2023-03-28 GENERAL HOUSE

Ongoing formation program “Senderos” in Marist places

The Brothers who are participating in the Ongoing Formation program “Senderos” 2023 continue the journey which began on February 5 in Manziana. For all the 18 Brothers, who form a multicultural community coming from the 6 Regions of the Institute, this meeting is a privileged time of living together and, above all, of vocational invigoration. In addition to the opportunity of living together and getting to know brothers from different cultures, the privileged moments of silence and prayer, the proposed themes for reflection and personal evaluation, and the sharing of life are spaces of vocational animation that enrich everyone. In this beautiful coexistence they feel that Champagnat’s dream is becoming a reality in the history that they share together.

After the pilgrimage to Assisi at the beginning of March, where they got to know a little more about the life of Saint Francis, the brothers, on their return to Manziana, were motivated by Brothers Joe McKee, former Vicar General of the Institute, and Joaquim Erra (Superior General of the Hospitaller Brothers of Saint John of God) to pray, deepen and evaluate, respectively, their own vocational journey, based on the following themes: Affectivity in the consecrated life and Self-care and integrated life.

In the Marist Places

From March 20 to 30 they make a pilgrimage to the Marist places in France. During these days they experience the high point of the meeting. In the house of Notre-Dame de l’Hermitage, where Champagnat’s heart beats, and in many other significant places of Marist origins, such as La Valla and Rosey, each one is being invited to listen attentively to the challenges of Marcellin Champagnat. The Nise Dominus, so often repeated to Champagnat’s first disciples, continues to echo and to invite them to live religious consecration with confidence and fullness, as a gift to be shared between brothers, children, young people and lay Marists.

The house built on the rock recalls Marcellin’s faith in Providence, his confidence in the Good Mother, his courage in the face of uncertainty, his love for the Brothers, and his intrepidity in committing himself to the formation of a large family. This enthuses the participants and, at the same time, invites them to respond with audacity to the challenges posed for the actualization of his charism and mission. Marcellin is even now colling people to go beyond their limits, living, sharing and witnessing with generosity and simplicity, at the heart of the Church, the brotherhood that we have received as a gift. (RL 41, 70, 71)

The house of L’Hermitage is an icon of Marist history which, by its magnitude and especially its simplicity, challenges everyone to live, personally and communally, the desire of Marcellin Champagnat expressed in his Spiritual Testament: “May it be said of the Little Brothers of Mary as of the first Christians, ‘See how they love one another'”.

After the visit to the Marist places, the participants return in Italy, where they continue their ongoing formation meeting at Casa de Manziana, accompanied by the Institute’s ongoing formation team, formed by Brothers AtaĂ­de JosĂ© de Lima, Michael Sexton and Xavier BarcelĂł.

PREV

Child Safeguarding Workshop in the Province o...

NEXT

Meeting of educators of Marist social works o...