Fr. Rodolfo García CSsR, (first from left) member of the Province of the Mother of Perpetual Help (Central America and the Caribbean) and student of missiology at the Urbania University in Rome, visited Bischenberg during his vacation, where the Redemptorists have been present for over 200 years. Recalling his meeting with his confreres, he shares his reflections on the relevance of the Redemptorist mission.
I once heard the Spanish Redemptorist Fathers say, “The Redemptorists begin where the roads end.” And in my missionary journey, I can say that in many places this old adage is true.
This summer I had the opportunity to spend several weeks with the Redemptorist community of Bischenberg, in French Alsace, a community that dates back to 1505 and which in 1821 became a canonically erected Redemptorist house, with the approval of Father Passerat through those lands sent by Saint Clement for the first foundations outside Naples.
It was a great missionary adventure to meet the confreres, an international community, among Peruvians, French, Burkinabe, and Vietnamese who carry out the task of evangelization in these lands in need of the proclamation of the good news of Jesus of Nazareth.
The mission, whether we understand it as a whole, as brothers working for the same purpose, as a missionary body, or as the same goal, called Redemptorist missionaries, and also together with the laity, with inclusion, openness and a universal vision, or the mission leaves out what is current and essential mission leaves out what is current and essential for the proclamation of Christ the Redeemer.
Today the evangelizing mission of the Catholic Church is understood as an essential part of its lifestyle, an essential part of its way of being and existing in the world, the conciliar Decree Ad Gentes, in its second paragraph, shows that in fulfilling the mission, the Church manifests its very being and manifests that its existence is to be served, therefore a Church that is not missionary is not the Church of Jesus.
In these days I have been able to witness the mission that is taking place in these lands, where community life, as it should always be, is not an activity that can be done. So, the community life, as it should always be, is a fundamental pillar for missionary development. The missionary development, the testimony of creativity and evangelical simplicity in the brothers, the openness of the brothers and the need to overcome borders and regionalisms must be present.
It is not the mission that is in crisis, the mission remains current and rather than being a fad, in a world that needs to adhere to the transcendental, it is the way to make Jesus Christ present in our secularized societies and in contrast between traditionalism-clericalism and the fight for a more horizontal and dialoguing Church.
Fathers Raol and Dalmer from Peru, Marcel, Germain and Brother Jean Marie from France, our Vietnamese brother priests Joseph and Francisco and the religious Jean Batista and Jean are those who make up this missionary team with the task of making God present among these peoples.
The mission will never end, we, missionaries will never be able to finish it, if we do not awaken in ourselves the desire, the risk, and the passion to make Jesus present, as Saint Alphonsus and Saint Clement did in their time.
Fr. Rodolfo García C.Ss.R.
