“We want God, and we cannot fully have Him unless we take Him alone. He seeks us, and He will not have other offerings instead of ourselves.”
– Francis Marie Paul Libermann –
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
1802- Libermann is born in Saverne, France, the 5th son of an orthodox Jewish family, and named Jacob.
1824- Libermann is enrolled in a famous Alsatian Hebrew school at Metz, in preparation for becoming a rabbi like his father. Jacob’s oldest brother converts to Catholicism, followed later by another brother.
1826- While in Paris, Libermann tries to determine whether he too wants to leave Judaism. During a difficult time of reflection at Paris’ Stanislas College, he has a conversion experience. On Christmas Eve he is baptized and takes the names Francis Mary Paul.
1827- Libermann enters the seminary while struggling with frequent headaches and seizures.
1829- Libermann begins having frequent epileptic attacks that make his study difficult, though he still spends time serving the poor.
1831- Libermann is forced to leave the seminary because of his poor health, but becomes assistant bursar in the novitiate house of the Sulpician Fathers.
1840- After being asked by two close friends from seminary to direct a new missionary organization, Libermann takes up residence in Rome to attempt to get official approbation for their new society. They are slowed because Libermann is not yet ordained a priest.
1841- Libermann is ordained a priest. 9 days later, he establishes the first house of the Holy Heart of Mary Society. Three priests leave to begin missionary work.
1848- The Congregation of the Holy Heart of Mary is merged with the Spiritans. Fr. Francis Liberman is put at the head of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost under the protection of the lmmaculate Heart of Mary.
1851- After several years of guiding his merged congregation, Fr. Libermann’s health takes a severe turn.
1852- Fr. Libermann dies on February 2. The day before he died, he tells the confreres at his bedside “Charity above all — above all, charity.”
1876- Pope Pius IX declares Fr. Libermann as Venerable.