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Venerable Fr. Francis Libermann, CSSp. (Page 1 of 3) Those intervening years were a time of grace and of maturing, as Libermann became an advisor and confidant to many seminarians and others wanting to grow in the spiritual life. His own trials and painful experiences, as well as joys and perceived blessings, developed in him a great confidence in Providence and a sense of the Holy Spirit directing human affairs. His approach of “practical union with God” helped him, and others, find the divine in the everyday and to face life with confidence and faith. His spirituality of responsiveness to the Spirit served Libermann well during the difficult period of organizing his Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and of gaining official permission from Rome to begin this apostolate to people of African descent. Libermann's followers viewed his being cured of epilepsy at this time and subsequent ordination as approbation from heaven on the mission of his "little band", whose charismatic leader and visionary apostle he had become. Soon his growing group was asked by Rome to join another much older religious community, legally and canonically established in France, but on hard times by the mid-1800s. The Congregation of the Holy Spirit - the "Spiritans" - had been started in 1703, on Pentecost Sunday, by another seminarian. Claude Poullart des Places was only 24 years old when he began a seminary residence for poor students preparing for Priesthood. After des Places' death in 1709 the Spiritans went on to work in France and in North and South America and in the Far East. |
