About the Oblate Youth Service

The Oblates

THE OBLATES MISSION, VISION & VALUES BY ST EUGENE DE MAZENOD

The Oblates

The Oblates - Jesus Calls

Longing is like the seed, wanting is a life’s work. Some get what they want, others do not. More again are caught between.

The saintly Augustine found a home for his aching desire: “our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you”.

Jesus Christ was passionate about life and about people. His food was to do the will of the One who sent him.

Jesus is God’s longing for creation, a longing that stills, that heals, that absolves.

 

The Oblates - Who We Are

St Eugene de Mazenod lived and breathed his desire for God in the crisis of post-revolutionary France. Faithful to his waiting heart, he founded a missionary congregation called the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Its motto: God sent me to bring the Gospel to the poor.

Today we have our own crises. Still God is present, even closer to us than we are to ourselves. God’s Spirit is alive and active, calling whom it likes, blowing where it wants. To respond is to attend to my desire, to choose Christ and to be shaped by my longing for life.

So doing, each joins with the other as fellow pilgrims in the midst of God, wanting what God wants, having what God has, living what God lives.....

....ready to go anywhere...

The Oblates MissionOblate means offering and describes the commitment to serve God’s people wherever the need is greatest. So from the icy plains of Northern Canada to the tropics of Latin America, Oblates choose to live and work with people who have been pushed to the margins, who have been excluded from sharing in the fruits of the earth.

Founded in 1816 by St Eugene de Mazenod in southern France, the Congregation grew and now numbers over 4400 Oblates working in over 69 countries. Their origins are as diverse as their ministry, covering the five continents. In over 100 languages they speak the words of Jesus: come and receive life, and live life to the full.

The Gospel points to God’s reign of peace and justice. Oblates share the daily life of those they work with, helping to build a community where all have access to God’s creation, where the dignity of each person is prized above the greed and indifference that stifles God’s life-giving Spirit in our lives.

Mission The Oblates

The Oblates - Missioned For Home

Our Founder, St Eugene de Mazenod, first sent Oblates to Britain and Ireland in 1841. Local people, in their turn, soon began to leave these islands to help continue the work of the Gospel throughout the world. So, Oblate missionaries from the Anglo-Irish province went to places such as Sri Lanka, Canada and South Africa. Some remained to work with immigrants and in the poorer areas of the major cities in these islands and they strove to build up communities centred on the liberating presence of Jesus Christ. 

Today, there are men from this Anglo-Irish province in places as far away as Brazil. Australia, The Philippines, Indonesia and S. Africa. They are helping the Church take root in local cultures.

The Mission OblatesAs well as these, there are over 100 Oblates, priests and brothers, gathered in small faith communities across Britain and Ireland. They work at keeping hope alive in the middle of life’s difficulties, especially where there is poverty, addiction or lack of opportunity. Together we are nourished by God’s Word, sustained in prayer and united in the Eucharist.

At the centre of our lives stands the figure of Jesus. God became like one of us, so that we might become like God. Jesus shares our joy and our grief, our hope and our anguish. Following where he calls, we come as we are, leaning on God and on each other for the strength and courage to respond in these present times to the needs of our world.

LINK: www.oblates.ie