Marian Community - Oasis of Peace

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A BRIEF PRESENTATION

 WHO WE ARE

            We are a contemplative community of celibate Brothers and Sisters and of priests living together in communities, each called “Oasis of Peace”, to which Consecrated Secular members are aggregated as well: both lay persons and priests living outside the Community but consecrated with vows. Married couples who live our spirit and charism in the marital state are also aggregated to us.

 We share together a consecrated life of simplicity, of prayer, of work, and of study. We are consecrated to the Lord through Mary with vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and above all with the vow “to be peace” and to intercede for peace in the Church and of mankind, which for us is our primary vow, peculiar to our community.

            Our history as an Ecclesial Family of Consecrated Life began in 1985 when the original members, having encountered Our Lady with the gift of conversion and of Peace, then felt a deep desire to continue the new life begun, committing themselves together to a consecrated life with vows made through Mary, with the aim of cooperating with Her so as to extend and to share in humility this same path of peace and of healing with many other brothers and sisters, who, wounded by the sadness of the world, are earnestly in search of peace.

            Juridically the Community was constituted on March 25th 1987 and the first house was opened at Priabona (Vicenza) on May 18th of the same year. The first ecclesial recognition was on December 25th 1990 in the Diocese of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto and since December 25th 1995, juridically, we are a “public association of the faithful” in view of being erected as an Institute of Consecrated Life of diocesan right within a short period of time. The process has already been begun by the competent ministry of the Holy See.

            At present (2003) there are approximately 110 internal members - Brothers, Sisters and priests. The Lord has already granted us the gift of the eleven ordinations to the priesthood within our Community, while other Brothers in the meantime are preparing for the priesthood with the necessary studies and formation at Rome and Quixadá (Brazil). Various Sisters also attend the faculties of Theology, Philosophy, and other Sciences in university, so as to be able to cooperate in the formation of the members of our Ecclesial Family.

            In addition to the married couples already aggregated to our Ecclesial Family, living our charism within the family life, many other families are asking to be part of our Community in view of sanctifying their matrimony and family. Already they have committed themselves to the necessary formation.

            Likewise the number of Consecrated Secular members is also increasing, with the aim of sanctifying the christian presence in the world, in the light of their charism of “Being Peace”.

            The Community, from its very beginning, revealed itself as being international: truly catholic. Most of the members of the Community are Italians but there are also members from: Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, U.S.A., Canada, Panama, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Korea, Brazil, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cameroons, the Czechoslovakian Republic, Rumania, Poland and Lebanon.

            The official languages of the Community are Italian and English.

HOW WE LIVE

            The celibate internal Brothers and Sisters share the experience of community life, while the Consecrated Secular members live our spirituality while remaining in their daily environment of life and work. Similarly, the married couples live our spirituality in their families with a rhythm of life adapted to the marital state.

            The rhythm of our daily life is cadenced by community prayer - the Holy Mass, the chanting of the Divine Office, the Holy Rosary in its entirety, spontaneous prayer of praise, adoration of the Cross - and personal prayer, in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament continuously exposed, both day and night, in our houses.

            In our Communities, it is important to conserve the climate of silence and of recollection in order to favor the spirit of continual prayer, and also as an act of perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Indeed, we consider our Oasis of Peace to be an expanded Eucharistic Tabernacle. Every day there are also periods of time for community recreation and for relaxation.

            As Mary asks us, and as practised by the first Christians, we too have a special love for fasting on bread and water on Wednesdays and Fridays of every week, except on particular feast days.

            We do not carry out paid work activities external to the Community, but, rather living according to the Gospel in total faith and trust in Divine Providence,  we have a special love for work in our Community, both material and intellectual, seeing it as an extension of prayer and of the climate of contemplation.

            In addtion to the ordinary work of the household, of agriculture, and of artistry (music, iconography, etc.), the principal task asked of us by the charism of our vocation is that of Hospitality: accompanying in a walk of peace and of healing all those who come to us afflicted by spiritual poverty of various kinds.

 WHAT WE PROPOSE

As at the beginning of the Church, the Apostles and other disciples gathered together in prayer with Mary in the Cenacle and with Her awaited the gift of the Holy Spirit, similarly we desire to serve the Ecclesial Community reliving the experience of the Cenacle guided by Mary, awaiting a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the renewed Pentecost.

            We desire to collaborate with Mary in the battle against the evil one and with Her to implore the gift of Peace from the Lord, that is the spiritual renewal of the Church for the conversion and reconciliation with God of many hearts which are without peace. Indeed, peace is a gift from God which is to be implored, suffered, and humbly shared.

            Therefore, the ministries of our Community are :

            Intercession : the continual supplicating of God through prayer and the offering of one’s own life to beseech from Him the gift of peace.

            Expiation : desiring to live a responsibility towards the world to be saved, we wish to carry one another’s burdens, taking upon ourselves the load of sins and illnesses, both our own and those of others, thus associating ourselves to Jesus and to His Mother, through a life of simplicity, penitence and offering.

            Hospitality : we desire to offer the same path of peace which Mary invites us to take to all those who sincerely seek to live the Gospel of peace and who suffer due to oppression by many wounds and by the pain of being far from God.

            Therefore, our Community,  is not cloistered, but open to accepting others with the heart and to letting them share fully in our family life. We also engage in gestures of acceptance “ad extra”, such as moments of personal testimony, of evangelization, giving special preference to popular missions. Our Ecclesial Family also feels called to an ever-increasing involvement in the ecumenical movement; in prayer and in action. Our ecumenical outlook is directed especially towards the venerable Churches of the Orient.

            Indeed, we desire to participate not only in the spiritual renewal of the Church, but also in the cultural renewal of society itself, offering environments of personal and community life in which the organic revival of the supernatural may lead to a recovery of the natural rhythms and values - social relationships, work, sexuality - befitting to a society in which faith becomes life and becomes culture. We desire to live and to propose a healthier modality and style of life, fitting to man, in which the global dimension of a person can be recuperated according to his true origin, restoring his harmony and peace with God, with mankind, and with all creation.