Provincial Marist Mission Assembly
From the 8th to the 10th December 2006 we celebrated the Provincial phase of the Marist International Mission Assembly at Quinta Soledad (Tlalpan D.F.). Sixty-seven delegates from twenty-eight works shared for two days the local processes, what each work has carried out, its strengths and weaknesses, our concerns and our needs before God and the community.
We celebrated this process as a time of grace which shook us and strengthened us in what we had just experienced and done both personally and as a community in each educational work. Taking up the Marist mission once more reanimated and enthused us. This helped us to focus ourselves on our situation, accepting our resistances and our lights and the look and the hands of people who are found close to us. We had the possibility of sharing our concerns and our needs before God and the community.
We strengthened our sense of belonging to our real and palpable world where the Marist charism continues, alive today and always, in the children and the young people, in the works, in the schools, the local communities and the places where we are found. It?s the charism transformed into a struggle for justice, in courage and in strength for a more worthy and full life and to continue to participate, supporting each other and collaborating like a family and like brothers.
We feel the challenge of obtaining a major commitment to our mission, of returning to the essence of the cause for which we are here and of our raison d?être. Saint Marcellin always repeated it: ?To love God and to make him known and loved especially among the poorest children and young people.? We are conscious that this is a work of God and we are certain that he will give us the necessary grace so that it can be experienced in our community.
We were able to share beyond the structure of the educational work and that which conditions the role that is there. We truly experienced a family spirit and one of common ?union? between laypeople and brothers, sharing and living this beautiful mission.
The joy of knowing each other, the fraternal dialogue, the presentation of each of our works, the times of prayer, the healthy and respectful discussion in small groups are riches that help us to accomplish the proposed objectives of the Provincial phase:
Sharing life and celebrating together the call of God to the Marist mission.
? Sharing the experience and the results of the local processes.
? Developing the contribution of our Province to the Marist International Mission Assembly.
? Choosing the people whose names will be given to the Council so that our representatives, one brother and two laypeople, may be chosen for the International Assembly.
The difference in the way of implementing the process in that which concerns the organisation, the convocation, the animation of meetings, our impropriety and in some cases the desertion during the process have been obstacles to overcome, obscurities that we felt necessary to recognise.
We have experienced with joy, enthusiasm, reflection and discernment this Provincial phase, preparatory to the Marist International Assembly, marvellous and original.
Arriving at the end of this Provincial meeting, we feel pushed towards the future of our mission, launching us together with audacity and hope, leaving our concerns, our expectations and our proposals in the hands of Jesus, Mary and Marcellin. May they inspire and guide us to realise this renewal of our mission, seeking to have one sole Heart and one same Mission.