Posted on 10/01/2006 5:10:35 AM PDT by NYer
Father Joseph Ross stands with his fellow priests and brothers of La Salette in the small chapel in Enfield where they meet every day for morning prayer. His Bible rests in his open palms as they read aloud from the scripture and meditate on its meaning in silence. Diffused light comes in through the frosted windows. The muffled rumble of diesel trucks on Route 4A slips into the room.
Ross, who is 78 years old, remembers when the road was unpaved and 15 minutes might pass in between cars. That was in 1947 when he was 19, fresh out of high school and knew just what he wanted.
"I came here really determined to be a priest," he says.
Though he went to Mass every Sunday while growing up in Warren, R.I., Ross said it was science that drew him to God. In particular it was the stars and their vastness that shook him and triggered the spiritual quest that began when he was a teenager. Science, says Ross, answers the what and the how of natural phenomenon, but only religion can answer the why. He came to Enfield to study at La Salette in 1947 and was ordained in 1955. More than a half a century later he believes the guiding principles of the Catholic order, which was founded in France in 1852, are as valid and valuable today as they were when he joined. Human beings, says Ross, need to be reconciled to each other, to Earth and to God.
"If we could get that message out there, young people would gobble it up," says Ross, after morning prayer has ended. "It's so relevant, it's not something that is passé."
But the message no longer grabs young people the way it once did. The La Salette house in Enfield has only seven members left, the youngest of whom is 54 years old. The dairy farm, high school, college and summer camp once run by the order have long since closed, and all but about 25 acres of the 1,200 they once owned have been sold.
The brothers and priests say they don't know what will become of the order, while those who belong to the La Salette community worry the site could turn into a historical relic like the Shaker buildings the order took over when it came to town in 1927. There are fewer than 200 members of La Salette in the United States, and newcomers are few and far between. A man joined the order in St. Louis this year, but before that it had been two years since anyone joined.
Despite the diminishing numbers, many people still consider the Enfield site the order's spiritual home. During summer, a weekday Mass might draw 20 people, with many more coming on Sundays.
Sharon Markowitz, a nurse at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and coordinator of the Board of Lay Associates of the La Salettes, is among those who want to see the order's mission continue in Enfield, but she doesn't want that continuation to be dependent solely on the priesthood.
"It's so important for lay people to become involved to keep alive the message of (the Virgin) Mary, when and if we run out of priests and brothers," she says. The order was started after the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared before two young shepherds, a teenage boy and girl, in the tiny alpine village of La Salette, France, on Sept. 19, 1846. Mary, according to believers, came to the children weeping and lamenting that Christians had strayed from the word of God. She implored them to spread the mes-
sage that believers had to return to the basic tenets and practices of Christianity, including daily prayer and worshipping on Sundays. After speaking to them, she walked up a narrow path and ascended to heaven.
After several years of investigation, the Catholic Church deemed the shepherds' claims to be true and in 1852 a bishop founded the order based on the message delivered to them. La Salette missionaries first arrived in the United States in 1892, settling in Hartford, Conn. In 1898, the order established a college seminary and, within a decade, had to build two additions to the Connecticut school.
In 1924, a center was opened in Altamont, N.Y., and three years later the order purchased Shaker land and buildings in Enfield. The shrine, a replica of the meeting between the shepherds and Mary, was built in 1951.
There are several centers and shrines across the country and many more around the world, including in Africa, India and Latin America, where the order continues to grow.
Father Leo Maxfield, who is 77 and came to the seminary high school in Enfield from Leominster, Mass., said that at one time there were about 100 boys enrolled in the high school and living in its dorm. There were about 15 priests who served as teachers and an additional 12 to 15 brothers - who take similar vows as priests but do not perform church rites and rituals - who worked on the order's farm and ran the household.
He said that shortly after he arrived in 1944, there were only two priests buried in the Enfield order's cemetery. There are now more than 80 La Salettes, as the members are known, buried at the site. He says he loves the Enfield shrine, which is bordered by Mascoma Lake on one side and thick forests on the other and is saddened by thoughts of its future.
"But I believe in God," he adds. "I have faith in God. It's in God's hands."
Paul Mitiguy, a 42-year-old chemical engineering professor at Stanford University in California, also believes in God, and while he too frets about what will become of La Salette - where he has volunteered every summer since he was 7 - he believes the ever-decreasing number of men and women becoming priests and nuns is a wake-up call for Catholic lay people to become more involved in the church.
Mitiguy says the La Salettes make it easy for believers to have a sense of belonging and commitment. "The guys here are very human," he says. Though he has a deep respect for the order, he says he can joke with the brothers and priests and even feel at ease teasing them. It's the openness and accessibility, says Mitiguy, that allow him to maintain the "sense of ownership" he doesn't feel with the church he attends in California.
Father Jerry Boulanger, director of the Enfield order since February, says that making everyone and anyone feel welcome is an important part of the La Salette philosophy. "I think we have a real willingness to show hospitality and warmth to all people," he says.
Boulanger, who is 62, says he was called to religious life at a young age. "I always wanted to be a priest. Even as a young child I used to play Mass," he says. But such fervor is rare these days and Boulanger acknowledges the concern about whether the order will survive in Enfield and in the United States.
"We just pray and invite," he says.
Father Robert Campbell, a 75-year-old priest who was once director of the order and headmaster of the school, says he believes young people are deterred from even considering entering religious life because they are shaped by a culture obsessed with material wealth.
"Young people have everything they want, too easily," he says. "I never had a new suit until I came to the seminary."
He finds hope, however, in the ever-increasing number of men joining La Salette in the developing world and does not wring his hands over the future of the order in Enfield. "We've got to be detached. We've got it today, we lose it tomorrow," he says.
Until then, the priests and brothers of La Salette continue to live the vows they made decades earlier and the faithful still come to worship and hope for the best.
"I feel like this is holy ground," says Lisa Drummond, an Enfield resident who regularly attends Mass. "Somehow it's come this far and somehow it'll make it."
For more information about La Salette call 632-7087.
Our Lady of LaSalette, reconciliar of sinners, pray for us who have recourse to thee,.
LaSallette priests served my East Texas church as a mission for many years.
Sa that the order has dwindlled so in numbers.
It's unfortunate, but religious orders have life-cycles like any other organization, it seems. Perhaps a growing order will buy their buildings and care for the elderly LaSalette Fathers in their last years.
They drew originally from the French and then the Irish. Both races have declined markedly in relgious fervor.
Excellent points. If they were to catch on among Koreans, Filipinos, or Africans, they might take off again!
My parents were involved with teen seminar at La Salette in Altimont NY in the 70,s,they spent many weekends there.
Brings back old memories.
What happened to the beautiful church building across the road from the shrine?
I believe that this statement in the article is incorrect. The Catholic Church doesn't verify the truth of such claims but rather just determines whether such a thing is worthy of voluntary belief. Someone please clarify is I have misstated this subtle but important point.
Didn't the Shakers die off because they did not believe in having sex for ANY reason? The tragedy is that the logical result is....
This Blog post may help explain why the La Salette Missionaries are in crisis:
http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2010/07/father-bryan-hehir-on-ordination-of.html
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