Pere Lataste Charism

[jkaands]

[quote name='sistersintigo' post='1578910' date='Jun 21 2008, 05:07 PM']You all can find the above-cited post, I believe, on Vocation Station on the Whatever Happened To thread, still open.
Last I heard, I was told by their superior that somebody donated their website to them, and created the pages themselves, and there it has sat ever since. The superior observed that she too feels the need for a different and improved website....by a different webmaster, apparently the old webmaster was too "my way or the highway" for the community's liking, but they could not look the gift horse in the mouth. I know nothing further...[/quote]

I sent them a note to their email address--don't know if[i] that's [/i]even still going--suggesting updates and referred to all the electronic media available now...

[sistersintigo]

A tour is underway, in the eastern United States, of one of the Sainte Baume relics of Mary Magdalen from the grotto in the south of France. In the story of the life and works of Pere Lataste, a high point is the ceremony near the Dominican convent of Saint Maximin, when Pere Lataste was not yet ordained a priest but was merely a Dominican friar in formation. He was recovering from a lingering illness, and because he was one of several ill friars, young Brother Lataste was blessed with the opportunity, during the grotto ceremony, to venerate the relics of Mary Magdalen by actually touching and kissing them. He would preach about this moment during his retreat homilies to the incarcerated women of Cadillac prison.
Unless I am very much mistaken, the reliquary touring the country at this moment contains one of those self-same bones (tibia) which were kissed and venerated by Pere Lataste himself. At this moment Pere Lataste has been proclaimed Venerable, for the heroic nature of his virtues, and is under serious consideration by the Vatican to be called Blessed (beatified).
Here is a news-agency link about the US tour of the reliquary:

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17408

[humbleheart]

Wow, there's a relic of St Mary Magdalene? I didn't know that!

I've just finished reading Rumer Godden's [i]Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy[/i]. There are places where I was near to tears at the sheer beauty of what she was describing. I pray that this community receives many more sisters.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1257527554' post='1997141']
In the story of the life and works of Pere Lataste, a high point is the ceremony near the Dominican convent of Saint Maximin, when Pere Lataste was not yet ordained a priest but was merely a Dominican friar in formation. He was recovering from a lingering illness, and because he was one of several ill friars, young Brother Lataste was blessed with the opportunity, during the grotto ceremony, to venerate the relics of Mary Magdalen by actually touching and kissing them. He would preach about this moment during his retreat homilies to the incarcerated women of Cadillac prison.
At this moment Pere Lataste has been proclaimed Venerable, for the heroic nature of his virtues, and is under serious consideration by the Vatican to be called Blessed (beatified).
[/quote]
This autumn, something took place that may never happen again.
While the cause to canonize Venerable Pere Marie-Jean-Joseph Lataste proceeds, slowly but forward, The Dominican Sisters of Bethanie, of which Pere Lataste is the founder, also proceed with their own veneration. Montferrand-le-Chateau, in Franche-Comte, has the cemetery at the Bethanie's old motherhouse, in which the founding members of the congregation are interred, including Pere Lataste. In recent years, the motherhouse and generalate decided to erect a new memorial from the ground up. More than a mausoleum, it is a chapel, dedicated entirely to be the permanent tomb of Pere Lataste.
I cannot link to the photographs, however I have seen them. The new chapel was ready for the crypt to receive the coffin. And so the remains of Pere Lataste -- these had already been treated years ago to the examination required for the cause at the Vatican -- were transferred from their former resting place, into the new memorial chapel. The photographs of this transitus included a close-up of habited Dominican friars, assisted by other clergy, with surgical gloves on their hands, lifting up the skull of Pere Lataste away from the coffin for a moment (no doubt for photo ops) before returning the skull to the coffin.
The Mary Magdalen relic at Sainte Baume/Saint Maximin includes a fragment of the cranium from the skull, and it is the cranium fragment which young friar Lataste was permitted to venerate in the mid-1800's. It is impossible to view the new photo of today's friars and sisters, taking one last look at the skull of pere Lataste before sealing it in the coffin, lowering the coffin into the crypt, and closing it forever, without thinking of Pere Lataste and his permanent identification with Mary Magdalen at Sainte Baume.

[sistersintigo]

Link to photos!
[url="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?o.21590179635&ref=mf"]Pere Lataste Memorial Chapel: Transitus[/url]

[jkaands]

A few of the original US Dominican Bethanies returned to the US from France and are now part of a public association in Maine.

Their new website is:

http://www.communityoftheresurrection.com/index.html

They are older and very small, but certainly appear to be orthodox, have mass, office, exposition and at least one is involved in prison work, the charism of Pere Lataste. They do retreats and support the local Dominican laity.

