In her distress, the Church, portrayed as a mother, calls out for help. Who can the Church confidently turn to for help? Surely, the very persons that she can obviously rely on with unfailing confidence are her priests.
In this lamentable state, the Church calls for help to her ministers, those to whom she has entrusted the most precious interests of her Divine Spouse,
But it is these very priests who let her down by their own corrupt behavior:
and it is the majority of those very ministers who by their reprehensible conduct aggravate even further the ills from which she suffers.
It is in this context that the Missionaries understood their vocation. When the Church, the suffering mother, calls for help to those whom she should be able to trust fully, the Missionaries need to be readily available to answer her cry of distress:
The real purpose of our Institute is to remedy all these evils, as much as possible to restore order in all this confusion.
1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One. The ends of the Institute, §3. Nota Bene.
Missions, 78 (1951) p. 15
“Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.” George MacDonald