• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Marist
    • A Certain Way
    • Bearing Mary’s name
    • Doing Mary’s work
    • Marist Founder: J C Colin
    • Marist Places
    • Spirituality
    • Marist Family
  • Marist New Zealand
    • New Zealand Marist news
      • Get Marist News
    • Administration
      • Finance and administration
      • Marist Archives
      • NZ Marist History
      • NZ Marist Links
      • Privacy Policy
      • Renewal
    • Education and Youth
      • Gap Year
      • Logos
      • Marist Colleges’ Senate
      • Network of Marist Schools
      • School chaplaincy
      • Youth House
    • “Foreign Lands”
      • Social Outreach
        • Abandoned and neglected
        • L’arche
        • Ministry to Seafarers
        • Not-for-profit facilitation
        • Police Chaplaincy
        • Wellintown
      • CathNews
      • Marist Internet Project
      • Music Ministry
      • RPD Unit
    • Marist Spirituality
      • In Every Way
      • Marist Messenger
      • Pa Maria
      • Spiritual Direction
    • Marist Laity
      • Marian Mothers
      • Marist Third Order
      • Mother of Good Hope
    • Missionary parishes
      • Homily Helps
      • John Rea: Healing ministry
    • Tangata Whenua
  • Marist World
    • International Marist news
    • Marist Americas
    • Marist Asia Pacific
      • Asia
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Oceania
    • Mission Districts
      • Asia
        • Ranong
      • Brazil
    • Marist Europe
  • Marist Vocation
    • Who are the Marists
    • What Marists do
    • Life as a Marist
    • Train as a Marist
      • Good Shepherd College
      • Marist Seminary
      • Marist Novitiate
      • Pastoral Placement
    • Want to know more?
  • Contact us
    • Fr John Rea
    • Marist Archives
    • Marist Laity
    • Safeguarding minors
    • Society of Mary New Zealand
    • Vocations Enquiry

Society of Mary

Marist Fathers New Zealand: Life and spirit

  • jeffdranesmoa
  • reflection
  • laneyliere
  • kk-at-wairoa
  • christie baptism
  • everyway
  • mike-mahoney-wataraoa
  • cerdon
  • refugeekids
  • arthurtoothillmarae

“Foreign Lands”

Marist founder, Jean Claude Colin once observed that “St Francis Xavier achieved sanctity in the Indies and St Francis regis in our own country.” 

Mission to the “Foreign Lands” while staying at home is a real challenge that has echoes Jesus words, “new wine, new wine skins.” It’s a mission that requires a new ardour.

In the 19th century a large number of Marists in France were sufficiently passionate about Gospel that naive and quite unprepared for the task they left their homeland, and came to spread the Good News in Oceania and New Zealand.

They had no idea where they were going nor what it would be like.

Two centuries later there exists an urgent need to re-present the good news in places where it has been forgotten or abandoned. In some contexts this is called the “New Evangelisation”.

Going to “foreign lands” or as Dominician priest Timothy Radcliffe calls is, “mission amongst the Runnaway World,” does not require the missionary to leave their homeland, but it does necessitate a cultural journey out of the safety of the familiar church into the world.

The New Evangelisation demands that the missionary leaves his or her ‘place of comfort’ to live in the ‘place of comfort’ of those with whom the missionary wants to share the good news. It requires the learning of a new new language, the effort to understand a foreign culture and the use of an appropriate methodology.

In New Zealand it seems we can no longer rely on an inheritance of sacramental-focussed faith between one generation and another. The new evangelisation is about ‘going out there’, not ‘calling people in here’.

The first interest of Jean Claude Colin, and the part of the Society of Mary’s charism that gives the Society of Mary its uniqueness, was his concern to re-establish the church in places where the flock had been scattered.

Today there is a new urgency because cultural change has been so marked in its impact that new approaches are needed.

The Society of Mary is trying to be creative in its ways of communication and of community living because that is where faith needs fresh embodiment.

Looking back on the period of the First Evangelisation, (blue-water evangelisation), we see that along the way, there were some successes and many failures.

There were ship-wrecks both literal and metaphorical; there were many arguments and misunderstandings.

However, by the grace of God these early Marist missionaries succeeded in sowing the seed of the word in our part of the world.

These men left home, went to live in a strange land, learned a new language and made repeated efforts to understand the culture of the people among whom they lived.

As the Pope John Paul II said so many times, a new evangelisation needs to be new in its ardour, in its methods, and in its means of expression.

“Jean Coste has a rather intriguing image that sums up our Marist approach really well for me, that of the prompt who sits off stage at a theatre performance with the script in hand ready to alert the main actors should they forget their lines. Listen to Coste in his own words.

“We exist to save people and not to save principles. We are not here to exercise our own system …

“But we will meet this person and put him or her here again in contact with grace. To ‘receive them back into grace, ask little of him, and grace will do the rest.’

“We are like the person in the prompt-box, who is not supposed to interfere, to jump on the stage and to take part in the play. They would ruin the play. They just have to stay in the prompt-box and suggest to the actors what they have to say. But the real play is between these two: the person and their God.” – David Kennerley sm “Oceania Province, Province Region Retreat Conference. 2007.”

Primary Sidebar

Recently

  • Mike and Yvonne Moore thanked for involvement at St Bede’s College
  • Tim Duckworth assumes office of NZ Provincial
  • €20k needed to reopen Marist Camino pilgrim hostel
  • Abuse and Cover-Up; Gerald Arbuckle’s challenging new book
  • Marist Ranong secondary school reopens
  • LOGOS celebrates 20 years

Keep chatting



Search sm.org.nz

We’re about

Administration Asia Australia Chris Skinner City centre church Earthquake Education Foreign Lands Formation Gerald Arbuckle International International Mission Looking outwards Maori MAP Marist Media Mission Missionary Parishes New Evangelisation Oceania Ranong Rome Seminary Spirituality St Mary of the Angels Superior General The Future Vocations Youth

Copyright © 2023 · Society of Mary New Zealand ·