Fr. Henri-François de Paule Tempier

He had barely been edifying the city of Arles for a year when the mysterious voice of Providence called him to a new vocation. Father Tempier possessed the essential condition required by God for the accomplishment of great things: a profound sense of self-distrust, a sincere humility. This is the touchstone of divine vocations. Here is the judgment he passed on his own aptitudes: "It is true that I do not recognize in myself the talent for speech necessary for a missionary, but alius sic, alius autem sic. What I will not do in great discourses, I will do in catechisms, in conferences, in the tribunal of Penance, and by all other means that can establish the reign of Jesus Christ in souls. I find nothing base or painful in that." He added: "You want priests who do not follow routine, who are disposed to walk in the footsteps of the Apostles, to work for the salvation of souls without expecting any other rewards on earth than many pains and fatigues. By the grace of God, I feel this desire within me, or, if I do not have it, I greatly desire to have it, and with you everything will become even easier for me."

On December 27, 1815, he went to Aix and placed himself at the disposal of Father de Mazenod. On January 25, 1816, the first members of the congregation of the Missionaries of Provence, who l'abbé de Mazenod Founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Bishop of Marseille. m the Church, through the infallible organ of its Pontiff, was to decorate ten years later with the beautiful name of Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, found themselves gathered in the sam e premises. Father de Mazenod was elect Missionnaires oblats de Marie immaculée Missionary religious congregation founded in Aix-en-Provence. ed superior by unanimous consent. But this great soul was devoured by the zeal to acquire great virtues. Among his companions, he chose the one in whom he had discovered another himself, and he formed the plan to make a vow of obedience to him.

On April 11, 1816, the mission chapel presented a touching spectacle: it was Holy Thursday. All the riches of the poor house had been used to adorn and decorate the chapel and the repository of the divine Eucharist. The influx of the faithful was considerable. In the morning, after the solemn office, two priests slipped cautiously under the steps of the repository, knelt in the shadow of the adorable Victim who was obedient unto death, and pronounced one after the other a formula containing the vow of obedience they were making to each other. It was not a vain ceremony: on both sides, it was a great act, one of those acts that influence destinies.

An opportunity soon arose for Father Tempier to exercise the functions of his hidden superiority. Father de Mazenod, carried away by his zeal, fell ill at the beginning of a mission; vomiting of blood put his life in danger: the missionary did not stop. Warned in time, Fr. Tempier sent a letter by which he forbade Fr. de Mazenod from preaching and hearing confessions. Fr. de Mazenod obeyed with the docility of a child. However, Fr. Tempier himself took part in several missions. He had practiced this type of ministry during his vicariate in Arles. One often heard him say that, not having had the necessary time to prepare a complete course of instructions, he drew inspiration from the Thoughts of Father Humbert before ascending the pulpit. God rewarded several times the efforts of the humble apostle to whom He had granted the gift of counsel more abundantly than the gift of speech. Thus, Fr. Tempier soon abandoned the field where new battles were fought every day. His place was at the domestic hearth. On Monday, October 24, 1818, the first general assembly of the missionaries took place. It consisted of nine members. Fr. Tempier was elected second assistant general. On November 4, 1818, the feast of All Saints, the solemn profession of vows was carried out as determined by the meeting of October 24: chastity, obedience, perseverance. Fr. Tempier was the second to pronounce the formula: his perpetual oblation dates from this day.

The young family received precious blessings on this day. Bishop Miollis, Bishop of Digne, under whose episcopal jurisdiction the diocese of Gap was included, desiring to restore the primitive glor y of the pilgrimag Notre-Dame du Laus Marian sanctuary and site of the first foundation outside of Aix. e of Notre-Dame du Laus, wished to entrust it to a religious community. He asked the Rev. Fr. de Mazenod for some of his missionaries. His request being received as a manifestation of the will of God, the foundation of Le Laus was accepted, and Fr. Tempier was established as superior of the new house. He exercised this function there for five years, from the year 1819 to the year 1823. In 1824, the second general chapter was held in Aix, in which, by unanimous consent, it was decided that the vow of poverty would be added to the three vows already admitted by the missionaries. Fr. Tempier took a decisive part in the deliberation, and he was one of the first to submit to a prescription he had called for with all his desires. In this same chapter, he was re-elected assistant general.

