Marc de la Nativité de la Vierge

Marc de la Nativité de la Vierge (9 January 1617 – 23 February 1696), born Jean Genest, was a French Carmelite friar and ascetical writer. A member of the Touraine Reform, he was closely associated with the reformed Carmelite programme of novice formation and was the principal redactor of the multi-volume Conduite spirituelle des novices, a directory for the formation of novices in the reformed houses of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.^[1]

Biography

Formation

Jean Genest was born on 9 January 1617 at Cuon, near Saumur, in the diocese of Angers. His parents, who were relatively prosperous, sent him and his brother at the age of eight to the Collège royal Henri-le-Grand at La Flèche, then conducted by the Jesuits. There he was attracted by the example of young Carmelites who were studying theology at the college.^[1]

At the age of fifteen Genest entered the novitiate of the reformed Carmelites at Rennes. He received the habit on 8 September 1631 and made profession on 8 February 1633 under the religious name Marc de la Nativité de la Vierge. He remained at the novitiate for a further three years. In his correspondence he described himself as a disciple of Bernard de Sainte-Magdeleine, and he was probably also formed by John of St. Samson, one of the principal spiritual figures of the Touraine Reform.^[1] Modern scholarship on Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus places Marc among the generation of disciples left by John of St. Samson, alongside Bernard de Sainte-Magdeleine, Dominique de Saint-Albert, and Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus.^[2]

In 1636 Marc spent several months at the Carmelite convent of the Place Maubert in Paris, where he participated in an unsuccessful attempt to introduce the reform. He then studied philosophy at Angers and theology at Rennes in 1638. In 1640 he defended theological theses in the presence of the Parliament of Brittany. His superiors directed him toward the formation of novices, and at the provincial chapter of Poitiers in 1647 he distinguished himself by defending a thesis on mystical theology.^[1]

Formator and offices

At the chapter of 1647 Marc was charged with preparing for publication the material gathered for the formation of novices, much of which had been associated with Bernard de Sainte-Magdeleine. He withdrew for two years to the Carmelite house at Aulnay to complete the work. Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus was assigned to assist him, although Maur's contribution is generally treated as secondary because he was sent to the province of Gascony in 1648.^[2] The first four volumes of the Conduite spirituelle des novices appeared in 1650 and 1651.^[1]

Marc subsequently held numerous offices within the reformed Carmelite provinces. He was prior at Tours in 1651, at Angers in 1655, and again at Tours in 1662. In the same year he also served as visitor general of the Carmelite provinces of Narbonne and Gascony. In 1665 he was appointed master of novices and commissary general at the chapter of the province of Touraine. In 1669 he was prior at Poitiers and represented the provincial at the general chapter of the Order. In 1672 he was appointed master of novices and definitor. In 1679 he again became master of novices and represented the provincial at the general chapter, a role he again fulfilled in 1681. In 1682 he was commissary general at the provincial chapter of Gascony. In 1684 he became prior at La Flèche and commissary general at the chapter of Touraine. In 1687 he was elected provincial. He later became prior in Paris, at the convent of Les Billettes, in 1690, and definitor in 1693.^[1]

Marc died at Tours on 23 February 1696. A few months after his death, his disciple Michel-Joseph de Saint-Marc published the Traité de la componction, which functioned as a fifth volume connected with the directory for novices.^[1]

Works

Marc de la Nativité's principal work is the Conduite spirituelle des novices, composed for the reformed convents of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The first volume, Préparation à la vie religieuse, contains conferences intended to form and purify the religious vocation, especially through mortification. The second, Instruction chrestienne, is a catechetical exposition of the mysteries and truths of the Catholic faith. A 1664 edition identifies it as the second treatise of the Conduite spirituelle des novices and names Marc de la Nativité de la Vierge as author.^[3]

The third volume, La vie regulière, corresponds to the statutes and regular observances of the Touraine Reform. In a modern Carmelite study of contemplation, Michael Plattig notes that Marc wrote in the foreword to this third volume that practices which might appear insignificant had been conscientiously applied in the reform for fifty years; Plattig uses the passage to illustrate the pragmatic and empirical character of the Touraine Reform, whose reformers tested, retained, modified, or dropped practices according to experience.^[4]

The fourth volume, Méthode claire et facile pour bien faire oraison mentale et pour s'exercer avec fruit en la présence de Dieu, treats mental prayer and the exercise of the presence of God. A 1658 edition, published in Paris by Siméon Piget, identifies the work as intended for the reformed convents of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and attributes it to Marc de la Nativité de la Vierge.^[5] The fifth volume, the Traité de la componction, was published at Tours in 1696 after Marc's death.^[1]

The Conduite spirituelle was not a work of a single authorial moment. The introduction to a modern edition of Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus describes it as combining the successive contributions of several Carmelite friars: Dominique de Saint-Albert, Bernard de Sainte-Magdeleine, Marc de la Nativité, and Maur de l'Enfant-Jésus. Marc, already known as a master of novices and as the defender of theses in mystical theology at the chapter of Poitiers, was charged with the redaction by the chapter of 1647 and spent two years on it in the solitude of Aulnay.^[2]

Marc also wrote works on religious privileges, conventual offices, the Carmelite Third Order, preparation for death, and the Office of the Virgin according to the ancient usage of the Carmelite Order.^[1]

Spirituality

Marc's writings are primarily ascetical and pedagogical. They were directed less toward speculative mystical theology than toward the formation of religious life, regular observance, mental prayer, and the ordering of the novice's interior and exterior conduct. Blommestijn characterizes his work as especially important for the formation of members of the Touraine Reform.^[1]

The influence of John of St. Samson is nevertheless visible in Marc's treatment of affective prayer. His method of mental prayer gives a central place to the movement of the will, while meditation, prepared by the memory and exercised through the understanding, is ordered toward affective union with God. His teaching on aspirative prayer and on the presence of God belongs to the characteristic devotional inheritance of the Touraine Reform, in which the practice of interior prayer was joined to common observance.^[1]

Plattig places the Touraine Reform within the wider Carmelite attempt to preserve a contemplative atmosphere while maintaining active apostolic commitments. In this setting Marc's directory reflects a reforming culture that did not simply invent new forms, but adapted inherited Carmelite practices to contemporary needs and tested them within communal life.^[4] The fourth volume of the directory, devoted to mental prayer and the presence of God, belongs to this effort to form novices in a stable practice of prayer rather than merely to regulate external discipline.^[5]