Parable and Conscience Meditation January 31

Apostolate  January 31

As part of the universal Church, the Order is especially attentive to needs throughout the world (Const. 22.1).

The Order of the Holy Cross, from the beginning, had a tendency to establish itself with stability somewhere in a local Church.  However, in certain epochs, already from 1248 on and especially after the “second foundation” in the 19^th century, the Order exhibited a more explicit missionary spirit, although limited.  Not missionaries by charism, the Crosiers as Christians, nonetheless, participate in the mission of Christ ad gentes, to the unbelieving nations.  Ordinarily that was expressed by gestures of solidarity from a distance and, by way of exception, through the actual sending of missionaries.  Christ roots himself in a certain place, but he does not remain simply local.   To move in somewhere as a religious community does not mean to close oneself off there.  The inter-provincial solidarity of the Order asks at least the displacement of the confrere's heart, if not finally the displacement of his person.

Although the river is wide, we cross it.  (Bemba)