Let us quickly sketch an outline of the superiorship of the Rev. Fr. Tempier at Notre-Dame du Laus. The material ruins first attracted the attention of the new superior. With that keen eye that grasps proportions and proprieties, he had soon determined the repairs to be made and the constructions to be erected. Everything was done in the spirit of holy poverty. Later, it was given to Fr. Tempier's successors to complete his work: a bell tower was built next to the restored church. The moral ruins were greater than the material ruins. They also had their restoration. Fr. Tempier organized the work of the missions and made admirable use of the apostolic workers he had under his guidance. He did not abandon the sanctuary where conversions were very often completed, but he directed everything through his letters and exhortations.

Near the sanctuary, he supported a work that provided very sweet consolations. It was at Le Laus that the first juniorate, the first scholasticate of the Congregation, was established. A happy thought, to offer a sanctuary of Mary as a cradle for the hope of a religious family! Fr. Tempier himself fulfilled the duties of professor: he counted among his students the oldest Fathers of the Congregation. Inside the house, he gave the example of all virtues. Always the first at prayer, he was the last to retire to rest. He pushed mortification, amidst the frosts of the Alps, to the point of depriving himself of the fire that the intensity of the cold makes indispensable. But what he refused himself, he granted to others, and a mother would not have had more tenderness than he lavished on the young men entrusted to his care. Under an austere exterior, he hid inexhaustible resources of heart. Those who lived in his intimacy know that in devotion and kindness, he yielded to no one.

The superiorship of Notre-Dame du Laus had highlighted Fr. Tempier's administrative and religious aptitudes. Providence used it as a new novitiate to prepare him to fulfill a more august and fruitful mission. The humble religious was to leave the obscurity of the convent to appear on a vaster stage. Ecclesiastical honors were imposed upon him, and he would bear their burden with the same serenity, with the same devotion. In 1823, Bishop Charles-Fortuné de Mazenod, having been called to the episcopal see of Marseille, called his nephew, Fr. de Mazenod, and his nephew's friend, Fr. Tempier, to his side, and granted them letters of vicars general. Fr. Tempier accepted only by virtue of the order given to him, and it was he who came in the name of the venerated prelate to take possession of the see of Marseille on July 15, 1823.

With the title of vicar general, he soon received that of superior of the major seminary of Marseille, and when, in 1837, Bishop Eugène de Mazenod, succeeding his uncle, left the provostship of the chapter vacant, Father Tempier was invested with it as well; he thus found himself elevated to the second position in the diocese of Marseille. These dignities and honors had no other charms for him than to enable him to produce greater good. Under the two bishops who had placed all their trust in him, he was the wise counselor and the energetic and devoted executor of all their inspirations, and these inspirations had no other goal than the glory of God and the sanctification of souls. He had under his own personal responsibility works which, by themselves, would suffice to illustrate a life. Let us briefly enumerate the construction of the major seminary of Marseille and the direction of this establishment which he kept for twenty-six years, the improvements successively introduced in the minor seminary, completed by the foundation of the branches of the little Sacred Heart, the reconstruction of most of the monasteries inhabited by the Carmelites, the Capuchins, the Poor Clares, the religious of the Refuge; the churches of Saint-Lazare and Saint-Joseph completed, the churches of Saint-Michel and Saint-Jean-Baptiste prepared.

As superior of the major seminary, he restored the honor of ecclesiastical studies, formed a model clergy, and thus realized all the fruits that the Church expects from the institution of seminaries. He made it a point of conscience to open the seminary term himself each year and to attend the examinations that allowed him to appreciate the aptitudes and progress of each student. He set the example in everything, and his outward austerity, necessary for maintaining discipline, did not prevent, for both professors and students, the sweet communications of fatherhood. Inexorable regarding infractions of the Rule, voluntary negligence, and calculated laziness, he became compassionate and tender regarding the infirmities and weaknesses of youth, the sufferings of illness, and the trials of vocation.

