R. Lamoureux, a.a. Superior General

Our “reality” today

It might seem that the glorious period of the Assumptionist mission in the East has passed.  Communism had a role to play in that decline, although we can think of other reasons as well.  What has been called a “mobilizing myth” is no longer mobilizing many religious to give their lives for the mission in the East.  A number of brothers and sisters constitute a faithful remnant still at work in the Orient, now more focused on the immediate and very varied needs of the local populations:  parish ministry, social works, catechesis, vocation ministry, school chaplaincies, work among immigrants.  We have communities in Romania, Bulgaria, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Moscow and Athens.  We retain some contact with the Eastern Churches in these places, as well as with the Muslim population in Istanbul.  Whatever mission the Lord entrusts to us today in the East, it will be different the “glorious” past, and it will be modest, but how might it still remain faithful to the vision that Father d’Alzon had almost a century and a half ago?

The call and a “vision” for today
While we have to be attentive to today’s reality and very specifically to be solicitous for our brothers and sisters hard at work in various apostolates in the Orient, it is crucial that we rekindle some of the fire that led Father d’Alzon to commit his meager resources to a mission about which he knew and understood very little.  The “call” seems clear.  It comes from the second Vatican Council and more recently from Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI.  It comes too from the Ecumenical Patriarch himself.  And the call comes from the fact that we as Congregations were founded in good part for this mission.  With a century and a half of experience, we are recognized in the Church, both East and West, as “experts” in the field.  It is not false pride to say that few Congregations have a richer theological and pastoral experience in the domain of Catholic-Orthodox affairs.
Formulating a “vision” for today, so that we have some rudder to guide us in managing the “reality” of today, should begin from this call.  It is not a call to a place, the East and Near East, but to a cause:  the hope expressed by Jesus in the Cenacle (see John 21), the ecumenical cause, the “full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers” (as Pope Benedict puts it), and particularly with regard to the Church of the Orient.

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