There’s only one Gospel: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But there are different ways of living the Gospel. Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Ignatius of Loyola and many others found different ways of applying the Gospel of Jesus to the needs of their times. In 19th century France, a group of people found a way of living the Gospel that answered some of the spiritual needs of their post-Revolution world. This was new and refreshing in their day. It’s still fresh today.
Consider the rock
This is the story of a certain way of living the Gospel. There is only one Gospel of course, and that is the Person of Jesus; He is God’s ‘Good News”. But the life and words of Jesus recorded in the written Gospels, are different for all times and all generations; and each person each time, and each generation.
So there will be different ways of living the Gospel according to the personality of individuals, their place of origin, and the times in which they live.
Chapter one – Consider the rock
Something new for our times
In Scripture, God’s choice of human beings for a particular mission often seems to have been a mystery quite beyond the laws of human logic or reason.
Certainly, this choice hardly ever seems to have had much to do with personal talent or worthiness.
Moses’ first response to God’s choice of him was, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh? I am slow of speech and a stammerer.” God chose David, the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, and the last one that Jesse would have thought would be chosen. Isaiah protested against God’s call, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips.”
The first Marists had no illusions about the unlikely material that they were; but after all, that wasn’t the point. What was more important was that they had been chosen, and chosen for a particular task. They were prepared to let themselves be shaped and formed into something they would never have imagined for themselves.
Colin never envisaged that Marists would be a breathtakingly beautiful or delicately refined ornament in the Church’s showcase, but he knew that the Society of Mary would be something new and, above all, something “useful” for God, for the Church and for their times.