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Third Year of the Oblate Triennium:Mission, Vow of Obedience and Evangelii Gaudium08. ANNOUNCING THE GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR AND WITH THE POORSETTING: The prayer atmosphere should be conducive to a climate of sharing meaningfully. The oblate Logo, our Constitutions and the 33rd General Chapter booklet can be put among the group as the main focus. Other prayer symbols conducive to the theme can also be put.MOTIVATION:Announcing the Good News to the poor, with the poor, means that as Oblates we are a gift to the poor and that they, also, are a gift to the Oblates; thus fulfilling the challenges from 33rd General Chapter: “Experience and missionary practice in different contexts, convince us that in order to evangelize others we must, first of all, be evangelized through the word of God and contact with the poor. Simply put, we must first experience in our own lives the salvation we announce to others. A decision to evangelize, as servants of the Gospel, requires attention to our own conversion” (Evangelizing the poor at the dawn of the third millennium, p. 23, no.10)SONG: Choose a song proper to the theme.PRAYER: Dear Lord, you chose your servant St Eugene to be a champion for the cause of the poor and the most abandoned, help us as a community and as individuals, also to be daring to proclaim the Gospel of good news to the poor of our day. Empower us through your Spirit to be witnesses, prophets of your Kingdom and to be men of hope. Amen!THE WORD OF GOD: (Luke 4: 16-21)‘Jesus went back to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as usual he went to the meeting place on the Sabbath. When he stood up to read from the Scriptures, he was given the book of Isaiah the prophet. He opened it and read, “The Lord’s Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’” Jesus closed the book, then handed it back to the man in charge and sat down. Everyone in the meeting place looked straight at Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, “What you have just heard me read has come true today.”’RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD: Psalm 145: 1.10Lord, I will bless your name forever.I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever.Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness.They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.OBLATE TEXT: Acts of the 33rd General Chapter, “Evangelizing the poor…” n?.11, p.24In speaking of evangelization a word that comes urgently to the fore is dialogue. Dialogue means listening and speaking with attention to and respect for the other. It also means welcoming and accepting the other in his and her history and truth…To enter into genuine dialogue presupposes being close with a certain sharing of life and the acceptance of the insights and questions of one's contemporaries. This supposes a common language in more than one sense of the word common. Thus for example the need for precisely such a common language is what led our Founder Eugene de Mazenod to choose to preach in the dialect the patois of the poor. He understood that if one wants to preach in a manner that is understood one must have a language in common with the people. That challenge remains with us.GOING DEEPER INTO THE THEME: Reflection on EG n? 5, 14, 186-201The proclamation of the Good News to the poor and with the poor as a transversal of a New Oblate Mission.On the threshold of the Great Jubilee of the founding of the Missionary Oblates, we are invited to take the Good News to the poor and with the poor more deeply. This endogenous and retrospective look does not call for a “mea culpa” before the poor nor does it mean to propose a new pastoral practice to substitute the old. It is, rather, a reflection-praxis of the Oblate of today of a new way of evangelizing in a Church “going forth” alongside with the poor. In other words it is to recall the great achievements of the Oblate Missions with the poor and project these pastoral victories to new horizons. In effect, we, Oblates of the XXI Century redescover day by day in the words “misit me”, a legacy of our Founder St. Eugene for a “new mission” by the service of evangelization of the poor in the multiple aspects and situations. And as humble servants of the most abandoned, we remember that we are architects of a new way of proclaiming the Gospel to the poor and with the poor to the point of freely sacrificing our life for them. Therefore, I propose three requirements and three Oblate implications towards a new way of evangelizing the poor and with the poor in the light of Evangelii Gaudium.The first requirement is entitled: Renewing our vision of the poor man to whom we are sent to evangelize. It is a personal and community conversion within and outside of the Congregation towards a critical stance to the instrumental- hedonistic mentality of our age for its lack of sensitivity to human dimensiones, understood as “sensible reason”. With this I propose an incentive implication that involves a “Christian re-initiation, a religious re-education of pastoral agents and a true cultural pastoral”. In this perspective, the Oblate evangelization takes the direction of an evangelical exhortation warning about the cultures of death and one that encourages human values at the time of reckoning with the problems of the meaning of life and the presence of evil actions of human beings. They will originate in the cultures, new pastoral projects, with a pretense to a profesión of Faith, to human promotion and in respect to the poor man.114303048000The second requirement is entitled: Building contrast communities in the midst of today?s standards. This proposal is, in the spirit of