Where God Wants us

Introduction

The first decades of the twenty-first century have been quite agreeable. I would say it has been like people who talk about an old friendship that has brought them great joy: being able to work on various Vincentian collaborative projects through a series of networks, systemic change, the Commissions of Peace and Justice, providing better resources for service on behalf of the poor in the areas of health and education, digital training, virtual meetings, the homeless project. We must also include the fact that we were able to gather thousands of Vincentians in Rome to celebrate the 400th anniversary of our charism. These are facts that, just to name a few, reflect what we can do with a certain degree of normality and that perhaps would have been unthinkable during a previous era. At the same time, the challenges of the last decades are no less visible and have been made very clear within the Vincentian Family: the multiplication of the faces of poverty, the phenomenon of immigration, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, secularism, scandals in the Church, problems of abandonment and stability in Vincentian Congregations in addition to a decrease in personnel in the West. These are some of the difficulties that can be found on the list that has been solemnly crowned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since, with its lights and shadows, we have the stage on which we open the door to the fifth century of our origin, with a trajectory that could be considered somewhat uncertain, so uncertain that it may no longer seem very daring to ask ourselves: are the Vincentian Congregations, such as the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity,
condemned to extinction? Do we have nothing more to look forward to, at least in the West, than a future that seems more
like a geriatric organization rather than a community of missionaries and servants of the poor?
The adventure that we are about to begin responds only indirectly to these questions because we are attempting to tune into the station where the voice of the eternal caller is heard, the voice of the Evangelizer of the poor, the one who seduced the heart of Vincent de Paul. As a consequence, our uncertainties can be transformed into mystical options of mission and charity. This has been the purpose of several articles that we have published in recent years, as well as conferences and talks that we have been able to offer on the theme of a Vincentian Vocational Culture. Now, with the encouragement of Father Jorge Luis Rodríguez CM and Vinicius Teixeira CM, it has been decided that it would be appropriate to put these ideas into book form. To those confreres, my deep appreciation for their support and
encouragement.