Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. (Constitution 5)

Father Rois, our Superior General, reflects on his experience of the second part of our motto: pauperes evangelizantur (Matthew 11:5) – the poor are having the Gospel preached to them:

I am a witness of many poor people in vulnerable situations who have expressed their gratitude for our presence. Among the many testimonies we can recall the experience of the Nivaclé Indigenous people in Paraguay who recognize that they owe their existence to the presence of the missionaries and many others who have seen their own culture valued thanks to the presence and studies of the missionaries. I myself have heard some express their gratitude for our gratuitous presence in countries where our mere presence is a sign of hope for threatened and repressed peoples.

The reflection of Wayne Muller, a spiritual author, helps us to reflect on our attitude of response to the poor with their many faces:

“As we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us.”

Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. (Constitution 5)

Saint John Paul 2 captures the meaning of these words in his Encyclical Redemptoris Missio:

“Our times are both momentous and fascinating. While on the one hand people seem to be pursuing material prosperity and to be sinking ever deeper into consumerism and materialism, on the other hand we are witnessing a desperate search for meaning, the need for an inner life, and a desire to learn new forms and methods of meditation and prayer. Not only in cultures with strong religious elements, but also in secularized societies, the spiritual dimension of life is being sought after as an antidote to dehumanization.”

The Oblates gathered at the General Chapter of 2022 pledged, on behalf of the Oblate Charismatic Family:

We make a commitment to go to the aid of the poor with their many faces. They are disfigured by suffering. They are marked by the stigma of war. They are traumatized by abuse and exploitation at work. They are alienated from their own original history. They are scorned in the land of welcome and exile. They are humiliated because of their color, culture, or language.
We take the responsibility to do much more to promote justice and peace. The earth belongs to God, but the fruits of the earth belong to all.

Sometimes we feel so distant from and helpless when confronted by the many faces of the poor. Our missionary charism calls us to respond in whatever way we can materially – but also to remember the ripple effect caused by personal service in our own environment which spreads and multiplies. In the words of the proverb: “Great acts commence with small deeds.”

We are a missionary Congregation. Our principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned. We preach the Gospel among people who have not yet received it and help them see their own values in its light. Where the Church is already established, our commitment is to those groups it touches least. (Constitution 5)

Fr. Fernand Jetté OMI, Superior General 1974-1986, wrote:

“I know, for example, in what high esteem we are held by the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, an esteem that goes back a long while… Why? The reason, so it would seem, is the total availability the Institute has shown in responding to the Church’s appeal in favour of the poorest and most difficult missions, those which others either could not or did not dare to accept. Another reason is our perseverance, our faithfulness in staying on in impossible conditions. ‘We know quite well,’ Pius XI told the Capitulars of 1926, ‘what the Oblates have accomplished in the Far North of Canada, in Southern Africa and at the Equator. They always go to wherever there is some particular feature of danger, challenge and fatigue, difficult climate, and sacrifice, and they are always there first. We know that the Oblates make this their specialty: it is as glorious as it is difficult’.”

(The Mission ad Gentes, 1979)

We are a missionary Congregation. Our principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned. We preach the Gospel among people who have not yet received it and help them see their own values in its light. (Constitution 5)

Thousands of Oblates have dedicated their lives to bringing people who did not know Gospel to the salvation Jesus Christ. In Eugene’s lifetime alone, we find scores of young men in their early 20’s setting out for North America, Africa, and Asia. Most of them knowing that they would never see the land of their birth and their families again – yet they set out with enthusiasm and courage. They gave all for the salvation of the souls who had never heard of the Gospel.

In 1853 Eugene had written:

Whoever wishes to become one of us must have an ardent desire for his own perfection, and be enflamed with love for our Lord Jesus Christ and his Church and a burning zeal for the salvation of souls.

With hindsight we may be tempted to judge them by today’s standards as we realize how many mistakes they made – but they were people of their time and gave their lives for the good of others with the best intentions. Today people in over 60 countries know the Gospel as a result of the seeds they sowed through their oblation.

We thank God for the witness of the men and women of our Oblate Family “enflamed with love for our Lord Jesus Christ and his Church and a burning zeal for the salvation of souls.”

We are a missionary Congregation. Our principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned. (Constitution 5)

This says it all: it is the desired goal of every Oblate ministry. The test of authenticity and fidelity to our God-given charism is this question: does the witness of my lifestyle and does my activity proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned? Do people see that my life would make no sense if Jesus Christ and his Kingdom were not a part of it?

