The Capuchins and the mission
From the
very beginning, St. Francis of Assisi wanted his Order to be missionary. He was
the first founder to write in his rule about those brothers who, by divine
inspiration, would go beyond the frontiers of Christianity, and gave
instructions on how to act in the missions.
We
Capuchins have been great missionaries. Our ideal has always been to be
missionaries and saints.
During the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we collaborated generously
with Propaganda Fidei. In fact, thousands of friars left their homeland and
helped to implant the church in many parts of the Americas, Africa and Asia.
At the
beginning of the twentieth century, the Order decided that each province should
take on a mission, and this generated a new missionary vigor in the Capuchins
of Europe and North America, where we already had provinces.
Today, God
is again challenging us to renew the Capuchin missionary spirit. The Order is
learning to be missionary also from its new foundations: now it is mainly
African, Indian, Asian, Latin American and Brazilian friars who go out for the
missions.
- To be a Capuchin is to be a missionary! There cannot be a circumscription without missionaries beyond its territory. Let us take care and value this feature of our charism. Let us teach our brothers in initial formation the value of the mission and let us dare to leave our stability to give our lives in the places where God sends us. Our sense of mission gives new vigor to our circumscriptions.
missiniocap@gmail.com