He had the discernment of souls. His theology was sound, moderate, and always supported by the Roman doctrines that he defended energetically. Saint Liguori was his favorite author. He delighted in the great theologians, and if his incessant o ccupations di Saint Liguori Doctor of the Church, a favorite author of Tempier. d not allow him to read their pages, he recommended them to the students. He rejected innovations in doctrine and speech, condemned neologisms, and constantly invited preachers to nourish themselves on Bossuet and the great orators of the century of Louis XIV.

God alone knows the good he accomplished in the direction of the major seminary, in the confession of the priests who had given him their trust, and in the care he lavished on the religious communities placed under his jurisdiction. In the council of the bishops, in the resolution of affairs, he was always recognized for his practical, just, and moderate perspective. One could not be mistaken about the sincerity and purity of his intentions. Duty found him inflexible, circumstances always conciliatory. And when he was obliged to be severe, one recognized above his authority the authority of conscience to which he obeyed. Various judgments have been formulated against him; when it was necessary to give solid bases to malicious assessments, one could only find the recriminations of the punished culprit or the despised jealous person. And yet Father Tempier, due to his high position, had to deal with the most delicate interests, and this with people belonging to all classes of society. In 1828, during the ordinances of Charles X; in 1831, during the riots of the Midi; in 1835, during the cholera invasion; in 1848, during the establishment of the Republic, he always maintained the calm of the perfect man, the intrepidity of the Christian conscience, the heroic devotion that the priest according to the heart of God draws from the lights of faith and the aspirations of piety. He did not fear to expose himself to the injustices of opinion, to brave popular passions. A friend of order and religion, he courageously claimed their imprescriptible rights.

Father Tempier was pious, with that solid, deep piety that captivates the soul and brings it into immediate contact with God. He had a taste for holy things. The hours of prayer did not seem too long to him. He loved the great ceremonies of the Church and engaged in them with happiness. It was a strong piety nourished by sacrifices; a piety full of discernment, giving charity and duty the first place over even the most permissible enjoyments.

The zeal and devotion he placed at the disposal of the diocese of Marseille took nothing away from his love for his religious family. Always indissolubly united to the founder of his Congregation, he constantly seconded him with the most complete self-abnegation in the dual government for which he was responsible. Thus, it is upon him that the venerated founder seems to unload all material cares. He found in him the man of the interior; it is to him that he entrusted the administration of the aid that Providence placed at the disposal of the small community. Father Tempier exercised these functions of treasurer of Providence and procurator of the Congregation throughout his life. No one can tell of the solicitudes, the anxieties, and the sufferings they occasioned; for he rarely consoled his heart by communicating his trials. Joy, he made common; pain, he reserved for himself.

Father Tempier always belonged to the superior administration of the Congregation. In 1824, the general chapter confirmed him in his office of general assistant. In 1826, he attended the chapter convened on July 10 of that year to receive communication of the apostolic letters by which Leo XII approved and confirmed the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It was a beau tiful da Léon XII Pope who proceeded with the beatification of Julian. y. Father Tempier pronounced the new formula of vows immediately after the founder. All the other general chapters maintained him in the office of general assistant, and until the death of the founder, he fulfilled the role of monitor alongside him. Never has a man pushed the respect for secrecy and the practice of discretion so far in the exercise of the offices with which he was invested. He was a second father to the Congregation. He remained a stranger to none of the great works that concerned its existence, developed its resources and its destinies, and placed it in the rank it occupies today.

Very often he paid with his own person by fulfilling missions of the highest importance. Three times he went to Rome to treat with the Sovereign Pontiff on vital questions for his dear family. He even made a prolonged stay there in 1832. But in the heart of the Eternal City, enjoying full and complete independence, he remembered only the mission that obedience had entrusted to him; he refused himself joys that we would consider quite legitimate, and the austere religious returned to France without having visited the sanctuary of Our Lady of Loreto; he did not have permission for it.

He was personally involved in the foundations of Notre-Dame de l'Osier, Notre-Dame de Lumières, in Nancy, and Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours in Paris. He had a true predilection for Notre-Dame de Lumières. He was happy to see the juniorate flourish there, to which he lavished the care of a paternal solicitude. The temporary suspension of this first juniorate caused him excessive pain. Very often he recalled the attention of the Superior General to the project of its restoration and, to support his arguments, he had drawn up a list of the Fathers formed in the shadow of Mary's sanctuary who had rendered great services to the Congregation. He hailed as a beautiful day the one that brought a new generation of juniorists back to Notre-Dame de Lumières, and among the memories of his last trip to the Midi in 1869, he placed at the top of the list those he gathered at the juniorate. Not everything in this venerated sanctuary belongs to him; skillful hands restored and adorned the crypt, embellished the church, and renewed the house; but he favored the initial constructions, laid out the vast paths, and covered the hillside with the pines that crown it and give the appearance of life where desolation once reigned.

