Triple Feast

The Church honors Saints Simon and Jude, apostles today and the Marist World is using this "Montagne Day" to launch its "Montagne Year".  What do they have in common?  Simon, known as the Zealot either for his great zeal, or because he belonged to a sect known as the Zealots before answering the call to follow Jesus, and Jude, famous for resolving hopeless cases and for his short Epistle, became foundation stones for the early church.  They taught, they preached the Word they both heard and experienced.
Jean-Baptiste Montagne, the 17 year old dying lad that St. Marcellin visited on this day in 1816 became the catalyst for the founding of the Little Brothers of Mary.  St. Marcellin was so appalled by JB's lack of knowledge of the faith that he decided then it was time to bring into reality a dream he had of starting a congregation of teaching brothers who would devote their lives to the Christian Education of youth so that the ignorance of the faith he experienced with Jean-Baptiste would never occur again.  He found two young men who agreed to help with this project and two months later moved in to a poor but adequate residence to form the first Marist community. As Jesus called Simon and Jude to follow him, so did Marcellin call these two young men.
This incident sets the theme for the coming year of preparation for the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Marist Brothers.  We will be focusing on our mission to make Jesus known and loved and be studying ways to make it more effective for our day and for the next hundred years.  It's a global process and with all those Marist Minds working together, something concrete and effective should emerge, it did on that October day nearly two hundred years ago.  May we all work together and pray together to continue the Marist Mission with the zeal of St. Simon and the hope provided by St. Jude.
Bro. Rene