Today, we have been invited to reflect on two fundamental matters for our life as missionaries: renewal in Vincentian spirituality and the mission of the Congregation of the Mission in the 21st century. These are topics that concern every member of the Company, but which are particularly relevant for us Visitors, by virtue of the responsibility entrusted to us. You know well, as I do, how much St. Vincent de Paul insisted on the importance of leading by example. I am particularly thinking of the invitation he extended to Antoine Durand in 1656, when he appointed him superior of the seminary and offered a simple image to explain his thought: “one sheep begets another sheep” (XI,343). If we want our confreres to renew themselves in Vincentian spirituality and strengthen their commitment to the mission, we must be the first to move… and move forward!
Therefore, let us ask God for His grace and allow ourselves once again to be enlightened by listening to His Word. We can rediscover our bond with Christ, who is the living source of Vincentian spirituality, the very heart of our faith, as this beautiful passage from the Gospel reminds us. In His only Son, God gives us everything so that we may live in communion with Him. He was sent to reveal to the world His plan of love, asking us to adhere to His entire life through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We have already taken this step through baptism. And we recently had the joy of renewing our profession of faith during the Easter Vigil. We deepened this choice by responding to Christ’s call to follow Him in evangelizing the poor. However, our human experience teaches us that this decision must be renewed every day, to grow in our adherence to the Lord. The temptation of darkness can always lurk nearby, even more so for us who bear great responsibilities. Let us tirelessly seek to know and share the life of Jesus, Master and Lord, as He Himself taught and lived: by serving all.
The celebrations of the Paschal Mystery have once again presented to us the figure of the Son, faithful and obedient to the Father, even to the total gift of Himself amid the world’s adversities, before the authorities of His time and even His closest collaborators. The light is splendid, but it comes at a price, because it is accompanied by the truth that repels all evil. Christ invites us to engage in this true battle, as He did: with bare hands, with hearts inflamed by charity, moved solely by the desire to make God’s love known to the world. This is the mission each of us has received: some as missionaries, others as Visitors, still others as bishops.
Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles offers us a further lesson: attachment to Christ manifests itself through a burning zeal in proclaiming the Word of God and in accepting the opposition of the world. The apostles are imprisoned because of their teaching and the signs and wonders they perform. But at night, God’s angel intervenes, frees them, and invites them to return to the Temple. We do not know how the angel dealt with the locks and guards, but we see that the apostles obey without hesitation to “proclaim to the people all these words of life.” And at dawn, they are already there, teaching. Proclamation has become the center of their lives: they no longer want to lose themselves, but to remain bound to the Lord, even at the cost of rejection and persecution.
We too are called to bear witness to the Risen One. I do not know if martyrdom will be asked of us, as it was of St. Stephen or, later, St. John Gabriel Perboyre and St. Francis Regis Clet. In any case, we can recall the commitment of St. Vincent de Paul, who, although he did not experience bloody persecution, consumed himself completely in charity, “toiling with the sweat of his brow and the labor of his arms.” Four hundred years later, he remains for us an exceptional model.
He urges us to live our missionary vocation even more intensely: ever closer to God, ever closer to the poor, striving for that infinitely inventive love that characterizes our charism.
In the fervor of the Easter season and the celebration of this fourth centenary of our Congregation, let us ask God for the grace to know His only Son ever better, to adhere ever more deeply to His life, passing from death to life in the light. And to better share Him with our confreres and with all those to whom we are sent. Let us move forward, every day, every moment of our lives, sustained by this confidence: “God so loved the world.”
Fr. Frédéric Pellefigue, CM
Visitor of the Province of France
