SPARE NO EFFORT: NIL LINQUENDUM EST INAUSUM (C7)

Posted on August 6, 2025 by franksantucci

We will spare no effort to awaken or to reawaken the faith in the people to whom we are sent, and we will help them to discover “who Christ is”

Constitution 7

“Spare no effort!” In 1818 Eugene wrote these words in the first version of what has come to be known as our “Preface.” For over 200 years these words have been engraved in the hearts and imaginations of our Oblate missionaries: “spare no effort!” These words sum up Eugene’s entire life and the history of his Missionary Family present today in 65 countries.

The Church has shown its recognition through the words of the Popes at our General Chapters. Pope John Paul II, for example:

With you all, I give thanks to the Lord for the work accomplished by the Oblates. Your presence on every continent, and particularly in distant lands, brings you into contact with men and women of different cultures and traditions; this is the sign of the Church’s universality and of her concern for all peoples.

[…] You are also concerned with the new areas of mission, especially the communications media and confident dialogue with the people of today, in order to establish an ever more fraternal society and an era of justice and peace. You are making courageous efforts to meet new, urgent pastoral, apostolic and missionary needs, and to undertake the necessary inculturation, a patient process which, while requiring you to listen to people, “must in no way compromise the distinctiveness and integrity of the Christian faith” (Redemptoris missio, n. 52). The Church appreciates your willingness and concern to answer the Lord’s call wherever you are sent and to put yourselves at the service of the local Churches […]To the XXXIII General Chapter, September 24, 1998

Eugene charges us today: spare no effort to make him known in whatever you do, in your speech and in your actions of love for others

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One Response to SPARE NO EFFORT: NIL LINQUENDUM EST INAUSUM (C7)

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    August 6, 2025 at 14:04

    Spare no effort in making him known in whatever we do, in our speech and in our actions of love for each other and indeed all those we meet… This is not just something for the religious, as we note also with the Brothers who live and be with the priests. “We are sent to evangelize the poor. The poor are evangelized.” I dare say this is not just for religious but for those of us who have made our own vows and/or commitments between God and ourselves. Just as Eugene and the members of his early community were men of their time and place, so too are his sons and daughters in today’s world are invited to be members of this family in our present time and space. People of God with out measurements or confinements – we are all called.

    Let none of us be told that we are not worthy as this would deny the death and resurrection of Jesus.

    We will spare no effort is to love without boundaries, with those to whom we are sent to love and to share with. I am reminded of Vincenzo Bordo, OMI in Korea, who preached and evangelized by feeding and educating the poorest of the poor and of those who take part in a silent ministry in the middle of the Sahara Desert and evangelize by being a presence of Jesus in the midst of a Muslim part of the world.

    It is often the Brothers, the Oblate brothers who open the door to invite those of us who are members of the laity to come in and “share with us a “portion of their Spirit” (ref. Sandra Prather, HOMI). We too are invited and sent whether it be in our own countries or other lands. I dare say that many of us will dare to spare no effort to awaken or to reawaken the faith of all to whom we are sent along with our own selves.

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