We, the fifty-four Council members of all the organisms of the Claretian Missionaries, Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Asia, and the General Government of the Congregation, have gathered at the Catholic Center, Medan, Indonesia, from December 9 to 19, 2018, as one community of disciples. We have been summoned by the Holy Spirit to be with the Lord and bring before Him the experiences of our consecration, our common life, our dreams and aspirations for our life and mission in this vast Asian continent.

We affirm that our ASCLA Encounter has been a moment of grace, an Asian Pentecost, that expresses our fraternity and synodality as we envision, collaborate and network more closely within our regional conferences to discover, dream and design together the destiny, the Lord asks of us in Asia today. Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42) has helped us to listen to and dialogue with the Lord and with one another, to go beyond barriers and continue in our journey in the three processes of transformation: to go forth, to be a community of witnesses and messengers of the joy of the Gospel, and as men who adore God in the Spirit.

The main objective of the meeting is to discern together the challenges to our missionary life and our missionary response in Asia, in the light of the XXV General Chapter and the recent General Canonical Visits.

Therefore having lived together as a Claretian community throughout this Encounter, praying, listening to, discussing and discerning with one another, we make the following commitments concerning our life and mission in Asia.

First Process of Transformation: A Congregation Going Forth

A. Apostolate

1. Organize annual meeting of all the Prefects of Apostolate by Conferences, and an ASCLA biennial meeting of all the Prefects of Apostolate, and Youth and Vocation Ministry.
2. Appoint respective Solidarity and Mission Team coordinators for ASCLA East and West to animate and coordinate the SOMI programs.
3. Transmit the recommendations of SOMI encounters at the local level.
4. Send participants to the Bible Seminar in Sri Lanka from April 28 to May 4, 2019, and in Hong Kong from May 12 to 18, 2019, to emphasize the transversal character of the Word of God in our life.
5. Create forum in the conference level to train personnel to creatively proclaim the Word in the digital continent.

B. Youth and Vocation Ministry

1. Implement the proposals made during the recent Youth Animators’ Encounter in Rome from November 18 to December 1, 2018.
2. Encourage youth animators and pastoral agents to take the online course for youth animation.
3. Organize missionary experience program for lay volunteers in our apostolate areas in view of vocational discernment.

Second Process of Transformation: A Community of Witnesses and Messengers

C. Governance

1. Strengthen our readiness and availability to send and receive Missionaries, preparing them before they leave for and welcoming them when they arrive in their new mission area.
2. Prepare missionaries to better understand the dialogue of faith in Asia, listen to the reality of internal and external migration in respective organisms and respond to this reality from our charismatic core.
3. Develop and enhance our missionary presence in interreligious and interfaith dialogue, and in migration and displaced peoples in Asia through cooperation among major organisms and Conferences.
4. Have seminars in Asia by conferences or all together according to various areas of ministries like migrants, indigenous peoples, parish mission work, education, SOMI, youth… including the presence of religious sisters and lay people who work with us.
5. Ensure teamwork and community living among us in the government of our respective organisms.

D. Economy

1. Encourage the economes and students in formation to take up the online course on economic administration.

Third Process of Transformation: Men who Adore God in the Spirit

E. Spirituality

1. Organize an orientation workshop for Prefectures of Spirituality to be more functional.
2. Disseminate materials on Claretian spirituality among the different organisms like the Claretian Year project.

F. Formation

1. Have our novitiates in India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia-Timor Leste to be international, where novices from various organisms can be sent to nurture the interculturality of the Congregation and be prepared for universal mission.
2. Make our formation houses of professed students intercultural and international.
3. Support our mission in the different organisms by sending students after their first profession to places where there is a need for Missionaries in view of learning the language and serving the mission there.
4. Assign formators from one organism to another or at inter-conference level in various stages of initial formation.
5. Facilitate the formation of formators at the Conference level to develop their skills in discernment and accompaniment.
6. Have a common program in ASCLA East as in ASCLA West for the students who will make their perpetual profession.

We beseech God that all these commitments we undertake on this closing day of ASCLA Encounter 2018 be fruitfully effected to further our process of transformation through the intercession of our Mother Mary and Holy Founder St. Anthony Mary Claret.