Johannes Josef Lataste
Johannes Josef Lataste (German form of Jean Joseph Lataste ), bourgeois. Alcide , (born September 5, 1832 in Cadillac , † March 10, 1869 in Frasne-le-Château ) was a French Dominican . He is also called the "apostle of the prisons".
Life
Childhood and youth
Alcide Vital Lataste was born the youngest of seven children on September 5, 1832 in Cadillac, France. His father Vital Lataste was a free thinker and far from religion. This later became a serious concern for his son. However, the father did not mind that the mother Jeanne Grassiet raised the children in the faith. Alcide expressed his desire to become a priest at an early age. Therefore, on September 3, 1841, the parents registered their son in the small seminary in Bordeaux , where he apparently enjoyed going to school and had his first contact with a Dominican. On April 10, 1842, Father Lacordaire attended the seminary and impressed the young Alcide. Then he began to have doubts; he changed schools and was judged there in Pau as "unsuitable for the spiritual class".
Struggle for vocation
After graduating from high school, he began training as a tax officer in Bordeaux, where he got to know the St. Vincent Conference (or St. Vincent Community ). This Christian association worked for the needy, and Alcide Lataste embarked on a world previously unknown to him. From then on, he collected donations and visited poor families, distributed food vouchers and listened to people's needs. When he was transferred to Privas , 600 km away , in 1853, after his appointment as civil servant , he immediately looked for a connection to the local Vincent Conference. It was through this commitment that Alcide Lataste met 16-year-old Léonide-Cécile de Saint-Germain. Both fell in love quickly and seriously. But Alcide was only 20 years old, so still a minor, and his father did not approve of the connection. Vital Lataste arranged for his son to be transferred to Pau near Bordeaux behind his back . Alcide completed his training there and in his spare time worked again in the Vincent Conference. He continued to hope to marry Léonide-Cécile, but without rebelling against his father. In October 1855, his sister and godmother Rosy and then his foster mother, Madame Neveu, died within a few days. He had had an intimate relationship with both of them; both were also important for his spiritual life. His sister had been a religious, Sr. Saint-Crescentien, and had always encouraged him to become a priest. Her death reawakened this longing and moved Alcide to the decision to go to the monastery. While he was still examining this decision, he received news of Léonide-Céciles death on November 17, 1855.
Training in the Dominican order
During this phase of mourning and preoccupation with existential questions, Alcide met Dominicans for the second time, this time on a popular mission . He was particularly impressed by the prior, Fr. Saudreau. On September 11, 1857, he actually joined the Dominicans, initially for a trial period in Nerac. On November 4, 1857, Alcide Lataste presented himself to the novitiate of the preachers in Flavigny ; on November 13, he was given the habit and the name Jean-Joseph. During the novitiate, Brother Lataste developed health problems: at first he threatened to lose a finger. According to the canon law of the time, he could not have become a priest with a damaged hand. The finger was saved, but the infection spread through the body and caused severe pain. The disease affected Brother Late's attitude to suffering and prayer, and it delayed his profession . He was not really cured until 1863. On May 10, 1859, Brother Jean-Joseph made his profession in Toulouse and was then transferred to Chalais to study. On July 2nd, the Provincial, Father Lacordaire, came unannounced and called on the community to give up their convent building and to repossess the provincial monastery of St. Maximin , which had been abandoned since the revolution . Possibly behind this sudden move was the conflict between the Provincial Lacordaire and the Master of the Order Jandel. It is certain that Lataste was close to Lacordaire's moderate stance and that an overly rigid interpretation of the rule of the order made little sense. His attitude was more determined by “common sense and not by an ideal of monastic life.” At that time (and still are today) relics of St. Mary Magdalene kept. When the brothers held a big feast in her honor on May 20, 1860, Brother Jean-Joseph was sick again and was not allowed to leave his cell. For this, the skull relic was brought to him, which touched him deeply and had a lasting influence on his spirituality.
Activity as a priest
On May 10, 1862, Jean-Joseph Lataste made his solemn profession; on February 8, 1863 he was ordained a priest in Marseille. Four months later he left St. Maximin and began to gain experience as a confessor and preacher. From September 15 to 18, 1864, he was to hold retreats in the women's prison in his hometown of Cadillac. He started it a little reluctantly and was then surprised by the women. During these four days he experienced an inspiration that from then on never let go and that ultimately led to the establishment of the Dominican Sisters of Bethany. At first, however, it was just an idea. He gave the imprisoned women the suggestion to transform their prison into a monastery through their inner attitude. A year later, September 14-17, 1865, he gave a second series of sermons in Cadillac Prison. It turned out that the women had followed his advice. Now he tried harder to found a monastery in which women released from prison would find a place of rehabilitation and spiritual life. He could not concentrate entirely on it, however, because in October he was appointed novice master and subprior of Flavigny. This completely changed his rhythm of life, and these tasks seem to have troubled him too. Although he tried to live up to them, his commitment to the prisoners did not let go of him. Since he was unable to set up a new work and fill two offices in his own community at the same time, the provincial released him from the office of novice master on July 24, 1866.
