In the Footsteps of Marcellin Champagnat: Towards a Vision for Marist Education Today Jeff Crowe

Transcription

1 In the Footsteps of Marcellin Champagnat: Towards a Vision for Marist Education Today Jeff Crowe I greet you as a fellow Marist, a fellow missionary, a fellow educator, a brother. Beyond the personal happiness, however, I am deeply honoured, as I am sure Marcellin would want me to be, to be able to address some reflections to yourselves at an international forum. My own missionary life has taken me to three continents Australia and the Pacific; Asia; Africa and I have had good exposure to a fourth in Europe. Sad to say I have no firsthand experience from the Americas apart from a brief stay in Brazil and meeting up with many excellent fellow Marists, brothers and lay, on a number of occasions such as this one. What I have to share with you today comes from this personal experience as well as from the unique privilege I had as Chairman of the Mission-Solidarity Commission of the General Council of the Brothers and editor of the document on Marist education that was finally endorsed by our last General Chapter. My brief today is to speak about our experience in giving a new thrust to our educational ministry, and in particular our experience of preparing an international vision statement (projet éducatif in French) and its impact. I do not hold this up as a model for others to follow but some of the learning gained may be valuable as you seek to examine and refine your own educational ministry. The key thoughts that were driving us could be summarised as follows: - The cries of young people across the world demand fresh responses from us. We have to listen, to question, to research, to pray, and to look at the world through their young eyes. We risk failing to live up to the charism we have inherited from Marcellin. It is this desire to tap into our roots, to re-discover there the passion and vision for our mission for today s generation that motivates this text. - As most Marist educators in the world today are lay people (and, in fact, women), we need to share the patrimony of the Institute that has up until now been with the Brothers. There is a need for a contemporary expression of this heritage. - Sharing a vision is one thing; empowering lay people to real responsibility and decision-making and planning for Marist institutions is another. Seize the moment positively. - Education has to be understood broadly and not simply in terms of formal education or schools.

2 116 Champagnat - There is great diversity in Marist educational initiatives. We need a statement that is universal and unifying and to the level of foundational vision and principles. We need to value and develop our internationality. The result of our efforts is a text that includes a guiding Charter, a text that develops the ideas and principles of this Charter, and a set of references from Marist and Church documents that are not normally in the hands of lay people, or even Brothers! The charter that we developed reads as follows: Disciples of Marcellin Champagnat, Brothers and Laity, together in mission, in the Church and in the world, among the young, especially the most neglected, we are sowers of the Good News with a distinctive Marist style in schools, and in other pastoral and social ministries. We face the future with audacity and hope. (It should be noted that other groups approached the whole task in different ways. The De la Salle Brothers in the early 1990s chose to identify five key areas as pastoral objectives across the world. The Marianists developed a set of identifying characteristics of their personal and institutional style of education. The Jesuits have done both!) How did we get to this point? The immediate stimulus was a General Chapter decision in 1993 to establish an International Commission with the mandate of preparing a vision statement (projet éducatif). The more long-term stimulus was that there was a pervading mood across the world that now was the moment to pass the baton to generations of Marists to come, most of whom will be committed lay people. There was a precedent for us. In 1853, the Brothers were anxious not to lose the precious heritage of the Founder and his early companions and published The Teacher s Guide (Guide des Ecoles). A charismatic journey The Marist Brothers worldwide have done a lot of soul-searching about the thrust of our ministry. For one hundred and fifty years we have been known as the Marist Brothers of the Schools but that does not fully capture the original vision of the Founder, who called us the Little

