Sermon for Sunday, August 17, 2025, Mary Sunday, St. Mary’s, Eugene, Oregon, Preacher: Ryan Baker-Fones+
Let us pray: Mary, our Sister in Faith, you always have your son Jesus in your heart or in your arms. Draw us close as we discern how God calls us to the Marist way of life. Inspire us to say ‘yes’ to the surprising ways God asks us to make Jesus known and loved today. Amen.
This prayer is from a booklet I used as a part of a Marists of Champagnat week-long discernment retreat. You might know about Marist Catholic High School here in Eugene. I was a French and Spanish teacher, girls’ soccer, boys’ golf, co-ed pétanque coach and retreat moderator there for 22 years. A little more than a year ago my wife Stacey left her administrative job at Marist here in Eugene to work for the Marist Brothers U.S.A. Province. Part of her job is supporting and connecting the nine other Marist high school around the United States with each other and with the international Marist brothers and schools around the world. There are currently Marist schools in 82 countries on six continents educating nearly 600,000 young people each year.
Marist, Les petits frères de Marie, o Las Maristas, little brothers of Mary, is a Catholic teaching order founded by Saint Marcellin Champagnat in 1817 near Lyon, France. Marcellin, a new, young priest saw a need for secular and Christian education for the young people he encountered in rural France. The mission of Marist brothers and lay Marists is to make Jesus known and loved, especially to the most neglected of young people. Two quotes from the founder sum up this mission:
"I CANNOT SEE A CHILD WITHOUT WANTING TO LET HIM KNOW HOW MUCH JESUS CHRIST HAS LOVED HIM AND HOW MUCH HE SHOULD, IN RETURN, LOVE THE DIVINE SAVIOR."
— ST. MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT
And
“IF YOU WANT TO TEACH YOUNG PEOPLE, FIRST YOU MUST LOVE THEM, LOVE THEM ALL EQUALLY.”
— ST. MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT
During my time teaching at Marist here in Eugene I didn’t know much about Marcellin or the wider Marist community. Last summer my wife and I were invited to go on a pilgrimage to visit the sites of the founder and stay with other Marists from around the world at the hermitage built by Marcellin and the brothers as their home base for learning and starting schools for young people. L’hermitage has become a retreat center, with a museum tracing the history and showcasing some of the original artifacts in the room of the founder. In this place you not only learn but you experience the history of the Marists, sitting, praying, worshipping, eating and fellowshipping where they did. I was warmly greeted upon entry by a large sign in multiple languages that said, “Welcome home!” As we shared meals and conversation, prayers, day trips and hikes, we grew as a community drawn together by the desire to make sure young people knew how much they were loved by God.
At the heart of this mission is Mary and her example of love, courage, and desire to bring God’s love into the world as the mother of Jesus.
Here is an excerpt from ‘He gave us the name of Mary’: Mary and the Marist Tradition
Mary has been at the heart of the Marist movement since its very beginning. Marcellin’s original inspiration and our guiding light still today, Mary shows us the way to follow Jesus. Our Marist charism compels us to build a Marial Church, a community of believers whose discipleship reflect Mary’s own. (p. 17)
Here at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, on this, the feast day of Saint Mary, what might it look like for us build a church that reflects Mary? What examples of relationship with God and others does she offer us?
First and foremost, for me, Mary is an example of openness, willingness, and trust in God’s good and loving plan. Even, and perhaps especially when we don’t know what that might mean for our lives. When Mary consents to bearing Jesus and recognizes the special blessing, this important and scary thing that God is asking her to do, she gives thanks and praises God for this opportunity.
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
Mary couldn’t know what her ‘yes’ to God would mean for her life. She must have had some ideas, certainly things would never be the same. This was not an easy task, but it was what God had asked of her, and she had confidence that God would be with her. Mary is an inspiration to us as she places her trust, her very life, in God’s hands. She knows deep down that God will care for her and will use her to bring life, light, and love to the world. I pray that we here at St. Mary’s, Eugene, may aspire to this level of confidence in God’s goodness for us and for our world. Together, do we dare consent to God using our gifts to bringing about the divine dream for our world? For unity, for equity, peace, and flourishing for ALL? Mary is a courageous woman. Mary is a hopeful woman. Mary is a woman who dares risk all and give all to God and for God. She doesn’t know. She isn’t perfect, a very human example of a woman trying to hear, understand and follow God’s will for her life.
Marist Brother François Marc writes about what a church following Mary’s example might look like.:
A Marian church follows Mary into the mountains going off with her to encounter life…
A Marian church rejoices and sings and is in wonder at the beauty there is on the earth and in the human heart. It is there that she sees the works of God.
A Marian church knows she is the object of gratuitous love, and that God has the heart of a mother.
A Marian church does not know the answers before the questions are asked. Her path is not mapped out in advance. She knows doubt and worry, the night and loneliness. She takes part in the conversation but makes no claim to know everything. She accepts that she is searching.
A Marian church stands at the foot of the cross. She does not take refuge in a fortress, or in a chapel, or in cautious silence, when others are being crushed. She is vulnerable, in her deeds and her words. With humble courage she stands with the most insignificant.
Brothers and sisters, (siblings), let us be this people. Let us take Mary into our home. Let us go in with her into the “humble and rending joy” of loving and being loved. And the church will be in this world as St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, “a heart radiant with love.”
(Plea for a Marian Church, François Marc, S.M., from Marists of Champagnat Discernment Retreat: Brothers and Lay Marists Together in Communion, Troutdale, OR, 2025, p. 18-21)
I pray that Mary be an example, an encouragement, and a pathway for us to say our “yes” to God at work in our lives. To say yes to standing up and speaking truth to power, to lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry. To say yes to spreading and sharing God’s IMMENSE love for each and every one of us, God’s lovely and beloved children and Mary is our good mother. Amen.
