Sponsor: Outreach to Zambia Youth
- At March 28, 2012
- By getchart
- In Sponsor A Project
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The Oblate Zambia Delegation plans to develop a program directed to all the young members of Oblate parishes in the country.
Under the lead of the Youth Coordinator, Fr. Kapya Kang’ombe, OMI, the program, to be launched this July, is expected to continue with similar gatherings in the coming years.
This year the project will be divided into three phases:
Phase One aims at sensitization, training and conducting a workshop of peer educators for the Youths in all Oblate Parishes, in terms of behavioral change programs, formation of groups, and explanation of the Oblate vision in light of our Founder’s spirituality towards the youth. The cost of this phase is estimated in about $2,350.
Phase Two will gather the youth from all Oblate ministered parishes, for sensitization, workshop and symposium on behavioral change matters/issues, such as (1) HIV and AIDS, (2) Alcoholism, (3) Early pregnancies/ Early marriages, (4) Gender based Violence, (5) Child protection and child rights, (6) Crimes, (7) Spirituality, (8) Civic Education, and (9)Traditions and cultures. This phase is expected to cost around $3,200.
Phase Three will include the monitoring of implementations of behavioral change programs in the parishes, the evaluation, and the way forward and has an estimated
cost of $1,700
We invite you to partner with the Oblate Zambia Delegation in this endeavor:
US$ |
|
Phase One |
2,355 |
Phase Two |
3,205 |
Phase Three |
1,700 |
Totalp |
7,260 ==== |
If you would like to sponsor this project totally or partially please, contact:
Arthur A. Pingolt, Jr., at
Telephone: +1 612- 810-9147
Email: apingolt@oblatepartnership.org
HUMAN, CHRISTIAN, SAINTS
- At March 20, 2012
- By getchart
- In Communication, Mission Stories, News
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How to make this ideal a reality in the lives of the people the Missionaries were serving? St. Eugene’s methodology had three steps:
to make men [and women] reasonable,
then Christians,
and finally to help them become saints.
1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One, §3. Nota Bene.
Missions, 78 (1951) p. 16
Firstly, it was necessary to come into contact with the human reality of each one.
“The Word became human and made his home among us” (John 1:14).
Through their preaching and teaching the Missionaries aimed at helping people who are “wallowing in ignorance” about God and their faith to reflect and make decisions about their lives in a rational way. Over the course of 200 years Eugene and the Oblates have interpreted this call in a wider sense as referring to all the aspects connected with the human welfare of the person. The history of the actions of the Mazenodian Family continue to bear witness to this in five continents.
Secondly, to help people to become more deeply Christian by “teaching them who Jesus Christ is” and inviting them to enter into a life-giving relationship with God.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Finally, the call to help people to become heroic in their response to God.
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:13-14).
To become saints – to be so fully imbued with the values of the Kingdom of God so as to share its fullness in the Resurrection. Saint Eugene, Blessed Joseph Gerard, Blessed Joseph Cebula, and the Blessed Martyrs of Spain have been officially recognized as being saints.
Eugene was convinced that everyone who lived the Rule fully was assured of a share in the fullness of the Kingdom. These were three steps necessary to achieve this: human, Christian and then saints.
Today these three steps continue to be present in the Oblate’s approach to evangelization:
They will always be close to the people with whom they work, taking into account their values and aspirations…
…they strive to bring all people – especially the poor – to full consciousness of their dignity as human beings and as sons and daughters of God.
Oblate – CC&RR, Constitution 8
Source: St. Eugene speaks to us: www.eugenedemazenod.net
Eugene De Mazenod speaks to us
- At March 05, 2012
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- In Communication, News
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At a moment in his youth when Eugene felt “most deprived” of a direction in his life, he understood that it was in the direction of the Cross that his solution would come. Understanding the love of Jesus Christ the Savior for him, everything changed and he was no longer “deprived.” With the joyful acceptance of a fixed direction in his life, he became painfully aware of the many that were “deprived” of any enduring meaning in their lives. His early ministry as a young priest was a response. He dedicated his life to helping the “most deprived” to come to his same transforming realization.
