“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, for He has anointed me, to bring the good news to the afflicted.”
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). Sent by the Father and consecrated by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ came to save all people. He continues in the world of today this mission of salvation of which the Church is the sacrament. In the midst of God’s people, among the numerous and varied vocations which the Holy Spirit inspires, we Spiritans are called by the Father and “set apart” (Acts 13:2) to follow Jesus and to announce the Good News of the Kingdom.

We respond to this call in a religious missionary institute, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The charisms of our Founders, Claude Poullart des Places and Francis Libermann, and fidelity to our tradition urge us to respond creatively to the needs of evangelization of our time (cf. SRL 4;12).

The “apostolic life” is at the heart of our Spiritan vocation. It is “that life of love and of holiness lived on earth by the Son of God in order to save and sanctify people. By it He continually sacrificed Himself, thereby glorifying the Father and saving the world” (Rule 1849; N.D. X, 505).

So that we may lead this apostolic life in Christ’s footsteps, our consecration includes three Our Spiritan Vocation

Essential dimensions: the proclamation of the Good News, the practice of the evangelical counsels and a life in fraternal and praying community.

The evangelization of the “poor” (cf. Lk 4:18) is our purpose (cf. N.D. XIII, 170). Therefore we go especially to peoples, groups and individuals who have not yet heard the message of the Gospel or who have scarcely heard it, to those whose needs are the greatest, and to the oppressed (cf. N.D. II, 241).

We also willingly accept tasks for which the Church has difficulty in finding workers.

We live out our mission in willing obedience to the Holy Spirit, taking Mary as our model. This condition of habitual fidelity to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is the “practical union” of which Libermann speaks (N.D. XIII, 699-706).

Our Spiritan Vocation; It is the wellspring of our apostolic zeal and leads us to being completely available and making a complete gift of ourselves.

We are dedicated to the Holy Spirit, author of all holiness and “source of the apostolic spirit” (N.D. X, 568).

We place ourselves under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who was filled beyond measure by the same Spirit “with the fullness of holiness and apostolic zeal” (N.D. X, 568).

In keeping with our ideal of a life that is both fraternal and apostolic, we take for our motto the words used to describe the early Christian communities: “One heart and one soul” (cf. Acts 4:32).

“As the Father sent me, so am I sending you. After saying this, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22). “You will be my witnesses … to earth’s remotest end” (Acts 1:8).

IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

The Spirit of the Risen Lord, working in the Church and in the world, gives life and direction to our entire apostolic life. This apostolic life “contains in itself the perfection of the life of Our Lord, on which it is modelled” (Glose 7).

The Spirit pours the Father’s love into our hearts (cf. Romans 5:5). It is this love that produces apostolic zeal in us, shown by a powerful desire to see the same love established in the hearts of all people.

The Spirit calls us to continual conversion, shapes our personal and community lives, makes us partakers in the death and resurrection mystery of Jesus and prepares us to make the total gift of ourselves for the Kingdom

We are participating within the Church in the mission of Christ, in communion with him and all people, proclaiming a salvation that is a gift from God, liberation from all that oppresses people, joy in knowing the Lord and being known by him.

In faithfulness to the intuitions of our Founders, to their experiences and to the living tradition of our Congregation, we give preference to an apostolate that takes us to:

  • those who have not yet heard the gospel message or who have scarcely heard it;
  • those oppressed and most disadvantaged, as a group or as individuals;
  • Where the Church has difficulty in finding workers.

Any particular work is taken on in communion with the Church as it is in our time. The responsibility for carrying on Christ’s mission belongs in each place to the local Church. We, in keeping with the calling that is proper to us, participate in this mission.

We take as our own the points that the Church is currently stressing in mission:

  • the universal mission understood as the responsibility of local Churches in communion with each other;
  • mission understood as preaching the gospel and founding new Churches;
  • mission as a service and liberation;
  • mission as dialogue;
  • mission as the enculturation of the gospel

MESSAGE IN EACH LOCAL CHURCH

We count the following as constitutive parts of our mission of evangelization: the “integral liberation” of people, action for justice and peace, and participation in development. It follows that we must make ourselves “the advocates, the sup-porters and the defenders of the weak and the little ones against all who oppress them” (Rule of 1849; N.D. X, 517).  In order to contribute effectively to promoting justice, we make every effort to analyse situations, to lay bare the relationship of individual cases to structural causes. We pay attention to prophetic voices and we encourage them, through a process of discernment, to develop new apostolic initiatives.

