Who we are?

Christian Life Community (CLC) is a worldwide lay Catholic community.  We hold the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius as the specific source and characteristic instrument of our spirituality.  Our way of life centred on Jesus Christ and inspired by the spirituality of St Ignatius. We particularly recognise the necessity of prayer and personal and communal discernment of the daily examination of consciousness and spiritual guidance as important means for seeking and finding God in all things. 

The way of life of CLC commits its members, with the help of the local and national community, to strive for continuing personal and social growth, which is spiritual, human and apostolic.  All individual members are called to actively participate in the vast field of apostolic service. 

Our life as CLC members is essentially apostolic.  The field of CLC mission knows no limits: it extends to the Church and the world, to bring the gospel of salvation to all people and serve individual persons and society by opening hearts to conversion and struggling to change oppressive structures.  The Community helps us to live this apostolic commitment in its different dimensions and to be always open to what is more urgent and universal, particularly through the “Review of life” and through personal and communal discernment.

The Singapore CLC local communities meet twice a month to participate in spiritual conversations and attends an annual five-day silent retreat. 

History of CLC

The Christian Life Community is a worldwide lay community whose apostolic origins date back to the Marian Congregations in the 1560s, founded by Belgian Jesuit Jean Leunis.  In 1773, People Clemens XIV abolished the Society of Jesus and their apostolic works, including the Marian Congregations.  Shortly after, the Marian Congregations were subsumed under the responsibility of local bishops.  This mass movement continued to grow as a mass movement devoted to Mary,  and lost the original intention of integrating all dimensions of life rooted in the spirituality of St Ignatius, community life and apostolic service. 

In 1948, Pope Pius published an “Apostolic Constitution” called “Bis seaculari”, stressing the original Ignatian identity of the Marian Congregations and calling all groups to return to these origins, rooted in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.  Gradually, the Jesuits and other theologians helped the Marian Congregations to re-connect with the Spiritual Exercises as the foundation of their spirituality and deepen their understanding through offering eight-day Ignatian retreats and the full 30 days of Spiritual Exercises.  

In 1967, the Marian Congregations was renamed Christian Life Communities after the 4th Assembly of World Federation.  

Why join the CLC

Come and taste if: 
  • You have, or are, contemplating going through the complete Spiritual Exercises in one of its several forms.  
  • You are practising some tools of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and have experienced at least one Ignatian retreat.  
  • You desire to live and journey your Ignatian Spirituality with a community, just like St. Ignatius and his early companions. 
  • You feel called to an apostolic life and want to journey with like-minded people who are inspired by the Spiritual Exercises.  

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given it all to me. To you, O Lord, I return it. All of it is yours, dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for that is enough for me. 

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