“We praise you, O God: we acknowledge you to be the Lord”… My dear friend, my dear brothers, on February 17, 1826, yesterday evening, the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XII …specifically approved the Institute, the Rules and Constitutions of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary…
The Church’s recognition of the hand of God in the process of composing the Rule (and of the Oblate General Chapters who pray to be inspired by the Holy Spirit) emphasizes the sacredness of our vocation to live by these Rules.
He whom God has used to draw them up disappears; it is certain today that he was merely the mechanical instrument which the Spirit of God put into play in order to show the path he wanted to be followed by those whom he had predestined and preordained for the work of his mercy, in calling them to form and maintain our poor, little and modest Society.
This tiny group of 22 Oblates now had the same status on the Church as the large Orders of Dominicans, Franciscans etc. The Oblate Congregation, as the Mother of all its members, had its place in God’s plan of salvation. It is up to us to ensure that she produce an enormous missionary family embracing all those who work for the salvation of others.
Somewhat puny as we are, being weak and few in number, we nonetheless have an existence in the Church no less than that of the most celebrated bodies, the most holy societies. It is thus we are constituted. Just now I can say to you quietly what I will say to you out loud when the brief is delivered: know your dignity, take care never to dishonour your Mother who has just been enthroned and recognized as Queen in the household of the Spouse, whose grace will make her fecund enough to engender a great number of children, if we are faithful and do not draw upon her a shameful sterility by our prevarications.
Finally, Eugene’s imperative, which has been officially recognized in his canonization and in the Oblates and missionary collaborators who have been beatified. Here, in this short sentence is the aim and goal of the Constitutions and Rules and their mandate to apply this to every person we minister with and to:
In the name of God, let us be saints.
Letter to Fr Tempier, 18 February 1826, EO VII n. 226
