Jacques-Désiré Laval

Jacques Desiré Laval ( born September 18, 1803 in Croth, Normandy, † September 9, 1864 in Port Louis) was a French missionary and member of the Order of the Holy Ghost ( CSSp. ). On Sunday, April 29, 1979 was his beatification, the first that was made by the newly elected Pope John Paul II.

Life

Jacques Laval holds a degree in medicine with an outstanding doctoral examination at the Old Sorbonne in Paris. At 28, he took over in Saint -André near Evreux in Normandy, the practice of a country doctor. However, in the long run no longer satisfied him work as a doctor. He was in a way, in addition to his existence as a country doctor, a young man about town, a sporty rider, but was looking for a meaning to his life. So he finally met in Paris on Father Libermann, son of an Alsatian rabbi, and, his recently founded " community from the heart of Mary ", which was later united with the " Congregation of the Holy Spirit" ( Holy Ghost ).

The first missionaries of this society, the young priest went after studying theology and a novitiate in Paris in 1841 to Mauritius, the sugar cane island in the Indian Ocean. In the year 1839 70.000 slaves had become free in Mauritius. Among them Laval won his staff, he was training to catechists to keep them on the island Liturgies of the Word and let Providing soul. He sat up next to the Cathedral of Port Louis in a shack made ​​of waste boards a.

When he was passed after his death to the grave, accompanied him to the 40,000 people of all religions as a sign of appreciation.

Beatification

By the death of Pope Paul VI. (6 August 1978) and soon after, by Pope John Paul I (September 29, 1978) had to be postponed beatification in 1979. With his beatification in 1979, Father Laval for the first blessed the Spiritan Order, before its founder Franz Mary Paul Libermann.