The Put out into the deep[1] pronounced by the Incarnate Word on the shores of the lake of Gennesaret and whose echo mystically resounds since then, has been embraced through the span of the centuries by countless souls who, taking the demands of the Gospel seriously, are prepared to die, like the grain of wheat, in order to see Christ in all souls and in all things.[2] Among them we have the joy and the privilege of wanting to be counted, we, the members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, who today are preaching the Gospel scattered across all the continents and in many places called “emblematic destinations.”

What are the emblematic destinations?

They are outposts, missions, or mission destinations that are generally very difficult. They are those places where no one wants to go,[3] whether because of the poverty of the place, because of the danger, because of religious persecution, because it is predicted that in the short or medium term there will be little fruit—we refer to fruits that are visible to the missionary and to the eyes of the world, for there is always much fruit, beginning with the sanctity of the missionaries themselves. All of these places “represent a tinge of honor for our small Religious Family, for they are mission posts where perhaps the missionaries will not see abundant fruits from their work, from where vocations will probably not come forth, and where, perhaps, if we had not agreed to go, nobody would have wanted to go because of the difficulties.”[4]

For us, this is not simply ‘a figure of speech’ but rather is a demand clearly expressed in our proper law: “There is nowhere with a soul that is forbidden for the missionary. To the humblest shacks, to the highest heights, to the most rugged ravines, where there are fewest people, where the fewest fruits are expected, where the people are the most wayward, where there are the most difficulties… there the missionary must go, along with his staff, in his car, by plane, on foot or on horseback, by sulky or by boat … because that is his vocation, and that is what obedience sends him to.”[5] Such availability for the mission was reaffirmed by two General Chapters, both in the year 2007 as well as in 2016, where it was decided to prioritize this type of mission, precisely because “the choice of the outposts in the mission,” that is, “what we have come to call ‘emblematic destinations,’” is a non-negotiable adjoined element of the charism of the Institute.[6]

Saint John Paul II already said it: “The Church does not have need of officials, administrators, or businessmen, above all today, but of ‘friends of Christ,’ who know how to manifest love in an attitude of altruistic service that does not exclude any person.”[7]

Thus it is that our missionaries, not letting themselves be intimidated by the difficulties, nor “daunted by doubts, misunderstanding, rejection or persecution,”[8] and without getting discouraged by the prediction of scarce fruit or by the shortage of means, today carry out splendid missionary work in Syria, in the Solomon Islands, in Egypt, in Papua New Guinea, in Iraq, in the Gaza Strip, in Tajikistan, in Iceland, in Guyana, in the jungle of Peru, in Tanzania, in Taiwan, in Russia, and in many other “outposts,” knowing that their efforts and their sufferings will not be useless; on the contrary, they constitute the yeast that will make the longing to consecrate oneself to the noble cause of the Gospel germinate in the hearts of other apostles, and the life of grace germinate in many souls, even though they may not see it directly.

Because an authentic missionary of the Incarnate Word knows himself to be chosen, chosen from among men[9] for the most honorable mission of “being an instrument of salvation.” Because he is convinced that he “do[es] not work for ephemeral or fleeting things, but ‘for the most divine work among the divine ones,’ which is the eternal salvation of souls,”[10] and, with true priestly spirit, he is ever more enthusiastic to walk the royal road of the cross, while in his chest grows immensely the living desire that He must reign.[11] Because in the depth of his soul, he feels personally directed to him that divine groan of our Lord: the laborers are few;[12] and he cannot avoid the sublime “mission of bringing the gospel to the multitudes—the millions and millions of men and women—who as yet do not know Christ the Redeemer of humanity.”[13] Because he knows that his vocation demands of him a self-giving without strength- and time-limits,[14] and, in imitation of Christ, he wants to lose his life in order to save it and to conquer it fully.[15] Ultimately, because one cannot be ‘of the Incarnate Word’ and at the same time be “evasive to the missionary adventure,” it belongs and will always belong to us to seek the emblematic missions.

For we know that, even when it is our lot to spend our life in those missionary outposts of the Church and we are frequently ignored, forgotten, or persecuted, we count on the unparalleled help and maternal protection of the Most Holy Virgin, who “devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son.”[16] She is the one who inspires and sustains our effort “even in the most difficult situations and under the most adverse conditions.”[17]

Long live the mission!

[1] Lk 5:4.

[2] Directorio de Misiones Ad Gentes, 1, citing Directory of Spirituality, 216.

[3] Directory of Spirituality, 86.

[4] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, Juan Pablo Magno, chap. 30: “El Papa y nuestro derecho propio” (New York: IVE Press, 2011), 535; our translation. The text is commenting on what the Capitular Fathers discerned as elements of the charism of the Institute in the General Chapter of the year 2007.

[5] Directorio de Misiones Populares, 19; our translation.

[6] “Notes from the V General Chapter of the Institute” (Segni, Italy, 2007), nn. 57-58 and “Notes from the VII General Chapter of the Institute” (Montefiascone, Italy, 2016), nn. 59, 77-78, 81; our translation.

[7] Saint John Paul II, “Address to the Hungarian Seminarians” (8/19/1991), 3; our translation.

[8] Directorio de Misiones Ad Gentes, 147, quoting Saint John Paul II, Redemptoris missio, 66.

[9] Heb 5:1.

[10] Directory of Spirituality, 321, quoting Pseudo-Dionysius, quoted by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Selva, 9, 1.

[11] See the Directory of Spirituality, 225, quoting 1 Cor 15:25.

[12] Mt 9:37.

[13] Directorio de Misiones Ad Gentes, 53, quoting Saint John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 35.

[14] Directorio de Misiones Ad Gentes, 146.

[15] Saint John Paul II, “Liturgy of the Word with religious people, priests and representatives of associations and ecclesial movements” (June 22, 1991), 1.

[16] The Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium, 56.

[17] Constitutions, 30.