A docment with meaning and universal application
On October 8, 2011, Brother João Do Prado organized a small ceremony at the conclusion of the daily Eucharist to present to the brothers of the General Administration the Marist Youth Ministry document titled: Evangelizers Among Youth. The purpose of this instrument is to promote the implementation of Marist Youth Ministry (Pastoral Juvenil Marista – PJM) in all of the administrative units of the Institute and to place evangelization at the heart of the Marist mission.
The document was distributed to the entire Marist Institute in July and August of 2011. It was sent from Brazil, where it had been edited in four languages. Each province organized the distribution of the document according to the local custom. In some provinces the distribution was done through the organization of meetings to study the document by brothers and lay people. Others organized the distribution according to a plan conceived by the youth ministry personnel.
Brother João Do Prado, Director of the Mission Secretariat, included the study of this document as part of the program for the whole Institute. Conscious that the brothers who work in the General Administration are an important link in spreading the thoughts that are contained in the document, he decided to include them in a significant gesture. Brother Emili Turú, Superior General, reminded them in a brief reflection before the distribution of the document that “the difference between an organ and an organism is that the organ has life that comes from inside it, while the organism receives its dynamism from outside.”
This document will be an instrument to “sustain life within the Institute.”
The document, which had gone through a long and slow process of development, has elements of the unity and the plurality of the authors who contributed to it. It has given shape to in its pages some very valuable tools for the entire Marist world. We give thanks to God and Mary for this gift to our Institute to be able to give to young people guidelines that will help them to create fellowship.