OFFICIAL NAME
Memores Domini Lay Association
ALSO KNOWN AS
Memores Domini or Adult Group
ESTABLISHED
1964
HISTORY
The Memores Domini were established in Milan under the guidance of Fr Luigi Giussani by a number of lay people who had previously been members of Gioventù Studentesca (Student Youth - see page 68). Following 1968 the members of Memores Domini felt the need to practise the common life and set themselves up in Families. The Association spread through Italy and abroad, and in 1981 received canonical recognition from the Bishop of Piacenza, Mgr Enrico Manfredini. On 8 December 1988, the Pontifical Council for the Laity recognised the Memores Domini Lay Association as an international association of the faithful of Pontifical Right.
IDENTITY
The Memores Domini Association is for people belonging to the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, who follow a vocation of total devotion to God by living in the world and practising the Evangelical counsels with personal and private commitment as their purpose. There are two main factors in their spiritual project: contemplation, in the sense of living in the continuing memory of Christ, and the mission, as the passionate desire to bring the Christian message into the lives of men and women, meeting them above all in their work places, which is the normal field in which they bear witness. The Memores Domini practise the common life living in houses for men and for women, respectively, where they live according to a rule of silence, personal and community prayer, poverty, obedience and fraternal love. The purpose of these houses is to enable mutual edification in the memory of Christ, in terms of the mission. The professed members attend four spiritual retreats a year together, and once a year a course of spiritual exercises. The aspirants join a house after the first year of probation, and throughout the period of their novitiate which lasts at least five years, they attend instruction and specially planned days of recollection every month.
ORGANISATION
The house is the fundamental unit of the structure of the Association. In exceptional cases, individual members may continue to live in their own homes while taking part in the life of their house as their benchmark. The general oversight of the Memores Domini is exercised by a Board of Directors (Direttivo).
MEMBERSHIP
There are about 1600 Memores Domini, and 400 aspirants. The Association is present in 32 countries as follows: Africa (4), Asia (3), Europe (13), Middle East (1), North America (4), and South America (7).
WEB SITE
http://www.comunioneliberazione.org
SECRETARIAT
Via Bartolomeo Colleoni, 14
20149 - Milano (MI)
Tel. [+39]02.36555390
