MARIST BROTHERS' JUBILEE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 15

MARIST BROTHERS' JUBILEE

AN HISTORICAL SURVEY. Great work in the cause °J. education has been done by the t ® aol '’ ing order of Marist Brothers in New Zealand, and in view of the fact , that the golden jubilee of the order is to be celebrated in Wellington, commencing on December 12, a short survey of the origin and growth of the Manst Brothers in New Zealand should be °\ ln frenchman. Brother Sigismundwho has died in the jubilee year of his achievement—was the superior of the first New Zealand community. It was following the success of an appeal made just after his consecration by Archbishop—then Bishop—Redwood that Brother Sigismund and his three companions were sent to M ellmgton by the mother house of the order at Lyons. It is thus remarkable that practically all the brothers in New Zealand province are natives of the territory, and that-the province rose in a tew years to the position of supplying the men for the most responsible positions ot the order throughout the Southern Hennsphere. Recently all the headmasters of the Marist. secondary schools in Australia were New Zealanders. These included Brother Borgia, now director of Sacred Heart College, Auckland, and Brother Osmond, of the same college, who in turn controlled St. Josephs College. Hunter’s Hill, Sydney, for winch the claim is made that it is the largest boarding school in the Commonwealth or New Zealand. The rapid process of acclimatising, however, had not overshadowed the debt the Church in New Zealand thus owes to France, even if her earlier services in the establishment of the first missions could lie forgotten. Now represented in practically every country of the world, and in most, including China, with native communities lhat are selfgoverning, the order began in January, 181", with a community of two, in a tiny building in Lavalla, near Lyons. It 'derived its name from Maria, Latin for Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and its founder was Father Champagnat, a’n associate of Father Colin, founder of the Society of Mary, or Marist Fathers. Closely associated in the beginning, the two orders separated early in their history, and have now no connection. The brothers differ from the Marist Fathers and clergy generally in that they do not take orders. Nevertheless they are of the state the Church terms “religious.” These "religious” in the absolute dedication of their lives to the cause of education, are honoured hv the Church as her “corps d’elite.” The particular function of the Marist Brothers is the conducting of primary schools, dny nnd boarding secondary schools, and trade schools. The constitution of all the provinces of the Marist Brothers, the seat of whose General Chapter is for the present in Grugliasco, Turin, Italy, has remained on the basis of its first foundation. Tn New Zealand the establishment in 1917 of the Jumorate at Tnakau. which enables New Zealand candidates to receive their scholastic training in their own cniintry: hut afterwards they proceed to the Novitiate at Mittngong. New South Wales, to under"O for two years a course of purely religious study and formation. Then, like the monks of old, they take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, renewed annually for five years until final "profession." •