Our missionary vocation calls us to insert ourselves into the history of our peoples and our cultures. This presents us with challenges that oblige us to live in a constant renewal, and in a continuous effort to contextualise and project ourselves into the future.
The future presents itself as a “kairos” which, on the one hand, leads us to “reinvent” ourselves and, on the other, asks us to return to the original and creative fidelity of our charism. This reality invites us, therefore, not to remain anchored in fixed patterns of the past, but to cultivate an attitude of openness that demands profound changes.
Proclaiming the Gospel to the poor strengthens the sense of belonging to the Congregation. This is our great challenge: to be faithful to our principal addressees, for as St. Alphonsus said in his letter of 29 July 1774: “I am sure that Jesus Christ looks upon our little Congregation with very loving eyes. And experience teaches us that, in spite of so many persecutions, He never ceases to help us to promote more and more his glory in so many places, multiplying also his graces”.
Let us never cease to entrust ourselves to the divine Mother, since the Lord grants us the honour and pleasure of proclaiming His glories everywhere: this consoles me very much and gives me the confidence that this good Mother will not cease to care for each one of us and to obtain for us the grace to become saints.
I bless you all, and each one in particular, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity; and I pray Jesus Christ, by his merits, to make all those who live and will live in the Congregation grow in his divine love, so that all of us, inflamed in heaven like seraphim, may eternally praise God and sing of his mercies.”
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