We are gathered together because we belong to one or other of the three groups of Salvatorians: the Society, the Congregation or the Lay Salvatorians. These three Societies were founded by Father Jordan and share his vision, mission and spirituality. Because of historical circumstances the Lay Salvatorians have been revived only in recent years but they are actually the fastest growing of the three groups and have been making great progress particularly in Europe and the Americas.

The Lay Salvatorians may be few in numbers here in Britain but, as the story of Father Jordan will tell you, numbers are not everything. What matters is that you share Father Jordan’s vision and have a real zeal to spread the Gospel.

As members of one or other of Jordan’s foundations we have a serious obligation to know about him and in a certain sense each of us ought to be experts in his particular spirituality. This involves work; it means knowing his story, it means being familiar with his Spiritual Diary, it means being aware of the breadth of his vision and the full extent of his ideas and how they are being implemented today in the various parts of the world.

What we are dealing with in Father Jordan is a man with truly universal ideas and in order to appreciate him we have to step outside of our own small world and develop our own worldwide vision.

Jordan came from a fairly small village in the Black Forest; it was a very poor, rather parochial and inward looking community and yet from out of these obscure origins comes a person with an extraordinary universal and all-encompassing vision. Despite the many disadvantages of his background including extreme poverty and the consequent delayed schooling he managed to acquire a truly universal outlook.

This universality took concrete form in his facility for languages; it is said that Jordan had a working knowledge of more than forty languages. We have his exercise books in the Motherhouse with translations of the Gospel he made in languages as diverse as Arabic and Mandarin Chinese.

It also took form in the fact that his foundation in his own lifetime spread into numerous countries and grew in size to over five hundred men and women.

The reason he came to this extraordinary position was because at a specific point in time he made the decision to open himself entirely to God and to embrace God’s plan of salvation for the world.

It is hard for us to pin down exactly when this religious experience took place. It is most likely to have been at his First Communion when he is reported to have had a kind of vision of a dove fluttering around him, but then again this could have been confirmation of something that had taken place earlier. We do not know exactly when, but take place it certainly did.

This is a man who when he was just a boy had already committed himself wholeheartedly to Christ. He did this not in any passive way but actively wanting to bring others to a greater knowledge and love of God. In the beginning he devoted himself to his studies so that he could attain the priesthood to which he was convinced God was calling him.

Then as the plans unfolded in his mind he was able to gather other like-minded people to join him in this new and bold enterprise.

And it is these plans which are at the heart of his spirituality. They took shape only gradually and they began with one idea which was that he wanted to do something great for God. This desire to do something great for God was a reflection of the tremendous zeal and energy that the Holy Spirit had untapped within him.

He wanted to do something great for God but at first he was not exactly sure what, so he did the right thing and let God reveal to him what he must do. The circumstances of his life and the travels he made through Germany as a journey-man decorator and gilder let him see the effects of the Napoleonic secularisation and the more immediate consequences of the industrial revolution.

He realised that a completely new evangelisation was necessary; that the old methods weren’t adequate and that the limitations placed by the State on the clergy meant that the people did not have access to the means they needed to sustain their faith. Although the cities had suddenly enlarged the Church was prevented from opening new parishes or starting social apostolates among the people. This meant that to meet the spiritual needs of the people individual lay men and women were having to play a much more important role in the life of the Church as catechists and teachers. Jordan realised that these lay people needed to deepen their faith and to receive the necessary back-up in order to be effective in their mission of evangelisation.

Besides his travels around Germany Jordan also attended the Katholikentage which were huge national congresses organised by the German laity to discuss the problems of the Church and the challenges presented by modern society. These so-called Catholic Days continue to be held every year even now in Germany. By attending them Jordan became aware of the importance of the Catholic press and indeed he was so enthusiastic about the power of the press that for a short time Jordan even became a correspondent for a Catholic newspaper in French-speaking Switzerland.

