Frank Santucci writes:
Conversion calls us to the courage to accept that we need to clarify our understanding of our Oblate identity and its implications and to be personally responsible for it
What are the essential elements of our Oblate identity for you?
The Gospel
ReplyDeleteThe Poor
Well said Phil! I would like to add Community and Hospitality.
ReplyDeleteclose with the people and work together with them and I also add hospitality!
ReplyDeleteSince I've been put onto the blog by the webmaster, I guess that I am involved! My question is more basic than just making a list of ingredients. There are many missionary congregations with the same motto as us - and with all the same components of religious life.So why don't we all join up in one big religious megacongregation (or some become diocesan priests) and not waste time and energy in trying to survive on our own? That is at the basis of my question: are we convinced that we have a unique charism and are we willing to put energy and courage into exploring this for the 21st century?
ReplyDeleteI discussed this question with our novices and was going to add some more qualities: love of the Church; the desire to be saints; love of Jesus and others.
ReplyDeleteFrank Santucci's question made me pause, however. I think that in answer to this question, I can at this time only say that there is the importance of particularity. There are many mothers in the world, and some of them may have even more wonderful qualities than my mother, but they are not my mother. In the same way, I came to know the Oblates as a teenager and liked the men they were and was inspired by the mission to Indonesia they started at that time. There were probably many other groups of likeable men with good inspirations but these others are not my men and not my inspiration.
And, especially since the canonisation of St Eugene, I have come to know him better - with all his particularities - and to love him more and, more recently, to realise that he very much loves and cares for me as a father for a son. He is important to my heart. And it is this man and the concrete fact of who he was and is that I love and that influences how I live. Is this what Charism means?
Mark Edwards OMI
Melbourne, Australia
Why not join into a megacobgregation, that's a good idea but there is one problem, we have ach been called to service in the particular congregation and charism that we have vowed to. I looked at other congregations, some similar to the Oblates, but the reality is that I fell in love with the Oblates and this is where I belong. This is a reality that each of us is being invited to reflect upon as we approach our Chapter. The call to the Oblate life, just as the call to other congregations, is uniquely molded to each person. We don't join only to serve or for one reason or another, we join because the Spirit invites us to this place and this reality. And because we respond, and because people continue responding, the charism and call to Oblate life is just as valid and real today as it was for our early brothers. While it may be taking on a new face, there is no doubt that we are Oblates and that our response to serve the poor and most abandoned continues to resound throughout the Church. So let's go, our brothers and sisters are waiting, and we can't help but carry forth Christ to a world so desperatly in need of Him. I hope this makes sense. Peace and have a blessed Triduum!
ReplyDeleteDavid, Nino and Jim started a gentle discussion and I came in like a bull in a china shop and derailed their direction! Our charism is very clearly and beautifully stated in Constitutions 1-10 and our call to conversion is to enter more and more into individual and communal appreciation and living of this gift.
ReplyDeleteBUT the original question posed by the blogmasters was to share on which part of the charism means the most to each of us and why. So let me put the sharing back on the rails they intended for us and say that for me one of the most meaningful aspects of our charism is the fact that I belong to an international family with a warm family spirit which we try to make the most abandoned a part of.
Oblate identity? This should not be a mere cerebral or pure theoretical question.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one should ask, what is it that makes me remain in this Congregation. For
me these would be, St. Eugene’s determination to be an advocate of the poorest of the poor
and rejects of society, and his spirit of daring. His missionaries dared to go to
placed that others would not. That’s what’s special about us.
Oswald Firth
Rome