Louis-Edouard Cestac

Louis-Edouard Cestac , born the January 6th 1801 with Bayonne and deceased the March 27th 1868 with Notre-Dame of the Refuge to Rebated joint, priest, is the founder of the congregation of the Servantes of Marie.

April 7th, 1908, the Pope Black and white X, sign the decree of introduction of the cause of the Cestac Father. He is declared Vénérable .

The priest

Louis-Edouard is born in Bayonne the January 6th 1801 with number 45 from the street Mayou (today 57 rue d'Espagne). His/her father, Dominique Cestac, former “surgeon of the navy”, became surgeon of the city and the prisons. His/her mother, Jeanne Amitessarobe, are of Spanish Basque ascent.

It has an older sister, Marianne, and a junior, Élise (1811 - 1849) which will become its collaborator.

After studies with the Small Seminar of Surface-on-Adour and with the Seminar of Saint-Sulpice to Paris, Louis-Edouard is named with the Small Seminar of Larressore. While continuing its ecclesiastical formation, he becomes professor. It is ordered deacon the June 26th 1825 and priest the December 17th 1825, at the 24 years age.

The August 27th 1831, the Cestac abbot is named vicar with the cathedral of Bayonne, at the 30 years age.

Inventive for the poor

The vicar of the cathedral côtoie the concrete reality of the poor and seeks to meet their needs. He feels in particular challenged by the situation of the given up young girls, wandering in the streets and the shipyards. He founds for them a hearth of reception as of 1836, in a house lent by the town of Bayonne and named the Great Paradise .

As of the following year it is committed with the service of the young people who wish to leave the prostitution. For them, it buys the November 24th 1838, and with credit, an agricultural domain located at Anglet: the Châteauneuf field which it will call Notre-Dame of the Refuge. With some voluntary teachers, it organizes for these young people, called at the time “penitent”, a project of education based on the love of Marie, freedom and work.

Founder of a congregation

In 1842, the first 14 collaborators devote themselves to God by religious wishes. The Cestac Father gives them a rule of life which he wrote with the Trap door Meilleray in 1839 and with Bétharram in 1841, in the Father Michel Garicoïts his friend. The congregation of the Maidservants of Marie is founded the January 6th 1842.

Among these first Maidservants of Marie, let us retain 3 names:

Elects Cestac, Marie-madeleine sister, sister and goddaughter of the founder, considered as Co-founder;
Gracious Bodin, Marie-François sister of Paule, who, at 20 years, agreed to accompany the first accommodated prostitutes. She will be first the Higher general one of the congregation;
Marie Supervielle, Marie-François sister the Dirty ones, who organized work in the community incipient from Notre-Dame of the Refuge.

The December 12th 1851, is born the contemplative branch from the Recluses of Saint Bernard or Bernardines. This branch accommodates “penitent the” eager ones of a religious life dedicated to the prayer and work in loneliness.

From 1852, after the official recognition of the congregation by a decree of the December 14th 1852, it sends its nuns in many rural villages to open a school (120 schools - 10 departments). For its young teachers he invents a method of reading.

The empress Eugenie came to request with the vault straw of Saint Bernard (with Anglet) to require of a son. The Cestac Father ensured publicly that its prayer would be exaucée.

Agronomist

Pressed by the need to nourish the accommodated young people with Notre-Dame of the Refuge and the Great Paradise , the Cestac Father initially seeks as well as possible to exploit the grounds it has. After the urgency, the prospect widens: while working with the rise of agriculture, the Cestac Father is aware to cooperate with the interests of the area. He makes of Notre-Dame of the Refuge a place of experimentation and innovation for a more promising agriculture.

Elected official chair agricultural Show of Bayonne in 1857, the founder of Notre-Dame of the Refuge is decorated in 1865 with the Légion with honor by Napoleon III, for his social action and agricultural.

The tomb of the Cestac Father is in Notre-Dame of the Refuge with Anglet.

Quotations

“My life did without in the middle of the poor and small. I like them and I feel all that one owes them of interest and of love…” (with the Prince President, the January 5th 1852)
“the seed which germinates of the day at the following day lasts only one a few day; that which seems to sleep of the years in the ground produces trees which cross centuries. ” (September 29th 1856)
“(the child) is as an invaluable plant which must one day bear large fruits, but that it is necessary to develop by a wise culture, intelligent and followed. ” (February 10th 1867)
With the sisters teachers : “In your classes, each one of these expensive small, sitting on your benches, contains a whole future and sometimes a great future. ” (February 10th 1867)
“You have in the sky a mother who loves you. Do you think of it? Do you like it? ”
“a father, a mother, brothers, sisters, the whole of a relationship which surrounds you, exert a secret influence but powerful, which touches at the bottom of the moral existence…” (April 20th 1847)
“God gave us a mother and entrusted all our interests to him. ”
“the discussions, when they are made with the excellent tone of urbanity and the regards that the various members will always have the ones for the others, are of a great utility, because it is shock of the opinions that often the light spouts out. ” (With a member of the agricultural meeting, April 12th 1857)
“Of all the bonds which retain the young graduates in the duty, strongest, most powerful, is those of the family. ” (April 20th 1847)

Gallery

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