Agnes, Marist Way, England, traces the Marist spiritual journey of her life among the mysteries of the Rosary.
The Marist Way in England is linked to the Marist Fathers and the Marist Sisters.
Marist spirituality, both as a way of thinking, and its application in the attitudes and activities of my everyday living has been an integral part of my journey in faith, much of the time without my realising it. In the early 1990’s the presence of the Marist Fathers, until then an unquestioned part of life in our community, came to an abrupt end. It was in the absence of that presence that I came to realise how much my spiritual growth had been nurtured by them. Only when it was gone did I appreciate what I had hitherto taken for granted.
As a result, I recognised the need not only for myself but also for others, to try to fill the yawning gap created when the Marist Fathers left my hometown after almost a hundred years of ministry here. I was involved in the Marist Way but as a group, we felt quite isolated. When the opportunity arose to join with others in the UK in developing Marist Spirituality for Lay people I was delighted to become involved.
Then I needed to think about what it was that made me feel Marist. I decided that it was my understanding of the life of Jesus, as seen by Mary from the Annunciation to His death and resurrection and the founding of the Church at Pentecost, underpinned by the Marist statement that Mary was there at the beginning of the Church and would be there until the end. That is why I choose the Rosary as a framework for my story. It encompasses the lives of Jesus and Mary and helps to explain my Marist outlook.
I am reminded of the uncertainty Mary may have experienced in the beginning, when she accepted unconditionally to be the mother of Jesus, and relate it to the lives of so many people today, and of how she will understand them. I envisage the practical side of Mary when she went and stayed with her cousin Elizabeth, as she awaited the birth of John the Baptist, the trauma of Zechariah, a teacher who found himself unable to do his job and relate that to the many unemployed and disenfranchised people in society today. And I ask myself –“What would Mary think?”
Her homelessness at the time of her delivery can be equated with homeless families and individuals in our own country today about whom we hear so much. I personally identify with her acute anxiety when Simeon told her of the heartache she had to face, in the sadness I have faced – the loss of a brother, aged 25, after two years of inordinate suffering, a sister, aged 27 and mother of a very young family who died suddenly and too soon, and a husband aged 50, called to new life when we expected to be enjoying the fruits of our labours. Some of those events I had been told to expect, some not. The Marist Fathers supported me unconditionally in all of them. When I think of the flight into Egypt – I see Mary in the midst of the dispossessed and the asylum seekers in to-days world and I long to be like her. And I ask myself “What would Mary feel?”
I imagine the details of the silent, pondering years of Mary, mothering Jesus in Nazareth. The fear and remorse she would have felt on losing him for three days will connect with the lives of every parent who has “lost” a child even for a few dreadful moments in the park or the supermarket. I have no children but think I understand the anxieties of parents. Who can’t relate to the mother seeing a problem at a family gathering – being aware of need as Mary did at Cana? Whispering “what should we do?” I think of Mary when I see parents, trailing around after children who seem to be losing their way. I feel for them, seeming to be snubbed by their children, not understanding them. I am far enough removed to be able to say at such times “is it a cry for help?” And I ask myself “How would Mary judge?”
Then we go to Calvary. I do not forget my parents’ desolation at the loss of their children. It is against the law of nature for parents to witness the death of their child, no matter what the age. Again our Marist friends supported them and our family.
After that it is pure conjecture. No lost bodies, no resurrections for us. But I meet people with cross, upon cross upon cross. How on earth do they cope, or what have they done to deserve it? I don’t know what to do to help. I only know that somehow Mary has been there and is in the midst of their suffering. And I ask myself “What would Mary do?”
So my story revolves around the events related in the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries of the Rosary. The Annunciation and the Ascension into Heaven. Here we have two events, and all that occurred in between, inextricably intertwined with Mary, and forming the roots of Marist spirituality. I cannot experience either Jesus or Mary, one without the other. Jesus has promised that he will be with us always, to the end of time, and therefore Mary will be also.
All I can tell you is that my life has been enhanced by Marist influences and I am passionate about passing on my experience to others. |
