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Our History

The spiritual center of the first Marist Lay groups was the church in Cerdon.

Marist lay persons were active as early as the 1820s in Cerdon, France, where founder Jean-Claude Colin was assigned after ordination to assist his brother in pastoring his church. In the early 1830s in Lyon, under the motto, “be exemplary Christians in public, religious in private,” Marist lay persons worked in parishes, schools, orphanages, hospitals, and prisons.

Under the direction of Saint Julien Eymard there were more than 300 members in various groups throughout France by 1850. Lay women involved in Marist ministry in the islands of the Pacific later became the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary.

A Marist Lay group visits the home of our founder, Jean-Claude Colin.

In 1872 Colin formally laid out the vision for the Marist Laity from which the groups today derive their inspiration.

Essentially, bearing the spirit of Mary, the Laity would relate to the Society of Mary but be its own independent branch of the Marist family. Its mission would be apostolic – bearing God’s love and mercy to all people.

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