Revitalizing Our MissionRevitalizing Our Mission

Lines of Action - MissionLines of Action - Mission• To revitalize our service to those who are poor, let us go

further down the path already taken in order to:– Develop new responses to the appeals coming from “here and there” with

courage and with “creativity in charity” (NMI 50).– Continue our apostolic reflection and revise our responses to Mission.– Intensify our collaboration with the laity, the Vincentian Family and other

groups through concrete and long term projects with and for those who are poor.

– Search for new responses to situations that undermine respect for life, human rights, peace and ecological harmony.

– Establish work groups on the international/ Provincial/local levels to commit ourselves to serving those who are migrants, refugees, or displaced.

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• CIRCLE OF POVERTY EXPANDING– Old forms of poverty

• • growing gap between the rich and the poor• • the spread of new forms of poverty

– New forms added• Moral relativism and secularism• “Digital divide” - new social justice issue

• NEED TO EXPAND CIRCLE OF SOLIDARITY– • the family as vast resource of over 2,000,000 dedicated

people– • means of rapid communication

Crisis - Opportunity and DangerCrisis - Opportunity and Danger

When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters.One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.

Lines of Action - MissionLines of Action - Mission• Genius of Vincent and Louise

– Forgotten truths?• Convinced that others shared their vision and would be generous in

their response to needs. • Organizing geniuses

• "The poor suffer less from a lack of generosity than from a lack of organization."

• Humble enough to ask others to help. • Adept at involving others in what he saw needed to be done. They found

their strength in accepting their limitations. • Courage and the skill to walk where none had walked before.

• pioneered role of women in the church - DC, Ladies

– How conscious have we been of his legacy?

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• "Let us love God but let it be with the sweat of our brows and the strength of our arms." – New reading - our sweat will bear more fruit if we join hands,

collaborate.

• Common struggle of the family– Challenged to be more than "lone rangers"

• whether individually or as a Company in the midst of the wider family of followers of Vincent.

• “doing with” rather than “doing for” those who are poor– “Hand out” or “Hand up”

Lines of Action - MissionLines of Action - Mission• John Paul II once wrote to the Bishops of France:

– "Many priests suffer from being on their own, from facing tasks which are beyond their strength, and this is understandable.

– But have they known how, through their trustfulness, to create a climate which would allow the laity to offer their help?

– It seems to me that you still need to aid your priests, who in other respects are so laudable, toward a better understanding of their role as animators."

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• Maloney suggests a "sign of the times". – "The third millennium will be the millennium of solidarity, of

networking. It will also be the millennium of the laity, as Pope John Paul II has already proclaimed on numerous occasions." (Missionary, p. 24)

• Vincent and Louise were well ahead of their time and are still relevant to today.

• What a common sense approach backed by a renewed ecclesiology and echoed by our documents.

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• Issues of today:• Vincentian family and laity

– My concept of family– My concept of laity

• Collaboration with the poor rather than just service of the poor– Struggle of AIC and SVDP

• Culture of death– Extremes - not important vs. only issue affecting poor

• “Pace of Change?”

Lines of Action - MissionLines of Action - Mission• Hopes for lay women and men in the church of the

future.

• Flowering of the lay vocation in the church. • a special role to play in evangelizing the world of culture,

politics, economics, the sciences, the arts, society, international life and the media.

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• What can we as followers of Vincent and Louise offer?

• Tomorrow– run to where the ball will be, not just to where it is– Go forward in time - things we can not imagine.

• Vincent 2/13/1646 (over 350 years ago)– “it was not then what it is now. There is reason to believe it is

not now what it will be”• Marguerite Naseau as model for today

– one who saw a need and prepared herself