FRANSALIANS

HISTORY OF THE PUNE PROVINCE

The Pune Province constituted on 10th August 1996. The expanding Maharashtra-Goa Province was bifurcated into the Pune and Nagpur Province to enhance growth in personnel and apostolic effectiveness. The new Pune Province consists of the Dioceses of Belgaum, Goa, Pune, Bombay and the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab. This Province which launched out with forty-eight priests, two brothers and a few scholastics and candidates, today has sixty-one, four brothers, sixty-six scholastics and around fifty fresh candidates. The first Provincial, Fr. Jerson D'Souza, took charge of the administration on 10th August 1996. The initial difficulties did not deter the first Provincial Congress from accepting the task of consolidation of the mission at hand. With dedicated zeal and clarity of vision, Fr. Jerson, through his leadership of three consecutive terms of three years each was able to build up a fervent and energetic Province. A few rural missions were added and the existing ones were further stabilized.

On 10^th August 2005 the leadership of the province was handed over to the new Provincial, Fr. Mario D'Souza. Under his able and dynamic leadership the Province is deeply hopeful to scale newer and greater heights. The province community is vibrant with life, activity and fervour for the mission of the Congregation and the Church.

The Province activities include areas of education, parish missions, preaching ministry, youth apostolate, literacy programme, rehabilitation of street children, ministry to the physically and partially mental handicapped children, empowerment programme for village women and other social apostolates as needed in the mission places and its people. Mission centres located in the remote rural areas of India and economically and socially backward are also under the purview of the Province.

The Province has signed new contracts for evangelizing work with Bishops, in the dioceses of Salem in Tamil Nadu, Ajmer-Jaipur in Rajasthan, Broken Bay, and Sydney, Australia. The province is also aware of the global mission of the Congregation and the Church. Hence it is committed to provide personnel assistance to missions in Chile and Brazil in South America

Fr. Jerson D'Souza, MSFS (Former and First Provincial)

Fr. Mario D'Souza, MSFS (Present Provincial)

DECREE OF ERECTION

The "Decree of Erection of Two Provinces from the Province of M-G promulgated by the Superior General, Rev. Fr. Emile Mayoraz, on 15^th August 1995, states: (Number 10)"

"All confreres of the undivided M-G Province are consulted by secret ballot for the appointment of the two Provincials. This process of consultation for appointment of Provincials should be completed by October-November 1995, so that the outgoing Provincial and the two Provincials can work together on the detailed modalities of the division of the Province, before the two Provinces come into existence, respectively on the 10^th August 1996 and on the 15^th August 1996"

PATRON: ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

A Brief Life Sketch

Francis de Sales was born on 21^st August 1567 at Thorens near Annecy in France. His birth took place prematurely in the seventh month with great danger to the life of the mother and the boy. He was the eldest of the thirteen children in the family. Before his birth his mother consecrated him to the Lord in the presence of the Holy Shroud. His father, Francois de Boisy and mother, Fraciose de Sionnas led exemplary Christian life and provided a healthy human atmosphere for the growth of their children. Francois de Boisy was a man of resolute judgment, firm in his decisions, good to his subjects and a declared enemy of heresy. Fraciose de Sionnas was a woman of deep piety, generous, noble minded, modest and amiable with every person and a real mother.

The exact date of his baptism is disputed. Yet, it was probable that he was given emergency baptism privately. But the ritual solemnities took place on August 28, 1567. The very early youth of Francis was spent in a village called Brens, which was a place of exquisite beauty. Between the ages of three and five he received his first Christian formation from his mother and Francoise Duret was his first teacher.

From 1573 to 1575 Francis was educated at La Roche, a short distance from Thorens. He had his further education in Annecy between 1575 and 1578. During this period he received his Holy Communion and Confirmation on the same day by Bishop Giustiniani in the advent of 1575. From his earliest years he was attentive and calm, not fond of games and often thoughtful. He began to show astonishing curiosity about the mysteries of faith. He laid down time for daily prayers, reading pious books and visiting churches. Holy Eucharist became the centre of his life. Meanwhile his vocation to priesthood was taking shape. He received tonsure on September 20, 1578 from Galsois de Regard, Bishop of Bagnorea.

Francis de Sales had his college studies in Paris from 1582. He did four years of classical studies in the Jesuit college of Clermont. There, intellectually Francis became a man of Renaissance, obtaining a bachelor's degree in arts. In obedience to his father's wish he acquired skills expected of the nobility from an academy. He began his studies in philosophy in October 1585. During these years he found intellectual pleasure in exploring the subjects of dogma, Positive Theology, Moral Theology, Holy Scripture, Patrology, Debating and Polemics.

