Vocations : Information
Our Mission
Christ the Missionary
"Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15).
We, Claretian Missionaries, are "a community called together by the Spirit for the missionary proclamation of the Word." The life in common, which is also the first act of mission, is to be sufficiently valued by us all.
Our community consists of priests, deacons, brothers and students (CC 7), and is called to live a communion that integrates the different charisms in a creative manner. This communion is a prophetic characteristic that will render our missionary service of the Word more credible.
In their lifestyle, our missionaries should adapt themselves to sound local customs, as a sign of their effective pastoral concern, keeping in mind their duty of witnessing to the Gospel.
Just as all in the early Church were of one mind, persevering in prayer and the sharing of goods "with Mary the Mother of Jesus" (Acts 1: 14), so, united as we are by the common bond of being Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, there should reign among us an intense affective and effective charity, in keeping with the greater demand for considerateness, gentleness and mutual service that are implicit in our very title.
Servants of the Word
"The ministry of the Word, through which we communicate the total mystery of Christ to humanity, is our special calling among the People of God (CC 46). Imitating Jesus, the Prophet par excellence, whom our Founder followed so radically, we must be transformed into a sign and expression of the Word of God" (SW 6).
We who have undertaken Christ's Missionary work should also imitate his constancy in prayer and take to heart his recommendations and teachings on prayer without ceasing. For this reason, we should cultivate the spirit of adoptive sonship whereby we cry: "Abba, Father!" Led by the light of faith, we should search for signs of his will in what happens in our lives, thus growing daily more responsive to our mission.
Before we dutifully proclaim the Lord's word, we should first listen to it in attentive meditation and also share it with our brothers so that we ourselves may be converted to the Gospel, become conformed to Christ and set afire with his love, the force that should impel us. Finally, in our prayers and petitions, we should intercede with God for the Church and for the life of the world. (CC 33 and 34)
At the dawn of the 21st century the Church invites us to "start afresh from Christ," "to put out into the deep," to enter into a "time of renewed 'creativity' in charity" (cf NMI, 50; SAC, 10). Jesus' words "That they may have life" inspire our response to the Church's call. As missionaries, our vocation and prophetic mission places us always at the service of life.
Our Mission
The missionary service of the Word is that which specifies our mission among the people of God and for which we are constituted into an apostolic institute in the Church. We should live it according to the spirit and the prophetic style inherited from our Founder and enriched by the tradition of our Congregation. This missionary vocation is the source of our apostolate and the fundamental criterion for the choice of our apostolic works. It should always inspire and guide the missionaries and all of their works.
Our missionary charism includes consecration and mission, and involves belonging totally to God and being entirely committed to the Kingdom. The gift we have received makes us a community in the service of the Church. This demands a constant effort on our part to find our vocational identity in the communion of the Congregation and in a sense of availability for its universal mission.
Every apostolic work, even if one person can carry it out alone, must remain within the framework of our community and of our universal openness. For this we receive the ecclesial commission, normally through the Claretian community.
Our mission forms part of the mission of the Church in the service of humanity. For this very reason, without an attentive and participative study of the realities of human life in each age and place, we cannot know people's needs for evangelisation, or the characteristics our mission must have in order to respond to those needs.
We must be especially sensitive to all those aspects that most directly challenge our missionary identity, such as the absence of evangelisation, possibilities for raising up evangelisers, situations of poverty and oppression, and cultural, ideological or political movements (CC 14; 46).
Imitating Jesus' preference for the poor, answering the call of the Church and following the example of our Founder, we wish to bring to all people the message of salvation, proclaimed from the perspective of the poor and needy, who constitute the greater part of humanity.
In tune with the spirit of our Founder, we feel urged to turn our missionary proclamation of the Gospel into a force that multiplies evangelising leaders, according to the diversity of vocations that exist within the Church.
Our Prophetic Lifestyle
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18).
The Spirit of Jesus is on each and every one of us. This is the fire that makes the Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary into men who are afire with charity and set its fire wherever they go (cf. Aut 494), into persons who are integrated and centered. The Spirit gives life to the Word: only then does it reach people's hearts and has the power to transform. To make Jesus' way of life our own (CC 5).
We too, chosen by Jesus and anointed by the Spirit, feel called to carry on "today" this admirable missionary and prophetic tradition. Prophecy only become persuasive when there is coherence between our announcement and our life (cf. VC 85). Our personal and community life is, then, our first prophetic act. We only live authentically when we live "in Christ Jesus." Hence, we must "keep our gaze fixed on Christ, imitate him, and be so steeped in his Spirit, that it will no longer we who live, but Christ who truly lives in us" (CC 39). We desire "to set nothing above our personal love for Christ and for the poor in whom He lives" (VC 84).
Our prophetic lifestyle receives a distinctive imprint from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of the Congregation. She teaches us that without heart, without tenderness, without love, there is no credible prophecy. Mary uttered the Word (cf. Lk 1:38) because she had first conceived it in her heart; she proclaimed her prophetic Magnificat (cf. Luke 1:46-55) because she had first believed; she stood near the Cross and was present at Pentecost because she was the good earth that welcomed the Word with a glad heart, made it bear fruit a hundred fold (cf. Luke 8:8,15,21) and asked others to do whatever the Word told them (John 2:5).
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