We are a missionary Congregation (Constitution 5)
“We were born for the mission and we exist for the mission. The Founder was impelled to begin the community of Aix in order to evangelize the inhabitants of his area, especially the ordinary people. He requested Rome’s approval in order to assure the Congregation’s existence and its missionary activity.
Our growth, too, is due to the mission. With our going to Canada in 1841 and especially with our missionary commitments among the Indians, there quickly followed an explosion of vocations and enthusiasm, accompanied by a meaningful image that adhered to the Oblate work. Thus began a missionary epic in different parts of the world: from Sri Lanka to South Africa, from Oregon to Texas.
The Founder’s vision took on new depth: evangelization was conceived not only as proclaiming Jesus Christ in order to reawaken the faith, correct behaviour and renew religious practice, but also as introducing people to Christ and to the Church in the way the Apostles did at the beginning of the Christian era. Oblates are “apostolic men” not only because they follow Christ and generously give themselves, but also because they are doing the same things that the Apostles did, namely, going out into the whole world in order to evangelize people. The desire for universality that the Founder had nourished as a young man and had expressed in the first Rules was now being realized.
The Oblate is the missionary of the poor, missionary to people. He is open to every human person in need, welcomes the latter’s aspirations, accompanies him on his journey, reveals to him who Christ is. He is open to the whole world, listening to its appeals and anxieties, sustaining the Congregation’s commitments, making himself everywhere available. The Congregation’s future will depend on the quality of our life, on our courage and our availability to respond to the challenges and needs of the Church wherever the Spirit will invite us to witness to the Gospel.”
Fr. Marcello Zago, Superior General, 1988
“We are born for the mission and we exist for the mission.” Whoa!!!
I feel like Fr. Zago is speaking to me in much the same way that St. Eugene invited me to stand at the foot of my crucifix. It is the Spirit who writes through Fr. Zago and my many brothers and sisters in this Oblate Charismatic Family. In this time our states of life and roles are more inclusive as we are call and invited by St. Eugene to walk as one, as called by the Spirit.
We see how St. Paul wrote in his letters to the different peoples of his time and how he and his disciples evangelized those they were sent to. I imagine that Eugene had to be very flexible in some ways with his priests and brothers who were sent to the far north down into the deep south and across to west of the continent that we call North America, as well as those that were sent to South Africa and Ceylon and further. The basics did not change, but sometime how they were carried out, according to the individual gifts of the Spirit.
We are invited to look (whether it be the first time or a part of our daily lives) at the Constitutions and Rules. These first 10 Constitutions are the very heart of our lives as we journey together as pilgrims of hope in communion. This is our mission, this is how each of us is sent out to share the Good News, to evangelize others who will in turn lead us to deepen our own faith.
It is through these Constitutions that we recognize how and why we are called as we come here to this place each morning and how we in the part of Canada meet via Zoom using the Animation Material to discover and rediscover what our mission is. The Constitutions do not look quite the same now as they did in Eugene’s time, but the heart of them has not changed. It is in going deeper with them that we see and experience them in new light that is particular to the Oblate Charism that has been given to and shared with us so that we all might live.