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Excerpt |
A Short History of Marianist
Spirituality
Lawrence J. Cada, SM.
13
9pp., $8.00
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Opening Considerations About Terminology
The Word Marianist
In this paper, the word Marianist – both the adjective and the noun – will refer to everyone in the Marianist Family, not just the members of the Society of Mary or to Marianist religious. Thus, the Marianist spirituality whose history will be traced is the spirituality of both lay Marianists and religious Marianists.
This usage, which has become more common in recent years, is simply the latest phase of evolution that has been going on steadily since about the middle 20th century. Before then, the term Marianist was almost never used, neither for religious Marianists or lay Marianists. Father Chaminade did not use the term. The Constitutions of the Society of Mary and Daughters of Mary, composed during the 19th century did not use the term. . . . This situation started to change around the time of World War II. Magazines and periodicals published in the Society began to change their names to The Marianist or The Marianists. After the Daughters of Mary restored the vow of stability to their profession of vows in 1947, they gradually began to call themselves Marianist Sisters. . . . The adjective Marianist began to be applied to an ever expanding range of Marianist realities: Marianist schools, Marianist education, the Marianist Apostolate, Marianist Prayer . . . and Marianist Studies. . . . Most recently, members of the Marianist lay communities have claimed the noun Marianist as their own proper name and have begun to all themselves Marianists.
Marianist Spirituality Is a Lay Spirituality
It is often instructive to pay attention to the way changes in terminology signal important shifts in Marianist self-understanding. The short excursus on the term Marianist which has just been sketched is a case in point. The ease with which we now call everything in the Marianist Family a Marianist is one indicator of the belief and conviction that what we all share as Marianists is of the deepest importance – important enough to have its meaning carried by a single name which conveys the profound value we find in our common Marianist identity.
In this light, our identity as Marianists appears to be even more important than our identity as either lay people or religious. . . .
This view point presumes that Marianist spirituality is fundamentally a lay spirituality. It grounds the spiritual life of both lay Marianists and religious Marianists. Its central features are founded on the new engendered in all Christians by Baptism. A Marianists does not need to profess religious vows to live Marianist life fully. The spirituality of the first members of the Bordeaux Sodality, who began gathering in 1800 and made their first acts of consecration in 1801, was Marianist spirituality. These first Marianists were lay people.Click here to view Table of Contents