A community of Marist and other spirituality in Granada

September 1, 2017. That was the day which saw the beginning of a journey for which our province had already been training for some time with dreams and inspirations shared by brothers and laypeople.

This date is not only the beginning of the community, but also the result of an in-depth reflection on the communion between brothers and laypeople which had been taking place for some years in the Marist Province of Mediterránea, the community of Granada having already welcomed some specific experiences of families who wanted to live their lay vocation in communion with the brothers.

Thus, during two previous courses, this part of Marcellin’s dream was being developed and is being carried out in Granada. In the summer before we began, the Brother Provincial brought together a group of brothers and laypeople to start  this adventure from scratch : a community of Marist and mixed spirituality in the Province of Mediterránea.

A community that shares life

And so it was that the community began to roll out  a series of initial approaches that would serve as a seed: a community with deep and shared prayer, which is born of life and leads to it. A day-to-day community, which enhances our talents and cares for the specific vocations of each one, a community that discerns its mission and speaks from consensus. A community that shares goods, shares space, shares concerns, shares LIFE.

From here we have begun to live. The community should walk in harmony with everything that our province is living, and in this way, make that community  a reality, lived from day to day until the three courses of “long-distance running” that it is going through.

Brothers Benito, Antonio, José Ignacio, Javier and Juan Pablo share the journey with the family of Ana and Javier, and their children Miriam and Samuel, the family of Eva and Alfredo, and their children Jairo and Ángel and the also young layman Victor. We have also shared a course with Brother Sandro since February.

Evangelising community

Living in a continuous discernment of the mission creates in the community an atmosphere of concern for our being evangelisers among young people, which has led this community to organise meetings around Marist spirituality with young people and communities of young laypeople of our Province on themes such as fraternity, Marist mission or the spirituality of Marcellin. The community is thus shown to be a tool in Marist accompaniment but, above all, as a reference meeting place for those who feel part of this family that makes up our Institute in our Province. “How can we show Marcellin’s charism among the young people and Marists of today?” This is the basic question that expresses our mission and our sense of community.

It has not been an easy road, but just like the tortoise that runs against the hare in that famous story, the community does not want to rest nor to burn processes, on the contrary, it wants to suppose for others a push, a spring, an oxygen cylinder that helps in personal processes and to be in itself that tortoise determined to bet on a possible lifestyle in the light of the Gospel and of our Marist being today.

Marist charism

Does this new experience within the charism make sense? The heart of the community and the feeling of the Marist Province of Mediterránea bear witness to this. Difficulties in the process, such as the capacity to make decisions or a new way of understanding leadership or the tasks proper to the mission have not diminished the strength of this community, which is rooted in its experience of walking together, of living together, of feeling the other as a brother of LIFE. The words of a very dear brother in Granada and among the Marists, Brother Servando, martyr of Bugobe, make sense here: “Our motto will continue to be GIVE LIFE, because our life has the sap of the one who is Life. Our life cannot be confused with substitutes, because we are committed to the life of Jesus.

And every day is a new opportunity for this community that wants to be an open door for those who enter, a refuge for those who need it and a springboard for those who want to jump. A community that lives in continuous discernment to discover new breaths of the Spirit for the Marists of today, for the Marist Family. May this be an experience like that fable of the tortoise and the hare, since we also want to generate a story and a path, from which we can always draw a beautiful moral.

That is why the best thing to say to anyone who wants to discover it is: “Come with us to a quiet place.”

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Marist Community of Granada