
Itineraries of Marist Spirituality
The Marist Province of Compostela offers to laypeople and brothers an opportunity for growth and formation called ?Itineraries of Marist Spirituality? (IDEM). It is an open proposal, that stems from two elements: shared mission and Marist spirituality.
Throughout the years the Province has organised several programmes and plans of shared mission. By seeking to collect the best aspects of each, and in our search for a common path for the Province in this Year of Spirituality, we pave the way for something new, the IDEM.
These itineraries aim at adequately updating and renewing our joint formational proposals. That is why the IDEM are founded on the following concepts:
Itineraries: voluntary processes of personal growth, of research, formation and sharing; they will be different, facing different themes in different ways, but similar by criteria and duration: eight days divided in three meetings during the school year.
Spirituality: because they address the entirety of a person, focusing on ?why?, on meaning, on reasons and the sources of existence, because they focus on interiority, on Life, and on human development.
Marists: for their reference to the Marist spirituality, life and mission; due to their simplicity, family-like style, their welcoming spirit and Marian focus, because their inspiration is drawn from the project of Champagnat.
Our IDEM (Itineraries of Marist Spirituality) will start in July this year. We are now presenting them to the teachers and the communities of brothers. The proposal and the plan are ready: we will offer up to ten itineraries (though this year, we will present five of them).
There are several ?initiation? itineraries:
1. You will be Champagnat today (on Marist identity);
2. Three itineraries of personal completion: 2a Paving the way; 2b A Path of understanding; 2c A Path of freedom and love;
3. My relationship with God (on the role of religious experience in my life);
4. An educator?s oasis (a moment of rest, renewal and sharing);
5. One life and a half (on the second half of life, a time of plenitude).
And also three itineraries of ?deeper understanding?
6. Silent music (an introduction to silence);
7. Sonorous solitude (on meditation);
8. Follow your heart (the sense of my life).
Thanks to these itineraries, though they were prepared bearing in mind different concepts, we would like to respond to the personal needs and demands of all the adult members of our Province, whom they are addressed to: teachers, brothers, parents, school workers, alumni, etc.
And above all we would like to help everyone and each other to walk together on a path of shared research according to the dynamics and concepts offered to us by the document ?Water from the rock?: In the course of our life, our inner spiritual reality dynamically reacts to what we experience. On one side, what we call our spirituality is built on our existential experiences, on the other, this same spirituality vivifies the way we understand our relationship with the world, with other human beings, and with God.