Our preaching of the gospel has different styles, determined by the times and the places we are living in. We announce the gospel to people and groups that have not yet heard it. We foster the growth of young Christian communities born from the preaching of the gospel.  In certain circumstances it is not possible for us to preach the gospel by word. In such cases our motivation is the conviction that the Holy Spirit is already present and that our presence is witness and service in the name of the gospel for the Kingdom (Ad Gentes, 6).

We preach the gospel under the sign of the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). So that the Christian witness may become integrated in the culture, reach people from within and become a force for liberation in their contemporary history, we strive in every way we can for a fruitful coming together of local cultural and religious traditions with the gospel of Christ. When living abroad, we make an effort to study the language and to understand the people’s ways and customs (N.D. IX, 330 ff.). We respect and we accept their human experience in all its. We participate in solidarity with their joys and sorrows.

We try in dialogue to co-operate honestly with the leaders and the faithful of other religions as well as with those who do not believe in God.  We put our trust in the Holy Spirit, leading both us and them “to the complete truth” (John 16:13).  In a spirit of ecumenism we take an active role in all that may assist Christians of any confession to meet or to join together as one. We believe that the division between Christians is a scandal to the world and an obstacle to the preaching of the gospel.  We concede that there are some cases where it is difficult to hold a dialogue. We try, in so far as is possible, to co-operate sincerely with other Christians.

AT THE SERVICE OF LOCAL CHURCHES

In local Churches the following are our principal activities:

  • fostering Christian communities and the education and training of a committed and responsible laity;
  • vocations’ ministry; training for ministries and for the missionary and the religious life;
  • engaging in social and educational work in line with our Spiritan calling;
  • Awakening an understanding of the universal mission, of justice, and of kinship between peoples.

We consider the following to be specially; important tasks for our times:

  • youth apostolate, because the present situation of young people is crying out more than ever for social and educational works;
  • work with refugees, with immigrants and with those who are on the margins of society.

We are specially attentive to appeals from Churches which have the greatest needs. By the fact that we work in many Churches we can facilitate exchanges between them and contribute to their mutual enrichment. We take up the role that belongs to us in the mission of these Churches in dialogue and mutual respect, never imposing our-selves.

Practical arrangements concerning such collaboration are spelled out in a contract (cf. Canons 675.3; 678.1; 681.1).

An individual Spiritan cannot enter into such a contract without the agreement of his competent superiors (Canon 681.2).

SOLIDARITY IN MISSION

Because we are members of one single missionary family, we take upon ourselves, in solidarity, responsibility for the Congregation’s projects and priorities. Our mission is always that of the Congregation, recognized as such through a process of discernment and accepted in obedience in accord with the Rule of Life. In the spirit of solidarity, we willingly accept those appointments that are necessary for the life and management of the Congregation itself.

Whatever may be the work we are engaged in as priests or as Brothers, we aim to bear witness to a kingdom of justice and peace, by living together in community, in genuine charity, in mutual forbearance, pardoning, sharing, ever hospitable and free from prejudice. Our closeness to the poor brings us to hear afresh the gospel that we are preaching. It becomes an unceasing summons to conversion and an invitation to adopt a simple style of life. Variety and complementarity are commonly characteristic of our communities. The sick, the healthy, the young, the old, the priest, the Brother – together we are but one family, intent on one mission.

In some places those who are working with us wish to be associated with us. We welcome them with joy, inviting them to share our spirituality and our apostolic life. The conditions of their acceptance and their work are decided at the level of each circumscription. In every case there is a written agreement.

One basic characteristic of the Spiritan calling is an availability for the service of the gospel, a readiness to go where we are sent by the Congregation. We accept to free ourselves from an engagement in order to respond to new and different calls from a local Church or from the universal Church. Attentive to the signs of the times, we re-examine periodically the reasons that underlie our present commitment and our present apostolate.

This review is done through a dialogue with the local Church in a shared exercise of discernment. It takes the individuals who are concerned into account and also the demands of the Spiritan calling and the facts of the case. It is the task of the General Chapter to select and to clarify the more important mission objectives of the. Congregation as a whole. Regional objectives are to be defined by each circumscription.