After completing his studies in Constance and Freiburg Jordan was able to be ordained as a diocesan priest but because the government restrictions meant that there was no position available in his own diocese his Bishop sent him to Rome to study oriental languages. Jordan had already visited Rome and was deeply impressed by his visits to St Peter’s and especially to the catacombs. It was on this first visit that he resolved to base his work in Rome, the centre of the Catholic world.

During his studies while he resided at the Campo Santo in the very shadow of St Peter’s Jordan was able to develop his ideas further. He realised that there were very many people who were taking individual initiatives to meet the challenges of the age. He corresponded with Don Bosco (SDB) and Arnold Jansens (SVD) and came into contact with many other groups. But he felt that there was a need for a kind of overarching organisation which could coordinate all these other groups and so he began to develop ideas of a Society with three grades: a first grade with priests, brothers and sisters in vows; a second grade of academics; and a third grade of diocesan priests and committed lay people.

It was during the journey he made to the Holy Land in 1880, and as a result of the encouragement of the many missionary Bishops that he met there, that these ideas became clearer. On his return from the Holy Land he began immediately to implement his plans. Of course, things did not go smoothly and the founders of the various other societies did not always take kindly to Jordan’s idea that they should come together under the auspices of this new Society which had not yet even been founded and so this aspect of his plan did not come to fruition.

But nevertheless he found followers and the most significant of these was, of course, Father Bonaventura Lüthen who became Jordan’s right-hand-man and who served him so faithfully for the rest of his life.

The press was to be the cornerstone of Jordan’s Society and he lost no time in getting things up and running. His confessor, a famous Franciscan, got him a printing press and soon a whole list of periodicals were being printed; most famously Der Missionär, Manna for Children, Il Monitore Romano and later on the Apostle Kalendar.

He began a series of journeys especially in the German speaking countries setting up little groups of what we would call today Lay Salvatorians and kept in touch with them by means of his publications. He met academics and enrolled them in the Second Degree and found benefactors and other collaborators. In all this tireless activity he was supported by Lüthen who was the backbone of the publishing department.

Things didn’t work out as Jordan at first envisaged but he was always ready to be guided by the Holy Spirit and took direction from the signs of the times and the wishes of the Church authorities. For example the diocesan clergy did not have the same zeal as Jordan himself and did not join his Society in the numbers that were necessary to make it a success in the manner he first envisaged. He had thought of cells with a group of committed laity led by their parish priest. Although this did not take-off in the way he had hoped Jordan was overwhelmed with young men coming to join the Society from the German speaking countries and also from Italy and he had to concentrate his energy on preparing them for religious life and dealing with the consequent financial problems. At one point there were over a hundred students living in the Motherhouse in extremely poor conditions. Although he had no visible means of support Jordan knew he could rely on Divine Providence and one way or another money was found and all kinds of benefactors came to the rescue.

Jordan also made several attempts at starting a group of Sisters and suffered a lot of grief in the process. The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, who were started with Sister Streitl as their superior, were effectively hijacked out from under him by an ambitious Monsignor. However, he made a new and much more successful start with Mother Mary of the Apostles who was completely in line with Jordan’s own thinking.

Once the Society and the Congregation of Sisters were established Jordan turned his attention to making new foundations in the various countries. After all, the whole idea of being in Rome was to radiate the Society out from there to all corners of the globe. His idea was not to evangelise Germany, but the whole world!

The first challenge came as early as 1889 when we were asked to take responsibility for Assam in India. The gifted Father Otto Hopfenmüller led the new mission but he and one of the two brothers were dead within nine months. The remaining priest, a very young Father Angelus Münzloher, had to take over as superior. But other priests, brothers and sisters soon followed and they did remarkable pioneering work in that area until the British expelled them in 1918 as a consequence of the First World War.

