Dear confreres!
May the grace and peace of Jesus be always with us!
As I recalled at our last General Assembly, we find ourselves at a time of profound grace as we prepare to celebrate, in 2025, the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation of the Mission and the beginning of its fifth century of life. The Assembly’s own insistence on the revitalization of our missionary identity invites and urges all of us to deepen our Vincentian spirituality and charism.
One of the means at our disposal to deepen our Vincentian spirituality and charism is the Master in Vincentian Studies, which has already given good results in the last four years. We are now opening the registration for a new edition, which will be developed in French, English and Spanish.
Together with this letter, you will find detailed information about the program. I urge you to facilitate the participation in the program to all the missionaries of your Province, Region, or Mission. I also ask you to transmit this information to all the members of the Vincentian Family.
Pope Francis pointed out: Paying attention to one’s own history is indispensable to keep alive the identity and strengthen the unity of the family and the sense of belonging of its members. It is not a question of doing archaeology or cultivating useless nostalgia, but of retracing the path of past generations to rediscover in it the inspirational spark, the ideals, the projects, the values that have driven them, starting from the founders and foundresses and the first communities. It is also a way of becoming aware of how the charism has been lived through the ages, the creativity it has displayed, the difficulties it has had to face and how they were overcome.
Let me conclude this letter with the same words with which I concluded my report to the 2022 General Assembly: “In the next six years, I ardently hope that all these… initiatives will help us personally to revitalize our identity and also to help others to be on fire and in love with the Vincentian spirituality and charism, so that we can all become “Mystics of Charity” in the 21st century and beyond.
May Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, St. Vincent de Paul and all the rest of the Saints and Blessed of the Little Company intercede for us.
Your brother in Saint Vincent,
F. Tomaž Mavrič, C.M.
Superior General
