Seven lessons from the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

Today (February 17) the Church celebrates an unusual feast on her calendar. Usually when several people are celebrated on the same day on the calendar, they are a group of martyrs, like St Paul Miki and companions, martyred in Japan (feast February 26), or the recently beatified Ulma family, martyred for the brotherly love they showed Jews during World War II (feast July 7).

But today’s feast celebrates seven men who together founded a religious order, the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary, otherwise known as the Servites.

It’s not completely uncommon for a religious order to have two founders. Communities of women especially seem to fall in this category, eg, St Francis and St Clare for the Poor Clares, or St Francis de Sales and St Jeanne de Chantal for the Visitandine Sisters. But I’m aware of no other religious community that has seven as the Servites do.

Because today is their feast and because the founders are perhaps not as well known as they should be, I want to reflect on their story, drawing seven lessons that we can all apply to our own lives.

1) Material success is not enough

The seven founders are Saints Bonfilius, Alexis, Manettus, Amideus, Hugh, Sostene, and Buonagiunta. They lived in thirteenth-century Florence, all seven coming from noble families, heir to families of wealthy cloth merchants, or both. Accounts of the Seven Founders’ lives sometimes describe them as “merchant princes.” They certainly were well acquainted with circles of money and power in one of the richest cities in Medieval Italy.

And that was not enough for them. By any metric of the world, these men should have been happy. Yet something in their hearts drove them to seek more. Their dissatisfaction strikes me as something very easy for anyone living in the developed world in the twenty-first century to understand: Seven young men reach the pinnacle of what the world says we should be striving for. They look around and ask, Is this all there is?

2) It is easier to strive for holiness in community

The seven young nobles began their journey by looking for ways to deepen their relationship with God in Florence itself. They joined a lay confraternity dedicated to the Virgin Mary that already existed in the city. It’s not clear whether the seven men were friends before they joined this group, but their membership in it soon helped them see in each other kindred spirits.

They met together to pray, listen to spiritual talks by the priest-director of the confraternity, and sing songs in honor of Mary. Some of the seven young men had gotten married. Others felt the first stirrings in their hearts that God was calling them to something more and had remained single. But their friendship with each other created an environment where they spurred each other on to greater virtue, evidenced in their greater devotion to prayer and to serving the citizens of Florence, especially the poor.

Do we look for and nurture the friendships we have that lead us closer to God?

3) Mary leads us into a deeper relationship with her Son

As good Catholics, the seven men already had a great devotion to Mary, but that relationship only deepened as they helped each other love God and neighbor better. The confraternity of which they were members celebrated in a special way four feasts of Our Lady: her Birth, her Annunciation, her Purification, and her Assumption.

According to the early accounts of the founding of the Servite Order, it was on the Feast of the Assumption in 1233 that Our Lady appeared to the seven men, now in their twenties and thirties, and let them know that God was calling them to something more. They understood this to mean they were being called to follow Jesus more closely in poverty, chastity, and obedience.

And this is what Our Lady always does. She directs us in such a way to help us draw closer to her Son. She always repeats to each of us with ears to listen, “Do whatever He tells you.”

4) Prayer must be the foundation of everything

The seven men left their homes in order to devote themselves to prayer and to live the Gospel life in a radical way. They made provisions for the family members they still had responsibility for and moved away from Florence, first to a small town nearby. Here they lived and prayed. Their reputation for holiness grew, leading people to seek them out for their help and advice. They gladly offered such assistance until the point that so many people flocked to them that they felt they could no longer pray as God was calling them to.

So the small band moved further away to a mountain named Monte Senario. Here in this solitary place they made a small hermitage where they could deepen their lives of prayer, living not unlike the Desert Fathers in Egypt. Even in this remote place, people sought them out, and their fame grew, until the bishop of Florence suggested that their group might be the start of a new religious order.

On Good Friday, April 13, 1240, while the seven brothers were meditating on the Passion of Our Lord and the way in which Our Lady accompanied Him, Mary appeared to the seven founders again. She expressed her approval of the bishop’s desire, as it was her desire too. She even showed the founders the black habit that the Servites still wear to this day. From that day, they were to be known as the Servants of Mary.

For seven long years the seven men had persevered in prayer to reach this point. Are we as constant in our own prayer life?

5) True greatness is found in service

In heeding Our Lady’s call to found a new order, the seven founders would not remain hermits any longer. They were called to take the fruits of their prayer and preach the Gospel wherever the bishop asked them to. Like the Franciscans and Dominicans before them, the Servites became mendicant preachers, following Our Lord’s words to the first Apostles in a radically literal way.

At the command of Mary, the seven founders changed their manner of life from strict contemplation to a mixture of the active and contemplative lives. Their preaching attracted more men to their way of life, and the local bishop permitted them to admit other men to their newborn order. Soon, other bishops in Italy began to ask for Servite preachers in their dioceses too, and the new order accepted these requests as they were able, eventually leading to the founding of new Servite communities.

In choosing to live as servants of Mary, the founders responded to the needs expressed to them by the local bishops. The more faithful their service, the more the order grew. Or perhaps better said, they focused on the service, and God took care of the increase. A life of service to God, Our Lady, and neighbor still marks the Servite order to this day.

6) For a Christian, the only path to glory is the Cross

The Servites began to spread throughout Tuscany, and from there to Germany, France, and even Spain. But the order did not see straightforward growth. Although it had the favor of the local bishops and even a provisional approval from Rome, the Servites also faced severe opposition.

Some were suspicious of any mendicant order, especially one so new. Some were jealous of the successes of their preachers. At times even the Church’s own zeal for reform seemed a threat to the order’s existence.

In the 1250s, the Pope conceived an idea to unite all religious communities that followed the Rule of St Augustine into one order, which would have destroyed the Servites’ unique vocation. Political unrest and a papal death prevented that plan from being carried out. One of the provisions of the Council of Lyon in 1274 called for suppression of any new mendicant order not yet approved by Rome, thus allowing for the Franciscans and Dominicans. But the decision would have ended the new order, were it not for the intervention of a friendly bishop and again the death of the current pope.

In spite of their successes in preaching, the Servites could have had everything taken away from them with one command from Rome. Six of the seven founders died while the order still faced such uncertainty. A change in political climate could have ruined everything. It was only in 1304 that the order received its final approval from Rome. Of the seven holy founders, only St Alexis was alive to see it.

We can face hardships like this in our own lives and become discouraged. Or we can choose to walk the way of the Cross with Mary, knowing that it is only by passing through the Cross that we can attain resurrection.

7) To find consolation, turn to Our Lady of Sorrows

This focus on understanding the Cross of Jesus Christ with the heart of Our Lady of Sorrows is what makes the Servite order unique. The order’s charism lies in serving Mary Most Sorrowful. In the words of an early Servite writer, “Our mission is to be the apostles of Our Lady’s Sorrows.” The Servites even have a rosary of their own that focuses on the Seven Sorrows.

Why? Because the Seven Founders understood that serving Mary only helps us to serve Christ better. We are all called to stand at the Cross with Mary, and thereby to unite our daily crosses with the Cross of her Son. It is only by keeping our focus on the Cross that our service of others can have eternal significance.

We would do well to conclude this brief survey and reflection of the Seven Founders with the prayer the Church gives us for their feast day:

Lord,
Fill us with the love
that inspired the seven holy brothers
to honor the mother of God with special devotion
and to lead your people to you.
Amen.