magine for a moment that you are going away for a long period of time and your family and closest friends have asked you to leave them a photo of yourself, something they can keep as a continual reminder of you until you return. Close your eyes for a short time and imagine how you might prepare for this photo: what would you wear, where would you be? Would you be photographed alone or with others? Picture the scene in you mind. It is an interesting thing, is it not, to think about how we would like people to remember us when we are gone. How people remember us says something about the way we live our lives, about the way we spend our time, about the things we've put effort into, about the things we hold up as important.

Today we celebrate the Feast of St Marcellin Champagnat and my favourite picture of him hangs in our Lavalla room, but there is another that would rank as close second in my opinion. It is not a picture I have seen hanging on the walls of our own school but it is one that appeals to me greatly. It is a picture of Marcellin with a beaming smile, with his sleeves rolled up, his hands on his hips and his young Marist teachers gathered around him. It is a picture that speaks to me of a man 'with his feet on the ground', a man brimming over with confidence, vigour and enthusiasm and a man in the midst of community.

As you know Marcellin was a priest and he lived in the years that followed the French Revolution, a time when the priests were associated more with the leaders of the country than with the ordinary people. As a sign of their place in society many priests used to wear a fine woven, delicate material around the edge of their cuffs, called lace. If someone wore lace there was no way they could engage themselves in the work of the ordinary people, and the ordinary people in the place where Marcellin lived were farmers and tradespeople. But Marcellin was a different kind of priest to many at the time and when he decided to build his famous training house, The Hermitage, he did not tell other people what to do, he did it with them. On almost every day during the building of that extraordinary structure, Marcellin would be found with his sleeves rolled up working with the Brothers and the builders.

Marcellin believed that the best results were achieved when people worked in cooperation with others. When everyone believed in the same thing, and worked together to achieve it, Marcellin believed that miracles were possible. And the building of the Hermitage was somewhat of a miracle, evidenced by the fact that so many of Marcellin's opponents openly criticised him, believing him to be foolish and his project doomed to failure. How wrong they turned out to be. Not only is the building standing some 170 years later, but more importantly, there are Marist schools, and a whole range of other good works, in some 72 countries in the world.

The same spirit of determination and cooperation that drove Marcellin was also the spirit that fired up the leaders in the early colonies of our own country to unite as a single nation in 1901. Before that time, each colony in Australia was its own separate entity, working alone and even in competition with the others. There were wise people among the leaders of the colonies who thought this isolation and competition was crazy and when the Great Depression hit the world in the 1890's they were fired up to do something about forging a better place in this struggling land, a long way from most of the action in the rest of the world. The Great Depression had devastated the colonies; people were poor, uneducated and suffering from terrible ill health. A number of leaders at the time insisted that the only way forward for our country was for the colonies to cooperate, to unite as one and form a nation what would be a prosperous home for all people. This year we celebrate 100 years since the foundation of this Great Southland as a single country - the place we are proud to call Australia.

And so Marcellin and the Fathers of F ederation achieved great things, things that we all benefit from today, but it is salutary for us to consider how each of them achieved such marvellous works. Yes, they worked hard, yes they had good ideas, yes, they took risks, yes, they had supporters, yes, they worked in cooperation with others, but as good as all these things are, they were not enough to achieve such lasting greatness. Above all these things or perhaps even permeating all these things was an abiding belief and trust in God. Marcellin and the Fathers of Federation were like the person in today's Gospel who built his house on solid foundations; foundations that ensured things would last. Marcellin dedicated all his works to God, believing that nothing was done without God's protection and guidance. On the day of Federation in 1901 the nation of Australia was dedicated to God in the belief that it was God, not humans who would ultimately guide and protect us.

Let Marcellin's building of the Marist dream and the building of the Australian nation be reminders to us that nothing is enduring if it is not the work of God and our achieving greatness comes from a belief that God works in and through us. Yesterday, today and forever."

Marist Laity Australia officially launched by Fr Bill Ryder, sm Australian Provincial