--Blessed William Joseph Chaminade

     “From its very foundation, the Society has given great emphasis and experience, both in the expression of the religious commitment of its members and in the apostolic services it has rendered to the Church.” In community, members of the Province earnestly strive to follow the Gospel by creating a family spirit of shared prayer, shared work, and shared vision. Through its apostolic activities the Province fosters communities of faith and strives to communicate the person of Jesus Christ."

-- Provincial Chapter, 1981

     The Province of Meribah strives to discern and respond to the needs of the Church today. The Province involves itself in the work of education because it sees such work as responding to a real need voiced by the laity of the Church. "It is in this way that our apostolic zeal is channeled and coordinated in order to produce the most qualitative results in the practical order.  We see the Catholic school as the center of apostolic activities, activities which make their effect felt far beyond the walls of the classroom.” By maintaining close lines of communication and interaction with the local Church, we hope, in the words of the Rule of Life to “dedicate ourselves to the apostolic activities to which Providence calls us, according to the needs of time and place.”

     Conscious of the fact that “there is only one Marianist vocation” and that all members of the Province have the same “rights and duties as religious,” the Province of Meribah forms its clerical and lay religious members with the same concern and with a special emphasis toward service in our communities. The Province of Meribah is primarily a community of lay religious. Some Brothers are ordained to serve the sacramental needs of the religious community and its apostolic works. The richness of this mixed composition reflects a genuine family spirit. 

     As a consequence of our profession of vows, we enter a new family, our religious community. In this religious community, we assume new relationships and responsibilities toward God, our Brothers in community, and the People of God.

     By our profession in the Society of Mary, we commit ourselves to grow in holiness and to help our confreres become more Christ-like. 

     Because we profess public vows in the Church, we understand that we have the responsibility for giving public witness to God's saving presence in the world and to the aspiration of Father Chaminade that men will realize that the Gospel is just as practicable today as it was in the early Church. 

     As a result of our membership in a religious congregation of the active life, we devote ourselves with energy and enthusiasm to the apostolic work of our communities. We devote ourselves, fully convinced that Jesus addresses us just as He commanded the Apostles to go forth and teach all nations. 

     In all our community projects and endeavors, we are aware of the need for a sense of harmony and cooperation. Such a spirit is essential to the life of a community. This demands the collaboration and cooperation of each of us. We are all asked to contribute our time and talent to our community's projects and services.

     In all its works, the Province of Meribah seeks to form Christians through faith in Jesus Christ. Whatever we are involved in, we seek to contribute to the Church's universal mission either directly or indirectly. As vowed religious in the Church, we give preference to those works which are essentially ecclesial.

     While recognizing that a new age often demands a new method, the Province values as a rich heritage the traditional works and methods of the Church which are at the same time ever old and ever new. We strive to meet the authentic needs of those we serve with the most effective means at our disposal. The Province sees itself as sustaining and supportive of those we serve. We dedicate ourselves with heart and mind to creating a new age of Christianity in the future.

     The Province realizes its contact with the universal Church through an intense experience of the local Church. We offer our services to the needs of the diocese in whatever capacity we are able. The Province seeks to cooperate in the various works of the diocese on a parochial, educational, and charitable level.

     As a community of faith united to the person of Jesus Christ, the Province of Meribah affirms a special devotion to His Mother, Mary, the first disciple. Because of her fiat we cherish the Blessed Virgin Mary as a precious model and strive to imitate her disposition to service and her habit of contemplation. In prayer we keep all things in our heart which the Redeemer suggests to us when we seek Him, just as our Blessed Mother did. In our places of ministry and apostolic work, we strive to form men and women more fully in the image of her Son. In our enthusiasm for our work, in our devotion to prayer, and our hospitality toward others, we seek to be like her so that we might also become like her Son.

     We can find no better model of consecration or of a stable identity despite challenge and confusion than that of the Virgin Mary. By her life of humble service and constant faithfulness, Mary provides a splendid example of what it means to dedicate one's self entirely to God. As Marianists: we find in our response to God an echo of Mary's fiat: "Be it done to me according to your word." Like Mary, we stand receptive and willing before the mystery of God, eager and ready to offer whatever is asked of us. Especially in Mary we find a model for our own service to others. Truly, this is the meaning of consecrated life: to serve others as Mary did, with an eager and unselfish love; to minister to human suffering in disregard of personal suffering; and to labor tirelessly for the spread of Jesus Christ and His Gospel, both in our own hearts and in the hearts of all men.