Preaching
In January 1834, at the encouragement of the young Frédéric Ozanam, the founder the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (a charitable organization,) Father Lacordaire started a series of lectures at the Collège Stanislas. This met with great success, even beyond his students. However, his thematic emphasis on freedom provoked his critics, who charged him with perverting the youth. The lectures were therefore suspended.
However, Monseigneur de Quélen, the Archbishop of Paris, confirmed his support for Lacordaire, and asked him to preach a Lenten series in 1835 at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, as part of the Notre-Dame Lectures specially aimed at the catechesis of Christian youth, which had also been inaugurated at the behest of his friend Ozanam. Lacordaire’s first lecture took place on the 8 March 1835, and was met with wide acclaim. Because of this immediate success, he was asked to preach again the following year. Today the Lacordaire Notre-Dame Lectures, which mixed theology, philosophy and poetry, are still acclaimed as a sublime modern re-invigoration of traditional homiletics.
But in 1836 after such considerable success, he was still the object of mounting attacks on his theological stance. Suddenly his mother died. Lacordaire, aware of the need to continue his theological studies and reinforce his hierarchical alliances, retreated to Rome to study with the Jesuits. There, he published his "Letter on the Holy See" in which he reaffirmed with vigor his ultramontane positions, insisting on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, “the one and permanent trustee, supreme organ of the Gospel, and the sacred source of the universal communion.” This text ran afoul of Monseigneur l'Evêque Quélen, who was a sincere Gallican.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
Famous quotes containing the word preaching:
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—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)