Prayer and Presence

Marists do more than ‘bear Mary’s name’, they live her spirit. Through prayer and the practice of presence, they absorb and fill up with a certain way - a spirit - an attitude and commitment in their life. They become conscious that living Mary’s presence becomes in fact doing the ‘work of Mary’.

A popular Marist Book called A Certain Way offers some thoughtful ideas on the Marist Way of looking at and living life.

Happy, Humble, Holy.

Colin told the first Marists that simply bearing Mary’s name was not enough; they had to absorb her spirit. The “spirit” of Mary is her way of seeing reality, making decisions and acting on them. According to Jean Coste, Marists take it in through three channels: deepening their sense of Mary’s presence, praying to her and to the founding figures, and staying connected to the living body of Marists today. It is, at heart, “a very liveable and ordinary spirit,” lived without fuss, as Mary lived at Nazareth. The dream that Rome once thought impossible has become real — carried not by the powerful but by humble people willing to begin again.

REFLECTIVE QUESTION

What would it look like for me to live my faith more simply, more “ordinarily,” this month?

MARIST PRACTICE

Each evening this week, name one small, hidden way you continued “the Work of Mary” that day.

Being a Prophet

On the margins