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M E N O N F I R E W I T H G O D ' S LOV E !
“If you are who you are made to be you will set the world ablaze!”
The line is not from Claret but from one of the congregation’s patron saints, St. Catherine of Siena. But it might as well be what our Father Founder would say if he were to speak to us today. And as your brother, allow me to use these words to bring home a message. I actually quoted this line during one of my inspired interventions during the General Chapter, which I would like to share with you.
My dear brothers, fresh from the spirit-filled event of the XXIV General Chapter, I bring you fire! This is the same fire referred to by Claret in his Definition of a Missionary, which is at the center of the Chapter reflection.
This is the flame of Divine Love that defines our identity as ClaretianMissionaries. This is the stuff that we are made of as Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“The fire of grace… over time, gets covered with ashes caused bythe coldness of the atmosphere of the world which surrounds us, by our lukewarmness, by laziness in work, the fear of persecutions and the inconsistency of our resolutions; such ashes have the fire of charity covered up as if dead; what is needed is to rake it, fan it, and add fuel to make it return to life and make it flame.”
These words of Claret from El Colegial Instruido more than a century reverberate to us his sons today. They are more relevant than ever when many of our brothers are gradually losing their passion for the mission, their response to the vocation, their faithfulness to our profession. This situation of our congregation is what we reflected on during the Chapter and we asked ourselves:
“How are we to live our missionary vocation today? How do we feel within each of us this fire of charity that, as if ‘enkindle our hearts,’ urges us on to desire “to set the whole world ablaze with the fire of divine love’? What do we need to feed this fire and to pass it on to the new generations of Claretians? For us the chapter experience was a powerful call to love our Claretian missionary vocation with renewed enthusiasm.”
My dear brothers, let us respond to the call of God in our world, Church and the congregation as “men on fire with love” –
our identity, our vocation, our being, who we are
made to be so we can set the world ablaze.
Fr. Rene Manubag, CMF
Provincial Superior |
