Marist Laity Newsletter
May, 2009
News from the Marist Way Sub Committee on
Networking
Mother’s Day: A Special Marist Day
Mother’s Day evokes a series of reflective thoughts and feelings for me each year. This year,
as I was showered with hugs and kisses and flowers and candy from my four children, I felt like a
queen and prayed a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the beautiful children in my life. I also
dwelled briefly on my dear departed mother, who passed away in 1982. I felt cheated when
Mom died so early in my life, but thanks to clear memories of our family life, she still serves as a
definite role model for the loving family we have today.
My mother was very devoted to our Blessed Mother. I recall memories of the small statue of
Mary that she kept on her dresser, and how she loved praying her rosary. Her prayers for her
family, and especially for her five children, were constant. Her goal was to see that we were
raised in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she used Mary as her special example.
I believe that my mother was being called by the spirit of Mary, even back then. She didn’t
know anything about the Marists, or about that particular spirituality. She only used Mary as her
guide to following her Lord and encouraged us to do the same.
I can’t help but think about being Marist on Mother’s Day, and how fortunate we are to be
called by our own Mother, Mary to do the work of her Son. This Marist approach to life
encourages us to think, judge, feel and act in a special way, Mary’s way. We are called to go
out into the world, in a hidden and unknown way, and preach the Gospel to all. This can be a
somewhat daunting challenge, but looking to our Blessed Mother puts this task into perspective
for us. Mary’s presence as a woman, mother, and disciple can hold a powerful example for us
in our contemporary times. As we watch Mary supporting, nourishing, and encouraging others,
we, too, can be a living disciple to our church and to the world.
Whether we envision Mary at Nazareth, at the foot of the cross, or with the disciples at
Pentecost, we see a woman of inner strength and keen perception. We see a woman who has
called all Marists to bear her name and share in her vision for our church. We see Mary as our
model who gathers us all to the work of her Son.
During this month of May, reflect on the spirit of Mary, and what being Marist means to you.
Say a special prayer for your own mother, and ask God’s continued blessings on your Marist
vocation. “Mary, Mother of us all, pray for us!” Diane Poach, Newsletter Editor
Service Committee: Change is in the winds!
The Marist Laity Service Committee met in Washington, D.C. in March of this year. It’s agenda
was one of change and energy. In the last newsletter, we began our discussion of the Marist
Way, a work in progress. Very Reverend Ted Keating, s.m., Provincial of the United States
Province, again joined the committee to discuss “How must the Marist Religious change and
how must the Marist laity change to realize the aim of becoming a Marist spiritual/missionary
movement of Marist Laity and Marist Religious together.” Several of our service committee
members have been invited to serve on a joint committee with the Marist Fathers and Brothers
to collaborate on a new Marist Way movement. Their main objectives include:
Formation – formation and education of Marist, vowed and lay, through programs,
materials, retreats, partnerships, etc.
Collaborative ministries – Support for pilot projects in collaborative ministry at various
Marist parishes, Marist school, and other ministry sites
Living the Marist Way – Encouraging exploration of what it means to live the Marist Way in
places where there are Marist groups but no formal Marist ministries
Communications – Keeping Marists linked and informed, ensuring external visibility, using
websites, learning from and partnering with other like-minded groups.
Mary Ann Adkins, Diane Poach, Bob Spruce, and Ed Poach will be joining Fr. Ted and other vowed Marists
in this endeavor, and thus will be leaving the current committee. We wish them good luck and pray with
them in support of their work.
The existing Marist Laity Service Committee will now bear the name “Marist Way Sub-Committee on
Networking.” (Please refer to Fr. Keel’s letter at the end of this newsletter for the duties of this very
important committee.) You and your groups will be hearing from someone on this capable committee in
the near future.
Gathering for the Marist Laity Service Committee Meeting in March
We celebrated Fr. Edwin Keel’s birthday
during our meeting in March. He is
pictured here with some of the many
cards from Marist Laity groups in the US.
He writes: “Sincere thanks to all who
sent birthday greetings. I was
overwhelmed!” Fr. Edwin Keel, S.M.
Group News: Holy Rosary Parish
embraces a Marist Challenge
Holy Rosary Parishioners in Buckhannon, West Virginia, recently embarked on a Marist challenge. They
have been fortunate to have the presence of Marist priests and brothers in their parish for the past 100
years. Yet, many parishioners did not know about the Marist spirituality. Their challenge was to promote
the Marist Way in their parish community, and bring to the forefront the Spirit of Mary. Core parishioners
met, brainstormed, and set up a plan of action, including these:
1. We continue to promote our Marist Laity study group. We have incorporated the idea of being
Marist, and the idea of our parish having a Marist history by discussing it in parish meetings and
through our prayer at meetings. We have had homilies concerning Mary and being Marist.
