Oasis 2017 – 7^th September.

Today, we reflected on our apostolate. As usual, we started our morning meditation based on this theme.  Bro. Theodorus Suwariyanto invited us to focus on our true mission as Christians and as Brothers FIC. He quoted some spiritual readings and articles from our Constitutions in connection with our apostolate.

After breakfast, Bro. Theodorus led us in our reflections with the title, “Bearing God’s Spirit in our FIC Apostolate (Brothers FIC Mission).” In the first session he stressed a lot on the mission of Jesus Christ and the Church. He invited us to deepen together our authentic personal mission, The mission of Jesus Christ, How Jesus did His mission, In mission with others (Corporate Mission), and also the dynamics of our mission. He highlighted the relations between our personal mission, our corporate mission as a community and as a congregation and the mission of our Lord Jesus.

Meanwhile in the second session he brought forth especially about the mission of our Congregation based on the spirit of our Founders. He started the second session by reading part of the document “PROJECT” of Mgr. Louis Rutten. After that we discussed about our apostolic life based on some articles of our Constitutions such as, Called together and sent out, Protecting the heritage of our founders, our founders' mission and The Spirit of our Founders. At the end he gave us some reflective questions in order to make an intimate dialogue with Mgr. Louis Rutten in connection with our true mission.

We deepened this in our personal reflection, touching on what moves us as brothers, how we express this in our apostolate, how this relates to our Congregational apostolic mission and to the vision of our founders. I was powerfully reminded of my dream and of what moves me. Through education we free numerous young people enabling them to reach their potentials and empowering them to live good and fruitful lives. In our sharing we realised how much this is a continuation of Jesus' mission: ‘To give sight to the blind, proclaim freedom to prisoners, release to the oppressed and proclamation of  the good news to the poor’ (cf. Luke 4:18-19).

In the evening we concluded our sharing in the celebration of the Eucharist, the memorial of Christ’s redeeming gift of self. In our apostolate we give the best of ourselves in imitation of Christ, who set us free. In the Eucharist, we root our self-giving in the self-gift of our Lord.

Though the weather was ‘chilly’, we as participants were warmed by the shared commitment which lighted our day. It was good.

Hans van Wouwen