Today's Marists V.6 Issue 1 FALL 2020

of the virus outbreaks lessen. Pope Francis has established
a Vatican group addressing this topic. They are currently
analyzing and strategizing and will seek to come up with a
large coalition going into the post-pandemic world.
The Vatican Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
along with the World Council of Churches in Geneva has
already published in recent weeks a document titled Serving
a Wounded World in Interreligious Solidarity: A Christian Call
to Reflection and Action During COVID-19 and Beyond. The
purpose of this document is to establish a Christian basis
for interreligious solidarity that can inspire and confirm,
for Christians of all churches, the impulse to serve a world
wounded not only by the pandemic but also by many other
wounds.
As this issue goes to press, Pope Francis has released what
is perceived as the Encyclical that he hopes will define his
ministry as the Pope for now and into the future. According to
John Carr, the Director of Initiative on Catholic Social Thought
and Public Life at Georgetown University in Washington,
DC, “Fratelli Tutti is a powerful expression of faith in a time
of doubt, a call to hope in a time of fear, and a challenge to
love in at time of anger and division. Pope Francis’ letter is a
combination of Franciscan themes and Jesuit discernment,
shaped by Argentinian pastoral experience and traditional
Catholic social teaching. The encyclical affirms and applies
the principles of Catholic social teaching to the “new things”
of 2020: a global pandemic, an economic crisis, political
polarization, and social isolation and exclusion.” How will
Marists throughout the world respond to Pope Francis’s call
in Fratelli Tutti? We are sure that we will be reflecting carefully
on this document in future Today’s Marists issues.
In the preceding paragraphs you find the concerns and
inspirations that arose from our planning for this first issue
of Today’s Marists in Volume 6. We have gathered articles from
around the Marist world on the impact the pandemic has had
on our Marist missions and ministries. You will read about the
experiences of Marists in Africa, Oceania, Mexico, and London.
Here in the United States, you will read about the impact that
COVID-19 has had on our schools in Pontiac, Michigan and
Atlanta, Georgia, with some early reflections on what may be
the long-term impact on education in the future, here in the US
and perhaps around the world.
In the second issue of Volume 6 we hope to bring reflections
that bear on the reality of racism in our changing world. The
third issue of this volume will include articles focusing on
the adjustments the pandemic has brought to education and
worship in our world.
The poem “A Marian Church” by François Marc, SM
(www.societyofmaryusa.org/our-mission/marian-church)
offers guidance for our plea for a Marian Church as we are
called to serve a wounded world with compassion and love.
When we face the brokenness of humanity, a Marian Church
is “…moved by compassion and, with infinite tenderness, she
tends their wounds. She is the safe harbor, who is always open,
the refuge of sinners, ‘Mater Misericordiae,’ Mother of Mercy.”
AN EXCERPT FROM
A Marian Church
By François Marc, SM
The Marian Church knows she is the object of a gratuitous
love, and that God has the heart of a mother. She has seen
God on the doorstep, on the lookout for the improbable
return of a son; she has seen him throw his arms around his
neck, place the festal ring on his finger, and himself organize
the home-coming feast. When she pages through the family
album, she sees Zacchaeus in his sycamore, the woman taken
in adultery, the Samaritan woman, foreigners, the lepers,
beggars and a common prisoner at his place of execution.
So you see, the Marian Church despairs of no one, and does
not quench the smoking flax. When she finds someone
on the side of the road wounded by life, she is moved by
compassion, and with infinite tenderness tends their wounds.
She is the safe harbor, who is always open, the refuge of
sinners, “mater misericordiae”, mother of mercy.
The Marian Church lets in the wind of Pentecost, the wind
which impels one to go out, which unties tongues. In the
public square, not for the sake of hammering doctrine, nor to
swell her ranks, she proclaims her message: the promise has
been kept, the fight has been won and the Dragon crushed
forever. And this is the great secret which she can only
murmur: to win the victory God has laid down his arms. True,
we are in an intermediate time, the time of human history.
And that history is a painful one.
Yet every evening at the end of Vespers the Church sings
the Magnificat. For the Church knows where her joy is to
be found. And look: God has not found our world or its
afflictions, its violence or its wickedness uninhabitable. It is
there that He has met us. And there, on the Cross, we have
seen the “mercy”, the open heart of God.
Full poem available at:
www.societyofmaryusa.org/our-mission/marian-church
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