2. Our children have been involved with getting to know St. Peter Chanel, and they provided a
program for the parish about him last year.
3. Brother Roy Madigan, s.m. has produced excellent articles which we used for our bulletin covers for
the past several months.
4. We have inserted “Marist Way Thoughts” into our bulletin which contain just a sentence or two
about being Marist.
5. Our prayers of the faithful at each weekend liturgy contain intercessions about Marist priests,
brothers, laity, and those who work with the Marists.
6. The School of Religion created a banner incorporating Marist “words” which will be hung in the
church as a reminder of our
Marist heritage.
7. A survey was sent to all of the
members of the Marist Way
committee to evaluate our
progress with the Marist Way.
We determined that we are a Marist parish
without a founder! We began a search for a
statue of St. Peter Chanel and found one in
the Marist House on Varnum St. in
Washington. Here is a picture of Ed Poach,
member of Holy Rosary Parish, and Father
Bruce Leary, as they prepare St. Peter Chanel
for his new home in Buckhannon!
Marist Way
Family Retreat Weekend 2009
Theme: Becoming a Holy Family
Conducted by Marist Brother Hank Hammer, FMS & Brother Albert Rivera, FMS
Date: July 31st- August 2nd 2009
Registration begins Friday, July 31, at 4:00 pm
Retreat Begins 7:00 p.m. Friday, July 31
Retreat Ends: 2:00 p.m. Sunday, August 2, 2009
Place: Ebb Tide Resort
308 S. Ocean Blvd., Pompano Beach, FL 33062
No online registration. Mail-in forms are available at Marist website: www.maristlaity.org.
Continuing Projects
Christine has done a marvelous job with our laity website. You can check it out at www.maristlaity.org. There are
several new items on the website, and you can discover some information about groups in your area or references
you may need for your group.
The trifold brochure of prayers to Our Lady of Good Hope is being translated into Spanish and Vietnamese! These
prayers consecrate children, born and unborn, to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, under the title, “Our Lady of Good
Hope.” This devotion to Mary is one of the oldest Marian devotions.
The following letter is written by Father Ed Keel, S.M., director of Marist
Laity, and can be copied and used as a study guide for your group.
April 28, 2009
Feast of St. Peter Chanel
Dear Fellow Marists,
This is the Easter Season when we are joyfully, ecstatically, celebrating the incredible reality that Jesus,
God’s precious and only-begotten Son, went to the lengths of dying for us to show the depth of God’s
love for us, and of rising to new life to show us the glorious destiny that awaits us, indeed a destiny that we
already live in some sense now: eternal life in God. And the date of this letter is the feast of St. Peter
Chanel, who was among the first Marists to take vows in 1836, and our first martyr and saint who died a
mere 5 years after taking vows. These two events, Easter and the feast of our early fellow Marist, draw our
minds back to beginnings.
The beginning, the foundation, of the Marists was in an inspiration that Mary wanted to be present in the
Church of these modern times through a new congregation to be called Society of Mary. The members
of this Society would be, as it were, Mary’s presence in the Church of these modern times. They would do
her work in the Church and the world, and would bring her spirit to the Church and to the world. The
founding inspiration from Mary was formulated in these words: “I was the support of the Church at its
birth, and I will be so now in these last days.”
From the very beginning, the early Marists came, almost by instinct, to two important beliefs:
1) Since Mary, as a mother, is concerned about all of her children, the Society of Mary must not only
reach out in its ministry to all people, but especially to those who have lost their way or become
alienated from the Church. The Society must also find a way that all people, whether religious or
clergy or laity, could be included in some sense as members of the Society itself. Hence there
had to be a branch of the Society for lay people as well as branches of religious men and women
and a branch for priests.
2) The Society of Mary must look to the early Church for an indication of how it is to be structured.
