Dear Friends,
We are very close to the opening of celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Society of the Divine Word.
In the Australia Province the opening of the anniversary year on the SVD Foundation Day, September 8, will take place on the same day that we witness the ordination to the priesthood of Deacon Cuong Quoc Dang SVD in Melbourne.
Following his ordination, Cuong will take up his first assignment in Angola, joining the thousands of Divine Word Missionaries over the last 150 years who have been sent out on Christ’s mission to different places far from home. What a joyful blessing that young men continue to answer God’s call in this way.
At the recent General Chapter in Rome, we explored the theme: “Your Light Must Shine Before Others: Creative and Faithful Disciples in a Wounded World”.
To give witness to the Light or “freeing people from the darkness of sin by the light of the Word” (SVD Prologue) has always been the mission of the SVDs; this is what we inherited from our founder, St Arnold Janssen.
Our Founder read the situation of the Church in Germany in the second half of the 1800s, and they were difficult times for the Catholic Church with a series of anti-Catholic laws. In this chaotic situation Arnold Janssen activated his creativity and proposed that some of the expelled priests could go to the foreign missions or at least help in the preparation of missionaries. Arnold discovered that God the Holy Spirit was directing his hand to undertake this difficult task. Many people said that he was not the right man for the job, or that the times were not right for such a project. Arnold's answer was, “The Lord challenges our faith to do something new, precisely when so many things are collapsing in the Church.” Arnold embraced the new chapter of universal missionary work and thus began the Divine Word Missionaries on September 8, 1875, in Steyl, Holland. He did not predict the future, nor play the lottery and he could not foresee what was coming down the road for him. He could only choose an attitude that life happens when we are planning for it.
As we begin our 150th anniversary celebrations, we pray we will continue to model this attitude of living in the moment, responding to the needs, and trusting in the Holy Spirit.
We invite all our friends and partners in mission to join us in prayer during our anniversary year and we hope you will be able to join us in one of the many events we will be holding to mark this special milestone.
Yours in the Word,
Fr Asaeli Rass SVD,
Provincial.