United with the legitimate pastors and guided by the Holy Spirit, those who become Guanellian Cooperators feel a co-responsibility for Saint Louis Guanella’s universal mission of salvation. Together with the daughters of St Mary of Providence and Servants of Charity, they move with his charism and are a part of the Guanellian family.
Cooperators became examples of generosity and charity throughout the history of the Guanellian mission as they desired to carry all the riches of the true testimony of faith hope and charity befitting committed laypeople in the world. They live their vocation in the associative form, manifesting in this form the desire to live as siblings in cooperation with the grace the Lord has given them.
Together they form “THE ASSOCIATION OF GUANELLIAN COOPERATORS, whose statutes they accept as the indication and substance of path they are called to by the Lord in response to his grace.
They become members of the Association through their personal and public promises which express their decision to live with joy and enthusiasm lives in service to God and for their brothers in need. Their style of life and action conforms to the same style which Louis Guanella lived and which he transmitted to his congregations of Priests, Brothers and Sisters. Theirs is a typical evangelical experience which characterizes and gives credence to their relationship with God and to their relationships with the poor.
This style has, as its original inspiration held firm, the surety that God is the provident Father and that he is better than any other earthly father and that he knows the hearts of men, follows their paths and with loving care provides for the needs of his children.
In Christ, the good Samaritan who heals the wounds of man and the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep, Don Guanella contemplated the supreme revelation of the Love of God the Father.
The Guanellian cooperator receives this spirit as the gift of the Lord to the Church and as a precious inheritance.
Guanellian Cooperators are found where ever the Congregations of the Servants of Charity and the Daughters of St Mary of Providence carry on the mission of their founder.