Part III

Mary in the Church of Our Day

Having spent considerable time with Mary at Nazareth to imbibe her spirit, and having chosen her as our model and guide, we must return now to the Church and world of our own day. For the Marist goes back to the early days of the Church, and to Nazareth, not to remain there in some nostalgic dreamland, but in order to bring a fresh approach to bear on the problems and demands and needs of the world of our own day. After all, the Marist enterprise began with an intuition about our own era: 'Mary said: 'I was the support of the Church at its birth; .1 wish to be its support in these latter days: ' The key to Marist living today is found in an expression coined by Fr. Colin, our Founder:

To think as Mary, judge as Mary, feel and act as Mary in all things.

For our purposes, we will change the order of these activities slightly. Examining various concrete situations in our-own lives, we will attempt to feel as Mary would in these situations, becoming sensitive to the needs of people and letting ourselves be stirred to action. Then we will try to think about them as Mary might, analyzing them and understanding their potentialities within God's plan. Next we shall learn to judge as Mary, applying her criteria to possible courses of action that might be taken. Finally, we shall learn Mary's way of acting, her particular style, the way she hopes to accomplish much good through us.

Throughout this fourfold process, we will be given some highly symbolic images which

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