Oblate News

Letter on the 209th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

Antoni BOCHM, OMI Vicar General

OMIWORLD

Letter on the 209th Anniversary of the Foundation
of the Congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

Rome, January 25, 2025

Dear brother Oblates and dear members of the Oblate family!

With joy and gratitude, we remember and celebrate the birthday of our Congregation, the beginning of our community life. On January 25, 1816, Saint Eugene de Mazenod came to live in the ancient Carmelite monastery in Aix-en-Provence. Father Tempier was already there since a few days. They were three at the beginning; others would join them in the middle of February 1816.

This year’s celebration and expression of gratitude for our beginnings coincides with the celebration of the Jubilee of Salvation: 2025 years from the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, which happened in Bethlehem. This Holy Year Pope Francis invites us to live under the theme: Pilgrims of hope. In the Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025, Spes non confundit, “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), he explains this theme. He indicates there what hope is, what are its sources, what are the signs of hope existing in the world. He also calls us to answer to the appeals for hope coming from different parts of the world, from different difficult situations.

On December 24, 2024, just before the celebrating the Christmas Night Mass, Pope Francis opened the Jubilee Door. Through this gesture he officially inaugurated the Jubilee Year, which is always a time of forgiveness, reconciliation, exoneration of debts and a time to return to a just way of living.

As we celebrate the anniversary of our Congregation, we are invited to live this year in the spirit of the Jubilee of the Incarnation. In fact, since the 37^th General Chapter we try to renew and strengthen our life and mission under almost the same theme, which Pope Francis proposed for the Holy Year: Pilgrims of Hope in Communion.

All three aspects of this theme are very important and essential in our charism. We are pilgrims, always on the way, on the different paths, which lead us to mission places; we are on the way, always trying to renew ourselves. We are pilgrims who bring hope to those who are looking for it and crying out for it. We are doing that together, as communities, in communion with Oblates and those who desire to live Oblate charism.

On the anniversary of the foundation of the first Oblate community, I would like to reflect on our living in communion, and how this makes us pilgrims, who are bringing and giving hope to others.

I will start by indicating some texts from our Constitutions and Rules, which speak about concretely living community life.

“A spirit of simplicity and joyfulness marks our communities. In sharing what we are and what we have with one another, we find acceptance and support. Each of us offers his friendship and places his God-given talents at the service of all. This enriches our spiritual life, our intellectual development and our apostolic activity. In humility and with the strength of charity, we express our responsibility for each other in fraternal correction and forgiveness”. (C. 39)

“Obedience and charity bind us together, priests and Brothers, keeping us interdependent in our lives, and missionary activity…” (C. 38)

“Subject to the common law of labour, and each in his own way contributing to the support of the community and its apostolate…” (C. 21)

These Constitutions clearly invite each one of us to increasingly be fully a participating member of the community. An oblate is not just someone who lives with brothers under the same roof, but someone who is responsible for the community and for all who live in it.

Saint Eugene de Mazenod did not want the Oblate community to be a team, not even a group of persons with the same mission and the same ideals. He wanted us to be a family: the most united family in the world! We know well that family members take care of one another, they are responsible for one another, their bonds are strong, and the only rule which guides their life is love.

Our communities are invited to reflect the image of a good family. Family members know each other well. They can easily recognise if other brothers are living in joy or sadness and suffering; they always offer their help when needed. As members of a family we receive a lot, thus we also should contribute to the family.

There is a temptation to expect more from the community than to give to the community. On the anniversary of the foundation of the first Oblate community I would like to invite all of us to reflect on the contribution of each one of us to the life of the community. Am I giving fully my time, my work, my support and my prayer to the community? Am I totally available to others and to the mission of the community? Our vocation as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate is to give everything we are, and to be at the service of the community and at the service of the mission done through the community.

The 37^th General Chapter calls us not only to collaboration, exchange, and help but to interdependence: “Integrating interdependence is learning to live as a member of a body” (PHC 14.2). The Chapter speaks more about interdependence among the communities or among the units, but we can easily apply it to the interdependence between the members of one community.

Responsibility should be one of the main features describing all Oblates and members of the Oblate family. Wherever there is a lack of responsibility towards the community, the life and the quality of the community hurts and suffers. We are called to contribute to the whole of the community, its work, its spiritual life. We are responsible for the big things in the community. And though smaller things may seem not as important, they truly are, and they constitute everyday aspects of living as a community – simple things such as cleaning, putting things in the right place, good communication, etc.

Be interested in how the community is living. Be interested in knowing the spaces of the house in which community life is developing. Be aware of the community. Live in the community with open eyes. Live the community with an open heart. Do not expect that someone else will do something, but rather ask yourself: what can I do? The superior is not the sole responsible for the community. Each one of us and all of us together, we are all responsible of community life.

Commenting on the above-mentioned Constitutions, Father Jetté speaks about the necessity of the community plan: if there is not a community plan, neither will there be a true religious apostolic community. To establish the community plan should be one of the first concerns of the Oblates living in it. It is necessary to do this taking into consideration the missionary needs. And it ought to be a priority: no personal plan should go before the community program.

I would like to repeat the invitation to reflect on the participation and contribution of every one of us to community life, which is essential to our charism. What can we improve as individuals and as a community? How to live better the call to the responsibility for each other, the responsibility for the community, to interdependence?

A community should create spaces to help its members better know their needs and feelings. The community should also enable spaces dedicated to common discernment, and to planning and evaluating.

Good family and community life is a desire of many people: it is still a challenge in today’s world. How to care for one another, how to offer our lives to others with love and dedication? By not living rivalry and subordinating others, but rather giving and serving others like Jesus, who did not come to be served but to serve. By living well as Oblates and as an Oblate family, by witnessing our call to live our missionary life in community and through community.

We must be aware that if we are not able to bring hope to the members of our communities, we will not be able to give any hope to the people around us. We are pilgrims of hope!

I would like to conclude this reflection with the words of Saint Eugene de Mazenod written to Brother Guibert on January 20, 1823: “We form a family of which all who compose it wish only to have one heart and one soul”. May this be our reality!

Coming back to the celebration of the Jubilee Year of the Redemption, especially in Rome, many pilgrims are expected to come to Rome. Among them there will be probably also many Oblates and groups organized or accompanied by Oblates or associated to the Oblates. As Oblates living in Rome, we would like to help to guide you especially to the places in the Eternal City that are connected to Saint Eugene de Mazenod. This could help all of us to deepen our knowledge of him and of the charism and will help us to live it better following his example.

May God bless you and fill you with the joy of being part of the Oblate charism.

Antoni BOCHM, OMI
Vicar General