Wolfgang Hacker, representing the Marist Province of Europe-Central-West, welcomed the four other members of this Marist working group to Germany. They found a warm welcome in the community in Furth and were excellently accommodated in the newly renovated seminar house in the former monastery building.
For more than six years this commission has been working on strategies and looking for ways in which lay people can continue the mission of the Marists, partly because of the declining numbers of Marist Brothers worldwide. Superior General F. Ernesto Sanchez put this point on the agenda of the General Chapter in 2025. In preparation for this, there will be a forum on the vocation of the laity for the 90 provincial representatives in Rome in November 2022.
The task of the meeting in Germany was to visit the three Bavarian schools in Cham, Furth near Landshut and Mindelheim to learn more about the activities of the laity on the local level. Unfortunately, the fourth Marist school in Recklinghausen could not be visited due to time limitations. The coordinators of the Marist work, Johanna Aschenbrenner in Cham, Katharina Huber, Kerstin Geneder and Johannes Räpple in Furth, as well as Brother Michael and Renate Hacker in Mindelheim, welcomed the guests and presented the local possibilities and projects.
These short visits to the various Marist schools gave the guests a variety of experiences, which, supported by the school tours and PowerPoint presentations of the colleagues, as well as the personal conversations, made for impressive experiences.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the colleagues who were so enthusiastically involved in addition to their school work. The impressions of Marist life at these three German school locations will certainly be remembered beyond the borders of our province in many Marist institutions in Europe”. Wolfgang Hacker – Teacher at the Marist College and Provincial Commissioner for Lay Marists.
