F R A N S A L I A N S

 

At the beginning of the 19th Century, when all Europe was busy clearing away the debris left behind by the French Revolution, and the disastrous wars of Napoleon I, Fr. Mermier was appointed Cure of a small parish in Upper Savoy. He was only 29 years of age. He found that his people were totally ignorant of religious knowledge and neglectful of their duties to God. To arouse them from their apathy and afford them instructions, he organized a fortnight’s mission with the help of a fellow priest. It had such a striking and lasting success that the idea dawned in the Young Cure’s mind of forming a body of priests whose work would be to pray, study and give missions.

 

Msgr. Rey, Annecy’s new bishop, held a similar strong conviction. He was an eloquent and widely known preacher, who had been engaged in giving missions with noted success throughout France. He approved of Fr. Mermier’s plans for the establishment of a religious Society, afforded him help and advice, and went so far as to encourage his young clergy to join the Father’s small band of missionaries.

 

At the ecclesiastical retreat in 1836, the enthusiastic bishop made an appeal to his priests for funds; and it remains a fact – perhaps unique in the annals of the Church – that the secular clergy of a diocese subscribed the money to build the Mother House of a religious Institute; some going as far as selling their books, and other depriving themselves of the necessities of life.

 

The following year the newly formed Congregation was officially approved. In the decree of approbation, Bishop Rey told the Fathers that their title was to be the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales; and they were to study the saint’s works and cultivate his spirit and adopt his method in their dealings with souls. The date was 24th October 1838. Fr. Mermier’s long cherished idea had at last become a reality. So too had the wish of St. Francis de Sales; a similar order of priests had been his dream, but it was destined not to be realised until a little over two centuries after his death.

 

When the Congregation was only years old, Fr. Mermier went to Rome to seek the approbation of the Holy See. Incidentally, the final decree of approval was eventually given in 1860, and the Constitutions were approved in 1899.

 

Fired with a desire for the foreign missions by an atlas with which he whiled away the time in the Roman offices, Fr. Mermier decided he would like to send some of his missionaries to preach the gospel in Africa. His offer was accepted by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. However, the mission team he appointed was despatched by Rome to the mission-fields of India.

 

In this change of plan was realised a saying of St. Francis de Sales. When he was commissioned by his bishop to undertake the conversion of the Chablais, a stronghold of the heretics, his aged father was furious. Francis tried to calm him, pointing out that after all Chablais was not far from Annecy, adding: “Suppose I had been sent to India!”  At the bidding of the holy Church his spiritual sons were there instead of him.

 

Poverty and suffering, humiliation and heroism were the foundation stones upon which the Missionaries built up in India the two large dioceses of Visakhapatnam and Nagpur, with their noviciate and seminary; their native religious and secular clergy. From India, the MSFS went to work in England, in May 1861. The seed was planted in the last century. It put forth shoots. Many watered it. God gave it increase.

 

-  extract from 150 Years MSFS