Mick Heelan is a young Marist and final-year medical student based in Darwin. He graduated from Newman College, Perth and the Remar Program in 2016.

Sustaining Marist spirituality, friendship, and mission across Australia.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent is known for many things: the theme of love, supermarket pandemonium and the frantic Christmas shopping of panicked bachelors, but also the quiet, expectant waiting for the birth of baby Jesus in that humble stable, rich with the smell of sheep.

For thirteen young Marists, aged from their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, this Advent weekend held a particular significance. We gathered in Port Elliot, South Australia, for an inaugural Marist Young Professionals Retreat, led by Graham Neist FMS.

Marist Young Professionals traces its origins to a former Sydney-based group bearing the same name, which, together with Liz Wake, Nathan Ahearn and others, began laying the groundwork for a national network of young professionals in the lead-up to the 2022 Marist Association National Assembly III in Sydney. Drawing on the experience of many members who had journeyed through Marist Youth Ministry (which accompanies young adults aged 18–25) and were seeking continuity into the next stage of adult life, this initial momentum was further deepened at World Youth Day in Lisbon in 2023. There, a group of Marists discerned a shared need for a national, largely virtual network for those aged 25–35 within the Marist Association. As work, study, and life commitments increasingly take young professionals to new places, Marist Young Professionals emerged as a way of making a Marist spiritual home accessible beyond distance, sustaining Marist spirituality, friendship, and mission across Australia.

We began online accompaniment sessions with Br Graham in July 2024, which have continued on a monthly basis, with a focus on integrating our faith into our daily lives and distinct professions through the practice of contemplative living. Out of this shared accompaniment emerged a collective desire to meet face-to-face, to step away from our routines and gather in person for a retreat that could ground our online conversations in prayer, contemplation, and shared Marist charism.

The theme of the retreat was vocation, framed by the question, “What’s stirring within you?” We began by sharing our reflections on this question, with Br Graham offering gentle, insightful reflections in return and linking together some of the common themes in our responses. Something that stood out to me was the idea of approaching deep yearnings through “living the question” rather than immediately rushing to find an answer.

“We were encouraged to look for examples of God expressing as “communion” around us, to challenge our notion of an individualistic, separatist world”

A highlight for many participants was spending a few hours alone in contemplative silence, wandering the humbling surrounds of the magnificent South Australian coastline. We were encouraged to look for examples of God expressing as “communion” around us, to challenge our notion of an individualistic, separatist world. I saw about 30 willy wagtails perched along three rows of power lines, as if singing in a choir. One was looking left and right, adjusting his position until he was an equal distance from his mates on either side, before joining in the chorus.

A beautiful Mass was celebrated with Fr Michael Brennan, reflecting on the vocational discernment of Joseph as he navigated the complexity of Mary’s pregnancy before their marriage. We celebrated the Fourth Sunday of Advent through lighting the final purple candle on our Advent wreath, singing some long-loved hymns led by our talented musicians and the making of our own communion bread (note for future reference: make thin with lots of water unless you want an unexpectantly extended post-communion silence).

Our final session with Br Graham concerned the idea of the “in-between” spaces of life, where we can find ourselves dealing with uncertainty and anticipation. Rather than seeing these periods merely as bridges to something better, we explored how embracing these liminal periods can be a vocation in itself. God is found just as much in the far-sighted clarity of a “capital-V” Vocation as God is in the messiness and soul-searching of the “little-v” vocation of living into each present moment as it comes to us.

We concluded with a discussion about the future of young adult Marists in Australia and ways to engage young people aged 18–25 through Marist Youth Ministry. These conversations are now being developed collaboratively into a set of reflections and proposals, which we look forward to sharing and discerning further with the Association Council early this year.

Our sincere thanks to the Marist Association for financially supporting this retreat.

Mick Heelan
Marist Association Member