In 1816 he was inspired to invite others to join him in a life of making a difference to the lives of these persons. Now in 1818, he codified this commitment in the Rule. Its first two articles showed the direction of the initial response of the Missionaries to those most deprived of spiritual things in Provence:
Article 2. That is why the members of this Congregation will work under the authority of the Ordinaries on whom they will always depend, by providing spiritual aid to the poor people in the rural areas and to the inhabitants of the country villages who are the most deprived of spiritual things. They will provide for those needs through missions, the teaching of catechism, retreats, or other spiritual exercises.
1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One. The ends of the Institute,
§1 Preaching the Word of God to the people
Today, Eugene’s call on behalf of the “most deprived” continues to ring out to all the members of his Mazenodian family:
Where the Church is already established, our commitment is to those groups it touches least. Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference.
CC&RR Constitution 5
Source: Eugene De Mazenod Speaks to Us.
Lenten Reflection from St. Eugene de Mazenod
- At February 22, 2012
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- In Communication, News
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St. Eugene’s belief in the equal dignity of all persons was best expressed on Ash Wednesday 1813, when he preached to the poor of all sorts not in the usual French or Latin that were the languages of the Church and the wealthy, but in Provençal the tongue of the people:
You, the poor, the needy, whom the injustice of men obliges to beg for the bread which will sustain your existence … The world sees you as the rejects of society … But you, … my very dear and respectable people,… you are the children of God, the heirs of his eternal kingdom, … You are … the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ … you are kings, you are priests, you are, in a way, gods … Within each of you there is an immortal soul, made in the image of God …
(Hubenig, OMI, “Living in the Spirit’s Fire,” 1995, page 53).
Letter from the Superior General
- At February 15, 2012
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- In Communication
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( Rome Feb. 2, 2012) This year we celebrate 186 years since Pope Leo XII approved our Constitutions and Rules. We celebrate this grace with great joy, thanksgiving and a fraternal spirit among us. The Founder saw the Constitutions and Rules as uniting the Oblates in a society in which we would become holy missionaries and be dedicated to the salvation of God’s poor. We see this expressed in the Preface to the CC&RR.
These two dimensions of our vocation strike me in the Preface. First of all, there is the strong expression of what burned in Eugene de Mazenod’s missionary heart: the urgent need to evangelize, to preach the Gospel and reawaken the faith. He reached out in bold new ways to those who had lost the faith and had been neglected by the clergy of the time. This young missionary was busy reaching out to those not being touched by parish structures. He was aware of those who were being overlooked and whose faith was dying. He sought ways to speak to them in their language and to gather them. He met them on their own ground and took the Word to them. He longed to bring them into contact with the Church and to reawaken their faith so that they would come to know Jesus and become his disciples.
In the Chapter of 2010, the call made for us to Conversion in the area of Mission asked us if we are merely satisfied with what we are doing and whether we are simply caring for those who are already believers. We are invited to become uncomfortable and to question ourselves. Are we seeking to bring Jesus to those who are missing out on his Good News and to work creatively with them? As missionaries, it is not our vocation to be content in doing good pastoral work for the people who come to us. Like Eugene, moved by love for Christ and the Church, we are called to notice people who don’t get touched by the pastoral structures, those on the fringes and those who suffer in poverty in its many faces. We seek them out and communicate the Gospel in their language so that God’s grace might draw them to his Son and to the Church.
The other dimension which strongly appears in the Preface is the holiness of the missionaries who will be preachers of the Good News. To accomplish the great mission before them, the missionaries must be true disciples of Jesus Christ and transformed by the Word they preach. The call to conversion is a commitment to give ourselves in an ongoing, disciplined way to the transforming process of God’s grace. Over a lifelong journey, the Spirit will fashion us into truer images and likenesses of God. What does holiness mean for us today? How do we live the Founder’s mandate: “They must strive to be saints”?
