Participants in the mission of the Church
4. Participants in the mission of the Church
As priests of the Sacred Heart, [26]
we live the heritage of Father Dehon
in our Institute today.
We are religious
consecrated to the Lord by vows,
with a spiritual goal recognized by the Church,
the goal of our Founder.
In following him,
by a special grace of God,
we are called in the Church
to seek and lead,
as the one thing necessary,
a life of union
with the oblation of Christ.
This consecration itself already has [27]
a real apostolic fruitfulness.
Like every charism in the Church,
our prophetic charism places us at the service
of the saving mission of the people of God
in today's world (cf. LG 12).
Eager for the Lord's intimacy, [28]
we search for the signs of His presence
in the lives of people,
where His saving love is active.
In sharing our joys and our sorrows,
Christ identified
with the lowly and the poor,
to whom He announced the Good News.
"I assure you,
as often as you did it for one
of my least brothers,
you aid it for me" (Matt. 25:40).
The spirit of the Lord is upon me: ...
He has sent me to bring glad tidings
to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives,
recovery of sight to the blind
and release to prisoners,
to announce a year of favor from
the Lord" (Luke 4:18).
In following Him, [29]
we must live in real solidarity
with people.
Sensitive to what obstructs the love of the Lord
in today's world,
we give testimony to the fact that human effort
needs to be constantly purified and transfigured
by the cross and resurrection of Christ
to arrive at the fullness of the Kingdom.
"By their state in life,
religious give splendid and striking testimony
that the world cannot be transfigured
and offered to God
without the spirit of the Beatitudes" (LG 31).
By its very nature [30]
our Institute is an apostolic institute;
and so we readily place ourselves
at the service of the Church
in its various pastoral works.
Although our Institute was not founded
for a specific work,
it gets from the Founder
some apostolic orientations
which characterize its mission in the Church.
This mission, for Father Dehon [31]
in a spirit of love and oblation,
entailed eucharistic adoration,
as an authentic service of the Church
(cf. NQ 1.3.1893),
and "ministry to the lowly and the humble,
the workers and the poor" (cf. Souvenirs XV),
to proclaim to them the unfathomable riches of Christ
(cf. Eph. 3:8).
With this ministry in mind,
Father Dehon gave great importance
to the formation of priests and religious.
For him missionary activity was
a privileged form of apostolic service.
In all this his constant concern
was that the human community,
sanctified in the Holy Spirit,
became an offering pleasing to God (cf. Rom. 15:16).
Following the Founder, [32]
according to the signs of the times
and in communion with the life of the Church,
we want to contribute to establishing
"the reign of justice and Christian charity
in the world" (cf. Souvenirs XI).
The provincial directories shall determine,
according to times and places,
the concrete involvements in the local church
which correspond to these apostolic orientations.
For us as for Father Dehon, [33]
the activity of our missionaries
is still particularly important.
The whole Congregation is present
to their ministry of evangelization,
through which they give people
this proof of friendship:
to be among them at the service of the Good News.
We carry out our service of the Gospel [34]
in the universal Church
with those responsible for the local churches.
Together with them
we have to seek out those ways of involvement
in the ecclesial mission
which allows us to develop
the riches of our vocation.