Marist Fathers
JEAN-CLAUDE COLIN
When Jean-Claude Colin's parents married in 1771, his father Jacques was 24 years old, and his mother Marie Gonnet was not yet 14. Jean-Claude, born on August 7, 1790 was their eighth child. All told, nine children were born into the family: Claudine, Jean Marlene, Sebastien, Jeanne-Marie, Pierre, Anne-Marie (who died at birth), Jean-Claude and Joseph. Jean-Claude's oldest sister Claudine was his godmother and his brother Jean was his godfather, hence the baby's name Jean-Claude. His parents owned and cultivated a piece of land, and during the winter turned to weaving. The home in which Jean-Claude was born was as secure and loving as any of the ordinary homes of Les Barberies where they lived, considering these were the cataclysmic times of the French Revolution. The Revolution and the subsequent Civil Constitution of the Clergy brought a split into the Church, separating priests who supported the Constitution from these who remained faithful to Rome. An order of arrest was issued against Jacques Colin who had openly supported the parish priest, Father Cabuchet. Jacques had to hide for a year: his house was boarded up and all his goods were sold. Both he and his wife suffered through this, and in 1795 Marie Colin died, aged 37. Jacques Colin died not quite three weeks later, leaving the children orphaned.
Jean-Claude was put under the care of a paternal uncle, Sebastian, who lived at St.Bonnet-le-Troncy. Sebastian was a bachelor who employed a housekeeper, Marie Echallier, to look after the children of the Colin household. This lady was a deeply religious woman, but one of those for whom religion and guilt seemed to go hand in hand. In these years Jean-Claude developed a scrupulosity which gave him much trouble, but which was in later life to make him sensitive and merciful to burdened people. His early experiences left him with an intense longing for a life of solitude and a desire to serve God alone. Since he could see no way of doing this while being caught up in the world, he decided to satisfy his desire for solitude by studying for the priesthood. It was in the major seminary of St. Irenee in Lyon that he came into contact with Courveille and the Marist project. Jean-Claude's life is the story of a man touched by God in a remarkable way: a man whose temperament and personality, transformed by grace enabled him to find a particularly effective response to the deep spiritual needs of his time.