The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate serve poor and abandoned people in the United States and 70 countries around the world.

Article: A new edition of the CCRR

(CCRR, plural abbreviation for Constitutions and Rules) 

By Fr. Claudio Bertuccio

Originally published on www.omiworld.org

photo courtesy of OMI WorldFriday, April 26, was a day of recollection at the Interchapter, and we continued reflecting in the presence of the Lord on our theme: “Missionary Oblate: what kind of man?” Fr. Francis NALLAPPAN helped the group with two talks that gave an answer to that question, looking at the Oblate from an internal and an external perspective. The first one with the title, “The monk in the market place,” stressed the importance for the Oblate of a deep experience of God; while the second one, entitled “The missionary in dialogical communion,” invited us to discover a new face of God in dialogue with our neighbors of various religions, of various cultures and with the poor with their many faces…

 

In the evening, the new edition of the Constitutions and Rules was given to each Oblate present at the Interchapter, during a simple but touching community liturgy prepared by Fr. Alfredo FERRETTI. It started in the meeting room with an introduction by Father General, emphasizing that the CCRR are for us not a cold law, but a rule of life that tells us who we are today in front of God, the Church and the world. In a context of praise and gratitude to God, we moved in procession to the chapel where, after listening to the Word of God and of our Founder, St. Eugene, we received from the hands of Father General the new edition of the Constitutions and Rules that includes the changes made by the last two General Chapters. It was an occasion to renew our commitment to live them in our life and ministry.

 

On April 27, we listened to Frs. Oswald FIRTH and Paolo ARCHIATI who, from different perspectives, made a synthesis of the work of this first week of the meeting. Fr. Oswald, in the context of our identity, used a managerial tool to help us match the challenges with the capabilities that have surfaced in the discussion of these days, especially concerning community life, mission and formation. The process could help us towards the practical concretization of the contents of our sharing.

 

Fr. Paolo, using various images, pulled together the many ideas of our sharing around the theme of our identity in connection with Jesus Christ and St. Eugene. Quoting the homily of Pope Francis on the occasion of his feast day, he also stressed that the living out of our own identity cannot be separated from the sense of belonging. Both interventions were followed by a sharing of insights and reactions among the participants. 

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