Jean-Pierre Médaille was born in Carcassonne, France on Oct. 6, 1610 and was educated at the Jesuit College there.
On October 6, each year the Sisters and wider community of St. Joseph honour Father Jean Pierre Médaille, S.J.
Father Médaille, was born in 1610 in the beautiful walled city of Carcassonne, France. But walls never kept him enclosed. He was, in so many ways, a man who broke boundaries. As a young man he embraced his vocation as a Jesuit priest. After his time of formation and first ministries he was assigned to offering missions in the region of Le Puy en-Velay. His ministry required walking many miles across lovely, volcanic, hilly landscape. The story goes, and is recorded in the Jesuit archives in Rome, that he was reprimanded for “wearing out too many pairs of boots” in his endeavours!
During his travels Father Médaille met groups of women who wished to become nuns but were not eligible to due to Church discipline at the time that only permitted women religious to be in cloisters. In these women, Médaille recognized, however, an authentic vocation to religious life to be lived out in the world around them responding to the unmet needs of their time in places of squalor, violence, environmental destruction and profound disparities in wealth and poverty; a time not unlike our own.
Image: Oziel Gómez @ozgomz/Unsplash
Together, the women and Médaille encountered a mutuality of spirit – the realization of God in all things, a commitment to unity at the heart of Trinity, passionate service of the neighbour, a seeking of God’s call to “the more” rooted in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola yet original and feminine in its expression. In his helping the women to form the Congregation, which became a reality in 1650, Médaille once again broke boundaries. So too did the first Sisters as they realized a whole new way of living religious life. One might almost say, they were born in dissent! Sister Mary Cresp, RSJ writes, “they demonstrated the characteristic of breaking boundaries into a new way of being”. That way continues to evolve for new times. The entire community of St. Joseph, sisters, associates, partners in mission and friends express gratitude to Father Médaille on this day.
In Médaille’s own words, “love Love and let Love love through you”, and maybe we too will wear out our boots, metaphorically, on that journey into God and to the dear neighbour together. 💞
-Sister Mary Rowell, csj