The answer is found is Jesus' call
Longing is like a seed, wanting is a life's work. Some get what they want, others do not. More again are caught between.
The saintly Augustine found a home for his aching desire: our hearts are restless, Lord, 'til we rest in you.
Jesus Christ was passionate about life and about people. His desire was to do the will of the One who sent him.
Jesus is God's longing for
creation,
a longing that stills, that heals, that absolves.
Eugene de Mazenod lived and breathed his desire for God in the crisis of post-revolutionary France. Faithful to his waiting heart, he founded a missionary congregation called the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. It's motto: God sent me to bring the Gospel to the poor. Today, we have our own crises. Still, God is present, even closer to us than we are to ourselves. God's Spirit is alive and active, calling whom it likes, blowing where it wants. To respond is to attend to my desire, to choose Christ and to be shaped by my longing for life. So doing, each joins with the other as fellow pilgrims in the midst of God, wanting what God wants, having what God has, living what God lives...........
...ready to go anywhere...
Oblate means offering and describes the commitment to serve God's people wherever the need is greatest. So, from the icy plains of Northern Canada to the Tropics of Latin America, Oblates choose to live and work with people who have been pushed to the margins, who have been excluded from sharing the fruits of the earth. Founded in 1816 by Eugene de Mazenod in Southern France, the Congregation grew and now numbers around 5,000 Oblates working in 72 countries. Their origins are as diverse as their ministry, covering the five continents. In over 100 languages they speak the words of Jesus: come and receive life, and life to the full. The Gospel points towards God's reign of peace and justice. Oblates share the daily life of those they work with, helping to build a community where all have access to God's creation, where the dignity of each person is prized above the greed and indifference that stifles God's life-giving Spirit in our lives.
missioned...
...from home
Our founder St. Eugene de Mazenod, first sent Oblates to Britain and Ireland in 1841. Local people, in their turn, soon began to leave these islands to help continue the work of the Gospels throughout the world. So, Oblate missionaries were sent to places such as Sri Lanka, Canada and South Africa. Always some remained to work with immigrants and the poorer areas of the major cities in these islands and they strove to build up communities centered on the liberating presence of Jesus Christ. Today there are men from this Anglo-Irish province in places as far away as Brazil, Australia, The Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa. They are helping the church take root in local cultures. As well as these, there are 140 Oblates, priests and brothers, gathering in small faith communities across Britain and Ireland. They work at keeping hope alive in the middle of life's difficulties, especially where there is poverty, addiction or lack of opportunity. Together we are nourished by God's word, sustained in prayer and united in the Eucharist. At the centre of our lives stands the figure of Jesus. God became like one of us, so that we might become like God. Jesus shares our joy and our grief, our hope and our anguish. Following where he calls, we come as we are, leaning on God and on each other for the strength and the courage to respond in these present times to the needs of our world.
