Eucharist Adoration

 It’s 7:00 AM, and the Blessed Sacrament is exposed under a rich canopy; during the night, the women took turns in adoration.  The year is 1864 and the women are prisoners in Cadillac, France.

They were 397 women, relatively young, their crimes ranging from murder, robbery, and prostitution.  Illiteracy was very common.  A Dominican preacher was requested to begin a retreat in preparation to beginning perpetual Adoration.  In these days, people didn’t receive Communion frequently and Adoration was considered a spiritual communion.

The friar was fairly new.  His name was M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.* In order not to interfere with the labor of the prisoners, the retreat time had to be taken from the inmates’ sleep.  Imagine the trembling, young friar presenting himself at the prison door. Imagine him looking over the sleepy congregation, kerchiefed heads bowed down.  Would they not listen to him, fall asleep, be disrespectful, or even mock him out loud?  Here is how Father Lataste described his state of mind:

They were there, almost four hundred of them, dressed in shabby clothes, a handkerchief tightly wound their temples, giving them a very unusual appearance which somehow was offensive to me.  The point is I was prejudice. In fact, I had a horror of them.

At the beginning of the first sermon, the preacher went beyond his personal repulsion, and raised his eyes to his audience.  His first words, his greeting, landed like a bomb.

My dear sisters,…

He didn’t call them sinners, and rant about their crimes and scream at them to repent. Rather, he spoke of God’s love.  As he talked about the mercy of God, he heard them sobbing.  Gradually, their handkerchief heads rose, with eyes wet with tears.

He was the first one to be converted.

They brightened at the story of Jesus exorcising the demons from Mary Magdalene.  They asked about the love of Mary Magdalene for Jesus.  Could Jesus love them?

I spoke to them of God’s great mercy, of God’s great love, of God’s preferential love for sincerely repentant souls who want to love like Magdalene.  You would have seen them gently raise their heads, like flowers after a storm when the sun comes out to touch them.  Their faces lit up little by little; it seemed that they breathed more easily and that the walls of the prison, heavy as they were, had become light.

He told them when they knelt in front of the monstrance, to give Jesus their love like Mary Magdalene did--to speak to Him from their hearts.  God loved them and would forgive them for their transgressions.  The mercy of God respects the basic dignity of every human being, who is called to holiness whatever their past.

The women looked at the Blessed Sacrament in awe.  It was a mystery.  They wondered if it were true that Jesus could love them.  He loved Mary Magdalene.  He loved Dismas.  He was God; His mercy was endless; His forgiveness was given; His love was for them.  They could feel it.  Finally, they were free to love Jesus.  They would be like Mary Magdalene and love Him, forever.  Their hearts beat in unison with the pulsating joy and happiness emanating from the Monstrance.

*Blessed M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P. founded the Dominican Sisters of Bethany, with some of these same inmates.  His cause for canonization is being considered. He is known as the Apostle to Prisoners.

Quotes from My Dear Sisters, Fr. Jean-Marie Guellette, O.P., New Hope Publications, 2018.

On the Road to Sainthood

My spiritual hero is Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.  He has been beatified for a few years, close to canonization. Please pray with me that it happens soon.

Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.

                          The Road

Servant of God: The first step, start the process with the Vatican.
Venerable: If your candidate is acceptable, the process may begin.
Blessed: One authenticated miracle caused by Father Lataste.
Saint: One more miracle is accepted.  We are awaiting acceptance.

Why do we have saints anyway and why so many?  I think the answer would be that we people need the assurance that heaven is attainable by ordinary people and that's the answer to why so many, too.  Surely, there's some model for everybody. The lives of the saints are reminders to us that we can do it too. 

Not only are they models for us but they become our friends.  The friends of God are our friends, too.  We can ask them to pray for us.  Don't we ask our family and friends to pray for us?  Well, the saints in heaven are more alive than we are!  Hence, all saints in heaven, pray for me!

