Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI Lacombe Canada)

Mission

“The call of Jesus Christ, heard within the Church through people’s need for salvation, draws us together as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Christ thus invites us to follow him and to share in his mission through word and work…we commit ourselves principally to evangelizing the poor.”

(Oblate Constitutions and Rules, C.1)

Explanation

OMI Lacombe Canada is a province within the international Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. We are missionaries. We began on January 25, 1816, when Father Eugene de Mazenod and four companions came together to preach missions in Provençal, in the rural countryside of southern France.

We are 4,440 Oblates in all – young men, old men, Oblates in formation, priests, brothers – located in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. And all these people, what do they do? We do everything. We are not specialized, except in facing urgent needs… It was enough for bishops to come to our Founder and say to him: “I do not have anybody…” for him to act, re-examine his manpower, cut personnel here and there, and release two or three men for these new needs. And that still continues today; we are men of passion, of missionary concern…

In Canada, Oblate ministry is as varied as the inner-city of Hamilton, Inuit communities in the Arctic, rural and urban parishes from coast to coast, First Nations communities on the Prairies, and work with immigrants. What is most important to us is not the location or type of ministry but that it is – in the words of our Constitutions and Rules – “…especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring.” (Constitutions 5)

Our motto is “He has sent me to bring the Good News to the poor… The Good News is proclaimed to the poor” (Luke 4:18; Matthew 11:5)