FEATURES OF LAY MARIST LIFE

Extended Bureau of the Laity Features of lay Marist life
The Champagnat Movement
of the Marist Family
The Champagnat Movement was the most concrete
way that I found of living the lay Marist
spirituality. (Brazil)
With a group of friends we formed a fraternity
of the Champagnat Movement of the
Marist Family consecrated to couples and the
family. Among the members who compose this
Marist Family, three couples each having three or
four children, a Marist Brother and a priest close
to the Marists. During our meetings we cover
themes that touch the life and the challenges of
the life of a couple and of a family. We pray and
we join our lives to that of Champagnat, of Christ
or of Mary so that they enlighten us and guide
us. The children also participate in different ways
in our Marist Family meetings. It is a way for us
of making them know Champagnat, Mary and
Jesus better, to teach them to pray and to make
them aware of the signs of God in their lives. We
believe that they can also be inspired by the life
of Champagnat, of Jesus or of Mary in different
moments of their own life. (Canada)
In this family of the Church, in which I have
had the good luck to grow up and to be able
to grow, in this group of young people that we
form, we have chosen to become a fraternity of
the Champagnat Movement of the Marist Family. I
feel that it is my family, that fills me with joy with
its enlightenment and with pain with its shadows;
I thus try to contribute my “grain of sand” so that
we can have more enlightenment than shadows.
(Spain)
My fraternity is a life space of commitment
which for me supposed:
• The opportunity and gift of sharing my faith
in community in the spirit of Marist Apostolic
Spirituality.
• Living a permanent process of renewing my
personal plan
• Integrating the different dimensions of my
daily life in my relationship with God.
• Feeling the force and the courage to continue
my mission when I encounter difficulties.
• Offering my person for the good of the community.
• Feeling called, discerning in community.
(Spain)
In 1987, during the launching of the Champagnat
movement at Notre Dame de L’Hermitage,
the life project was what we were looking for. Accompanied
by Brother A., we asked a few people
we knew to form a fraternity group in joy, to share
and nourish our common ideal: the spirituality of
the movement, by living a strong love, a dynamism
for others, simplicity, love of Mary mother
and model. (France)
Life Communities of
Lay people and Brothers
W ith the fraternity now set up, we heard the
words of Brother Benito Arbués, Superior
General of the time, requesting volunteers for
Rwanda. Although we did not meet the required
conditions, the occasion served to give life to a
goal that we have nourished over the years: to
have an experience in the Third World. We offered
ourselves to the Brothers as international
volunteer assistants for a one year period. We
were “destined” for the Chaco, Paraguay; and we