Our CC&RR guide us in an understanding of Oblate holiness, a lifelong journey into Jesus, the Savior. Prayer, individual and communal; a life founded on the sacraments and the Word of God; apostolic communal life; a relationship to Mary; living the fullness of our four vows; and qualities like generosity, joy, humility, forgiveness and hospitality are essential to our growth in holiness found in our CC & RR. Also part of Oblate holiness expressed in our CC&RR are compassion; solidarity with the poor; hunger for justice; a capacity for dialog, mutual respect and responsibility; a simple life that respects the environment. We return to our OMI CC&RR to deepen this sense of holiness which is lived in relation to God, to our neighbor, to our very self and to creation. Do you have a copy readily accessible?
This February 17th let us ask for the grace to renew our missionary vision and our thirst for holiness. Together, let us give thanks for the Congregation and celebrate this day by renewing our commitment as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. I invite us to take some time together to share “signs of life” that we see in the Congregation.
Your brother Oblate in Jesus Christ and Mary Immaculate,
Father Louis Lougen, OMI
Superior General
(Originally published on omiworld.org)
A mission serving the materially poor
- At February 01, 2012
- By getchart
- In Mission Stories
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For I was … ill and you cared for me ….”
The Casa San Eugenio, in the Oblate Mission of La Morita, Tijuana, started as a response to the painful fact of a high rate of infant mortality during the cold winter months.
After years of struggle the building was completed and the clinic opened in 2003. Additional ¨building¨ continued through the following years: the dental clinic was opened, the eye clinic came into being, the community center was started, and psychological and psychiatric services were added. Along with all of this the mobile clinic became operational and other programs were added in different parts of the Mission.
Today, the Casa San Eugenio serves a widespread area with a population of an estimated 250,000 inhabitants.
During 2011, Clínica San Eugenio provided medical services to close to 7,000 persons, of whom almost 1,2oo could not afford to and did not pay for the services. The Mobile Clinic served more than 1,600 persons by providing, among others, laboratory services to about 400 persons and donated medicines to more than 800 persons.
Close to 1,000 received chiropractic services also thanks to the Mobile Clinic. More than 1,700 persons visited the Dental Clinic; about 100 had their eyes checked by an ophthalmologist, and almost 500 persons received psychological or psychiatric advice.
OBLATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
- At January 24, 2012
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- In USA
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The Oblate School of Theology is a graduate and professional school founded in 1903 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to educate young men to serve as Oblate priests and brothers in the United States and foreign missions.
At present, it educates a diverse population of students including those in priestly formation, lay students who will serve as lay ecclesial ministers and others who simply want to deepen their knowledge of theology.
Example of the School’s programs, besides those leading to priesthood are:
The Ministry to Ministers Program started in 1981 and that provides intensive spiritual and theological sabbatical experience for priests and religious men and women who have been in ministry for a number of years;
The Lay Ministry Institute that opened its doors in 1982; and
The Instituto de Formación Pastoral that was started in 1985.
These last two programs prepare candidates theologically and spiritually in certificate programs for pastoral lay ministry.
In 1992, the Oblate School of Theology assumed the responsibility for the Oblate Renewal Center that offers a variety of programs and retreats to respond to the needs of the local church.
Oblate Media
- At January 24, 2012
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- In USA
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Oblate Media and Communication is a media ministry of the United States Province of Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Founded in 1982, its purpose is to evangelize through electronic media and to
“… bear witness to the message announced by Jesus and handed on by the Catholic Church” (OMCC Mission Statement).
Oblate Media produces a variety of programs including: catechetical programs aimed at teaching and strengthening faith in audiences ranging from pre-school through adulthood and documentary programs that focus on issues of peace and justice in addition to faith.
Sri Lanka
- At January 23, 2012
- By getchart
- In Asia
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The Oblates have been missionaries in Sri Lanka for over 160 years. After having trained the local clergy to take over the various ministries, 30 years ago they began to concentrate on other missions and ministries both in the country and overseas (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Today there are two Oblate provinces in Sri Lanka, Jaffna in the North and Colombo in the South.
The Oblates act as parish priests, intermediary school teachers, youth ministers, lecturers in the major seminaries, inter-religious dialogue, justice and peace, preaching and healing ministries and particularly helping the poor.
One project launched by the Sri Lankan Oblates is an immersion program on English and Life Education to as many as 50 young girls each year. This training will give these young women better chances for future employment and a more plentiful life. The Partnership is providing support to write grants for this project.