We, "Lay Claretians",
are a lay movement initiated in the Chruch by St. Anthony
Mary Claret in 1847. We are present in 21 countries of
Asia, Africa, America and Europe, committed to extend
the Kingdom of God through the announcement of the Good
News and the transformation of the temporal realities
in which we live totally inserted.
Who
are The Lay Claretians?
We,
Lay Claretians, are Christians who seriously try to make
our own the mission of Jesus in the Church a service of
evangelization according to the charism and spirit of St.
Anthony Mary Claret, always within our lay identity. We
have St. Anthony Ma. Claret as our inspiration and father,
and, together with the institutes founded by him, form the
Claretian Family.
We, the Lay
Claretians, are believers in Jesus, for whose cause -the
Reign of God- we want to live and to fight as evangelizers
and with full responsibility in the Church.
We share in
the same charism lived by Claret and we find in his lifestyle
and his mission the best expression of our own way of
following Jesus. We live in communion with other followers
of Jesus who have Claret as their inspiration, and form
together with them the Claretian family.
Mission
We,
Lay Claretians, are organized in small lay communities.
With in the framework of our "lay Claretian Source book",
every group or community freely organizes its own life and
its evangelizing action.
The principal
options that inspire our ecclesial commitment and that,
as permanent attitudes, give direction to all our actions
are the following:
- full
insertion in the world.
- professional
competence, that gives quality to our service to others.
- commitment
for the cause of the poor and action on behalf of
justice.
- incarnation
in the local Church, and collaboration so that it
may be born and grow inculturated.
- promotion
of a model of Church which is more communitarian and
participative and in which all the faithful may be
able to totally develop the responsibilities and demands
of theirs personal ecclesial mission.
- determination
to multiply agents of evangelization.
- missionary
evangelization that keeps us always attentive and
available to whatever is more urgent timely and effective
in our service to the cause of the Reign of God.
We, Lay Claretians,
carry out our evangelizing mission mainly in two different
ways:
- through
Christian "animation" and thought action aiming
at transforming the temporal realities.
- and,
specifically as lay, through our cooperation to
the building of the local Church as community of
faith, hope, charity.
Spirituality
Ours is
a lay spirituality, and therefore:
- The
management of the temporal affairs, realized in
accordance with the divine will, is for us a place
of encounter with God and of identification with
his plans.
- We
carry out our temporal tasks and our struggles
for the transformation of the world in communion
with Christ and impelled b the strength of the
Spirit.
- The Word
of God, the Eucharist, prayer and the other expressions
of our spirituality are strongly shaped by the situations,
problems, struggles and aspirations of our people and
lead us to our effective solidarity with them.
- Our
state of life and the professional service we
render characterize also our spirituality.
The poor are for us sacrament of God's presence
and our unequivocal place to encounter him.
The Sprit, who
makes dynamic the historical processes of the oppressed
peoples, impels us to a communion with them and with theirs
struggle for liberation.
"God
wants the lay people to take part in the evangelization"
- Claret
