Saint Michael Garicoïts, founded the Society of Missionary Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Bétharram, France. His lifelong dream was to provide the Church with a squadron of well-prepared priests willing to accept any mission, especially the most difficult ones, those refused by others.
Newsroom (18/05/2024 19:40, Gaudium Press) The dream of his religious life was to give the Church a squadron of priests who were well prepared and willing to accept any mission, especially the most difficult ones, those refused by others. A dream that is still very relevant in today’s reality. Below are some aspects of the life of St. Michael Garicoïts:
The years of the French Revolution saw fierce persecution of the Church. The “refractory” priests – those who, out of fidelity to the Pope, refused to accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy – were reduced to the status of criminals, forced to flee or exercise their priestly ministry underground. Thousands gave their lives for Christ, beheaded at the guillotine, drowned, or victims of hunger and disease, imprisoned in infectious prisons.
In this situation, faithful priests relied on the help of lay Catholics who did not hesitate to lay down their lives to welcome into their homes the ministers of God who remained in France to carry out their mission of saving souls, or to guide those fleeing to a neighboring country along the mountain trails.
St. Michael Garicoïts’ parents – Arnaldo and Graciana – were among these anonymous heroes of the Faith. This young peasant couple from Ibarre, a French village just a few kilometers from the Spanish border, was not afraid to hide persecuted priests in their humble farmhouse and give them every kind of help. And God rewarded their generosity by giving them a great saint for a son.
Seed of a saint or… of a bandit
Mamma Garicoïts realized this and, not wanting to have a criminal son, corrected him firmly. Sometimes she would show him the intense fire in the fireplace, asking: “Do you see this fire? You should know that hell is much more terrible… and that’s where children who commit mortal sin go! To instill in him a spirit of obedience and submission to God’s will, he encouraged him to always say to the Lord: “Huna ni!” (“Here I am” in the Basque dialect), the response given by the young Samuel when he was called by God (1 Sam 3:4). He would later admit, full of gratitude: “Without my mother, I think I would have become a bandit. After God, I owe her what I am”.
I’m going to receive Communion and I’m going to be a priest!
Grace aroused in Miguel’s great priestly and Eucharistic soul the desire to receive Holy Communion as soon as possible. At Sunday Masses, he would carefully observe the priest’s gestures and attitudes, and then play at celebrating Mass. One day, he burned down the wooden table in his house by letting the paraffin candle stubs he used as candles for his makeshift altar melt to the ground…
The Garicoïts family was poor, and Miguel – the eldest of the five children – had to do his bit to support the household. At first, he shepherded the small family flock. Then his father got him a job as a shepherd on the farm of a wealthy family in Oneix, a town near Ibarre.
He worked there from the age of eleven to fourteen and attended grammar and Catechism classes with great enthusiasm, to the point of being nicknamed “Little Doctor”. Despite this, the parish priest wouldn’t admit him to First Communion. But God decided to open doors closed by men.
One afternoon, he was returning from the fields with his flock and only one thought was on his mind: receiving the consecrated host. Suddenly, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, he found himself surrounded by an intense light and received a revelation that filled his soul with peace and joy: I’m going to receive Communion and I’m going to be a priest! He called it the “ecstasy of Oneix”. Without delay, he went to the parish priest and told him in detail about the grace he had just received. The parish priest recognized this as a clear manifestation of God’s will and told the young shepherd.
Miguel, I’m going to register you for the next First Eucharist! Prepare yourself well and be careful not to offend the God you are about to receive. And so, at the age of 14, he finally made his First Holy Communion on the feast of the Holy Trinity.
Towards the priesthood
The first obstacle he faced on his path to the priesthood was his father, who wanted him to take care of the small family farm and couldn’t afford to pay for his studies. However, his maternal grandmother, with her Basque determination, managed to convince her son-in-law and took Miguel to Oneix, where he asked for help from a priest who had hidden in the Garicoïts’ house many times during the revolutionary persecution. The priest gave him housing and arranged for him to attend the Saint Palais school.
The young peasant worked during the day to make up for his lack of resources and studied at night. As he only knew Basque, he struggled to learn French and Latin. In three years, however, he was ready for higher education. So he moved to Bayonne in 1814. He worked in the Episcopal Palace, where he stayed, and soon won everyone’s sympathy through his gentleness, dignity, and dedication.
A brilliant student, he studied philosophy at the seminary in Aire-sur-Adour and theology at the seminary in Dax. The rector of this seminary soon noticed the young man’s value among hundreds of students and commented: “If I’m not mistaken, we’ll be hearing a lot about this young man”. The testimony of his companions makes it clear that they already saw holiness in him: “Michael is not a saint to be made: he is a saint made and finished,” said one. “For all of us, Michael was our St. Louis Gonzaga!” – exclaimed another. The Bishop of Bayonne, the future Cardinal d’Astros, conferred on him the longed-for priestly ordination on December 20, 1823. At the age of 26, Saint Michael Garicoïts began his providential mission.
A providential man
A month after his ordination, the bishop appointed him vicar-cooperator of Cambo, a town of some importance near Bayonne. It was a very delicate situation, as the parish priest, already elderly and paralyzed, had lost contact with his parishioners, leaving them to the ideas of the time.
As a providential man, Father Michael carried out pastoral work very similar to that of the Holy Curé of Ars, his contemporary: lion-like in the pulpit, gentle and understanding in the confessional. He set up a Eucharistic Crusade to counteract the cold influence of Jansenism, gave a solemn character to liturgical acts, worked hard in Catechism classes, visited the sick, and was a tireless apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The results weren’t long in coming: in eighteen months the parish was completely transformed. The mayor of the town himself, who was known for his Voltairian ideas and anti-clerical attitudes, became a good Christian. Even more precious, the young people were enthusiastic and vocations to the priesthood and religious life began to emerge.
