INTRODUCTION

We each have our own experience of being a Marist educator in the Champagnat tradition. Each country where we are present has its own Marist history. As an international family we have a history and a tradition. When the General Chapter of the Brothers in 1993 called for the production of this text, they sensed that it was timely to set down a fresh expression of our common educational heritage and point to new ways of living out the charism of Marcellin Champagnat at the dawn of the Twenty-first century.

We know that we have received a great gift in the person of Marcellin and in his educational intuitions and those of Marist educators since him. We want to be faithful to this heritage in a dynamic way. In our day, the cries of young people are no less urgent than they were in Marcellin’s time. They call for fresh responses. It is this desire to tap into our roots, to re-discover there the passion and vision for our mission for today’s younger generation, that motivates this text.

In developing a contemporary vision statement for Marist education, we have followed the example of previous generations. In 1853 the Brothers published The Teachers’ Guide, the fruit of their experience and reflections on Marcellin Champagnat’s own educational insights and guidelines. They perceived the need for a text of reference, a source of inspiration and of unity. Later General Chapters called for its revision in the light of the increasing diversity of situations and of laws covering education, as well as of evolving approaches to education. Especially after the second Vatican Council, successive General Chapters have reflected deeply on our Marist apostolate and published texts and guidelines which retain their value still.

This present document consciously adopts a different approach, in the light of our international diversity and the insights of contemporary educational and Church thinking. Many Provinces have developed their own syntheses of what constitutes a Marist approach in education, but there is a felt need for a statement that is more universal and unifying at the level of foundational vision and principles. What we have produced has the richness of such universality, but also its limitations in terms of not being able to focus sharply on the urgent and priority questions arising in our different contexts. Further, in being a vision statement, it does not pretend to be a pedagogical treatise or manual of Marist spirituality.

There is a very significant change here from previous Marist documents: the "we" in the text addresses both Brothers and Laypeople who are the Marist educators of today. In doing this, we want to recognise the ever-increasing number of Laypeople who are carrying forward the project Marcellin began, and the importance of their inclusion in any contemporary reflection on Marist mission. Indeed, this document itself is the fruit of a two year consultation process involving people in seventy-five countries, under the co-ordination of an international commission composed of Brothers and Laypeople.

Also, the field of Marist education has broadened from formal education to other pastoral and social structures and activities. The terms "education" and "educator" are used in the text in this inclusive sense. The motivation for this diversification has been our deepening appreciation of Marcellin’s original vision and the desire to respond to the changing situation of children and youth.

In a particular way, the text mirrors both the reality and the ongoing challenge of how we keep in focus both our ultimate mission of evangelising children and youth and our priority of working with the least favoured. Local and international Chapters and Assemblies of Marist educators have re-asserted the conviction that being innovative in respect of such core issues is inherent to our fidelity as disciples of Marcellin Champagnat.

The document can be divided into three sections: the first (Chapters 1 and 2) presents the person of Marcellin and addresses an invitation to all of us to grow in our sense of sharing a common mission as his followers; the second (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) presents the key elements of our vision: the young people we want to serve, especially the least favoured, our mission of evangelising through education and our distinctive approach as Marists; the third looks at how we apply our vision to our work in formal education (Chapter 6), and to other pastoral and social ministries (Chapter 7).

To facilitate the reading of the text, topical words and phrases have been highlighted in each paragraph. Through the end-notes to each section, we have documented our primary sources, limiting ourselves to Marist and Church documents, and to Scripture. ^* A good number of these texts are included for easy reference.

We have tried to limit the repetition of ideas. At the same time, we have sought to make each section of the final two chapters sufficiently complete on its own, when read and understood as applications of the central vision.

The present tense is used throughout the text to propose our ideals. We are not pretending to describe the reality of our attitudes or work on every continent. In this sense the document is consciously visionary, charting a way forward. We invite you to use it for personal reflection, to be open to the challenges it contains; also to use it locally and regionally as a stimulus to the planning and evaluation of your various ministries.

We sincerely thank everyone throughout the Marist world who contributed to the preparation of this vision statement during the consultation stages.

May it strengthen our ties within the world-wide Marist family and help us to be Champagnats for the young people of each of our countries and continents.

The International Commission for Marist Education

2nd January, 1998