Did you know that not until the end of the first millennium, that the pope was the final decision-maker in determining whether to call the Blessed, Saint?  Before then, it was easier.  Of course, if you died a martyr, you were called Saint, immediately.  That was the time when cults arose to honor the martyr.  In fact, when a martyr was beheaded, the followers rushed forward to dip pieces of cloth in his blood.  Then these souvenirs were kept to remind the faithful of his sacrifice and his goodness.  These souvenirs are called relics.

Once Christianity became legal, few died as martyrs, but it was obvious that some people lived very holy lives.  How to honor them?  These obviously holy people were canonized and called "confessors."  They are/were people who professed Jesus to the world. They were recognized not only by their holy lives but also by miracles attributed to them after they died.

The person who handled these claims was still the pope.  But it grew to be too much.  Pope John XV approved the first papal canonization in 993 in a method that resembled court methods. The person who examined became known as the "devil's advocate."  I picture him as the prosecuting attorney. 

Pope Benedict XIV wrote five volumes on beatification and canonization, and this was followed for 200 years. It became part of the Code of Canon Law in 1917. During Vatican II, a commission examined the process.  Pope John Paul II finished the reorganization in 1983. 

The person who gathers the material and does all the research is called the postulator.  By the way, the postulator doesn't work for love.  He has to eat.  IOW, he needs a salary, so it does take money to get a person canonized.  The postulator for Blessed Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste is Father Jean-Marie Gueullette, O.P. and he has already spent 20 years of his life working on Lataste's cause for sainthood. 

Would anyone do that if he didn't believe that Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste wasn't a saint?  So whether or not Pere Lataste is ever canonized we know that he really is a saint.

* "Making Saints" by Bill Dodds in Columbia, November 2000, pp.16-19 was the basis for this post.

Mercy Exemplified

My Dear Sisters Life of Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste, OP Apostle to Prisoners by Jean-Marie Gueullette
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"My Dear Sisters" by Fr. Jean-Marie Gueullette, O.P. and translated from the French by Fr. George G. Christian, O.P., was originally entitled "Ces femmes qui etaient mes soeurs..." is the definitive story of Pere Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P., the Apostle to Prisoners.

This is and will be an important book when Blessed Lataste is canonized as a saint. He already is considered one by many involved in prison ministry. This biography of Lataste's singular life shows how spirituality evolves into service. As a young preacher, Father Lataste enters a women's prison and he is converted. He was timid and approached these inmates with much trepidation. The women, themselves, didn't want to be there. But when Father began his preaching by calling them, "My Dear Sisters..." Their heads lifted, their ears opened, and their own hearts were converted. The preacher himself was touched by this encounter. These women's lives were ruined by crime yet he could see the change the Holy Spirit had made. When he heard their confessions he cried along with them. Their sins were forgiven; God forgave them; would the world?

Through the mercy and providence of God, Father Lataste founded the Dominican Sisters of Bethany. The Holy Spirit provided the perfect co-founder in Mother Henri-Dominique,O.P., who carried on and help preserve the charism of mercy, when Father died too young. He was only 37. His community of rehabilitated sisters was only a few years old. But the foundation was solid and stands today.


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My Dear Sisters

My Dear Sisters, Life of Bl. Jean-Joseph Lataste, OP, Apostle to Prisoners (1832-1869 by Fr. Jean-Marie Gueullette, OP, translated by Fr. George G. Christian, OP

Author: Fr. Jean-Marie Gueullette, OP
Genre: Biography
Date Published:  Les Editionos Du Cerf, www.editionsducerf.fr, Paris 2012.  Translated 2018 by Fr. George G. Christian, OP, New Hope Publications, New Hope Kentucky, www.newhope-ky.org
Number of Pages: 260 softcover
Print Price: $22.95

This 2018 translation of the recently beatified Fr. M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, OP, the spiritual father of the Dominican Sisters of Bethany, was written by the Vice-Postulator of his cause for beatification, Fr. Jean-Marie Gueullette, OP.  Gueullette tells Fr. Lataste’s life, from birth to death in a balanced and thorough account and is very much worth reading for fans of Catholic biographies, and those involved in the Catholic chaplaincies inside prisons. The author’s rendering of the intellectual and social milieu of the times adds understanding to the situations Fr. Lataste had to deal with.  Fr. Lataste was a prophet, and like all prophets, his ideas were not universally welcomed, not even by his order.  But you can’t hold down the Holy Spirit, and God’s will prevails.

