A Short Life of Jean-Claude Colin

This book is an examination of matters to do with the spirituality of the Catholic religious order founded in Franc in 1800s by Jean-Claude Colin, the Marist Fathers, as distinct from the Marist Brothers founded by Marcellin Champagnat. The book examines a few words in the Constitutions: 'to think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things.' Nearly one hundred years later, in the opinion of Marist historian Jean Coste, this sentence (with two others) were themes 'of the first part of the Constitutions since 1836'. But, in its present form, it had 'such an original and direct sound', 'a vigour and striking power' of a 'mind sure of itself', and a consistency with the Founder's style that it (with the other two) were, clearly, 'dictated by Fr. Colin himself '. In this 'handful of words', we have, then, what can rightly be described as the Marist axiom: 'To think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things'. At the very end of Coste's touchstone commentary, it is interesting to note the specific aspect that he highlights (in italics): we call the Marist spirit that common way of feeling and reacting …