At the Bétharram Seminary
The voice of obedience changed the course of the young priest’s life: the Bishop sent him to the seminary in Bétharram as a philosophy teacher.
This appointment interrupted an evangelizing activity that was producing excellent results… The perplexity didn’t stop Father Michael from responding with his unalterable spirit of obedience: “Here I am!”.
The Bishop himself later explained to him the reason for this unexpected transfer. He had observed, and appreciated, the entrepreneurial zeal combined with the delicacy of soul with which the young vicar knew how to act without in any way harming the authority of the elderly and inactive parish priest. He wanted him in Bétharram for a similar mission.
The rector of the seminary, a venerable and meritorious priest, was now very old and no longer fit to lead this fundamental diocesan institution.
– “Father Miguel,” said the Prelate, “you have rebuilt the parish of Cambo without damaging the prestige of the respected parish priest. Do the same in Bétharram. The old Father Superior will remain in office, but it is to you that I entrust the seminary, with the task of putting the house in order and forming holy priests. So, in 1825, the saint took up his new duties, certain that he was doing God’s will.
An unassailable man
Until then, Bétharram had only been a blessed land for him, home to a famous shrine where the Blessed Virgin distributed her graces and maternal favors. There, according to an old tradition, a girl fell into the River Gave and was drowning. She turned to Our Lady and soon saw a branch within her reach, to which she clung, saving her life. As a token of her gratitude, she placed a golden branch in the hands of the image of her Protectress, calling it “bétharram” – a “beautiful branch” in the local dialect.
A new challenge awaited him there. The seminary was given over to all kinds of disorders and relaxation. Its reputation was that it was a refuge for “any cassock”… The seminarians lived their lives as they wished, and even abused the wine that the house servant sold them.
It took a lot of tact and firmness on the part of Father Miguel to restore discipline and establish a regime of life suitable for the formation of future priests. Once again, his “pastoral care of the Sacraments” bore the expected fruit: Confession and the Eucharist brought almost all the strays back to the right path. Those who didn’t want to make amends left the seminary. But not without witnessing that “Father Garicoïts was not attacked because he was unassailable”. The old rector died and Father Miguel was appointed to the post.
But some time later, the Bishop decided to transfer the seminary to Bayonne, as the danger of persecution had subsided. New perplexity: once again, his apostolic work was interrupted when it was bearing good fruit… As he said, he remained in Bétharram as “superior of the four walls of a vast building”. His answer, however, was the same as always: “Behold, I come, O God, to do your will” (Heb 10:7). Accepting without understanding, he gave more glory to God!
A new Congregation is born
And he has his ways. In these ways, he prepared him for his great mission. In his apparent uselessness, the fiery priest meditated more deeply on the sad situation of what was left of the French clergy after the devastating wave of the Revolution: reduced in number and, even worse, disoriented and without proper preparation.
This gave rise in his heart to the desire to found a new ecclesiastical institution, which would bring together priests who were detached from everything, with “a dedication of absolute obedience, perfect simplicity, unalterable meekness! These priests would be a veritable mobile patrol of elite soldiers, ready to run at the first signal from the leaders, wherever they were called, even, and above all, to the most difficult ministries, refused by others.” And that they should always bear in mind that “he who does the work of the Lord with negligence is cursed” (Jer 48:10).
With the certainty that this was God’s will, he gathered around him seventeen priests who responded to his missionary call and with them, he founded, in absolute poverty, the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram. In 1835, they all took the vows of poverty and obedience into their hands, as well as renewed their vows of chastity, and chose him as Superior of the new Institute.
St. Michael wanted to draw up statutes that would give his Congregation – with the seal of Roman approval – the solidity and stability of the canonical rules, as well as the freedom of movement indispensable for apostolic activities. But these were drafted by the new diocesan bishop and were not what the holy founder wanted.
This was the greatest proof of obedience in his life! Accepting this apparent contradiction allowed by Providence, he did not confront legitimate authority, did not turn to Rome, and adopted the constitutions of his bishop, which were completely insufficient for his desire for perfection. But confident that “the letter kills and the Spirit enlivens” (II Cor 3:6), he knew how to instill this spirit of readiness in his sons, making them full-bodied religious, ready for any apostolic challenge. His longed-for statutes were only approved after his death, in a victory for obedience.
In the end, he said: “Here I am, Lord!”
For thirty years, he led the new Congregation with wisdom. He traveled through towns and villages, evangelizing youth, workers, and agricultural laborers. As the Bétharramists spread throughout the French dioceses, a halo of holiness and esteem formed around their Founder. His confessional was always besieged by people from all over. He welcomed everyone with kindness, patience, and firmness, trying to instill in them a love for the Cross and the Blessed Virgin.
Bishops and other important personalities came to Bétharram to consult him. At the express request of the Bishop of Tarbes, he had two meetings with Saint Bernadette Soubirous to verify the authenticity of the events at Lourdes. These two interviews with the young seer strengthened his conviction that the Virgin Mary had undoubtedly appeared in the Grotto of Massabielle.
In the last ten years of her life, painful illnesses added to her suffering. And when, finally, he felt that God was calling him to himself, he gave him the answer that characterized his whole life: “Here I am, Lord”.
At dawn on the feast of the Ascension in 1863, May 14, after receiving all the sacraments, he gave his soul to God, pronouncing the first verse of Psalm 50: “Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam” – Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy.
At the time, about a hundred Bétharram priests were working in French dioceses. Today, they carry out their evangelizing activities, especially in the south of Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Pius XII canonized him on July 6, 1947.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph