Today March 10

Today is the feast of Father John Joseph Lataste (1832 - 1869), Dominican, founder of the Dominican Sisters of Bethany for former women prisoners. It took a long, roundabout way for Father John Joseph (born Alcide) Lataste to become this patron of female prisoners. A seminary dropout, he was a worldly young man, light-hearted and ordinary. He got a good job with the civil service and fell in love with and got engaged to a young woman named Cecile. His parents, far from what most parents we have read about in these pages, actually wanted him to be a priest and pulled strings to have him transferred, hoping the romance would die a natural death. (Of course, a lot of it had to do with the fact that Cecile was poor and low-class, though of the highest reputation.) Alcide was devastated, but was obedient, and said a secret prayer that a sign be given him if his old intention to be a priest was in fact God's will. Well, be careful what you wish for! Not long after, his fiancee died! Not only that, but his mother and foster mother (he'd been raised in the South of France by this woman for the first four years of his life for the sake of his health) died also, all within the space of a month. He took it as a sign that no human person on earth could truly make him happy, but God alone.

He joined the Dominican order in 1857. He suffered a crushed finger and a bone malady soon after entering the order and spent a lot of time in the infirmary, praying. A relic of St. Mary Magdalen was taken to the basilica at St. Maximin, where he was, and he developed great devotion to this woman of love. He conducted retreats at the local prison in Cadillac and entrusted the women with these two thoughts:
1) What God wants more than all else is to be loved; and,
2) God does not ask us what we were; He is only interested in what we are today.
Some of the women were so moved by this, they desired to commit their lives to God in a special way once they got out, but there was no order that would take them. Father Lataste, under the mistaken idea that St. Mary Magdalen was Mary of Bethany and that she was a "reformed sinner," had the noble idea of founding this new order himself under the name "Sisters of Bethany." A radical idea, this plan of his was met with scorn and distaste -- some thought him mentally ill -- but Father fought for it and lived to see it brought to fruition. With the help of a platonic female friend, Sister Henry Dominic, he formed the order with the newly-freed inmates, who devoted their lives to contemplation and prison ministry. Now there are a number of houses, and are not made up exclusively of former prisoners, but women from all walks of life.

Father John Joseph Lataste, pray for us.