Foundations were not the only things that tested Father Tempier's devotion. In 1851, at the age of sixty-three, he accepted the position of visitor to the province of Canada. Cross ing th Canada Mission site visited by Tempier in 1851. e Ocean, playing with storms—nothing stopped or tired the courageous old man. Travel was a relaxation for this iron temperament. He sailed several times on the Mediterranean; he went to Italy, Corsica, and Algeria; he never felt the effects of these fatigues. He maintained the vigor and strength of his constitution through the most admirable sobriety and temperance. Food was the last of his concerns. He practiced perfectly what the duty of his office enabled him to remind others of.

The series of foundations and Missions entrusted to Father Tempier ends with that of Montolivet. It is the work of his old age; he had considered it as the place of his rest. Montolivet Oblate scholasticate in Marseille founded by Tempier. In the month of October 1854, when he took possession of the new house with the scholastics, it was far from offering the bare necessities. But with time and devotion, Montolivet realized for several years the ideal dreamed of by Father Tempier. It was the scholasticate of the Congregation living its own life, enjoying the sweet communications of the father of the family and the elders, often transforming itself into a cenacle where the new apostles, called to the conquest of the most distant and abandoned peoples, gathered and departed. The old man was smiling in the midst of those he tenderly called his sons. He compared himself to the mountain oak that sees numerous and vigorous shoots germinate at its feet, and he blessed God that the mustard seed had become the gigantic tree where the birds of the air found shelter. It was at Montolivet that the general chapter of 1856 was held, famous among all others for two remarkable events accomplished during its duration: the consecration of the chapel of Montolivet and the episcopal consecration of Mgr Semeria. Father Tempier, in his capacity as superior of the house, had to provide for all the measures necessitated by the presence of the members of the chapter, elected in accordance with the prescriptions of the Rules that the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX had approved in 1851. Father Tempier had taken a large part in the 1850 chapter in the important work that ma de thi Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. s assembly forever memorable, for it voted for the additions necessitated by the diffusion of the family and admitted the division of the Congregation into provinces and vicariates. The chapter of 1856 confirmed the wisdom of these transformations, which gave the final touch to the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Father Tempier exercised the functions of local superior at the general house in Paris from the year 1865 to the year 1867. His jurisdiction also extended to the residence of Royaumont, to which he devoted diligent care. He met all the requirements of his multiple duties. He was seen, as always, at the head of his community, giving it the example of regularity, attendance at exercises, and the most scrupulous exactitude.

Despite his incessant occupations, most of which were of a purely administrative order, he had formed some spiritual relationships that allowed for the appreciation of several qualities of his heart. He was the venerated guide of elite souls who, until the very last moment, maintained the most respectful affection for him. Beneath an austere, cold, almost insensitive exterior, Father Tempier's southern nature hid a heart of gold, capable of all the heroics of charity.

However, each winter brought back for Father Tempier the infirmities inherent to his advanced age. His chest felt more or less the shocks inflicted upon such a delicate organ. The winter of 1868 to 1869 had notably weakened the vigorous old man, who was already more than eighty years old. His prolonged stay in the South had no other goal than to bring about a complete recovery. Providence disposed otherwise. With the first cold spells, he was struck by a broncho-catarrhal fever that soon led him to the edge of the grave. His precious death occurred on April 8, 1870. His body was vested in priestly ornaments and exposed in his cell. The funeral took place on April 11, in the presence of a numerous attendance, composed of ecclesiastics, religious, nuns, and pious faithful. The office finished, the procession headed toward the Montmartre cemetery, where the body was placed in a vault of the Sisters of Hope.

We have extracted this biography from a Circular of the Rev. Fr. Fabre, Superior General of the Oblates of M ary Immacul R. P. Fabre Successor to Mazenod as Superior General of the Oblates. ate.