Foundations were made in other countries but these frequently faced difficulties, one example of this is the foundation made in Ecuador where the fathers and sisters had to flee from anti-clerical revolutionaries who literally chased them out of the country. The missionaries were making their way back to Rome and stopped in Cartegena in Colombia on the way in order to wait for a ship back to Europe and the Bishop there persuaded them to stay and open a mission in his diocese.

Although prevented by the anti-clerical laws from making any foundations in Germany during his lifetime Jordan managed to make foundations in India, Colombia, Austria, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, USA, Moravia, Romania and England as well as several houses in Italy.

It is important for us to be familiar with the history of the Salvatorians because through it we can see how Father Jordan was inspired and guided by God, we see how much was achieved through his dedication to God and his openness to the Spirit.

Many other religious orders are experiencing crises today because the secular world has taken responsibility for the activities which were previously essential to their identity e.g. teaching or nursing. Others have lost momentum because of changing views of their work, e.g. the uncovering of the colonialist assumptions which underpinned many missionary orders. But of the apostolic orders the Salvatorians will never be short of work or ever find itself irrelevant.

Our mission is to make the Saviour known to the whole world; this is a mission which is at the very heart of the Churches life. We are you could say in the very mainstream of the Church.

Our mission is as broad as you could conceive, it involves us using our gifts and talents in any field of endeavour which brings good to the world and opens up people’s minds and hearts to God. Our task is as simple and straightforward as making the Divine Saviour known to the world. Simple and straightforward yes, but also deeply challenging.

Conversion is something for us all. The story of the spiritual life is never static; it is never a case of moving to a particular level and sticking there. It is always dynamic. And as we journey along this pilgrimage of faith and grow in holiness and love we experience a series of encounters with Christ. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that we realise what has happened to us, only long afterwards that we see how the hand of God has been working.

God alone decides how and when he acts in our lives, it is not something that is ever in our control. This might sound like we just have to sit and wait, and in a certain sense this is so. However, although we cannot command God to act in our lives we can put ourselves in a position whereby he his likely to act in us.

We can ask him to come into our lives, we can call on him to act in us and we can wait in an attitude of expectation. We usually call this prayer. And prayer, true prayer, changes us. It always makes us more amenable to God’s will; it fills us with love for him and zeal for the Gospel. Unless our vocation is specifically to the contemplative life (a life with special importance for the Church) we are ordinarily called to do things for God. This means stepping out of our ordinary lives and doing something extraordinary for him.

I never forget the story of the very wealthy Grand-duchess who went to visit Pope Pius XI and asked him rather patronisingly if there was anything she could do for the Church. She was expecting him to ask her to establish some pious foundation or get out her chequebook to pay for the construction of a couple of churches in the missions but she was quite taken aback when he said to her, ‘Yes, teach catechism.’

There could, of course, be no higher calling; this was something Father Jordan understood very well.

One of the key points in recent Church teaching on evangelisation is that the one who does the evangelising is also evangelised by the subjects he or she is working with. When we teach the Gospel we also come to a new and deeper understanding of the Gospel. The converters are also converted, if you like.

So if you want to have a new spiritual awakening then do this one thing: teach catechism.

I was talking to Nicola McCarthy who is chaplain at Eastwood Park Prison, we were discussing faith sharing which is going to be the basis for a new programme we aree starting here at Christ the King called Whole Community Catechesis. We were saying how difficult we find it to talk about our faith with others and she said that when she started work as a prison chaplain she hadn’t really ever done that before but now it has become second nature to her.

So many girls in the prison with no faith or belief really want to know about her faith and she has to give them an explanation, she has to share her faith with them. The extraordinary thing is that by telling them about her own faith and beliefs and how she operates as a Christian in the world her faith has actually deepened and greatly strengthened. Those she is supposed to be converting are actually deepening her own conversion. The evangeliser is evangelised.

