Fr. Jean Claude de Rosny, a French Assumptionist, has finally hung up his walking boots after 55 years of serving the Church and the Assumption faithfully and energetically in his adopted homeland of Madagascar. Recently ordained, at age 28, he disembarked at the port of Tuléar (Toliara), seven years after the Assumptionists arrived on the “big island” to assume responsibility for the newly created diocese and only a few months after the country’s independence was declared on June 26, 1960.

Having spent a few months immersed in learning the local language, Malagasy, he was assigned as an assistant at the cathedral parish. Not long thereafter, he took up numerous posts in the many outstations of the diocese only to be named vicar general of the diocese and the regional superior of the Assumptionists. But his love was in the missions of the bush country where he returned after his administrative service. However, it wasn’t long before the Congregation and the Church asked him to return to Toliara to become director of the school for catechists and pastor of the French-speaking parish in the city.

This man was truly “an all-terrain vehicle”

This tireless missionary truly loved Madagascar and the Assumption in this land. He easily adjusted to so many different aspects of missionary life and he had plenty of opportunity to do so since he spent 30 years in various outstation posts. Fr. Jean Claude was a man of few words but those few words were enough to get his message across both as a simple priest in the bush and as a diocesan vicar general and Assumptionist regional superior, positions he held for more than 10 years.

Fr. Jean-Claude wasn’t one for details. He had a vision that stretched far and wide

For him, what was essential was his witness as an Assumptionist and of the inner joy that he exuded. We all recall the question that he would ask us when, as young religious in formation, we would have occasion to see him, “Are you happy?”, he would say. There is no doubt that he was a joyful religious and wanted everyone who gave himself to God to experience that same joy.

For some he was a spiritual director; for others a confessor. His goal was to render as much service as he could. Aware of his advancing age and diminished health, he articulated this intention one evening at Mass, “Lord, do what you want with me. I don’t need perfect vision. I don’t need to live a long life. All I want is to be able to serve You…that’s all”. During a Mass of Thanksgiving on the eve of his departure for France, the words he spoke were of love for the Assumption and for those in attendance and of his gratitude for so many years of missionary service. As was only fit, that night the archbishop of Tolirara, the vicar-general, and the major superiors of the other religious congregations active in the archdiocese were present.

Indeed, it was not easy for him to leave, but he understood that his declining health left few options. But this departure wasn’t just hard for him; many who appreciated his ministry, his pastoral way, his joy, his example, his status as one of the founders of the Assumption in Madagascar will miss him deeply.

As he left, the current provincial spoke these words, “Dear Fr. Jean-Claude, thank you for the twenty-five years that you dedicated to this small corner of Madagascar and its people. Thank you for spending your youth with this young nation that was looking to find its way. Thank you for the Assumptionist missionary zeal that contributed to the birth of a diocese and then an archdiocese. Thank you for all the services you rendered the Assumption in Madagascar. If we are here today, it’s in large part due to you.”

Today Fr. Jean-Claude has taken up residence in the Assumptionist retirement community in Albertville, France, in the shadow of the Alps.