BETHEL PARK, PA 

Spiritans across the globe celebrate the Feast of Venerable Francis Mary Paul Libermann, the “second founder” of the Spiritans on Febraury 2, 2016, the 164th anniversary of his death. His life and commitment to the Spiritan mission of proclaiming the Good News to the far ends of the earth against all odds continues to be an inspiration almost two centuries later.

Venerable Francis Libermann had a most remarkable journey of faith. He was born into an orthodox Jewish family in the Alsace region of France in 1802, and given the name Jacob.

Photo of the Libermann Family Home (right) in Saverne, Alsace, France. The photo was taken in 1894. This house has since been destroyed and a monument to his memory erected by the town council.

Jacob Libermann’s father was a rabbi, and Jacob was preparing to become a rabbi himself when his studies led him to the New Testament and to Christianity.

He was baptized Francis Mary Paul, in 1826, at Christmas.

Soon he was studying for the Catholic priesthood, but violent attacks of epilepsy put his vocation on hold.
It was fifteen years before he was finally ordained, in 1841.

A Second Founder

In 1848 Libermann brought personnel and a renewed Spiritual energy to the Spiritans that transformed the Congregation.

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.

In Rome to present his project of foundation, Libermann moved into a garret under a roof, with only a bench, a chair and a table. He had only pigeons for companions: “I found him in an attic, reported Bishop Ozanam, taken by fever, lying on a pallet, he had only a flimsy blanket.”

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.

Extract of the official Letter of Fusion of the Society of the Holy Heart of Mary, founded by Fr. Libermann, and the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, founded by Fr. des Places. Fusion by Fr. Libermann: August, 24, 1848.

Joining the Spiritans

Soon his growing group was asked by Rome to join the Spiritans, a much older religious community, legally and canonically established in France, but on hard times by the mid-1800s. They were working in France and in North and South America and in the Far East.

Libermann recruited and educated missionaries, both lay and clerical. He negotiated with Rome and with the French government over the placement and support of his personnel.
Francis Libermann was a pioneer of strategies now recognized as a blueprint for modern missionary activity. He urged the Spiritans to “become one with the people” so that each group received and understood the Gospel in the context of their own traditions. Fr. Libermann’s zeal was so inspiring that when seminarians in France heard of the deaths of some of the first missionaries to West Africa, they lined up at his door to volunteer as replacements.

He exhausted himself in the process of leading his great enterprise, and died on February 2, 1852 before his 50th birthday. Surprisingly, Fr. Libermann himself never went overseas. Yet he inspired and empowered literally thousands of missionaries around the globe.

Libermann was a visionary, a missionary, a profoundly spiritual man who has affected the course of history in the last 150 years. His influence and that of his Spiritans, in the Church and in the emerging world (including our own country since the late 19th century) has been inestimable.

Fr. Libermann faced incredible obstacles, yet patiently accepted his trials and tribulations with great inner peace and tranquility. May God bless the Spiritan Congregation, and all of us, through the intercession of Venerable Francis Libermann. And may his spiritual teaching of Practical Union with God through the Holy Spirit bring us closer to the path of holiness in our daily lives.