And evangelisation is what the Salvatorians are all about. Yes we proclaim the Gospel by means of sermons and talks and articles but the primary method is one-to-one communication. Helping people who are bereaved to deal with their loss, teaching children the Gospel stories, welcoming the stranger, comforting the sick; by all these means we communicate God’s love to others and we build up the Kingdom. But through all this our own faith is continually strengthened and deepened.

I’d just like to say a few words about Father Jordan’s Spiritual Diary because it is through this unique document that we get an extraordinary insight into Jordan’s own spiritual life. Through it we are helped to see some of the inner dynamics of his spiritual life.

First of all Jordan’s language as we find it in the Spiritual Diary is not the language of a normal 19th century man. We find in its pages a deep sensitivity to the things of the Spirit and an openness of heart that we would not ordinarily expect to find in a man from the Victorian era. What we have here is a record of the interior life of a deeply passionate man, a man almost excessively devoted to God.

Just to give a few examples:

Live only with (God) live only for (God) act only on (God)'s direction. Associate only with (God) receive often (God) Every breath for (God) do nothing without (God) trust only in (God) You will be able to do all with (God). Pray – pray – pray –!“ (SD I,2).

Just from the rhythmic insistence of this brief extract we get a glimpse of the depth of his love of God. And in the following quotes we see the universality of his vision and the extreme urgency that was behind everything he did.

As long as there is one person on earth who does not know God and does not love Him above all things, you dare not allow yourself a moment’s rest.
As long as God is not everywhere glorified, you dare not allow yourself a moment’s rest.
As long as the Queen of heaven and earth is not everywhere praised, you dare not allow yourself a moment’s rest.
No sacrifice, no cross, no desolation, no trial, no temptation, oh! Absolutely nothing should be too difficult for you with the help of God’s grace. (Ge)

I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. (La)

Let no betrayal, no infidelity, no coldness, no abuse lessen your zeal! (Ge)

But everything through Him, with Him and for Him. (La)

All peoples, races, nations and tongues, glorify the Lord our God! (La) (SD II, 1, 2)

Give me a fiery love that never cools nor desists, and let me possess You, my Beloved, already here and for ever in the world to come. Amen. (Ge) (SD I, 107)

These quotations give a glimpse of the spiritual life of a saint. And his saintliness was the key to his success, not merely in the depth of his devotion and zeal and total commitment to the foundation of the Society but it was evidently a quality that other people recognised in him. It was what drew so many to join him and it was why so many Bishops and Cardinals were persuaded by him.

If you were to look at the early followers of Jordan you would find a number of other saints. Mother Mary we will speak about in a moment but just to take three others, Lüthen, Hopfenmüller and Weigang. All three of them were outstanding in holiness and each would need a separate talk in their own right.

Bonaventura Lüthen was Jordan’s first and most faithful disciple, one who gave himself the title of Jordan’s Eldest Son. He was a wonderful novice master and patient teacher as well as keeping up a tireless correspondence dispensing advice and instruction to those involved in making foundations right across the globe. His cause for Beatification was introduced at the same time as that of Jordan.

Otto Hopfenmüller had been an outstanding diocesan priest in Bamberg. He was something of a firebrand and had even got himself put in prison for speaking out on issues of social justice. He had established his own Catholic newspaper and had worked in the most difficult apostolates of his diocese. Everyone was astonished when he packed up everything and joined Jordan. After his novitiate and a couple of years supervising the students he was off to India where in an extraordinarily short time he had laid the foundations for the evangelisation of the whole area. (An area now covered by six dioceses and three archdioceses!) Unfortunately after only six months in the mission he succumbed to meningitis exacerbated by exhaustion and died within a few days. He is greatly revered in North East India and his cause for Beatification is about to be introduced.

Thomas Weigang was a widower from Poland who joined Jordan fairly early on and who as an older man was a wise and steadying influence on the young Society. He was the first Salvatorian to be ordained to the priesthood and as such holds a special place in our history. He too was considered to be a saintly and devout man much in demand as a confessor and spiritual director particularly by Sisters.

