Our Spirituality

Throughout life, our inner spiritual reality interacts dynamically with the experiences we undergo.  Our spirituality is moulded as we embrace the experiences of our lives and it shapes the way we understand and relate to ourselves,  to the world, to people and to God. Christian spirituality fills us with passion for the building of the Kingdom of God. This becomes the driving force of our lives as we allow the Spirit of Christ to lead us.

We live this spirituality in a Marial and apostolic way just as Marcellin Champagnat did. It developed with the first brothers who handed it on to us as a precious heritage. While we share common roots with other Marist ways of life, our spirituality follows the map outlined by Marcellin and the tradition we have received from those first brothers.

While we share common roots with other Marist ways of life, we have a particular spirituality. It is continuously renewed through the action of the Spirit, coupled with our personal and community efforts to cultivate it anew in changing situations and in different cultures. This spirituality strengthens our unity - a crucial element for the vitality of our life and mission.

Prayer in the tradition of Marcellin Champagnat

Gathered round Mary

From the very beginnings of the Marist Family, which started with the promise at the church of Our Lady of Fourvières, the founders saw the disciples around Mary in the upper room as the symbol and metaphor for what the Church needs to be for its renewal.

St Marcellin Champagnat saw his brothers as men of God and men of the Church. It was not enough to be catechists or teachers alone. He wanted them to be brothers to needy young people and being ‘brother’ was the manner of their relationship with others. In fact, before the group received its official name from Rome, Marcellin would frequently call them Brothers of Mary.

This resource is one of many that a Church gathered round Mary uses to give glory to the God of all things, the one who calls us in Christ to holiness, a holiness that belongs to the whole People of God.

May this be for you who use it a way into Mystery, so that Mary, the first disciple may teach us to know the whisper of His Presence, by whom we have our breath and very being, and in whom we are called to follow, as she did.

Marist Spirituality

Marist spirituality is more than the recitation of a number of prayers or the following of set formulas, but rather a living out of the gospel, following Jesus as Mary did. The document Water from the Rock puts it this way:

Throughout life, our inner spiritual reality interacts dynamically with the experiences we undergo. On the one hand, what we term our spirituality is moulded as we embrace the experiences of our lives. On the other, this spirituality shapes the way we understand and relate to the world, to people and to God.

When we speak of Christian spirituality we refer to that unquenchable fire that burns within, filling us with passion for the building of the Kingdom of God. This becomes the driving force of our lives as we allow the Spirit of Christ to lead us. Any Christian living this way grows in holiness.

We live out this Christian spirituality in a distinctive Marial and apostolic way. It is an incarnated spirituality springing up in Marcellin Champagnat. It developed with the first Brothers who handed it on to us as a precious heritage.

While we share common roots with other Marist ways of life, we have a particular spirituality. It is continuously renewed through the action of the Spirit, coupled with our personal and community efforts to incarnate it in changing situations and in different cultures. This spirituality strengthens our unity and is a crucial element for the vitality of our life and mission.

(Water from the Rock, pp.14-15)