Mary wants to be present in the Church today through the Marists as she had been present in the
early Church. She was calling attention to the fact that the situation of the Church in the world
today is very like the situation of the Church in the beginning: Christians must live their faith in a
world that is clearly not Christian and that is often hostile to them and to their faith. But she was
also calling for a Society that would move beyond the divisions and separations that had
developed later in the Church between clergy and religious and lay people. Could there be a
group of people, a Society of Mary, in which clergy and religious and lay people could share the
same spirit and spirituality, could be equally zealous about and busy about the same Work of
Mary, and could even work together or at least support one another in this Work? Could the
pristine zeal of the early Christians, and the marvelous collaboration of lay members with the
apostles, become a reality in the Church of our day and age?
For various historical reasons, we Marists have never been able to realize this dream completely. The
religious branches of the Society of Mary became recognized by the Church as separate religious
congregations, and the lay branch as a separate Third Order of Mary organized along traditional third
order lines.
But now a new opportunity has arisen. As you have already heard, the two provinces of the Marist
Fathers and Brothers, the Atlanta Province and the Boston Province, have merged into one new Province
of the USA. And with this merger has come a new initiative to realize the Marist dream.
Today, therefore, I announce to you a new initiative to bring us closer to fulfilling the Marist dream: The
Marist Fathers and Brothers SM and the laity associated with us in our many Marist Laity and Third Order
groups as well as the laity in our parishes and schools, are being invited to a new level of collaboration
and of communion in Mary’s family.
Probably the best analogy for how we are hoping to fulfill the original Marist dream would be the many
spiritual movements that we find in the Church today in which lay people and religious and clergy share
the same spirituality and work together at the same apostolic objectives.
We Marists, then, want to find ways for all of us, priests, brothers, and lay Marists, to be formed in the same
spirituality, perhaps participating together in special formation programs, retreats, workshops, and the
like. And we want to find ways to carry out better our missionary mandate, which is to do Mary’s Work of
evangelizing and reconciling and reaching out to the marginalized and excluded. In a word, we want to
find ways that all of us, whether working together or separately, can better help our Church to become
more like Mary. After all, the Second Vatican Council tells us that Mary is the type, exemplar, and model
of the Church.
Appropriate to a new initiative are a new name and new structures:
1) Already in my letter last fall I indicated why we are moving in the direction of using the name Marist
Way. This name signifies how all of us Marists, whether we are religious or lay people or priests, have
committed ourselves to the Marist way of life. And whether you choose to call your local group by
the name Marist Way or by the name Marist Laity or by the name Third Order of Mary, we are all trying
to live by the same spiritual path and are working together at the same apostolic endeavor, the Work
of Mary.
2) Committees:
A new committee has been established. It is called the Marist Way Committee. It is also
called the “joint committee” because its membership consists of both religious priests and
brothers and lay people. This committee’s mandate is to strategize this whole new initiative.
They will do some exciting planning for all of us for the coming years. It is not their task to
handle day-to-day business.
Meanwhile the committee that you have known as the Marist Laity Service Committee is now
the Marist Way Sub-committee on Networking. Its purpose is as follows:
To keep up contact with all of the Marist lay groups throughout the country.
To assist these groups to be in touch with one another when possible.
To handle the day-to-day needs of the groups and their members.
With the change of structures come new responsibilities and new officers. Mary Ann Adkins, who has
done such an outstanding job as chairperson of the Marist Laity Service Committee will now be a
member of the joint committee. Therefore the networking subcommittee will need a new chairperson. It
is my pleasure to introduce you to Joyce Albert. She will head the subcommittee which will be handling
the day-to-day concerns of our lay groups. You will find Joyce a very friendly, very dedicated, and very
competent chairperson. Here is how you can reach her:
Joyce Albert
2474 General Collins Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70114
Phone: 504-362-8223
E-mail: joycealbert1@bellsouth.net
You will also be hearing from the members of the sub-committee as we try to maintain better contact
with all our groups.
Amid all of this change, one thing that is remaining the same is that all orders for Marist books and
materials are to be sent to me:
Fr. Edwin L. Keel, SM
2244 Marshall Avenue
Wheeling, WV 26003
Phone: 304-242-0406
E-mail: maristelk@comcast.net
In the case of those materials you have been obtaining through Fr. DiIanni, who remains the Marist Laity
Promoter for the Boston Sector of the new Province, you may still receive those materials from him:
Fr. Albert DiIanni, SM
698 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: 617-262-2271
E-mail: smvocations@aol.com
This letter has already gotten too lengthy, so let me close by wishing you every grace during this Easter
Season, and by assuring you of the support and the readiness to assist you of Fr. DiIanni and myself and of
Joyce Albert and our sub-committee.
Fr. Edwin L. Keel, SM