At the age of seventeen Francis de Sales had to fight a great crisis, which lasted for six weeks from December 1586 to January 1587. It was a temptation to despair due to the influence of Lutheran and pre-Jansenistic pessimism on the contemporary way of thinking. He thought that he was predestined to hell by God's infallible judgment. At this juncture he turned his devotion towards Mary, recited the Memorare, prostrated in front of her statue and made a heroic act of abandonment. The crisis left him immediately.

His father wished him to follow a career in the service of the state. So after his return from Annecy in 1588, he was sent to the university of Padua for the study of law. Here also he found time to study some theology. He was a keen observer of life, things and people. In Milan he visited the tomb of Saint Charles and this confirmed his desire to be among the saints. Placing himself under the spiritual direction of Anthony Possevin, a Jesuit, he drew up a rule for his interior and exterior life, renewed his promise of virginity, and recited the Divine Office. In September 5, 1591 he received his doctorate in both civil and Canon Law.

Francis de Sales, hot-tempered by nature, worked at tempering it very early in life and acquired gentleness after a persistent effort for twenty years.

On his return from Padua, his father's plan was to make him a senator and suggested that he enter into marriage with a wealthy and beautiful woman called Franciose Suchet. He had made up his mind to become a priest. He asked his father permission to become a priest. As a means for overcoming parental opposition, Louis de Sales, a cousin and a priest, obtained through Claude de Granier, the Bishop of Geneva, an apostolic bull conferring on Francis the Provostship of the Church of St. Peter in Geneva. The permission was finally given after serious objections. He was ordained Deacon on 21^st September 1593 and was ordained priest in the same year on 18^th December.

Francis de Sales undertook a hard and difficult mission to work among the Calvinists in the district of Chablais, one of the eight states of Savoy, on 14^th September 1594 together with his cousin Louis de Sales. Overcoming privations and oppositions of every sort including attempt on his life, through prayer, penance, preaching, writing, public debate with the Calvinist ministers and perseverance he brought back the whole district to the Catholic Faith. In Chablais he had introduced an innovative method of presenting in a simple and direct manner some doctrine of faith, and criticizing the teaching of the reformers in leaflets and of distributing them to the people for two years. These leaflets have survived incompletely in a work known as Controversies. He was instrumental in establishing a college under the Jesuit management, a group of secular priest following the Oratarian rule and a hostel at Thonon.

Francis de Sales was the Duke's choice, the Bishop's choice, and the Peoples' choice for the Bishopric of Geneva. In March 1599 Pope Clement VIII confirmed the choice. Following the death of Claude de Granier, he was consecrated Bishop of Geneva at Thorens on 8^th December 1602. He was a good shepherd. He cared both for the rich and the poor, yet with a special preference for the poor. He bore within himself the spirit of Christian humanism. He took initiatives for the formation of the clergy and for the spiritual formation of the youth. A confraternity of the lay people was established for the purpose of teaching Christian Doctrine. During his lifetime he preached more that 4,000 sermons. He was a preacher of power and charm, one who spoke both as a father and a teacher. He also served as a spiritual director to a number of people.

The most known books of Francis de Sales are: Introduction to the Devout life and A Treatise on the Love of God. Both are hailed as spiritual classics. He founded the Visitation Order together with St. Jane de Chantal on 6^th June 1610. This Order is to accept as members the poor, the weak in health, the handicapped who are able to follow the demands of community life, the widows whom normally the other religious orders do not admit. They would practice the virtues exemplified in Mary's visit to Elizabeth that consist of humility, piety and mutual charity. They would also engage, to a limited degree, in works of mercy for the poor and sick. But later, acceding to the wish of the Bishop of Lyons, he discontinued the external works of charity and adopted the cloistered way of life for his nuns.

He passed away at the age of fifty-five of cerebral hemorrhage at Lyons on 28^th December, 1622. On 28^th December, 1661 he was beatified by Alexander VII and was canonized on 19^th April 1665 by the same Pope. St. Francis de Sales was declared Doctor of the Church on 16^th November 1877 by Pope Pius IX. Pius XI proclaimed him the heavenly patron of all writers on January 26, 1923.

St. Francis de Sales is the Apostle of Chablais, the Gentleman saint, a Doctor of the Church and the Patron of Writers. Various religious congregations have been founded under the patronage of St. Francis de Sales. And he is the heavenly patron of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales also known as Fransalians.

