On the first of September, we will present the first Missionary Vocation Festival to celebrate the Vincentian charism in light of the spirit of the Congregation.
September, as we know, is the month dedicated to our founder Saint Vincent de Paul, the Saint of Charity, and it precedes the missionary month par excellence. For this reason, we want to start with a virtual meeting to celebrate the journey traveled and to open the doors to the future of the Congregation.
Almost two years ago, in November 2018, the First International Meeting of Those Responsible for Vocation Ministry was held in Paris, and in it, the “Little Company” wanted to reflect on the Culture of Vocation necessary to renew, revive and nurture the missionary spirit. In fact, in the digital contents of the Communication Office, we have given particular attention to this issue in order to update and support the work of the Vocation Directors in the different missions. Similarly, this topic has been of special interest to the Superior General and his Council and was one of the topics discussed at the Meeting of Visitors in Manila in 2019.
In this same spirit we wish to bring together the members of the Congregation on September 1 for the Vocation of Missionary Festival to address an important issue for our founder:
” So, our vocation is to go, not just to one parish,
not just to one diocese, but all over the world (CCD 12, 215).
With this slogan, we maintain the same line of thought of the last two years, which the Superior General also proposes in his “Missionary Call”. We are to remain faithful to our missionary vocation and be willing to go, to leave, and not to remain static, anchored or attached to a single place, accepting the missionary spirit as something natural for all members.
During the Festival we will touch on all of the above but give particular emphasis to:
1. Relaunching the path of Vocational Culture that was born with the guidelines created during the first meeting with those leading the Vocation Ministry,
2. Preparing and sensitizing all the confreres for the launch of the “1%” campaign created to motivate the missionary spirit of the Congregation.
3. Presenting the book by our confrere Rolando Gutiérrez, CM entitled “Where God loves us”, which is at this moment the most up-to-date text on Vincentian Culture of Vocation and the most practical tool for those involved in Vocation Ministry.
We are inviting all the members of the Congregation (priests and brothers), particularly those responsible for the Vocation Ministry in the Provinces, Vice Provinces, Regions and Missions, seminarians in all the formative processes, formators of the seminaries and other young people who are in vocational discernment.
The event will take place on the zoom platform, through a subscription, which will make possible live transmission and simultaneous translation.
We are waiting for you on September 1. So, mark your calendar and remain alert for more information about the Festival.
Communication office
A significant move of the Congregation!
In fact the missionary spirit of the Congregation on the whole seems to be drastically dwindling. There is a general tendency among the conferrers young and old to project themselves as directors, managers, principals and so on… almost burying the vital goal of the Missions. Formation houses should not be management concerns where end products
( eg. IT managers)are manufactured. It is expected that the seminarians are given an ambience to personalize the missionary zeal like the spirit of tenacity, deprivation etc. against the odds of a comfort culture.