“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
My Brother Marists of the United States:
Dawn came today with a new United States Province of the Marists. Providentially, grace always present for us in abundance before we even seek it, also makes this the feast of Mary the Mother of God. If we were like many other religious congregations, we might be prone to name the Province as the Mary, Mother of God Province of the Marists. But our tradition has been to follow geography, not symbolic names. We have always been a very practical community.
Many activities in the coming weeks will further make real for us this new configuration of our communion in the United States including a new directory of our men and their photographs, our communities, and our ministries which will be in your hands in a few days, and some other planned observances that will help us to begin to get our heads and imaginations around it all.
But I did want to mark this day for us as a new beginning of Marist commitment and communion in the United States. All of us are far enough along in our spiritual journey to understand that every day is a new beginning for our life in God. Since we have nothing of our own and all is gracious gift, we can only begin each day again to open our hearts and hands to the grace of God in fresh hope of the newness of grace that is present only in each new moment. We are never permanently converted to that openness but begin each again in hope. Actually, that is our hope—each new moment and each new day. So do we begin again as Marists in the Untied States on this fresh new day as if it were the first day of our presence in this country.
In our visioning work for this reconfiguration in the spring and summer of 2007 culminating in the PowerPoint presentation at the joint assembly of that year, we drew a picture of our future—dispersed as missionary communities around the whole country, newly committees to communion in prayer and our common journey into God, openly hospitable and collaborating with our laity in various ways, uniquely focused on sharing our lives with younger people, localizing ministerial planning and evaluation, keeping the unique differing needs of both our active and senior Marists in the forefront, looking for ways to collaborate more directly with Marist Family and other religious in appropriate ways, and especially more attuned to our continental and global sense of Marist identity. Everyone said from the beginning that they were not interested in just a “restructuring” that reorders the status quo. They wanted to see something new in the United States for us as Marists. The new is rather amazingly old at times.
This is the agenda for your new leadership over these years. It has been affirmed once again by the Council of the Province at its December 2008 meeting. Admit it! It really is a little exciting isn’t it? Ignatius said: “Few persons understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to God and if they were to allow God’s grace to mold them accordingly.” Jean Claude Colin said that in a number of endless ways as well. We won’t be among those few. A Happy and Blessed New Year!
Fraternally,
Ted Keating, SM
Provincial of the Marists of the USA