St. Francis de Sales: Doctor of Love

"He was not a gloomy, austere saint but most amiable and friendly with all. Endowed with every virtue, he excelled in meekness of heart, a virtue so peculiar to himself that it might be considered his most characteristic trait. His meekness, however, differed altogether from that artificial gentility which consists in the mere possession of polished manners and in the display of a purely conventional affability. ...

This virtue, which grew in the heart of St. Francis as a delightful effect of his love towards God and was nourished by the spirit of compassion and tenderness, so tempered with sweetness, the natural gravity of his demeanor which softened both his voice and manners that he won the affectionate regard of everyone whom he encouraged.

"Making the crooked paths straight and the rough ways plain, Francis has shown that the way to devotion was so accessible for all Christians, that thereafter piety shed its light in every place, in the palaces of kings, in the tents of warriors, in the courts of law, in the homes of business and manufacture, and even the humble hamlets of shepherds.

St. Francis de Sales was proclaimed Doctor of the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX on 07^th July, 1877. His work on Spiritual Direction led to the publication of the great classic Introduction to the Devout life, and the other great, but later work A Treatise on the Love of God. Fundamental to these works is the doctrine that the spiritual life is not just for the religious and the clergy, but for everyone. It is for this reason that he is seen as the first great writer since the Early Fathers to be concerned with the spirituality of the laity. He considered it a heresy to say that a lay person could not attain sanctity and holiness of life through the grace of God. It is for these reasons that St. Francis de Sales may be considered also the patron of Lay Spirituality and the Lay Apostolate.

The Gentleman Saint

Unlike many of the saints – whose lives full of marvellous occurrences seem to be beyond the reach of ordinary Christians – the life of de Sales presents nothing sensational. His ideals of moderation and charity, of gentleness and humility, of cheerfulness and abandonment to God's will are expressed with a common sense spirituality that is gentle and respectful of others – this lifestyle earned Francis the appellation of ‘Gentleman Saint.' Furthermore, his ecumenical sensitivity and his personal gentleness together with his common sense rejection of extremes of the spiritual life of the lay people contributed to his being credited with this title.

PATRONESS: MOTHER OF SORROWS

Our Lady of Sorrows (Compassion) is our patroness and our Founder Fr. Peter Mermier had a special devotion to the Mother of Sorrows. On 15^th September we celebrate her feast. This celebration reminds us of our call to participate in the redemptive suffering of Jesus for the humanity today. We are called to suffer for others, to suffer for the mission we have been entrusted with and we have taken it up as intrinsic to our missionary and religious commitment. Compassion also means 'to be with'. It is a call to be with the suffering humanity, our people, and our confreres. We are called to be compassionate to people in every sense of the term. In our schools, parishes, formation houses, we must educate people to be compassionate in a world of competition. This is the tradition of life each one of us is called to inherit from our founder and pioneers. It has been a good tradition in the province to renew our religious commitment on the Feast of Mother of Compassion in our apostolic communities and formation houses. It is not that we are unmindful of our commitment to the Lord but rather we re-focus ourselves and this renewal as a community has deep bearing on each one of us. We find the meaning of this renewal in 1Thes 4/1- "Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus; we instructed you how to live in the way that pleases God, and you are so living; but make more progress still".

HYMN TO THE MOTHER OF SORROWS

O Mother most afflicted
O Mary sweetest Mother
O dear and loving mother
Standing beneath that tree
We love to pity thee
Entreat that we may be
Where Jesus stands rejected
O for the sake of Jesus Near to thee
and thy dear Jesus
On the hill of Calvary
Let us thy children be Now and eternally

FOUNDER: FR. PETER MARIE-MERMIER

The political disturbances in the country, especially the French Revolution had its impact in the spiritual realm too as it left the people in a deep spiritual crisis and indifference towards their religious duties. Sensing the signs of the time Fr. Mermier took upon himself the task of a spiritual renewal in his people by preaching parish missions. This special apostolate in turn gave rise to a community of preachers gathered around Fr. Mermier. His firm missionary zeal was amply clear from his slogan “I want missions.”

Peter Marie Mermier was born on 28 August 1790 at Vouray in the parish of Chaumont en Genevois, in Savoy. The French Revolution had badly affected the Church in Savoy and many priests left the country while a few went in hiding. Peter's parents, who were fervent Christians, risked their lives and property by welcoming the priests. Between the age of four and ten Peter had the rare privilege of assisting at the Mass celebrated secretly in the house. The faith and courage of his mother and of those daring priests motivated him to make a decisive choice for the Lord.