3 Crowe 117 Brothers of Mary. André Lanfrey, our current historian-researcher, maintains that there was a constant tension even in Marcellin s lifetime between the catechetical mission desired by Marcellin and the professional work of teaching or rather administering schools. This is reflected in how Marcellin s biographer, Brother Jean- Baptiste, presents his vision: 1 In founding his Institute, Father Champagnat had more in mind than providing primary instruction for the children or even, than teaching them the truths of religion; he wanted to educate them... If it were only a question, he said, of teaching the children secular subjects, the Brothers would not be necessary, because secular masters could do that; if our only aim were to give religious instruction, we could confine ourselves to being simply catechists, bringing children together for an hour each day and getting them to recite their Christian doctrine. But, we aim at something better; we want to educate the children, that is to instruct them in their duty, to teach them to practise it, to give them a Christian spirit and attitudes and to form them to religious habits and the virtues possessed by a good Christian and a good citizen. Life, chapter XXIII, p. 535 What a mighty difference there is between a Brother who teaches as an apostle out of a spirit of zeal, and one who does so simply as a school master carrying out a profession. Life, XXIII, p. 545 There is a lot left between the lines in these passages! Furthermore, Marcellin s vision was to complement other services, not compete: A good education is the surest way to form good subjects for society. Unfortunately, most of the rural towns are deprived of that advantage: the insufficiency of local resources and the poverty of their inhabitants does not permit them to confide the education of their children to the Brothers of the Christians Schools, whose merits and ability are well known; hence the sad necessity of either letting their children grow up in disastrous ignorance, or (which is even more distressing), handing them over to teachers who are hardly capable of training them in the knowledge and virtues necessary for good citizens. To eliminate these drawbacks, the undersigned, Marcellin Champagnat, a priest of the diocese of Lyons, seeing the zeal which the king and his government put into providing the great benefit of education for all levels of society, decided to create, near the city of Saint-Chamond, an 1 John-Baptiste [Furet], Life of Blessed Marcellin Joseph Benedict Champagnat ( ). Marist Priest. Founder of the Congregation of the Little Brothers of Mary, Rome, 1989 [Bicentenary edition].

4 118 Champagnat association of elementary teachers, under the name of the LITTLE BROTHERS OF MARY Champagnat to Louis-Philippe, King of France, Letters, 34. As can be seen from the previous quotations from the Life, Marcellin was not putting all his cards on the table regarding his missionary purpose in this letter to the King! These two vision statements and many similar ones in our primary documents capture well the criteria that Brothers have used down the years to found schools and carry out their ministry. (I am skipping over here the internal debates of the mid-19 th century about branching into cities, opening secondary schools, and operating boarding schools. This was debated but contained very much within the higher echelons of the Institute as was the custom of the day.) But, as with so many other groups responsible for educational institutions, we have been the victims of our own success! The power of the pervading modern or postmodern culture, indifferent to Gospel values, has also altered forever the nexus between Church, school and family. The very people we educated out of ignorance and poverty did not all grow in faith and personal commitment, and many schools established originally for the poor gradually became populated by the children of more well-to-do families, especially our own ex-students. The last two General Chapters, in doing a reality check on whether we have been faithful to the Founder s vision, concluded that our resources and resourcefulness have shifted away from the target group he wanted privileged, namely the least favoured. Such thinking is the background to our choice to highlight the two foundational ideas of evangelisation and solidarity in our contemporary expression of Marcellin s vision. Of course, there were external influences on this choice as well coming from Church and society, particularly the words themselves which are not particularly Marist. Furthermore, and parallel to this refocusing, there was a distinct shift in how we stated our mission: no longer in terms of schools but in working with children and young people. That is, reference is made to the target group, if I can use a crude phrase, and not the means or ministry employed. The International Education Commission responsible for the document on FMS Marist education that I referred to at the beginning, felt that this was still not sharp enough as a charter for our future, and decided to underline the priority of solidarity in the following terms:

5 Crowe In the same way that Marcellin was thinking especially of the least favoured of young people in founding the Marist Brothers, our preference is to be with those who are excluded form the mainstream of society, and those whose material poverty leads them to be deprived also in relation to health, family life, schooling, and education in values. 55. We recognise in this love for all young people, and especially for the poor, the essential identifying marks of our Marist mission. In the same perspective, the 20 th General Chapter discerned a call to: Go forward, Brothers and Lay persons together, in a clear and decisive way, drawing closer to the poorest and most marginalised of young people, through new ways of education, evangelisation and solidarity. And it is happening! New Life The 19 th General Chapter of 1993 had mandated that each Province initiate at least one new solidarity project and they did it! The call of the 2001 Chapter, however, indicates that there remains much to happen if our rhetoric is to be matched by our actions, and the clear thrust of solidarity is to be fully mainstream and not left on the edges of each Province s ministries or some optional extra in the life choices of active Brothers. At the end of 2003, it was published that children and young people benefit from the Marist presence in 77 countries in the world, where more than Marist teachers work. Among these teachers are included brothers. The old reflex of referring to teachers is still there in the General Administration, at least in the English translation! It remains true that the main ministry for Brothers and their associates across the world is in schools, although today there are some very different types of schools or learning centres. Having acknowledged that, what could be highlighted are the new choices regarding Marist presence: - In Latin America generally, a decisive shift towards serving poor children and youth through everything from crèches to shelters for street-children to programs for idle, unemployed youth; pastoral and educational work among American Indian groups from Chiapas in Mexico to the Andes and the Amazon. The new presence in Cuba is a powerful symbol of refounding.

