratic society of late 17th century France, which generally neglected the education of poor children. This society’s working class or poor parents usually received little instruction and were occupied in gaining a livelihood for themselves and their families, so they could not give their children the needed instruction or a suitable Christian education.
Furthermore, the primary school teachers were generally very deficient in training and character. What the situation demanded, La Salle believed, was a body of competent, dedicated, and virtuous individuals who, both as a profession and religious vocation, embraced teaching in mainly poor primary school. On the other hand, Chaminade—while recognizing the tremendous contribution these men continued to offer the Church and society in post-revolutionary France—was convinced the new world that had been ushered in also required a new organization born from the new times.
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