The Chaminade Year concludes

Marianist Brother Robert prepares
the music in the Crypt Chapel.

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade was looking for a new kind of missionary, a community that would take as its mission to make Christ, his mission and his works present wherever it was lacking. 

The entire group gathered at the end of the day on the
steps of the Basilica.

The Chaminade singers pause during
their practice time.

They would do this by living in such a way that the presence of Christ was felt among them, his message shared and his works carried out. They would be eager to establish other communities  and to absorb new members into their own.

Above is the entrance procession for
the Eucharist celebration.

Every group being such a "permanent mission." Every member of the community, consequently, was a missionary, because he or he was important for building up and spreading the community. So each of us here today, is a missionary. We carry out our mission wherever we are. we might think that missionaries must go to foreign places. 

Wherever Christ is not known or is not accepted is mission territory. Blessed Chaminade said,  "Perhaps the word mission tends to fatigue the minds of some who imagine that to be a missionary one must go and preach from town to town or parish to parish because they have never had the idea of a permanent or stable mission. You are all missionaries, carry out your mission."