The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate came to Texas in 1849, at the urgent request of Texas’ first Roman Catholic Bishop, to preach Christ’s message and to serve the People of God, especially the poor and marginalized.
Oblate School of Theology was founded in San Antonio in 1903 as the San Antonio Philosophical and Theological Seminary. The School’s initial goal and mission was to educate young men to serve as Oblate missionaries in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mexico and the Philippines.
Today, Oblate School of Theology prepares men for priesthood from many dioceses across the United States and a number of religious communities. Roman Catholic men and women and those from other Christian traditions are present on campus as the School also prepares men and women religious as well as laity from Catholic and other Christian traditions for a variety of ministries.
The early spirit and motivation of the pioneering missionaries to be of service to the church in the cultural context where faith is lived and expressed is still a driving force for Oblate School of Theology. It understands preparation for mission and ministry as the actual integration of pastoral experience and theological study.
I love it how Frank is showing us the link between Eugene and the early missionaries lives on in San Antonio and the Oblate School of Theology, how the charism is alive and thriving today with the Oblates as well as other religious and lay people. It is one and, together, with each other. Interesting to see how it’s original mission was “to educate young men to serve as Oblate missionaries in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mexico and the Philippines.” Today it serves and ministers to both men and women, religious and lay persons for a variety of ministries. Like Texas it is big, beautiful, lush with life, and yet there is still struggle there, healing, serving, letting go, the dryness that comes from drought and lack of rain.
I have been resting pretty comfortably here in my little part of the world for quite awhile now, all the time saying to God send me, but telling him of course my “druthers” – not where it’s cold, or too wet, or too dry, or, or, or. What about right where I am? Here, where I am at this time, in this place. Not so big, or lush looking. Or is it? I, just myself, have been given so much, so much grace, so much love, so much life. I think that I need to remember that when I open my eyes and look at life here, at love and service, letting go and giving all for God and most importantly those around me that I do not compare it to elsewhere. In preparing for the upcoming Community Days I have been looking at the fire of love and service within the Oblates and the many who make up the Oblate family here in Canada. I have had the privilege of meeting them as I went across the country and have been enriched by their love and service, by who they are. They have each and all of them “fanned the flames” within me, for I came away, come away filled with the fire of love and giving my all, living in and with the spirit of Eugene, finding within each of us the corners of hour lives where we experience the poverty and abandonment in our lives, looking at ways to serve each other. We, deliberately say that, we have lived the mission, live the mission, right here at home, not perfectly, but we have lived it and now it is time to relook, to regather, become recharged, renewed as we look how we might do better, how we might move forward.
Thank you Frank for sharing what you have – I personally was not sure about it at first, but now I do thank you for it calls me to more, it to helps to fan the flame of who I am.