The foundation of Bethany
Mother Henrika Dominika
Since Father Lataste was not released from his superiors for his project, he needed a colleague to take over the leadership of the sisters on site. He found her in Sr. Henri Dominique Berthier, in German tradition called Mother Henrika Dominika . The two met for the first time on May 8, 1866. However, Sr. Henri Dominique was apparently surprised at first because she had imagined the work differently and therefore asked for time to consider. Lataste gave her a picture for meditation: Jesus on the cross and underneath Mary, his pure mother, and Mary Magdalene, the converted sinner. “Both are united in one pain and one love. They hug and forget themselves out of love for Jesus - that is Bethany and nothing else ”.
On April 13, 1866, Sr. Henri Dominique Berthier accepted. She outlived Fr. Lataste by 37 years and built up and led Bethanien for almost 40 years as "Mother Foundress".
The first house in Frasne
After a long and unsuccessful search for a suitable house, Father Lataste set a certain deadline for heaven: He promised God to consecrate the new community of St. Mary Magdalene if a house was found by her feast day, July 22nd. In fact, a little later, on July 21, 1866, Sr. Henri Dominique found the right house in Frasne , and to this day Saint Mary Magdalene is the patroness of the Dominican Sisters of Bethany. The first residents moved in on August 9, the first postulants arrived four days later. Regular convent life began on August 14, 1866; the day is considered to be the official foundation date.
Early death and burial
Fr. Lataste was often ill throughout his life. The double burden of building Bethanien in parallel with his other work weighed heavily on him. He died on March 10, 1869 in Frasne with the sisters.
A year later the sisters moved to Montferrand because the house in Frasne had become too small. Father Lataste had asked to take his bones with him in such a case. During the exhumation, the witnesses found “no signs of decay” on the coffin. In 1937 the beatification process began, the body was exhumed again and transferred from the cemetery to the chapel. Since they wanted to give visitors access to the grave after the beatification, the bones were reburied again in 2012, this time in a specially built side chapel outside the enclosure.
Beatification and Adoration
Father Lataste was beatified on June 3, 2012 in Besançon. His feast day is his birthday, September 5th, as the day of his death, March 10th, falls during Lent, during which no saints are commemorated.
Father Lataste himself coined the term “apostle of prisons” on his deathbed. It has been in public use since the beatification.
In 2016 a medically inexplicable healing occurred in Besançon after praying to Father Lataste. If this is recognized as a miracle and the French Bishops' Conference confirms that veneration has increased since the beatification, Father Lataste could be canonized.
Today a number of communities appeal to the spirituality of Jean-Joseph Lataste: the Dominicans of Bethany of Montferrand, the Dominicans of Bethany of Venlo, the lay community in the state prison of Norfolk (Massachusetts / USA) and several others, v. a. Lay communities.
Web links
- Homepage of the Dominican Sisters of Bethanien von Venlo
- Homepage of the Dominican Sisters of Bethanien von Montferrand
- Homepage of the Dominican Order international
- Homepage of the Dominican Order in Germany
- Homepage of the Bethanien Children's Villages
literature
- Jean-Marie Gueullette: Jean-Joseph Lataste, Apostle of the Prisons . Benno-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7462-3007-8
- Anatol Feid / Florian Flohr: Good news for the prisoners, life and work of the Dominican Lataste . Mainz, 1978, ISBN 3-7867-0694-8
- Alcide Postel: The house without bars . Mönchengladbach, 1954
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Jean-Marie Gueullette: Jean-Joseph Lataste, Apostle of the Prisons. Benno-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7462-3007-8 , p. 18 f
- ↑ cf. Anatol Feid / Florian Flohr: Good news for the prisoners, life and work of the Dominican Lataste. Mainz, 1978, p. 17 f
- ↑ cf. Gueullette p. 23 f.
- ↑ Feid / Flohr, p. 21
- ↑ cf. Feid / Flohr p. 28 f.
- ↑ cf. Feid / Flohr p. 34
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 62 f.
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 64 f.
- ↑ Gueullette, p. 78
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 87
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, pp. 92-94
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, pp. 96-99
- ↑ cf. Feid / Flohr: p. 88 f.
- ↑ Gueullette, p 158
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 107 f.
- ↑ s. Gueullette, p. 112
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 143 f.
- ↑ Gueullette, p 161
- ↑ cf. Gueullette, p. 173
- ↑ cf. Alcide Postel: The house without bars, Mönchengladbach 1954, p. 78
- ↑ s. The house without bars, p. 83
- ↑ s. Gueullette, p. 274
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lataste, Johannes Josef |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lataste, Jean-Joseph; Lataste, Alcide (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Dominican, "apostle of prisons", Blessed |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 5, 1832 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cadillac |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 10, 1869 |
| Place of death | Frasne-le-Château |