LAVIGERIE'S DAY HOMILY (Fr. Evert Van Oostrom)

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Fr. Evert Van Oostrom delivering his homily
Today is New Year’s Eve. Today’s Gospel message is short but most relevant on this founder’s day: “watch yourselves, or your hearts will be co-arsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will be sprung on you suddenly like a trap. Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the son of God.” This son of God is Jesus Christ and father Lavigerie is Jesus’ missionary servant.

We, the Missionary Sisters of our Lady of Africa and the Missionaries of Africa, are to be caught and passioned by Jesus Christ like father Lavigerie himself. Lavigerie was rather reserved in revealing his own inner spiritual life. However, shortly before his death, in a simple conversation with the seminaries of the apostolic school, St. Eugene, he revealed, in a marvelous way, his inner life and what motivated him passionately in all his life: “mes enfants, il faut etre fou de Jesus Christ comme je le suis moi-meme (be madly in love with Jesus Christ, as I am myself).” This was the passion and inspiration and secret of our founder father. It was the secret behind the rough, sometimes off-putting exterior. It was the living person of Jesus Christ. Precisely because he fr. Lavigerie was madly in love with Jesus Christ, therefore he felt urged to found the 2 missionary institutes od the M.Afr’s and the MSOLA’s. We are the fruits of Lavigerie’s madly love for Jesus. From this it follows, that we can be missionary daughters and sons only on condition that we are madly in love with Jesus. He was passionate for Jesus Christ, intoxicated by Jesus Christ. The same is true for his missionary sons and daughters. Because he was madly in love with Jesus Christ, therefore his Episcopal code was ‘CARITAS’ – charity. He wanted his missionaries to be filled with the Christ charity. Fr. Lavigerie did not allow himself nor his missionaries to lead a bourgeois life. His constant admonition was, “Be apostles and nothing but apostles.” The M.Afr chapter of 1992 commented, “Be apostles and nothing but apostles: mindful of this command of  our founder, we accept as apostles to be sent, to move on, to walk from village to village, to be pilgrims like Jesus Christ.” Following Jesus’ example, we have lightly. In a spirit of freedom and joy, we have a simple life-style, in solidarity with the people we are with, being unafraid to take at all times radical measures in line with the Gospel. While shessing this active missionary apostolate, fr. Lavigerie never allowed this to be separated from what ought to be our deepest life-inspiration i.e. to be madly in love with Jesus Christ, just as he was himself. His missionaries ought to be “Christ-missionaries.” Though fr. Lavigerie worked too hard, he was not a Clinch workaholic. He was not a fanatic, but a passionate disciple of Jesus. On 12th Jan. 1888, he put the following questions to his Msola aspirant, Ms. L’Epreries (Marie Clares):

•   Are you firmly resolved to attach yourself totally to our Lord? Yes or No?
•   Are you resolved to follow this way, which is the way of the disciples? Yes or No?
•   Are you resolved to with His grace not to offend Him? Yes or No? Answer me clearly, please, to those questions in your next letter.


In the M.Afr retreat in 1880, he said, “True apostolic zeal must be rooted in the heart and it must be based on the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. This love is nourished in prayer. The missionary is someone on fire.”

In 1869 he said to Msola’s: “The sisters ought to focus their eyes constantly on Jesus Christ, their mind on who has surrendered himself, obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.”

In the 1884 rule of the Msola novitiate, Lavigerie wrote, “The sanctification of a missionary sister consists out of 2 indispensable elements, first detachment of human things and secondly, a strong and intimate union with our Lord.”

Though this expresses a classical, traditional spirituality, it takes on a very personal role in the spirit of our founder. He expressed this mere personally in 1886, in a letter to Ms. l’Epreries (Sr. Marie Clares): “What our Lord asks above all from the apostles, is to love Him and to love everything in Him and for Him, especially the people to whom He sends us. This is the only condition the Lord puts in His choice of Peter, ‘Peter, do you love me? Feed my lambs. Let this be the only object of our desires, to love Jesus and to be able to tell Him like Peter, ‘Lord, you know that I love you.’ On the day, that you can say this in all truth, everything has been won. However in order to love Jesus, we have to detach ourselves from everything else. Fr. Lavigerie summarized it all during the M.Afr retreat in 1887, “Let a missionary be constantly concerned to be a person of prayer. A missionary belongs totally to God, because he/she has been sent by God. Let his/her be especially concerned to live always in union with our Lord, Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.” St. Augustine summarized it thus, “Only the one, who knows how to pray, knows how to live.”
It is New Year’s day and it is founder’s day and today’s inspiring Gospel-message is: “Watch yourselves, stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen and to stand with confidence before the Son of God.”


Fr. Evert Van Oostrom

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