6 120 Champagnat - In Africa and Madagascar, an extraordinary resilience in caring for youth in countries torn apart by civil war and debilitating social problems, even at personal risk. Mere mention of the names is enough to conjure up the contexts: Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Algeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast One African Brother compared the circumstances of ministry in each of the twenty countries where we are present to the Dark Ages. The Brothers and lay Marists there, now nearly all African, are real sowers of hope in offering a serious and purposeful education on shoestring budgets. - In Australia and the Pacific Islands, the new ventures are for the kids at risk ; creating new school environments with adapted curriculum and personalised assistance has been a feature. In Bougainville, an educational centre for former combatants was opened in which the students now battle with personal trauma as well as high school studies. In East Timor, the need of the moment has been a teachers College and now this has begun. In Sydney there is an extensive network, called Marist Community Services, that reaches out in Marcellin s spirit to violent, abusive young people, runaways, and young offenders. - In Asia, the new is to be found in new initiatives like the Lavalla school for disabled children in Cambodia, the Operation Rainbow project for children affected by AIDS in India, and the small but powerfully symbolic presence of a group of Brothers from three Asian nations in mainland China. The ability of the Sri Lankan Province to identify men to be true contemporary missionaries in Pakistan cannot be overlooked, nor the extensive outreach of Marist institutions and maintaining communities in disturbed outposts in the Philippines. - In Europe and North America, there are new communities, present amongst and caring for largely unchurched and under-served youth. Marist communities have become gathering points for young people seeking something more from life across France, Spain, Belgium, Syria, Canada. Marists are now working with gypsies in Romania, Hungary and Catalunya, with prisoners and young ex-prisoners in Holland, with young alcoholics in Ireland and Spain. Needless to say, these initiatives all involve committed lay people. All of these new ventures require fresh imagination, a profound sense of Providence, a newfound confidence in working in partnership with others, daring and creativity - just as it did for Marcellin himself. Are they the result of the document on Marist education and the consultation and evaluation processes used? I doubt it. We have our prophets as I am sure you do, and, amazingly, the Spirit has been present at local and

7 Crowe 121 General Chapters and assemblies. Even more amazingly, the Brothers have taken Chapter mandates seriously, sometimes these days at the prodding of their convinced lay friends! Evangelising through education At the heart of our reflection is a re-assertion of our conviction that educational settings provide a privileged context for working with young people in all aspects of their lives. Is it possible these days to really evangelise or are we kidding ourselves / wasting our time? There is no doubt that in Western countries especially a very large proportion of children and their families are unchurched. But the antiinstitutional rhetoric of the 1960s and 1970s has been shown to be hollow, and the testimony from all over is that schools of a strong faith tradition are having a religious and social impact on students, independent of their family and in spite of the secularised and pluralistic environment. It is commonplace today to speak of a resurgence of an interest in spirituality. In the two-thirds of the world that are not Western, the challenges related to evangelisation are equally complex: extreme poverty, employment frustration, migration to urban centres, chronic violence, corrupt leaders, social injustice, poor medical services, AIDS, dread of the power of evil, cultural nationalism and so on. Proclamation of the Gospel in such contexts is not enough although the raging success of Pentecostal groups indicates that the Word of God remains powerful in its own right when people are desperate and down-trodden. The underlying Christian anthropology that we adopted in such a religiously and culturally diverse context is that of the four key relationships of every human person: to self, to others, to the world and nature, to God. The theology of mission that relates to this is a theology of the Spirit, constructed around the activities of Presence, Proclamation, Pastoral life and Propagation. (My former theology professor, John Thornhill SM would be pleased to know that his patient work with me in the late 1980s was not in vain!) From this basic theoretical position, we tried to elaborate what faithbased education institutions and programs do or try to do, particularly the Presence / Proclamation moments in the above list. Other ministers in the Church such as priests envisage their apostolic mission differently and devote their energies to other programs and initiatives, particularly the Proclamation / Pastoral life moments. As St. Paul reminds us, there is only one Spirit, and so we are talking here of

