It is not the case to discuss all the aspects of Father Nicholas von Diessbach’s gigantic plan of the apostolate, especially since the French Revolution prevented its full development. Thus, it is better to look at the promotion of the Amicizia Cristiana (Christian Friendship) association, which was the center of all his other planned works. He actually established this work in several European countries, especially Italy. The organization developed and flourished there, thanks primarily to Father Pio Brunone Lanteri’s work. He dedicated himself to it with all his body and soul.
To better understand the apostolate of this Servant of God, we will examine Amicizia’s structure and operations. However, that requires first explaining another organization to which Father Lanteri belonged. This group seems to have served as a model to Father von Diessbach when conceiving Amicizia. It is the important but little-known and mysterious “Aa,” founded in the seventeenth century. It profoundly influenced important movements of religious renewal over the following centuries.
“Aa” was made up of small groups. Its members desired to attain a higher degree of perfection. They gathered to practice virtue and progress in the spiritual life through mutual emulation.
Admittance required each group member to have a special devotion to Our Lady and receive communion frequently. The by-laws required attendance at a weekly piety meeting and another monthly meeting to study the association’s problems. Each group constituted an autonomous “Aa,” fully free to choose the acts of piety to perform in common, except for a few prescribed to all. However, the Aas were hierarchical. Each depended on the chapter that founded it and had to maintain relations with it.
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A commissary was placed in charge of watching over the good spirit and presiding over the meetings of each local group. This structure ensured a minimum of organization. A secretary kept up an intense correspondence with other groups, as each had to communicate its progress to the others. Reading these letters at meetings kept everyone abreast of what was happening in the entire movement. The letters also stimulated the practice of virtue, relating spiritual advice and reporting many members’ edifying experiences. These letters were often called “billets de bien” (tickets about the good).
This description falls short of showing the strong bonds that united the various groups with one another. They displayed a unity of thought and orientation that produced vigorous joint action. This unity also ensured that many such groups survived until the mid-nineteenth century.
A little history helps to understand “Aa” better.
“Aa” was created in France during the seventeenth century. The French nation was beset by impiety and would soon be further corrupted by Jansenism. Consequently, its founders required strict secrecy from its members. This practice avoided criticism and intrusion that might divert the group from its purpose. Secrecy also protected members from the public mockery and persecution often directed toward anyone seriously dedicated to a life of piety and faithful to orthodoxy. Then, as now, the world was intolerant of what was then called the ‘devotee spirit’ and waged against it a pertinacious and unrelenting campaign. At the same time, this strictly observed secrecy prevents historians from studying the organization. Only a chance discovery of its archives allowed serious research, gradually unraveling Aa’s history.
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Even the organization’s real name is unknown. When referring to it, its members refer to it only as “Aa.” The significance of the acronym has so far resisted the shrewdness of researchers, and none of their proposed interpretations is convincing. As for the association’s origins, studies by Ferdinando Cavallera, SJ (1875-1954) provided a better understanding of the circumstances of its founding.
Aa began in the Marian Sodalities, whose members often met secretly to practice certain acts of piety and lead a more fervent spiritual life. Marian Sodality directors encouraged such meetings, especially when the group’s piety and zeal waned. This attitude often led to secret associations to restore fervor and reestablish the Marian spirit. Some associations even became governing bodies of the Sodalities. Some became well-known. Centers called Ristretti di fervore, Colloquia mariana, etc., organized according to their local environment, depending essentially on a director. There was no uniform rule for the formation of these groups.
In 1632, six Marian sodality members from the Jesuit college at La Flèche, a small town in France, were moved by a desire for greater sanctification. They sought out the college’s director, Father Jean Bagot, informing him of their resolution to meet in secret to practice sodality rules more fully and serve the Blessed Virgin. Bagot carefully examined the project. With these young men, Father Bagot formed a Colloquium marianum (Marian Colloquium ). In turn, this became the germ of the powerful Aa movement. However, this first attempt was short-lived. For unknown reasons likely related to Father Bagot’s transfer to Rome, the Colloquium was dissolved, and its members could no longer meet.
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In 1643, one of the six sodality members of the La Flèche school went to study in Paris at the Jesuit Clermont school. He told the sodality director about La Flèche’s experiment and asked permission to try it under his supervision. The director consented, and numerous pious students welcomed the initiative. The group consolidated in 1646. Returning from Rome, Father Bagot was named prefect of the school and took over its direction.
This first group contained many outstanding people who later distinguished themselves in the service of the Church. Among them was the Most Rev. Montmorency Laval, the first bishop of Quebec. Another was Most Rev. François Palio, Bishop of Heliopolis and one of the first two Vicars Apostolic in China, to whom the missions in the East owe much. A third member was Father Henri-Marie Boudon, whose books on spirituality were in great vogue in the seventeenth century. In fact, Father Boudon’s work was a forerunner of Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary. Also in the group was Father Vincent de Meur, one of the founders and first superior of Paris’ Foreign Missions Society. Once ordained, these men maintained their connections with Aa. They continued working for it, clarified its aims, established similar centers in other Marian Sodalities, and gave them a shared spirit to unite them under the guidance of the Sodalities’s officers in Paris.
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These prelates and priests gave Aa its image, and it spread to various cities. However, Father Vincent de Meur was the primary architect of this work and expansion. He adroitly led the apostolate, oriented its common aspirations, devised its structure and expanded the organization. During his travels, he established new nuclei in the cities he passed through and guided their early steps from Paris. His boundless dedication consolidated the work, and many consider him the true founder of Aa.
The group he founded in Toulouse deserves special mention. When the Parisian Aa declined, endangering the association’s survival, Toulouse assumed leadership and prevented the catastrophe.
By this time, Lyon’s Aa had published the association’s rules in a volume titled Portable Director. It circulated among members of the various groups. This publication enabled Toulouse to preserve the spirit imprinted by the Clermont nucleus. While widespread, the Portable Director was not the only publication of the rules. Among others, there was also the Trattato dell’Aa degli studenti in teologia sotto la protezione di Gesù, di Maria, di S. Gluseppe e dei Santi Angeli Custodi (“Aa Treatise for Theology Students Under the Protection of Jesus, Mary, Saint Joseph, and the Holy Angels”). Rev. Fr. Candido Bona’s book transcribes this volume in its entirety. The original is housed in the archives of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, a religious congregation founded by Venerable Pio Brunone Lanteri. We will often use this document to describe the association.
Whether at La Flèche, in Paris, or in the cities where the first Aas were created, members were recruited from among sodality members preparing for the priesthood. The association later extended its benefits to the laity by creating an Aa specific for them. However, the ecclesiastical Aa became notable and spread throughout France and several other countries.
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