Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Loeches (Fides Service) - “We are on our way to our destinies starting from a convinced experience of God’s presence and with a new mission mandate for every member of the Fraternity” Teresa Rodríguez, a member of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity, wrote in a message to Fides at the end of the Fraternity’s recent general Congress on the theme "A charisma at the Service of the Word" and which concluded with a Mass and blessing of the image of Our Lady of Mercy on 14 February at Loeches, Madrid (see Fides 29/1/2007). The event, which started on 17 January the 44th anniversary of the founding of the Fraternity, was attended by 67 representatives from many different countries. Present also the founder Fr. Jaime Bonet Bonet, and assistant Fr. Miguel Orcasitas, O.S.A, appointed by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
The participants sent all the other members of the Fraternity, "a living message from missionaries who are setting out to all five continents convinced that the Word of God, like a sharp sword, gives eternal life, and those who hear and heed it come to know God and are impelled to work to make Him ever more widely known”.
“The congress was an occasion to savour our charisma, our identity and our belonging to the essential and to plan together a future of missionary expansion", the participants wrote recognising "God’s intervention in these six years of life of the Fraternity ". "Praying every day on the theme of the Congress - the Message continues - we felt comforted and united. God spoke to us, opening our ears to listen and setting us on fire for mission. We will cast out our nets once again and believe in our charisma and the power of prayer and preaching". The participants said the Congress was an opportunity to grow in awareness of the value and power of ‘the spirit of communion’ with surprising vitality, recognising clearly “three branches” (missionary men, missionary women and missionary couples) united in the strong net of "communion", recognising in all "the same call, identity and mission which unites the members of the Fraternity in the same charisma".
The Congress, a sort of new Pentecost with the presence of the Spirit, gave the participants “a new awareness of being members of the Church and the need to be helped by the Church in the urgency to live and responsibly bring our charisma”. The participants said they would strive to grow in "a culture of co-responsibility", realising that the signs of the times call for “creative fidelity to safeguard and hand on to new generations, the charisma of the Word of God which has the power to make all things new and re-create today a new humanity". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 16/2/2007; righe 33, parole 463)
