Message of Fr. Mathew Vattamattam, cmf, Superior General to the Congregation of Missionaries Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Dear brothers, one year has passed since we have celebrated the 26th, General chapter. During this one year, we had two important moments. One is the first moment the General government studied deeply the chapter document Querida Congregation and prepared the action plan for the six years. It was also a time in Vic we have worked on our own team to weave together ourselves as a team to animate the life and mission of the congregation.
After that, we have about 20 provincial chapters and assemblies during which those organisms have integrated and enculturated the spirit of the chapters into their own life and mission. Other provinces and delegations also did, in their own way, a certain process of welcoming the spirit of the general chapter. I am very glad that you have done a good job in welcoming the chapter Spirit.
And we had the second moment in Nairobi when all the major superiors came together and we have reviewed the action plan and enriched it with their observations. After that, we also had a week of program for the new major superiors. Yes, during this time. Then the church has invited the whole people of God to work together in a synodal way, listening to one another and listen to the Holy Spirit.
This call has reinforced our own, our own journey, and we shall together work fourth listening to the Holy Spirit and giving from the charismatic heritage of our congregation, our best to the people of God in which we too are part of, during this sexenium. We will continue with the three process of transformation which the 25th general chapter has invited us to undertake.
The first process of transformation is to be a congregation going fourth to the various peripheries, and the second one to be a community of witnesses and messengers of the joy of the gospel. And the third is to be men who adore God in the Spirit. So the dream, design and the commitments that we have weaved in the general chapter will be integrated into these three processes.
In the first process, the three prefectures of apostolate Bible and communication and youth ministry and vocations will work together in order to animate our journey in this field. The Prefect of Apostolate will work mostly on three aspects. One is coordinating the education platform together with the claretian Family, so that integrating the call of the Pope, the educational compact, we will be able to offer a great service of evangelization in this field.
A good number of our missionaries are working in parishes. It will be impoverishing and diocese if merely duplicating the work of the of any priest with merely sacramental offers. We need to offer from our charism the best so that the local church will be enriched. And it is in this context that the somi has a significant role in SOMI.
There is just three areas of our ministry. Towards the poor and the downtrodden. Mission procure GPIC and our presence as an NGO and the UN. They work together under the umbrella of Solidarity Mission. SOMI, works together with the Union of Superior generals. The Secretariat of GPIC promotes the Laudato Si programs and we made significant progress in caring the creation.
We will continue that. And the same JPIC Secretary to work closely with the with our brothers working as an NGO and the UN, both in New York and in Nairobi. We hope that with greater coordination and collaboration, we would be able to reach to our brothers and sisters who are very often kept on the margins. The mission Procura has thrived in these past years to create a basic structure in each of the major organisms.
And I think once we are consolidated that we would be able to move to another phrase. The general prefecture of Bible Ministry and communications is animating the biblical animation of all our apostles and give the word of God a center place in our life and ministry. We are learning to coordinate and work together in the digital continent by enhancing our communication ministry.
Most of you. How many programs of ministry through communication. We shall try to coordinate and offer our best in this field. The Prefect of Youth Ministry and vocation is the dedicating himself to accompany all those who are working with youth and vocations. We have the course for the reference of youth ministry online. We promote together with the claretian Family claret way.
It is important that we work together to enhance vocation promotion of all the members of our and family. In the second process of transformation a primary industries to form our communities. When our community life is very life giving, our ministries also will be impacted by that. We have a very good program, Community Life, School and house of Communion, which is in our website, which could not be made use of because of the many practical difficulties and the closeness of the last chapter.
I would invite you to take it up and benefit from that so that we can strengthen our communities and our communities together. We’ll carry out the mission entrusted to it. leadership in our communities and in various of our institutions is also a challenge which we hope we can strengthen by offering programs of discerning leadership. We have formed a committee which will organize workshops in the four continents in the coming year thereby also support one another so that those who serve our communities in the excercise of authority do not get burned out.
But enjoy themselves, giving their best to animate the brothers and institutions that they are in the subject on speaking of economy. We continue to help the provinces and delegations to achieve self sustenance and claretian way of managing the resources God has given us. The econome, together with this Council, continue to work on that, and we also need to prepare people on in the administration of the economic administration through the online courses, the two courses that is organized by the prefecture of economy.
One for the the economes or in general and the other for formandi. We have found that some of the formation houses did excellently well, while others still find difficult to integrate this program into their yearly plan. But we have found that in the long run it will be a blessing for the congregation when we have people who take on various ministries know how to manage the administration well.
Coming to the third process of transformation to be men who adore God in spirit in the area of spirituality, perhaps a great opportunity before us is 175th year of our foundation. In 2024. We are organizing a spirituality Congress, making use of the means possible so that all of us can participate in that. And let’s make that year a special year of renewing ourselves in the area of formation, which has a priority in preparing ourselves and keeping ourselves renewed every time.
The general plan of formation is a great instrument. The general prefectural formation is preparing a manual to help implement the general plan of formation. All of us need to take care of our formation so that we will be the best version of ourselves for Christ and accompany our people with all the resources that God has given us.
As we work for together in a synodal we let’s enrich one another from the differences and diversities that we have founding ourselves on the unity of our faith, our rootedness in Christ and in our charism, so that we can be audacious missionaries. God bless you all.
