Assistant Director of the  Secretariat of Laity 

I am Manu Gómez Cid, Marist lay person from the Mediterranean Province.  I was born in Seville, in the south of Spain.  I am married to María and we have three children, Pablo, Marcos and Daniel.  I belong to a community of Marist Laity, men and women, of my city, with whom I share life, mission and experience as a believer.

My whole life has been linked to the Marist life.  My life as a student was spent in the Marist schools in Granada, Badajoz and Seville, my home city.  The experience that made me gradually discover the richness of the Marist charism was my being linked to the “Grupos de Amistad y Vida Cristiana” (Friendship Groups of Christian Life) GVX, of the former Bética Province.   In camps and in vocational lived in experience, the life lived by the Brothers was revealed to me and, together, with my personal growth and as a follower of Jesus, the person of Marcelin Champagnat captivated me.

I studied Physics in the University and when I finished, I was then qualified for teaching in secondary school.  During all this time of my University life, I was greatly involved as Director of the GVX and the social concern was developing in me, collaborating in some marginal reality in my city and in camps of rural work.  I began to participate in the Group ‘Project Bolivia’, linked to the NGO SED, and during one year I lived in the Marist community of Comarapa (Bolivia) supervising some development projects in the peasant’s zone of Siberia.

When I returned from this experience, I began to work as professor in the Marist School of Seville. However, I continued to be linked to the GVX and to the Project Bolivia.  In this group, I met my wife, Maria, and we got married in 1999.  In 2002, we spent a whole year in a new experience of cooperation in Comarapa (Bolivia).

In the School, I have served as coordinator of Pastoral Ministry during four years and as Director four other years.  During this time, it was a gift for me to participate in the Preparatory Commission of the II International Assembly of the Marist Mission, which was held in Nairobi (Kenya) in 2014.

During these last years, I have been a member of the Team of Pastoral Ministry of Mediterranean, encouraging the life of the works and, in a special way, everything concerning the Marist Youth Pastoral Ministry.

Since September 2019, I coordinate the Council of Marist Life of my Province, trying to encourage the lay vocational discernment processes, the different community realities, the lived experience of the spirituality and everything that will make us grow in the Charism of Champagnat, both Brothers and Laity.   I will harmonize or reconcile this service being Co-director of the Secretariat for the Laity of the Institute, during the next three years.

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