[sistersintigo]

Yes, the Community of the Resurrection in Maine is a community of Dominican sisters. The co-founders came to this continent from the original Dominicaines de Bethanie, immortalized in fiction by Rumer Godden in Five for Sorrow Ten for Joy, founded in France by Pere Lataste.
The longer-term members and I are on a first-name basis although we only make contact sporadically.
This is a sterling example of a community with a contemplative vocation which is not cloistered/enclosed.
At this moment, the prison ministry -- one of the best-known features of the Pere Lataste charism -- is in transition. Sr. Martin Dominic Austen OP, for decades a dedicated prison visitor, is very old, a little fragile physically, and in a mental space that is a kind of gentle Alzheimer's. For which reasons, she is permanently retired from driving a car or going into prisons. None of the present fellow-sisters have moved into prison visits as Sr. Martin Dominic used to do.
History was made at the Maine foundation this past September, with an in-person visit by Sr. Pia Elisabeth OP, General Prioress of the Dominicaines de Bethanie in France, accompanied by Sr. Sara Boehmer OP, General Prioress of the Dominikanerinnen von Bethanien/Venlo. (During World War I, for obvious reasons, Dominican Sisters of Bethany who were of German extraction became refugees in the Netherlands, where they were cut off from their French prioress and motherhouse, and became autonomous, splitting one congregation of sisters into two. Rumer Godden chose not to tell this particular tale when she wrote exclusively of the French congregation.)

[sistersintigo]

New updated website for Pere Lataste's original congregation of Dominican Sisters in Europe.

[url="http://www.dominicainesdebethanie.org/La-renovation-de-la-chapelle.html"]soeurs dominicaines de Bethanie[/url]

[Yaatee]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1302370372' post='2227090']
New updated website for Pere Lataste's original congregation of Dominican Sisters in Europe.

[url="http://www.dominicainesdebethanie.org/La-renovation-de-la-chapelle.html"]soeurs dominicaines de Bethanie[/url]
[/quote]

New website here.

http://www.communityoftheresurrection.com/

Now a public association of the faithful in Maine. They have office and retreats, attend Mass locally, but have eucharistic adoration. Need vocations, obviously. Upper age limit: 60. I strongly suspect that they remain open to their original Lataste charism.

[luigi999]

I am a former brother of bethany whose community The brothers of Bethany closed after a number years.

At any rate, I am trying to contact [b]former brothes of bethany[/b] and also try to establish a world wide community of Bethany consecrated brothers (living in the world but with private vows)

If you are interested please [b]contact me[/b] at : profesorluigi at gmail dot com

I would be happy to hear from you. I speak fluently three languages: English, Spanish and Italian.

More information can be found here:

[url="http://www.bethanyhouseministry.com/fr_jean_joseph_lataste_op"]http://www.bethanyho...seph_lataste_op[/url]

See: [url="http://www.dsiop.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=938:dominicans-in-prison&catid=13&Itemid=39"]http://www.dsiop.org...id=13&Itemid=39[/url]

[url="http://www.dominicainesbethanie.com/"]http://www.dominicainesbethanie.com/[/url]

"There is no past in Bethany, only the present and future hope." (Fr. Lataste, OP)

[sistersintigo]

The beatification of Venerable Pere Lataste OP is certain, just don't ask anyone WHEN because you know how the Vatican is about drawing things out.
A detailed account of the beatification "processus" is available online now, by its Dominican postulator, Father Jean Marie Gueullette OP, in his own native French:

[url="http://curia.op.org/fr/index.php/nouvelles/413-la-beatification-du-pere-lataste-laboutissement-dun-long-processus-"]http://curia.op.org/fr/index.php/nouvelles/413-la-beatification-du-pere-lataste-laboutissement-dun-long-processus-[/url]

There are some "howlers" in the attempt at an English translation online, so it is better for one of us to sit down with the French and polish it into an acceptable English version, to be posted later.

Depends on which of us gets the translation written out and posted first....

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1319908592' post='2328636']
A detailed account of the beatification "processus" is available online now, by its Dominican postulator, Father Jean Marie Gueullette OP, in his own native French:

[url="http://curia.op.org/fr/index.php/nouvelles/413-la-beatification-du-pere-lataste-laboutissement-dun-long-processus-"]http://curia.op.org/...long-processus-[/url]

There are some "howlers" in the attempt at an English translation online, so it is better for one of us to sit down with the French and polish it into an acceptable English version, to be posted later.
[/quote]

The thread with successive posts, translating the French into revised English, can be found on the OPEN MIC phorum.

This is the thread, assuming the link works:

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=116611"]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=116611[/url]

Edited November 11, 2011 by sistersintigo

[luigi999]

Update on Beatification:

Ven. Fr. Lataste will be beatified in May of 2012. This is a momentous occasion to celebrate. Please pray that many "lost" souls find in Fr. Lataste a source of confort for their own stories and their particular vocation.

If you feel that the [b]charism [/b] of Fr. Lataste has touched you and you are male, please reach me as I am trying to organize a sort of movement or community of brothers of bethany. Please pray for this.


Luigi

email: profesorluigi at gmail dot com

[luigi999]

There is a facebook page for Fr. Lataste which you are welcome to join and know more.


[url="https://www.facebook.com/groups/21590179635/"]https://www.facebook.com/groups/21590179635/[/url]

Thanks