In focusing on the Oblate Rule as a reflection of the Gospel, Vatican II reminds us that each founding figure, and the charismatic family around that figure, reflects a particular aspect of Jesus Christ, which is expressed in their Rule:
[They] should carefully keep before their minds the fact that the Church presents Christ to believers and non-believers alike in a striking manner daily through them. The Church thus portrays Christ in contemplation on the mountain, in His proclamation of the kingdom of God to the multitudes, in His healing of the sick and maimed, in His work of converting sinners to a better life, in His solicitude for youth and His goodness to all, always obedient to the will of the Father who sent Him (Lumen Gentium 46) .
St John Paul II described this: “the various vocations are like so many rays of the one light of Christ, whose radiance ‘brightens the countenance of the Church” (Vita Consecrata 16).
Eugene de Mazenod’s ray of light, and that of the Oblate Charismatic Family, is Jesus Christ as Savior and Evangelizer. We are cooperators of the Savior in his aspect of preaching the Gospel to the most abandoned. It is this “ray of light” that is captured in our Constitutions and Rules.
It seems these days that each word and paragraph that we are invited to reflect on is “loaded” whether they be from the Gospels, the Church and Vatican II, and the words and writings of St. Eugene de Mazenod. They seem to lead each of us in seemingly different directions, different flows and yet they are all a part of each other as we meet in this place, in the heart of Jesus.
A stray thought arises within me that God has no end, God has no beginning, “GOD IS”! A sense, an experience of total awe and wonder that is, even as there are no words which can describe the joy, wonder, humility, suffering and gratitude which come into the Light.
I think of how I close the copy of the OMI Constitutions and Rules, this Oblate Rule of Life and how I softly caress the cover before bringing it to my lips, much as I do with my small Oblate cross and with my book of scriptures for the day. I am not sure how I came to have these small responses that rise from the deepest part of me, only a small allowing my spirit to become a part of the Spirit and that “one ray of light”…