Constitution 5 reflects Eugene’s conviction about our vocation:

Will we ever have an adequate understanding of this sublime vocation! For that one would have to understand the excellence of our Institute’s end, beyond argument the most perfect one could propose to oneself in this world, since the end of our Institute is the self-same end that the Son of God had in mind when he came down to earth. The glory of his heavenly Father and the salvation of souls. […] He was especially sent to evangelize the poor: Evangelizare pauperibus misit me. And we have been founded precisely to work for the conversion of souls and especially to evangelize the poor

Retreat of October 1831, EO XV n 163

Pope Francis reminds us that it is through an unbroken chain of witnesses that we come to see the face of Jesus. Consequently, it is our witness and our words that enable the most abandoned to see the face of Jesus.

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 a missionary Congregation (Constitution 5)

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21), said Jesus as he entrusted his disciples to God’s mission. God’s mission has a Church, and God’s mission has our Oblate Family. It is not that we own our mission, but that God has called us to be a part of God’s mission of salvation.

Jesus invites us to participate in his mission – his mission has the Oblate Family as part of it. In this sense we understand better Eugene’s description of us as “cooperators of the Savior” and “co-redeemers of the human race.” We are not doers of our mission, but we are instruments that God uses to join Jesus in his mission.
This Constitution invites us to rethink our missionary motivation: no matter how important or how insignificant we may think our actions to be, they make a difference because God is using us at home, at work, in every situation as religious, ordained, married or single missionaries.

Mother Teresa’s words capture the sense of our vocation as cooperators: “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”

Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. (Constitution 5)

Eugene used the expressions, “poor” and “most abandoned” interchangeably, always referring to the same people. The “most abandoned” were usually the materially poor who did not have the means to receive spiritual help. As Eugene and the early Oblates became increasingly involved in this mission, so did their horizons open to include all groups who were in need of “the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring.”
Initially, when the young Eugene went to the seminary, he expressed his reason for doing so as:

As the Lord is my witness, what he wants of me, … is that I devote myself especially to his service and try to reawaken the faith that is becoming extinct amongst the poor…

Letter to his mother, June 29, 1808, EO XIV, n. 27

After his ordination, in his first Lenten sermon to the poor of Aix en Provence:

The poor, that precious portion of the Christian family, cannot be left in their ignorance. So important did our divine Savior consider them that he took it upon himself to instruct them; and he gave as proof that his mission was divine the fact that the poor were being instructed: Pauperes evangelizantur.

Notes for Lenten Instructions, March 1813, EO XV

Over 40 years later, when he saw the misery of the poor in London: “Poor people, they need food for the body. How much more do they need food for the soul.”

St Eugene’s charism is very clear on how to identify the poor: “The call of Jesus Christ, heard within the Church through people’s need for salvation” (Constitution 1).

After having laid the foundations, the Rule now begins to spell out who these poor are. They are the “most abandoned” whom the structures of the Church do not adequately reach:

We are a missionary Congregation. Our principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned. We preach the Gospel among people who have not yet received it and help them see their own values in its light. Where the Church is already established, our commitment is to those groups it touches least.

Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. (Constitution 5)

On our journey of reflection on the Constitutions and Rules, it is important to have a “map” that we can consult from time to time to situate us – this is especially the case for the lay members of our Family who live the spirituality of St Eugene which is expressed in the Oblate Rule.

Constitution 1 lays the foundation:

Constitution 2 focuses on how we FOLLOW the Savior:

All this is summed up in one word: OBLATION  – “The Cross of Jesus Christ is central to our mission.” (Constitution 4)

What I have presented above is only half the picture because I have concentrated on what Eugene’s charism expects us to BE. All this, however, is focused on mission. As Constitution 1 points out: ” The call of Jesus Christ, heard within the Church through people’s need for salvation, draws us together…”

These first Constitutions tell us what we must BE in order to respond to “people’s need for salvation.”

The rest of the Rule is a directory of how the members of the Oblate Family put all this into practice.

Before we begin to explore our mission, an invitation for you to look back on our reflections over recent days (from https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5978 onwards) and to consider how to live these key elements in the diagram above.

REFLECTION – MY RESPONSE TO CONSTITUTIONS ONE AND TWO

“The call of Jesus Christ, heard within the Church through people’s need for salvation, draws me into the  Family of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Christ thus invites me to follow him and to share in his mission through my words and my work.

As part of an apostolic community of Priests, Brothers and Laypersons I commit myself to cooperate with the Saviour and imitate his example,  principally to evangelize those who have most need of the presence of Jesus the Savior in their lives.”