New World, New Church

Father Colin, founder of the Society of Mary, asks Marists to find in the early Church a model for the Society of Mary. He doesn’t mean that we turn the clock back and imitate the physical lives of the early Christians; but he does invite us to try to understand what took place at the […]

The Work of Mary

“To enable church to happen” may be a useful way of describing the Marist enterprise. Or perhaps it may be clearer to say, “to be present wherever ‘church’ is happening”, because forming a communion of mind and heart is the work of the Spirit, and not something brought about by human means.

The Only Way to do Good

The Work of Mary – support for the Church and compassion for the world, loyalty to the mission of the Church and involvement in this world – when done in the spirit of Mary, will have a particular fruit and a characteristic feature.

Worthwhile task

The first Marists were young and inexperienced when they started. They lacked information, finance, or contacts in high places. Colin was always stressing the importance of the innter, spiritual life, but he also said, “We did not build the Society on our knees.” Champagnat recalling the grinding labour of the early days, declared, “We built […]

Mayet Memoirs

His modest simplicity has never stopped him from believing that the Society of Mary was called to do great things in the Church of God. Mary, he said, protected the Church in her cradle; she will protect her in a very special way at the end of time.

Instruments of Divine Mercy

To do “the work of Mary” is not to do something directed towards her, but in a sense, to do something directed by her. It is to enter into her work.

Useful Instruments

If the arena for Marists is the world as it is, how will they be able to become “useful instruments” of the mercy of God to an era which Colin described as an age of “indifference, unbelief, pride and madness” to a period of history where “faith is disappearing”, to a world whose “inhabitants are […]

The Great “No’s”

Society of Mary historian Jean Coste uses the phrase “the great NO’s” to refer to the stand Marists are to make against greed, pride and power: and he seems in this attitude one of the essential elements of the Marist way.

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