THEY ARE CALLED TO THE CONGREGATION PRECISELY NEVER TO BE PARISH PRIESTS

The Missionary Oblates were recognized as having received a charism from the Holy Spirit, and its expression in the Rule was approved by the Church on 17 February 1826. After this no one had the power to change its missionary orientation – not even the Founder himself – only the Church could do this. In pointing this out to the Bishop of Limoges, Eugene stresses two fundamental aspects of this charism.

I wanted to give Your Lordship a general view of our missionaries’ Constitutions, to help you understand that we cannot give them another orientation than that which they have received from the Church. Even were I to desire it, my authority does not go that far.

Hence it is essential that the Oblates form a community, where they can always find the spiritual aid the Constitutions assure them. In continuously disposing them to replace parish priests, they are deprived above all of the advantages they had come to seek in religious life, in community life; they are isolated for long periods of time, which is contrary to their Rules, and they are thrown into the parish ministry, which is also against their Rules and their vocation: they are called to the Congregation precisely never to be parish priests.

Furthermore, it is within their community that, by practicing virtues prescribed for them by mutual example and good direction, they find the means needed to preserve them in their fervor and the ways of perfection so that their ministry may be blessed by God and produce the fruit which, by God’s grace, we have always reaped.

Letter to Bishop Buissas of Limoges, 20 February 1848, EO XIII n 119

REFLECTION

“The charism is what defines our own identity within the Church, establishing our way of living out the following of Christ, with the end of making, in a certain sense, the presence of God tangible in the world, through the witness of our own charism.” (G. Nieto)

“Live the Life of Your Dreams: Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.” (Roy T. Bennett)