Saints attract saints and the fact that Jordan attracted these holy and zealous people is a sure sign of his own holiness.

We know from studying the history of the Society that Mother Mary of the Apostles was not by a long chalk the first member of the Society. Father Bonaventura Lüthen was, of course, the first and most loyal of Jordan’s followers. But Mother Mary played a crucial role and deserves her high place in the roll call of outstanding Salvatorians.

There has been something of a controversy within the Salvatorians about the beatification of Mother Mary and sadly it resulted in certain differences between the Society and the Congregation which went on for a number of years. I do not want to rake over old coals and dig up the history of the beatification of Mother Mary. Suffice it to say that an ambitious Monsignor who was assigned the Cause felt it necessary to put down Father Jordan in order to raise up Mother Mary. Thankfully in the last twenty years this matter has been completely resolved between the Society and the Congregation and it is no longer divisive or a matter of contention.

The simple fact is that Mother Mary was beatified by the Church in 1968 and we should see this today not only as verification of her own holiness and zeal for the Gospel but as a authentication of the charism of Father Jordan. She is the first of Jordan’s followers to be beatified but she will certainly not be the last.

Mother Mary clearly played a unique role in the life of the Society. We know her story, we know how she waited for so long, how she searched so hard over many years to find her true vocation in life, and we are aware that she made many false starts in various other Congregations. However, very late in life when she met Father Jordan and knew instantly that she had found a Society in which she could at long last realise her true vocation.

In Father Jordan she found someone like herself who had a truly universal mission. In Father Jordan she found someone who was caught up in the extraordinary task of founding a religious society within the church that would be totally dedicated to making Christ known to all people everywhere –a missionary Order in every sense of that word. In Jordan she found someone who was prepared to utilise every gift of the members of his Society in the service of the Gospel.

But more than all of this in Jordan she recognised someone absolutely dedicated to holiness, someone totally devoted to knowing and serving the Divine Saviour.

As we have noted Mother Mary was not in the first flush of youth, she was already an old lady and even after meeting Jordan her waiting was not over and it took several more years before she was able to join Father Jordan in Rome and take her true place as the first superior general of the Sisters of the Divine Saviour.

Life was not easy in those early days for the Sisters in Tivoli and Rome but Mother Mary proved herself to be a worthy leader and guide to the young Sisters and the Congregation grew rapidly under her direction. In her Beatification we Salvatorians recognise confirmation of her own personal holiness and a validation by the Church of the whole Order, but most of all a validation the spirituality and vision of Father Jordan. We are sure that his beatification will follow soon.

We might think that in Western Europe we are being a little left behind, that Salvatorians in other parts of the world are making great strides and that here we are dwindling in numbers. Even with the Lay Salvatorians here in Britain we haven’t seen the same rapid growth as elsewhere in the world.

And it is true that the Society and the Congregation are growing rapidly in India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Congo and Tanzania and are developing steadily in South America. The Lay Salvatorians have also made great progress in the USA and in the Latin countries.

We might feel a little bit inferior and envious of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the globe. But conditions vary and so do the challenges. And perhaps what we are faced with here in Western Europe is a new kind of crisis, one which we don’t yet fully understand or know how to deal with.

So we are faced with a situation similar but not precisely the same as the one that Jordan faced. It is a new challenge, although it is also a challenge concerned with religious ignorance. In Jordan’s day it was external political forces which got in the way and prevented people from living out their faith. Today this is the result of materialism and indifference and therefore in some senses the more difficult to deal with.

As Salvatorians, though, we use the same tools as Jordan –deep faith and trust in God and his divine providence, constantly striving for personal holiness and reaching out to others and leading them to a deeper knowledge of their Divine Saviour.

And above everything else we keep in the forefront of our minds that wonderful quotation from St John 17;3 that meant so much to Father Jordan: ‘Now this is eternal life, to know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’