2nd January 2006
Feast of the Foundation of the Institute
Dear Brother,
The Christmas/New Year season 2005 is quickly
coming to a close. The feasts of Saint Stephen, the Holy Innocents,
and Saint John the Evangelist have come and gone, today we
mark the 189th year since Marcellin founded our Institute,
and in but a few days the feast of the Epiphany will be celebrated.
Each of these annual commemorations reminds us that we are
at that annual crossroad where an old and a new year stand
shoulder to shoulder. The year just past is taking its place
in history; at the same time a new one is just coming alive.
What hope that new beginning brings to so many of us each
year.
I write today with news of another new beginning,
but this time for our Institute. I write also to offer a personal
invitation to each of you. Please read this letter carefully
and with this question in mind: Is the Lord asking you to
accept the invitation found in these pages, an invitation
to put forward your name for our new mission ad gentes program?
During our recent General Conference, Luis
Sobrado and I presented the outline of this project. More
specifically, we provided those present with an overall description
of a new mission ad gentes initiative as well as some details
about its origin and structure and a timeline for its implementation.
Later discussion during the Conference gave rise to a number
of helpful suggestions for sharpening and improving the proposal.
Many brothers also told us of their strong support for what
we had in mind.
During the weeks since our presentation,
some reports about this proposal have appeared in the Update
and Bulletin as well as on the Institute's web page at www.champagnat.org.
Unfortunately, limitations of space and the nature of each
of these medias allowed us to offer but a few highlights about
the project. Consequently, I am writing today to each member
of the Institute with further details about the project and
to ask you and each of them to give serious and prayerful
consideration to becoming a part of it.
To begin with, the details of several initiatives
aimed at building the future of our Marist life and mission
worldwide were presented to the members of our Seventh General
Conference. For example, comprehensive plans to renovate and
better equip the Hermitage in France as a universal center
of Marist spirituality, heritage and mission were outlined.
So also preliminary planning for a follow-up to the recent
Marist year of vocation promotion was discussed, plans for
an international conference in 2007 on Marist mission were
presented and a call was issued for those provinces and districts
that have not as yet entered into a process of restructuring
to do so.
Second, the mission ad gentes project that
we presented is in keeping with a long history of Institute
undertakings in this area. And similar to those of the past,
we need but look to our Marist Constitutions and Statutes
to understand the origin of this most recent proposal. Article
90 of that text reminds us that, Like the Church, our Institute
is missionary, and therefore we should have a missionary attitude
like Father Champagnat who affirmed, “We are ready to
work in every diocese in the world.”
As an Institute we are missionary by nature.
Recall that Marcellin himself longed to serve in Oceania and
that only obedience to the directives of Father Colin and
ill-health caused him to remain at home in France rather than
travel to and work in the Pacific. From the founder’s
time onward, the ongoing practice of sending brothers on mission
has existed within our Institute.
So also, in 1903, approximately 900 of our
brothers left France in response to the newly enacted laws
of secularization. They set out with a spirit of courage,
faith, and daring for there was little else available to help
them prepare for the challenges they were about to face. The
audacity of these men during a time of crisis that called
for innovation permits our Institute to claim today an evangelizing
presence in 76 countries around the world.
Finally, over the course of many years the
General Administration has taken steps to actively promote
overseas mission. Witness the international formation houses
of Saint Francis Xavier and Bairo that for years took on the
task of preparing brothers for mission ad gentes.
So also, for more than 20 years now brothers
willing to volunteer for mission on the level of the General
Administration have been invited to contact the Superior General
to let him know about their willingness to serve. A list of
names has been created and those on it have been called upon
most often during times of turmoil, such as after the genocide
in Rwanda in the early 1990s.
More recently, we find in the Choose Life
document from our 20th General Chapter this suggestion: that
the time has come for a new chapter in our missionary history
to be written. We believe that the project we have proposed
is one response to that challenge and a serious attempt to
help build the future of Marist life and mission for this
new century.
Our Institute, then, has a long history
of undertakings on behalf of mission ad gentes. What you may
still ask is the origin of this recent proposal and how does
it fit in with the calls of the Church today, the signs of
our times, and the directives of our Marist Constitutions
and Statutes and recent General Chapters? More importantly,
what about its impact on the provinces and districts from
which these new missionaries will come? How many are we looking
for, how quickly do we plan to identify them and what preparation
for this undertaking do we have in mind? I will attempt to
answer these and other questions briefly in this letter.
The project’s origin
At the heart of the new mission ad gentes
project is this dream: to mission over the next four years
150 or more brothers to new apostolic works throughout the
countries of Asia and also to send a smaller number to those
restructured provinces that have not yet achieved the necessary
levels of vitality and viability that are needed if a future
is to be theirs.
This proposal is also in keeping with the
current calls of the Church and the signs of our times. For
example, the late Pope John Paul II writing in his post-Synod
document Vita Consecrata John Paul II was optimistic about
religious life and its future. He offered this challenging
insight: You do not have only a glorious story to remember
and recount, but a great story to build! Look to the future…”
By undertaking this new initiative, we are doing just that.
Confusion about mission
During the years following Vatican II, considerable
confusion developed about the nature of what until that time
had been called foreign mission work. Prior to the Council
a model of the Church existed that might best be described
as militant and triumphant. As Catholics you and I were taught
that there was no salvation outside of the Church; the work
of the missionary was clear: to evangelize and convert.
Vatican II took a broader view toward those
who hold other beliefs. The Church, now describing itself
as the People of God, moved beyond the approach of “no
salvation outside the Church.” This new understanding
about the nature of the Church was bound to give rise to questions
about the purpose of mission—even among missionaries
themselves.
The crisis, however, was not just theological;
decolonization and the rise of new nation states in missionary
lands led to calls for a moratorium on mission. In 1981, however,
during the SEDOS meeting a shift in focus occurred: from questioning
the purpose of mission at all to the challenge of how mission
was to be carried out in our contemporary Church and world.
Unfortunately, this new development failed
to clear up the confusion. The fact that John Paul II felt
compelled to write the encyclical Redemptoris Missio ten years
after that landmark SEDOS gathering suggests that concerns
about mission continue to lurk below the surface of many discussions.
The Pope’s letter, the first encyclical
on mission since the close of Vatican II, is an eloquent presentation
of the theological foundations of the topic, as well as an
appeal for renewed missionary fervor within the Church. John
Paul expounds the horizons of mission today and talks about
the means to achieve it. The encyclical, which closes with
a reflection on missionary spirituality, carries with it a
tone of urgency about refocusing Church’s efforts in
this area. We find within the text this preoccupation on the
part of the Pope: Missionary motivation has been flagging;
missionary activity diminishing.
Surely the latter has been true for our
Institute as well during the years following the Council.
The chart below, for example, demonstrates that while the
overall number of brothers officially assigned to overseas
mission has increased over the last 15 years, their median
age has also risen steadily, increasing overall by 12 years.
Number of brothers assigned to overseas mission
(1989-2004): |
Areas