8 122 Champagnat complementary activities with the one ultimate aim of sharing and nurturing faith. In this regard, Marcellin left us two foundational statements: as a missionary of his day, his purpose was to make Jesus Christ known and loved ; as an educator, his purpose was to lead young people to the experience of personal faith and of their vocation as good Christians and virtuous citizens.(#69) In this last sentence, you can see how at the dawn of this new century we have spoken in fresh terms of the experience of personal faith as a key phrase guiding choices to be made. Marcellin wanted us to touch the hearts of the children. Our definition of mission is contained in the following articles: 70. As his followers, we assume this same mission, firstly, by helping young people, whatever their faith tradition and wherever they are in their spiritual search, to grow to become people of hope and personal integrity, with a deep sense of social responsibility to transform the world around them. This work of promoting human growth is integral to the process of evangelisation. In promoting Gospel values, all Marist educators contribute to the mission of every Marist project to build God s Reign on earth. 71. But we go further. Inspired by the words of Marcellin, I cannot see a child without wanting to teach him catechism, to make him realise how much Jesus Christ has loved him, we present Jesus to the young as a real person they can come to know, love and follow. For us educators, both are moments of evangelisation. You can see, as well, how we have tried to include all the educators and all the young people we are working with in our definition. This is a major challenge today where so many staff of our educational institutions are not practising Catholics or, in some countries, non- Christian the children as well. Indeed, in Asia where I was giving workshops on the document, I did not use the term evangelisation but spoke of spiritual and moral growth. How to give a common sense of mission to everybody, not just the few who are fully committed? 35. Inspired by the one Spirit of God, Christians and those of other Faiths, we are united around a common set of life-giving values that are fundamental to our vision and practice of education: respect for the dignity of each human person, honesty, justice, solidarity, peace and a sense of the Transcendent. Together, we give the best of ourselves to provide the young people in our care with the means of achieving their full human potential in

9 Crowe 123 life, including their growing in faith and their responsible participation in society. 2 Quite consciously, then, we have tried to motivate all staff to develop a strong sense of identification with the values and ideals of the school or project. Indeed, we want to develop a strong sense of vocation. Further, we want them to feel Marist. With a distinctive Marist style Anthropologists have underlined for all of us the central significance of human cultures (and ethnicity) in influencing and even determining human behaviour: how we live, think, feel, organise ourselves, celebrate and share life. It comes down to a sense of identity. Of course, difference can be exaggerated and even used as an ideological weapon of them/us rhetoric for the undeclared goal of pursuing power, as I know only too well from my Indian sojourn and contemporary politics there over the saffronisation of education. In religious terms, the same dynamic of identity-framing occurs. We speak of charisms, as gifts of the Spirit in building up the community of believers. The Church has given positive support to Religious groups to foster their charism, even though tensions are to be acknowledged (as can be seen in the very existence of a document like Mutuae Relationes). An aside to illustrate this idea. What s in a name? In the late 1960s the Catholic Church in the Solomon Islands decided to expand into secondary education. Since it was to be co-educational and the Brothers at that time were not allowed to be involved in such institutions and because they were already committed to another institution, St. Joseph s, they declined an offer to participate with the Marist priests and missionary sisters. St. Paul s Aruligo was born. Very significant 2 A real religious pluralism exists among us educators, especially in some parts of the world, just as it does among the young people we serve. It is up to each of us, then, to see in what way we can identify with the we of the text. In Chapter 4 we present the core of the mission of each Marist educating community in terms of evangelising through education. We recognise that our personal contribution to the full realisation of this mission will differ. Each of us, however, inasmuch as we share certain fundamental values, helps young people to grow as human persons and, by that very fact, participates in building up the Reign of God in our human communities.

