In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the approval of the Constitutions and Rules began on 08 February with a solemn Mass concelebrated on the square of the parish church of St. Charles Lwanga in Idiofa, Kwilu province. The bishop of Idiofa, Mgr José Moko, presided over the concelebrated Mass by the bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Kikwit and by some 100 Oblate and diocesan priests of Idiofa and Kikwit.
You are our fathers, do not abandon us
The bishop of Idiofa thanked the Oblate Missionaries, who arrived in 1931 to raise the Jesuits who had begun in 1922 in Ipamu the evangelization of part of Kwango. « You are our fathers »recalled the bishop. And he cried out a child in front of his father: « Don't leave us. » Joseph Moko invites the Oblates to live in fidelity to their Constitutions and Rules and to continue the work of their predecessors, who evangelized the campaigns according to their motto and the charism left by their founder, the French saint Eugene de Mazenod. Oblate charism was mainly recognized by the Church on February 17, 1826 when Pope Leo XII approved the Constitutions and Rules presented by Father Eugene de Mazenod.
The bishop of Idiofa asked the Oblates to participate in the work of creating new parishes. He appointed Oblate Father Joseph Ntumba, former provincial superior, episcopal vicar responsible for the establishment of new parishes in the eastern part of the diocese. May the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the Constitutions and Rules strengthen the Oblates and give them a new breath in preferential love for the poor, including the Church, and in particular the DRC and the Diocese of Idiofa today so much need!
The Oblates will no longer be as before
For the provincial superior of Congo, Father Constant Kienge-Kienge, the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the Constitutions and Rules offers the Oblates an opportunity to renew themselves in their charism to live more faithfulness to the Rule of Life and Oblate identity. After the bicentenary will never be like before.
He thanked the two bishops by recognizing that the Oblates were also indebted to them because they were both members of the company of Saint Sulpice. Eugene de Mazenod was trained among the Sulpicians, who thus nourished him of the spirituality of which the Oblates live today. This spirituality must also be reflected in the Constitutions and Rules drawn up by the young French priest.
Father Kienge-Kienge recalled the insistence of Founder Eugene de Mazenod intimating his sons to be of the « Men of the Church », that is, the men of the bishops. At the request of the bishops of Idiofa and Kikwit, the provincial superior of the Oblates reassured that the Oblates would not leave these two dioceses, but he hoped that the bishops would grant the Oblates perpetual parishes to St. Charles Lwanga of Idiofa and Our Lady of the Rosary in Kikwit to add to the parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ifwanzondo, where the novitiate of the Oblates is established and which is like their « maternity » in the Diocese of Idiofa and DRC.
Oblate charism is shared with the laity
The provincial superior thanked the priests, the religious and the religious for their collaboration but also and increasingly the lay people who associate themselves with the Oblates to share the charism of the congregation and contribute to the evangelization of the poor. Lay associates, members of the Missionary Association of Mary Immaculate, men and women, from the DRC and Angola participated in the celebration of the bicentenary in Idiofa.
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