G. Lohfink, modeled on the historical project of Jesus on building the Kingdom, which he focused on forming with his disciples, a community of contrast alternatives to the world. We speak here of a proposal for a new social and community characteristic rooted in a new relationship with God through Jesus and by which is excluded any dominant or violent spirit against them. Therefore, our second implication is “being attentive to God to read the signs of the times by the promptings of the Holy Spirit” and in view of a prophetic reading of the signs of the times in faith and genuinely religious feeling of popular cultures. Therefore, “at the school of the Spirit, we as a community recognize the signs of the times, which are fulfilled in the field of ordinary pastoral ministry and the Bread of eternal life” (EG 14).The third requirement is entitled: Develop a new missionary vision with a greater participation of the lay associates. This requirement includes the participation of lay people as bearers of a new hope for the anawin of Yahweh on behalf of the Oblates. Thus, in a new missionary vision, the laity are actual subjects in the social, cultural and spiritual changes in our world. It is a task set from the axis of the Oblate community life (from one heart, one mind, one spirit). So, the implication regarding this third requirement looks at: Promote social inclusion and Christian solidarity.Therefore, it is urgent to have a “common commitment, articulated and shared by all Oblates” and, this “commitment does not consist exclusively in activities or programs of promotion and assistance”; ...”but above all an attentiveness which considers the other in a certain sense as one with ourselves.” (EG 199). It?s an implication totally characterized that tries to give witness to love and respect of the human family in light of the Gospel (GS 37). From there, all the importance of a “new Oblate mission” grows in the shadow of the cross of Christ born poor in the manger, stripped by the executioners on Calvary (EG 48, 197), who shows us to be close to the poor and encourages preferential option for the poor in a “special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity” (EG 186-188; 198; 200).Finally, we thank God for having inspired in us, sons of St. Eugene, the need to listen to the poor more freely within the Church. And given the “ardent love for one another”, we Oblates work toward our own sanctification and provide all with the joy that comes from the Cross of Christ planted at the center of our mission (EG 5, 193; CC 1). May our Mother the Virgin Mary take us by the hand in this spiritual and apostolic journey! (P. Jean Hérick Jasmin , OMI, Dr. Th., Colombia)TIME FOR SILENT REFLECTIONSHARING OUR FAITH:The group shares around these...What has touched you from scripture, the Oblate text and reflection ? Why must the poor never be neglected in our world?Are you ministering for and with the poor?Is your Oblate testimony prophetic enough for the world of today?Reflect on this text before answering: “A church that doesn’t provoke any crises; a Gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin. A Word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – What Gospel is that?” (Bishop Oscar Romero, 16 April 1978)COMMITMENT:The Chapter of 1998 in # 41 invited all of us to examine our need of renewal. In that light we pledged ourselves:To refocus on the essentials, namely on Christ and his Church; and to do this through a renewed community life which his animated by an ever-inventive missionary zeal.To review all of our missionary commitments in the light of our charism.To pursue a fuller partnership with the laity and encourage their association with us.To commit ourselves wholeheartedly to ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue and to be well-informed so as to be competent in the dialogue.To intensify our work for vocations and in the area of formation, giving thesedemands their required attention.To live more consciously and explicitly the internationality of our congregation with all the riches and challenges that this brings us.In the face of a virtual explosion of poverty we commit ourselves to a more radical way of living working for justice, peace and the integrity of creation.PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND INTENTIONS:In light of these Chapter commitments, make your Intentions for our Prayers.FINAL PRAYER: Prayer of St. Eugene De Mazenod to persevere in our Oblate vocationAlmighty, eternal God, you have called me, your unworthy servant, through no merit of my own, but solely out of your great mercy, to serve your divine Son in the Congregation of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.Humbly I pray, through the merits of the precious blood of our divine Savior, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without sin, and of my patron saints:grant that 1 may not weaken in this holy resolve through any effort of the enemy of my soul, nor be deterred by impulses of the flesh, dissuaded by love of parents or counsel of relatives, restrained by fear of difficulties, distracted by the vanity of this world, overcome by bad company;that my passions may not impede me, work not break me, nor the suggestions of Satan pervert me. You have given me your gift to begin:give me now the power to persevere according to your holy Will. O God of Love, especially give me the talents 1 need to reach my goal, as well as confidence in those who are my spiritual fathers.Grant that I may labor unceasingly for my own and my neighbor’s salvation, and,above all, to promote your glory. Amen. (Oblate Prayer Book, pp. 80-81)BLESSING AND SONG: Sending forth Hymn ................
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