Our mission puts us on constant call to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church through various forms of witness and ministry.
(Constitution 7)
Preaching missions at home and sending missionaries abroad have been traditionally central to our apostolate. There is no ministry, however, which is foreign to us, provided we never lose sight of the Congregation’s primary purpose: to evangelize the most abandoned.
Rule 7b
Oblate missionaries have been amazingly generous and creative in responding to the ever-changing needs of the Church, as Pope Francis recognized:
“Your missionary history is the story of many consecrated people, who have offered and sacrificed their lives for the mission, for the poor, in order to reach distant lands where there were still “sheep without a shepherd”. Today, every land is ‘mission territory’, every human dimension is mission territory, awaiting the proclamation of the Gospel. Pope Pius XI called you ‘specialists of difficult missions’. The current field of mission seems to expand every day, embracing the poor again and again, the men and women bearing the face of Christ who ask for help, consolation, hope, in the most desperate situations in life.”
(Pope Francis to the 2016 Oblate General Chapter)
The homepage of the OMIWORLD website daily reflects Oblate responses to the most urgent needs of the Church throughout the world: https://www.omiworld.org. Make it the homepage of your browser. You can also download the OMIWORLD app and find even more Oblate Family news on Facebook “OMI World.”
Hopefully my daily reflection in “St Eugene Speaks” imparts something of the Eugene’s spirit to impel us to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church.
I find myself wanting to sing Ann Mortifee’s “I Won’t Stay silent Any Longer” which is sung by Ann Mortifee: which expresses who she is: “I’m going to open up and tell you who I am”.
Today’s Reflection from Frank invites us to go deeper, as he dares to share who Eugene is for him: in today’s world. It is God who chooses to speak to us, not us. Standing in the light shed by Eugene shows us the poverty in others who then recognize our own poverty. There is no measuring here but rather a flow rising up from within our hearts. “The current field of mission seems to expand every day, embracing the poor again and again, the men and women bearing the face of Christ who ask for help, consolation, hope, in the most desperate situations in life.” (Pope Francis, 2016)
It is as a member of the Oblate Charismatic Family I realise that I am not a member of the congregation, but I have been call and invited by Eugene and many of you to share in Eugene’s charism, his spirit – our spirits according to our roles in life.
Our shared mission puts us on constant call to respond to some of the most urgent needs of the Church through various forms of witness and ministry. […] There is no ministry, however which is foreign to us, provided we never lose sight of the Congregations primary purpose: to evangelize the most abandoned. (Rule 7b)
Today, every land is ‘mission territory’, every human dimension is mission territory, awaiting the proclamation of the Gospel. Pope Pius XI called you ‘specialists of difficult missions’. (Pope Frances 2016)
It is this way that our shared mission puts us on constant call C7