Fr. Lataste was all about mercy and redemption.  He is known as the "Apostle of Prisons."  He was a French Dominican who lived in the 19th century.  As a new preacher, he was assigned to preach a retreat in a women's prison.  The women were used to sermons that condemned them for their crimes and emphasized their unworthiness.  But Pere Lataste's sermon spoke of God's love.

           My dear sisters!
           I am not sure whether you noticed: in the beginning, what I called you: My dear sisters,--
          My dear sisters!  Do you understand that? After all, what are you to me? P. 98

The women were surprised.  They came into the chapel with their heads down, disgraced women who were too ashamed to look a priest in the eyes.  But as the good friar spoke of God's love, then one by one their heads popped up.  Their expressions changed from surprise, to attentive, to hopeful, to being, oh, so very open.

Nota Bene: this is Lataste spirituality.  He tells the inmates that they are equal to nuns  and monks. Appreciating women as his sisters in Adam and in Jesus Christ, Fr. Lataste developed an idea absolutely original in the history of the Church…he ventured to formulate the notion of welcoming into religious life ex-prisoners.  God forgave them and they felt called to contemplative life. P. 232

    The community of Bethany was conceived in the heart of Fr. Lataste during adoration
     of the Blessed Sacrament in prison, while he was praying in the midst of inmates like
     a brother among his sisters and as he felt overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that
     filled the chapel.  P.233

This is the biography Fr. Gueullette relates. Although it is a scholarly work, written by an academic, it is very readable.  You learn not only about Fr. Lataste but about his innovative idea of prisoners becoming Dominican nuns.  His spirituality is all about God’s immense love and mercy.  Fr. Gueullette meticulously researched his biography and his intellectual scholarship adds credibility to this interesting new biography.

Foreword for New Book on Pere Lataste

Here is the Foreword of a new biography on Pere M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, OP, by the postulator of his cause for Beatification, Fr. Jean-Marie Gueullette, OP. The Foreword is written by Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, a well known writer, speaker, theologian, and a former Master of the Order of Preachers. That's me holding his hand. He's standing between Alpha and Omega.

