Chaminade College Preparatory
Homily for the Board of Directors Meeting

Votive Mass in Honor of Blessed
William-Joseph Chaminade

By Fr. Ted Ley S.M.
Saturday, 9 September 2000    11:30am
Marriott Hotel, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.

John’s Gospel tells us that Christ, dying on the Cross, placed His Mother in the care of John, and John in the care of His Mother.  Tradition tells us that John, in his apostolic travels, was accompanied by Mary; that in due time, they settled in the city of Ephesus in what is now modern Turkey, and there Mary completed her earthly life and was taken into heaven by her Son.  The beginning of John’s Gospel and its conclusion both have two facets: that we are called to respond in Faith to the Story of Jesus; and that our Faith will grow to the extent we grow in our relationship with Christ, similar to the Faith of the Virgin Mary.   These two points then form the over-all theme of John’s Gospel.  Along the way, John, who was a teenager during our Lord’s public life, seems to remember and retell the exact words Jesus used on many occasions.  So, in John’s Gospel, Jesus Himself calls us to a closeness to Himself.

The first part of his Gospel in which this is evident is in a story particularly appreciated by Father Chaminade.   To his initial Marianists he averred that the phrase, “Do whatever he tells you,” that Mary said, applied not only to the immediate persons to whom Mary spoke, but to Marianists.   That is, we should, in the spirit of what since Vatican II we might refer to as “the Church ever renewing itself” – Ecclesia Semper Reformanda, we would discern what Christ is telling us today.  We renew and continue to grow in our spiritual lives and ministry to the extent we discern what Christ is telling us to do in these times.

For the Marianists, the religious order which founded Chaminade Preparatory in 1952, this is not simply about what Christ is telling us in terms of a particular ministry, but even the question, Who is a Marianist?

Father Chaminade was unique among founders.  He – shall we say – founded his “third order” first – his association of laity.   It was the Marianist Laity who began his first schools, not the Brothers.  The Brothers didn’t even exist yet, nor did the Sisters.  Once they did, we realize now, the times and the world were not ready for such a radical view of who is at the center and real beginning of things.  It was a time of enthusiastic renewal of the religious life after the French Revolution.   Marianist religious Sisters, Brothers and priests quickly grew and for about a hundred years eclipsed the Marianist Laity, which did not grow much beyond France.   After World War II when a very different view of What is Church and Who is Church began to be experienced around the world and especially in war-torn Europe, Marianist religious began to see in their roots something strikingly contemporary that had however taken a back seat in the development of the total religious family: that it was not the Marianist religious who were the beginners, the initiators, the teachers and counselors, the persons influencing life at large, but rather the Marianist Laity, called in Father Chaminade’s time, “Sodalists.”  These persons are known now to have been the principal causes of the renewal of the Christian life in Southwestern France in the early 1800s.  From these men and women came the impetus for the foundation by 1820 of Marianist Sisters and Brothers.  When Father Chaminade’s remains were transferred to a monument in the 1860s, half the people there were Marianist Laity some of the eldest of whom knew Father Chaminade before he had founded the Sisters and Brothers.

Today we ask ourselves, then, who are the Marianists?  Very correctly in the international news this past weekend, Father Chaminade was described as founder of the “Marianist Family” – not only of orders of Sisters and Brothers.

So when we think of Marianists today we should think first of active, effective, influential Marianist Laity, persons of Faith responding to the needs of the times in the Chaminadian interpretation of today’s Gospel: “Do whatever he tells you.”

But then, what is the role of Marianist Sisters and Brothers today?  Father Chaminade’s answer came about gradually in his teachings and writings.  By the time of his death in 1850 he was certain the principal purpose of the Marianist Brothers, Sisters and priests was to provide centers of prayer, houses of prayer, what we sometimes now call in America, “centers of Marianist energy,” to provide a spiritual center for the local Marianist Family, a place of refreshment, renewal, motivation, creativity and above all Faith-sharing.

It is the hope of Marianists in Southern California that we can provide to an increasing degree such Marianist energy in our religious community and in our interaction with the growing Marianist Laity of Southern California, at Chaminade and wherever Marianist Laity are active.

This is the new-look for us, in these times.  So while it may first appear that Marianist Laity are assistants to the religious, in fact our Marianist Laity are the impetus for growth and the leaders in living and extending the Marianist Charism – our place in and our gift to the Church as the People of God.  Marianist Laity are fully Marianist in spirituality, community spirit, and ministry.

And so today we wish to implement the complete vision of Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, lay persons who wish to know more about the Marianist Family, to find in the Marianist way of life a Faith-Community answer to what Father Chaminade saw as a universal teaching, through St. John, but by Jesus’ own Mother:  “Do whatever he tells you,” in our lives, in this time and place.

Home Page