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Religious
Communities for Men
Chapter 8:
L’OEUVRE
DE L’ETOILE
It is a result
of quite a number of providential circumstances that L’Oeuvre de
l’Etoile was started in 1957, by Father Maurice Raffali, when he
was still a young seminarian of the diocese of Nimes in the South
of France.
Our
Lady, our Star
This educational
work endeavored through the example of the Divine Master to remain
discreet and modest because it wanted to remain attached to that
evangelical ideal, knowing significantly that the tiny seed must
always die to itself if it wants to respond to the divine desire
of seeing it give a hundredfold.
Father Raffali
at first looked after orphans and children in great distress. Every
year he brought them, during the summer months, near Lourdes. There,
amidst the beautiful Pyrenean mountains, in a camp in the open country,
under the protection of Our Lady, the principal task was the teaching
of the catechism and of a life of union with the Good Lord.
Faithful
to the Mass of all times and to the traditional teaching of the
Church, Father Raffali initiated many seminarians of the Society
of St. Pius X into the delicate task of apostolate with children;
about forty boys come and live each summer in the camp of l’Etoile,
thus preparing their future as Christians.
But, as events
happened, the Good Lord showed to L’Oeuvre de l’Etoile that there
were other distresses – those of deeply Christian families who sometimes
sought in real agony an authentic Catholic education. Thus, still
keeping its original vocation of answering to every appeal, the
work was led into another recruitment and into the organization
of schooling for boys in its house in Nimes. This house is called
the ‘Sénévé’ (“mustard seed”), the little seed in
the Gospel, a symbol and a program. And in Lourdes, on the site
of the camp, is located an other house that will become the noviciate.
The
community with its Founder and Superior,
Fr. Raffalli
There,
more and more families are asking for an education for their children,
an education which their Faith claims.
Finally on
April 26, 1990, on the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Archbishop
Lefebvre thinking that “the hour, in God’s plan, had come” for L’Oeuvre
de l’Etoile, asked that it should be constituted as religious Family.
For a long time, Archbishop Lefebvre had encouraged Father Raffali
to take on the formation of the “Fathers of Youth – les Pères de
la Jeunesse”, that is to say, to form priests and religious consecrating
themselves to this mission of educating and teaching the youth.
After much hesitation and after many prayers before undertaking
such a responsibility – the Archbishop expressing paternally on
many occasions the way to follow – Father Raffali finally made up
his mind to draw up the constitutions of the future religious family.
These constitutions were drawn up after two visits to Ecône; the
Archbishop then declared that “they conformed to the Law and
the mind of the Church”, and gave his letter of approbation.
L’Oeuvre
de l’Etoile, now entrusted to the vigilance of Bishop Fellay, has
therefore also a mission to form religious, who will take up again,
according to the words of Archbishop Lefebvre, “the holy traditions
of St. John Bosco and of Father Timon David”, by dedicating
themselves and by devoting themselves to Catholic education.
Dedicating
themselves, that is to say, by the fervor of their religious life
contributing to drawing graces and Divine blessings on the parents,
on the families, and on the schools, in a word, on all Catholic
works of education. Devoting themselves, that is to say, by their
zealous participation in the sanctification of the young.
The
new buildings in February 2000
L’Oeuvre
de l’Etoile is supported in its sublime and immense task by the
devotion to the United and Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, devotion
which is drawn from the teaching of the Saints, whom the Church
has given us and in particular from St. Bernard, St. John Eudes,
and St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. The religious are called
“Stellamarins”, from Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea, Our
Lady. Their spirituality is the devotion to the united Hearts of
Jesus and Mary, by their very special consecration to the Sorrowful
and Immaculate Heart of Mary. The office of the community is the
recitation of the Roman breviary for the priests, and of the little
office of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the brothers. The offices
of Prime and Sext are said in common every day, as well as Vespers
and Compline on Sunday. There is a daily meditation of half an hour
in the morning before the Mass. The community gathers two more times
a day to make an examination of conscience. Beside the formation
of the children (teaching, supervision of studies, of games, of
recreations, of the dormitory), other exterior manual activities
are keeping the religious busy: the exploitation and the maintenance
of a large vegetable garden, a flower garden, an orchard of fruit
trees, a hen house, and of several beehives. The children also take
part in these activities; it is very interesting for them, and it
prepares them with their scholarship to their future of men and
Christians.
To honor the
United and Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary is for the religious
of L’Etoile the mark of their lives by a very special practice of
the virtues of purity, of humility and of obedience. These virtues,
by their splendor in Jesus and Mary appear to be the main characteristics
of the wonderful likeness which unites these most Holy Hearts. For
many years, l’Oeuvre de l’Etoile was carrying the project of a sanctuary
dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, where all
intentions concerning Catholic Education would be brought day and
night to Our Lady. Today, this sanctuary is getting realized; everything
in this building must evoke the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of
Our Holy Mother, so that the most afflicted or most wicked soul,
after passing the door, be touched by what is surrounding him, and
be lifted, moved, conquered, relieved by the Heart of his Divine
Mother.
Father
M. Raffali, Superior
L'Oeuvre de l’Etoile
Route de Generac km 7
F-30900 Nimes
France
Tel:
[33] 4 66 29 09 73
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