Foreword for the book by Jean-Marie Gueullette OP

I began to read this biography of Jean-Joseph Lataste with a little trepidation. For a long time I had admired him as a brave Dominican who opened his life and his heart to women in prison and founded the Bethany sisters. He was a sort of grandfather to one of my favourite Dominican fraternities, in Norfolk State Penitentiary. But when I read his life, would he turn out to have been quite so admirable? Would he emerge as someone so marked by another time and spirituality that he would seem remote? The great joy of this wonderful book, for me at least, is that I found him to be even more attractive and inspiring than I would ever have guessed.
Jean-Joseph Lataste was a deeply affectionate person. He loved, and he loved to be loved. The moving account of his young love for Léonide Cécile de Saint-Germain shows him to be a man with a heart, flesh and blood like us. This same desire to give and show affection is apparent when he enters the Order. He develops friendships with the brethren, and even after he had founded the new congregation, he was a brother who loved community. He belongs within the long Dominican tradition, from Thomas Aquinas and Eckhart until today, which sees our relationship with God in terms of friendship. God is the one who longs only to be accepted by us and welcomed into our lives as a friend. This warmth finds its most beautiful expression in his relationship with the women whom he met in the prison in Cadillac. His very first words to them are: ‘My dear sisters.’ All of his mission and life is given in those first affectionate words.
He was also deeply Dominican in his cherishing of happiness. St Thomas Aquinas believed that we are created for happiness with God. To seek happiness is not selfish, because we find it in being emptied out beyond ourselves in love. When he arrives at the noviciate, one has an impression that this young man, who had passed through turbulent years, finds deep joy. There is the wonderful scene of two young novices coming to wash his feet, and the obvious immediate affection that they feel for each other.
When he founded his first community of the sisters of Bethany, he cares for their happiness. The choice of ‘Bethany’ is significant. It evokes a home, and so a place where they can be at ease. He did not want a building that would even look like a convent, and which might suggest severity.
Any true love cherishes the dignity of the other person. A sense of his own early failures cures him of any false sense of superiority. Whatever he did in his youth was a ‘felix culpa’, ‘a happy sin’, in the words of St Augustine, which bore fruit in his sense of oneness with these women whom society despised and feared. Certainly, they had failed and sinned, like us all, but Lataste would not let them be defined by what had happened. He was shocked by the way that they were referred to by others, as thieves and so on. A prostitute came to share her sorrow with an English Dominican. She said, ‘Father, I am a fallen woman’. To which he replied, ‘No, my dear, you merely tripped!’
Lataste was baptised opposite a ‘house of correction’, where he would discover his mission, and where women were supposed to be reformed by severe discipline. But Lataste believed in a far more profound transformation produced by God’s grace. He often liked to say that the greatest sinners could become the greatest saints. It does not matter what one has been but who one is now. ‘God is the Being of the present.’ Grace transforms us, and that is why these women could be religious.
Lataste loved the saints who had lived through experiences of sin, but whom grace had raised: Mary Magdalene, the first patron of the Dominican Order; Peter, who had denied our Lord; Paul who had murdered the earliest disciples, St Augustine and so on. When he talked with women in prison he was bowled over to see the effects of grace in their lives, their readiness to forgive those who had often seduced them and destroyed their lives. When he held a night of adoration of the sacrament, he saw hundreds of these women coming to pray devotedly, and he cries out ‘I have seen marvels.’ Jean-Marie shows how this cry resonates with that of St Catherine of Siena, who after profound contemplation, shouts out ‘I have seen the secrets of God.’ But the moment of revelation for Lataste is given in the faces of those to whom he has been preaching. It is a spirituality of mission.
Lataste is shocked by the silence imposed on the women in prison. This terrible silence is broken when he hears their confessions in the sacristy. It is pierced by words of compassion, the words of their brother and the words that they are free to speak to him. And when he makes an unauthorised visit to the prison, and cannot speak with them, they know that he is there for them, faithful in his friendship. The Resurrection of Jesus is the speaking again of the Word made flesh, silenced on the cross. Our faith breaks the oppressive silences in which so many people are imprisoned.
He was also aware that his new foundation did more than offer a home for a few women who were called to religious life. His brochure, Les Réhabilitées, in which he described his daring project, which he believed was the work of God, was also a prophetic gesture, addressed to his fellow citizens. It touched on issues that were of public concern. Victor Hugo’s novel which comments on life in prison, Les Misérables, had been published recently. It remains a prophetic gesture which still speaks to our society, in which an ever higher percentage of the population finds itself imprisoned not just by walls and bars but by prejudice and contempt.
Blessed Jean-Joseph Lataste began this new foundation when he was extraordinarily young, and died when he was still in his thirties. He endured opposition, even sometimes from his own brethren, though supported by the Master of Order, Alexandre Vincent Jandel. This confidence in the young was typical of St Dominic, who sent out his novices to preach when other religious thought that they would never be seen again. We need this confidence in the young today, confidence in young people who find themselves in prison, and also confidence in our young brothers and sisters when they have brave new ideas. May blessed Jean-Joseph give us all courage to do what is new.
Timothy Radcliffe OP