North Central Brazil Marist Province
«Vocation supposes: choice, consecration and call». If one is chosen, drawn from among people, it is not for some personal benefit or privilege; election is accorded for the service of the Kingdom, for which one should spend one?s life.
On the 8th of December 2008, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Marist novitiate of Our Lady of the Assumption, at Maranguape, Ceará (« Central North Brazil »), rejoiced in the Yes given by the young brothers José Rogério da Silva, Maicon Donizete Andrade Silva, Márcio Henrique Ferreira da Costa, Renê Ramon Ferreira et Rogério de Medeiros Silva, on the occasion of their first religious profession in the Institute of the Marist Brothers. Following Mary?s example, they said: « Let it be done to me according to Your will », and placed their lives in God?s hands, thus allowing the Lord to carry on his work.
Through the profession of the evangelical counsels, religious life is a stable way of life which merits our confidence. We follow Christ more closely, under the action of the Holy Spirit, consecrating ourselves totally to God for the service of others. By the religious vows, these young men have professed the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and, by the charity to which these lead, they have united themselves in a special way to the Church and its ministry.
After the celebration, the feast continued in the novitiate community, with the presence of many brothers of the Province and parents and friends of the newly professed.
Br. Leonardo Borba, novice