The revolutionaries had closed Churches and schools. So Peter Mermier had his primary education by his own mother. Peace returned to Savoy in 1800. He did his secondary school studies as a boarder in Melan. In 1807 he was received at the major Seminary of Chambery. He was fervent at prayer, a hard worker and with thoughtful regard for his fellow students. He was ordained priest on 21^st March 1813 at the age of twenty-three and a half. His first appointment was at Magland as Assistant Parish Priest to Canon Desjacques. As a young priest he was a tireless worker. He taught the little ones by day and continued his theological studies by night. After three years he was asked to teach at the college of Melan and be Prefect of Discipline. The Arch Bishop of Chambery appointed him Parish Priest of Le Chaterlard in 1819, at the age of thirty.

Fr. Peter Marie Mermier was an austere priest of unbounded zeal. But most of the people were indifferent to Catholic Faith and practices due to the influence of Jansenism, Gallicanism and French Revolution. With a view to enliven the people in true faith he contacted Joseph-Marie Favre who gave missions in the diocese of Chambery with great success. They met in 1821 and it was very significant for Fr. Mermier as he fell in love with the apostolate of Parish Mission. In the same year they, with the help of a few diocesan priests, dedicated themselves exclusively for this task. They went from parish to parish staying from 4 to 6 weeks in each parish. They prayed, preached and motivated the people to build up their faith. It was a wonderful opportunity for solid religious instruction and reconciliation.

Mgr. de Thiollez, Bishop of Annecy, appointed him spiritual director at the major Seminary in 1823. But in 1826 the Bishop permitted him to dedicate himself entirely to the mission. Gradually a small group of missioners were formed. In the meantime Fr. Peter Marie Mermier sensed the irreplaceable role of the parish missions, the necessity of a religious Congregation of Missioners and the meaning of the patronage of St. Francis de Sales.

Peter Joseph Rey became the new Bishop of Annecy in 1832. He allowed the missioners, at that time six in all, to move to a house in La Roche in June 1834. On September 29, 1836 Bishop Rey gave provisional approval for their rule and they were known as Missionaries of Annecy. They set up a motherhouse in Annecy at a place called La Feuillette on August 8, 1837. It became a house of prayer and study. It was the house where the young religious received their formation in the apostolic and Salesian life. The civil approval to the new religious society from the Duke of savoy came on October 15, 1838. It stated that the Missionaries were approved under the title of St. Francis de Sales. On October 24, 1838 Bispop Rey issued an official document giving canonical approval to the Congregation founded by Father Peter Mermier known as the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales.

Fr. Peter Marie Mermier founded the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales for parish mission, foreign mission and education of the youth. His missionary zeal impelled him to ask the Holy Father for a mission abroad and accept a vast mission territory in India when the Congregation was in its infancy with just eleven professed members. As regards education he opines that one has to be a mother to the pupil by one's tenderness and a father by one's prudence. He accepted the management of the college of Avian in 1856 and the college of Melan in 1857. In Chavanod he came into contact with Claudine Echernier who wanted to live a humble recollected life devoted to the apostolate of the poor in 1837. This resulted in the founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod for the education of the needy girls. They had to work in the poorest and lowliest circles in the country.

Between 1828 and 1857 Fr. Mermier himself conducted ninety missions. He considered sermon as the chief means of proclaiming the word of God. He adopted carefully prepared simple preaching. He spoke with faith and conviction using a fatherly tone of voice marked with a kindly understanding of sinners like St. Francis de Sales. He guided the missionaries to live a life of pleasing and kindly charity in their apostolic ministry and daily relationship. He considered devotion to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows to be an eminent Salesian devotion.

In spite of his old age Fr. Mermier took over the Parish of Pougny as priest-in-charge on 26 June 1857. Even in his old age he retained a lively and curious mind. His last years were a time of purification and edification. He fell seriously sick in Pougny and was taken to La Feuillette. His eye-sight and thinking capacity weakened. As he was a little better he took up a pilgrimage to Our Lady of La Salette in July 1859. He suffered a fierce attack on June 6, 1860 and became fully blind. Meanwhile the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars approved the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales as a congregation with simple vows.

On 10^th August 1862 Fr. Peter Marie Mermier had a fall, which caused a double fracture of his right leg. He left for his heavenly abode on 30 September 1862.