Missionaries of La Salette

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Missionaries of La Salette (M.S. - Missio Saletyni) are a Catholic missionary order of priests, nuns and lay fraternities named for the La Salette apparition, whose stated goal is healing, reconciliation, and the upholding of human dignity and integrity. Members of this mixed clergy are known as Saletinians.

1 Description
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Description

A shrine in La Salette, France depiciting the apparition to two children, including the crucifix with a small hammer and pincers, which was adopted by the Saletinians as a distinctive symbol. The crucifix is interpreted as a symbol of healing (hammer) and reconciliation (pincer).

Worldwide, the order numbers over one thousand members located in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. In North America the order's members work in more than a dozen U.S. states and the provinces of Quebec and Ontario in Canada. The order helps maintain religious shrines, such as the national shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and works in various Catholic parishes, such as Mother of Mercy parish in Washington, North Carolina The Attleboro shrine is particularly well known for its "Festival of Lights" around the Christmas season.

In Latin America, Africa and Asia, the order does missionary work in a number of countries, including Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, India, Madagascar, Myanmar and the Philippines. The distinctive cross of the order depicts a hammer and pincers. Traditionally ascribed to the Virgin Mary at her apparition at La Salette, France in 1846, these symbols represent the order's goal of healing and reconciliation. The order continues to care for pilgrims at shrines and to work at retreat houses, home and foreign missions, parishes, youth ministries, and in counseling and teaching, and as hospital and armed services chaplains.

[edit] History

The Missionaries of La Salette were founded in 1852, at the shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, where some priests organized to care for the numerous pilgrims frequenting the mountain. In 1858 these priests formed a community with temporary constitutions, under the immediate charge of the Bishop of Grenoble. In 1876 Right Rev. Mgr Fava gave them more complete rules, and in May, 1890, the Institute was approved by Rome.

Finding it hard to recruit from the secular clergy, the order founded an Apostolic school or missionary college in 1876. After a six-year classical course in their novitiate, they were to go to the scholasticate in Rome, to complete their philosophical and theological course in the Gregorian University.

In 1892 five of the missionaries arrived in the United States with fifteen students. Bishop McMahon of Hartford, Connecticut, welcomed them into his diocese, and they established themselves in the episcopal city, occupying the former bishop's residence on Collins Street. In 1895 they moved to new quarters at 85 New Park Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut, close to the church of Our Lady of Sorrows. Hitherto a mission church of the cathedral, it was made a parish and given in charge of the fathers, who began to tend it on Ascension Day of the same year. In 1894, having established themselves in the Springfield Diocese, the order received the parish of St. Joseph, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, from Rev. Thomas Beaven. In 1895 Rt. Rev. Michael Tierney, successor to Bishop McMahon, requested the order to take charge of the St. James parish, Danielson, Connecticut. In 1901, at the suggestion of Bishop Beaven of Springfield, the order's Superior General sent a few students to Poland to prepare themselves for Polish parishes in the Springfield Diocese, and the parish at Ware and that of Westfield were given over to their care.

In 1902 they were received into the Diocese of Sherbrooke, Canada, with a parish at Stanstead, Quebec, Canada, and also into the Archdiocese of New York, with a parish at Phoenicia, in Ulster County. At the request of Archbishop Langevin of St. Boniface, Canada, a few members were sent from the mother-house in Hartford to establish themselves in West Canada. They became a separate province with headquarters at Forget, Saskatchewan. They tended four parishes: Forget, Esteven, Ossa, and Weyburn.

In 1909 the missionaries deemed their order sufficiently developed, owing to additional foundations in Belgium, Madagascar, Poland, and Brazil, and the order's Superior General petitioned the Holy See to approve their constitutions. The request was granted 29 January 1909. Restrictions against religious orders in France were lifted in 1914, and a number of the order's members served in World War I, with fifteen losing their lives.

In North America the order spread their parish work throughout the United States and Canada. The North American mission first established a province based in Hartford in 1934. Three more province establishments followed at Attleboro (1945), St. Louis (1961) and Georgetown, Illinois (1967). In 2000 these four North American provinces were dissolved to form one new province for the entire continent, headquarted at Hartford. Missionary work to third world nations steadily expanded throughout the 20th century.