Centenaire Australie – The Archbishops Address

11/Jun/2010

Addressing the 600 Marist Religious present Archbishop Freeman urged them against complacency in their vocation.

Perhaps, never in its long history has the Church had greater need for men like you than it has at the present moment.

You are not only to enlarge and deepen the faith of your pupils but also to train them as apostles that they in turn will help to christianise the world and bring to God the civilisation they are helping to create.

How deep then must be your own spiritual life and how clear your witness as you stand before your students. How strong must be your own personal convictions and how strictly orthodox your teaching of the Faith.

It might be said that the challenge that faced the pioneer Brothers was different in kind from the challenge that faces you.

The restlessness around them and the hardships they bore were of a physical order and the obstacles that beset them were more material than spiritual.

You are called upon to be witnesses to the Lord in a world that has largely forgotten Him. To testify to the possibility of a sacrificial life and to the realisation of Christian perfection to a world that hardly knows what these things mean.

Perhaps, it is your task to show forth the power and the beauty of religious life in our times as to give strength and confidence to other religious men and women and at the same time convince a doubting world of the power and the love of god that can so inspire His humble creatures.

A hundred years from now the Brothers that follow you will be grateful that you accepted the challenge.

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Centenaire Australie - The Reverend Brother s...

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