Home of the Mother

A Common Spirituality

The center of the spirituality is Jesus Christ whose life and doctrine are explained and interpreted by the Catholic Church. We go to Jesus Christ by the shortest route: Mary. She is our living example with her FIAT, accepting the plans of God for the salvation of the world. Contemplating Her, the L.M.H.M. discover their own mission of service to God and men. This union with Christ and with Mary leads them to union with the Church, with which Christ identifies himself.

Aware that they are the Church and that they serve the Church because they love her as a work of God, they participate in the Liturgy, they meditate the Sacred Scripture, they study the Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium, they accept her moral norms, they cooperate with their shepherds and they share their concern for the problems and the progress of the human race. This identification with the Church commits them to a concrete cooperation in the work of establishing the Kingdom of God.

The examples of life proposed by the Church - that is, the Saints - are for them faithful friends, especially the Protectors and Patrons of the Home. They commend themselves personally and in community to their Holy Guardian Angels and particularly to the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. They recognise the need for personal prayer and spiritual direction as an indispensable instrument in order to seek and to find God in all things.

The centre of the L.M.H.M. is the Eucharist, experience of love and of action. All the members of the L.M.H.M. are united by their common commitment, their lifestyle and their filial love of Our Blessed Mother. And they make sure not to live wrapped up in themselves but rather in openness to the other communities of the Home, to other communities of the Church (in the parish and the diocese) and to all men and women of good will, and they try to make known to all the riches of their faith.

The L.M.H.M. wish to be recognised by these three characteristics: Unity, Joy and Selfless Love of the Church. And they will be enabled to achieve this by the experience of fraternity that they have between them, with the other members of the Home of the Mother and with all people.

Foremost Charism : THE YOUTH

The charism of the L.M.H.M. must be developed to help all men and women, but giving particular priority to the youth. This leads them to:

- take decisions in favour of the defence of life in all its stages;
- carry out works of mercy and charity;
- cooperate as a priority in the apostolic activities indicated by the Superior General of the Servant Priests and Brothers of the Home of the Mother;
- take up positions that favour the disappearance of injustices, discriminations, exploitations, etc., without borrowing in any way from ideologies that are foreign to the Gospel, but acting in accordance with their faith.

They must consecrate and sanctify the values of the temporal order of things and they wish to put an end to the dualisms of faith-culture, faith-politics and faith-reason.

Kinds of action

Lay Members must seek to live the first mission of the Home in whatever environment they find themselves and must therefore develop all legitimate means of ensuring that the Lord is better known and loved in the Eucharist. To this end they will seek to revitalise or to create forms of prayer, of adoration and of formation around this Sacrament. They must learn from the Family of Nazareth and model themselves on this Family.

Mary, Mother of God and Our Mother, must be made known, so that She be more honoured and loved by her children. We must deepen in prayer, contemplation, work, joy, charity, inside and outside the community of Lay Members... reflecting the virtues of the Holy Family.

The mission of the conquest of the young people for the Lord impels the L.M.H.M. to set up activities that facilitate the discovery of Christ as the supreme value. And they must take decisions in defence of this value in the environment around them: in the family, in society at large...

By way of example these possibilities are proposed to the Lay Members: cooperation in the creation of summer-camps, youth centres, student residences, hostels, house-homes for young people, spiritual exercises, retreats, editorials, newspapers and magazines, co-ops, schools, hospitals, cooperation with persecuted Christians, aid to the Third World, aid to emigrants and to the poor, the setting up of employment agencies, the promotion of sport, participation in radio, T.V., etc..

A Way of Holiness

Being part of the Home is a way of being the Church. It is a calling, a specific vocation: the vocation to be the Home in the Church. The Holy Spirit, author of the works that spring up in the Church, is at once the impulse and the motor of these works. It is He who gives them life and breath so that they may give glory to the Trinity. The L.M.H.M., therefore, are a way of holiness. And the principles that move them must be contemplated in the mystery of Christ and his Gospel, as the Church believes and preaches, and in the supreme Law of Love. This law is written by the Holy Spirit in all hearts in the moment of Baptism and the L.M.H.M. wish to fulfill it in every situation of their life. This Law of Love pushes them to be open and free, always disposed to divine action, recognizing and accepting their responsabilities with God, with men and with themselves. By this Law they are impelled to seek the correct responses to the needs of their brothers, working for the authentic progress of humanity, peace, justice, charity, freedom, and human dignity.

The entire life of the L.M.H.M. is lived in communion with their brothers of the Home: the Servant Priests and Brothers, the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother and the Home of the Mother of the Youth, in order to fulfill together the missions which they have recieved and in which they participate according to their own state of life.