10 124 Champagnat changes in government policy soon meant that the Brothers school would become redundant. The Church and Order authorities examined the new situation and it was decided to transfer the secondary school to Tenaru, the Brothers site. It was to be called Catholic Secondary School, Tenaru you cannot get anything more bland or generic than that, all in the name of not offending anyone. Some students, with the approving nod of a Brother, buried St. Joseph in the cemetery. Five years later, at Independence, the concerns of amalgamation behind them, the school community decided to reclaim their identity and resurrect the name St Joseph s: the statue was re-installed prominently! When it came to enunciating the characteristics of our pedagogical approach, our heritage was abundant. The most amazing thing was that from our international consultation, five key themes emerged naturally and quickly, although they were never named so clearly in the original documents. The Golden Rule for Marist educators is the intuition that to bring up (translation éduquer) children properly, we must love them and love them all equally. From this principle flow the particular characteristics of our style of education: - Presence - Simplicity - Family Spirit - Love of Work - In Mary s way Being able to name these characteristics has been immensely important in working with young Brothers and lay staff. In their own way, they challenge and inspire. They serve as quality indicators that foster creativity and zeal. Most Provinces have developed programs for working these themes with groups of brothers and lay people together under such titles as Sharing our vision. Working from principles to pedagogical and classroom applications is a task left to such workshops. The one danger that we have found in isolating these themes is that they do not, in themselves, name our preferred target group of the least favoured. Without this essential element of the charism, the characteristics can lack full authenticity and insight. It is truly among the humble, little ones that the sum and interaction of these five characteristics prove effective. Furthermore, there is a spirituality enlivening this Marist approach. It is only sketched in the phrase in Mary s way. In working the

11 Crowe 125 document with groups, it has been found necessary to go much further in allowing people to deepen their own sense of the presence of God in their lives and of their call to live committed lives, not as pseudo- Religious but as dedicated lay people. For their part, the Brothers have recently given themselves a new project to write a parallel text on FMS Marist spirituality. In schools At first, preparing the section on formal education as such seemed a formidable task. What principles, what taxonomy of objectives, what pedagogy to favour? How to address the whole Marist world on this credibly? We were given a gift. In 1996 UNESCO published Education for the Twenty-first Century, the result of an international project under the chairmanship of Jacques Delors. This offered a contemporary and universal framework for educational planners and was ideally suited to our needs. From the beginning, Marcellin and the early Brothers borrowed their ideas on schools from others and so, we felt quite justified in such poaching! A school is defined as a centre of learning, with the student at the centre of its concerns. There is a major shift in perspective in this last sentence from earlier treatises on education, even Marist ones. Some places are already far advanced in this direction, while others, like India with its preoccupation with rote learning and burdensome exams and resource-poor African nations, lag a long way behind. The Delors Commission stated four pillars of learning: - Learning to know - Learning to be competent - Learning to live together - Learning to grow as persons This then is the framework we proposed to Marist schools of today. The first two pillars are in a sense traditional although, in practice, when the focus is on the young person learning rather than the teacher teaching, many school practices change. The second pair of pillars is more original, especially for government schools, since values are to be named. They also represent a particular challenge to the number of private institutions proliferating in the name of exam results but ultimately are for the profit of the owners.

12 126 Champagnat In fact, the four pillars fit neatly alongside the four key relationships of Christian anthropology stated above or the harmonising of faith, culture and life as it is sometimes expressed. Serious faith-based schools have always had such holistic objectives. The four pillars draw on this tradition in fact, especially at a moment in history when the fabric of society is under strain, relativism prevails, globalisation has cracked protective shells, and the threat of violence is real. The two key values and means advocated are dialogue and tolerance. Having said all that, do we believe that we are still really in charge of our schools? Is there any freedom left to the school legal authorities once consideration is given to government policies, local Church directives, pressure from teachers unions, parental expectations, student aspirations and so on? Can we re-direct the services of our prime institutions to the poor? Have we become servants of the status quo, or worse of the emerging elite? On the whole, we remain optimistic. The ideal of schools as open to all is recalled, the challenge named, and an appeal made to genuine solidarity. But many are sceptical that real transformation of existing strong institutions is possible. For such people, it is especially through new initiatives, new schools or learning centres that conform to tighter solidarity criteria, that the charism will be carried forward. The older Marist institutions can still proudly fly the Marist flag and direct resources towards the new and struggling projects. Indeed, their credibility as bearers of the Marist charism depends on their solidarity in this sense. Finally, there is a call made to school administrators to exercise real leadership: to be people of vision: to articulate and live by our Marist values and lead others in living them. More than anyone else, they are the Champagnat figures for the school community, leading with confidence and optimism, and modelling Marist apostolic spirituality. (nr164) The specific issue of future governance of Marist schools was not dealt with. There is no doubt that this is a key contemporary question but the legal and Church contexts vary markedly. The general feeling, however, is that we should try to identify new competent structures to provide management and ensure the promotion of the Marist charism within the schools. The good news is that there are many experienced lay people who are committed to sharing responsibility in this way. School boards are very much on the agenda but also national and even regional umbrella bodies, empowered to take up responsibilities

