512 - June 2011
May 5th, 2011 - June 7th, 2011

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

In a letter written at Notre Dame de Montolivet and addressed to the entire Congregation on April 3, 1862, the recently elected first successor to the Founder, Father Joseph FABRE, announced the beginning of a new publication, Missions of the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

In the May 2011 issue of OMI Information, a news article announced that an electronic version of this publication is now available on our website, www.omiworld.org.

As Father Fabre indicated in his letter announcing the birth of the new journal, the publication had as its primary purpose to fulfill a dream that St. Eugene cherished for a lifetime: to bring together at the center of the Congregation the testimony of the missionary work of the Oblates in order to communicate this to all the members throughout the world, so that everyone could be inspired and encouraged to move forward in spreading the Gospel.

Fr. Fabre wrote: “To bring into effect the will of our loving Father, we need your help, all you who, under the banner of Mary Immaculate, fight so valiantly, with much happiness and success, the holy battles of the Lord. As you did for our revered Founder, you will tell us of your struggles, you will tell us of the triumphs of grace. Within our beloved France, in the midst of heresy, on the distant shores of error and paganism, God blesses our work; tell us about these blessings. We will receive your letters with deep gratitude. We will immediately communicate them to the whole family with fatherly excitement.

“Indeed, it will not be the heart of an apostle, still on fire after fifty years of the hardest toil, with all the ardor of the early days of a priesthood marked at every step by the most brilliant triumphs, but it will always be a father’s heart that will receive these communications. He believes that he can assure you that he will take them to heart and appreciate them. Yes, my very dear Fathers and Brothers, in reading the accounts that our missionaries will send us, together we will thank God and our Immaculate Mother; together we will have an ever deeper love for the family in whose midst God fosters such beautiful devotion. Together, we will strive never to be outdone by our brothers in religious virtues, and those who are preparing for the struggle will be even more zealous in making themselves worthy to support God’s plan and the honor of the Congregation to which they have the honor of belonging.”

The General Administration’sOblate Communications Service is this century’s response for continuing the dream of St. Eugene and Father Fabre. The editor of our news bulletin, OMI Information, continues to look for and wait for news items that will inform and motivate our greater Oblate Family to carry on the work of St. Eugene and our Oblate ancestors. But the adage many of us learned in philosophy class still holds true: “Nemo dat quod non habet.” (No one gives what he does not have.)

We invite our members to share the good news of their missionary service, especially news that is of general interest or will stimulate fresh approaches to mission. If possible, we would like to receive the information in French, English or Spanish. But with the help of computerized translators, we can sometimes work with such languages as Polish, German and Portuguese. (Feast of St. Eugene: Fr. Nino BUCCA, webmaster of www.omiworld.org, and Fr. James ALLEN, editor of OMI Information)