13 Crowe 127 alongside Provincial Councils which in some cases are far removed from school realities and have other pastoral priorities. (nr 47-51) In other pastoral and social ministries This was the first time that an international FMS group had offered policies and guidelines for ministry initiatives other than schools. Its inclusion represents a huge step forward in FMS thinking on ministry to young people and a validation of the creative efforts of many Marists to respond to real needs in non-formal ways: Moved by the compelling needs and aspirations of today s young people, especially those who are most deprived or disturbed, we seek to multiply our ways of entering into their lives and worlds. (nr169) We identified four general categories of such ministry: - Informal contacts through youth centres and facilities for recreation, study centres, libraries, student hostels and so on. - Faith development activities on a full-time basis through youth groups with programs and projects tailored to their age. Here there is also a conscious effort to awaken a sense of personal vocation and a commitment to justice and practical compassion. Personal accompaniment and spiritual direction is integral to our approach for young adults. - Through non-formal education programs. In these, the situation in deprived areas is studied with the youth and local families to identify real needs and develop possible responses. Examples abound from crèches to rural training centres to training and cultural programs for disaffected adolescents, whatever is appropriate. A feature of our involvement in these programs is living on site among deprived people. - Through social programs. These are services for young people at risk or on the fringes of society, and have a clearly social character. They range from homes for street children to work among refuges and migrants to projects for the disabled and those affected by AIDS, wherever our presence can make a difference. In all of the above we try to foster resilience, to educate for life, to nurture faith and hope, to promote solidarity as a means of both personal and community growth. We recognise the need for special personal qualities for working in these fields, especially an openness to working alongside others who may not share our faith convictions. In short, our vocation as educators in these pastoral and social settings is a calling to be prophetic people, especially on behalf of the little ones, those on the sideroads of society. (nr210)

14 128 Champagnat Acceptance of the document The first draft of the document was presented at the Assembly of Provincials in The broad thrust was accepted but there was unease about certain features: e.g. pastoral ministry to youth was in a different chapter to the school; solidarity activities seemed to be confined to non-school initiatives. The International Commission reworked the text and presented it to the General Council who also requested some changes to strengthen the commitment to institutional transformation. Finally it was adopted by the authority of the Council in mid-1998, pending its presentation to the General Chapter of It was published in four languages simultaneously: English (the original), French, Spanish and Portuguese. Since then, it has been translated into many other languages - e.g. Tamil, Sinhala, Korean, Arabic, Hungarian, German, Italian. The General Chapter itself was very enthusiastic in its acceptance. Maybe it was partly out of a sense of relief that a group as diverse as ours could agree on something foundational! But, even more, there was already acceptance in the Provinces. People had not only read it but used it in workshops with teachers, parents, school boards. It was serving a felt need as an inspiration and tool for evaluation. People had been involved in the lead-up process and could see themselves in the final text. It was not seen as yet another document from Rome! Conclusion I wrote this text while in India. An Indian Archbishop has described the country as intoxicated by religion 3 I often felt that way being there. In fact, I would go further and describe the experience as like being in a fermentation vat! My senses were in a permanent state of riot, mostly religion-related: religious songs blasting from loudspeakers from 4.30 am; the drummers and pipers for every occasion; the garish colours of festival saris and garlands, the flash of sparkling jewels; the chalk designs in front of every home each morning; erotic temple figures; the spices that add savour and tease; the land of massage; the land where touch can defile as well as bless; the ever-present, often pungent incense in homes, offices and temples. It was all a long way from Rome or Australia. 3 Cultures in the context of sharing the Gospel, Thomas Menamparampil SDB, Archbishop of Guwahati.

15 Crowe 129 And yet, strange and disturbing as it could be, it became home. I made friends. I was touched by the spirit of welcome. I was moved by the plight of the poor and ignorant. I raged at the injustice and powerlessness. With my Brothers, I took a small step and, making an act of faith in Providence, launched a new project for the care and support of children affected by Aids, called Operation Rainbow. We had no guaranteed funds. There were no Brothers trained in social work. But we went ahead. We identified two wonderful people to take on the project. It is happening. My experience is but one case of continuing to dream and act as a Marist. In every corner of the world, there are thousands of young people whose lives are being touched by us. As educators we know the joys and pains of working with them. We know the good we can do. We believe in their future. With my fellow Marists everywhere, including yourselves here today, I pray with Marcellin to Mary, If you do not come to our aid, we shall surely fail. But it is not our work that fails but yours, for you have done everything for us.