"Our Lord had very much
at heart the creating of a spirit, a missionary spirit, an evangelical burning
that would sweep over the whole world. He came to cast a fire on the earth, and
he willed that it would be enkindled (Lk 12:49)."
- Fr. Thomas Augustine Judge,
Founder, Missionary Cenacle Family
Nature and Purpose of our Mission
We, the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, are a clerical Institute of pontifical right, one branch of an apostolic family, who have been called by God to be missionaries in the Church. We have a special relationship with the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity (the women religious of our mission family). Together, our religious and lay branches comprise the Missionary Cenacle Family.
By our lives as Missionary Servants we seek first to glorify the Triune God. We follow in the footsteps of the apostles who, filled with the Holy Spirit, went forth from the Cenacle to spread everywhere the knowledge and love of Jesus. We live and work that God's name be hallowed, that His Kingdom come, that His Holy Will be done (Mt 6:9-10).
The missionary thought, the missionary idea, the missionary spirit should be dominant in our Missionary Cenacle. We meet the pressing needs of the day by undertaking works that the Church wants, that are good and necessary, and that have a note of abandonment about them. In all our apostolic commitments, we recognize the authority of the bishops and their special role as signs of unity and as pastors in the local churches.
Our specific mission is the preservation of the faith in those areas and among those people neglected and abandoned, especially the poor. Our chief effort is to develop a missionary spirit in the laity with the goal that every Catholic be an apostle.
We are to have an ardent zeal for the poor, for those desolate in all things spiritual and for victims of injustice. Charity urges us to action on behalf of justice as an integral part of announcing the coming of the kingdom.
The Cenacle spirit is a Catholic
spirit, a loving, burning, operating love of God and neighbor. We are to
share this spirit by promoting and supporting the ministries of the laity in the
mission of the Church. We acknowledge "different gifts but the same
Spirit, different ministries but the same Lord (1 Cor 12:24).
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Responding to the Charism that we have inherited from our founder, we feel called for the preservation of the faith. We give of ourselves in many different ministries such as parishes, retreat centers, jails and AIDS hospices. Throughout the years our Congregation has assumed apostolates to later hand them on to others after achieving our goals in order to take on other ones that are more in need. Fr Judge encouraged his spiritual sons and daughters to consider themselves the vanguard of the Church in the areas of most need. We continually evaluate our apostolates, always attentive to the signs of the times and to the needs of God’s People.
In the 1940’s our Congregation gave much attention to the missions in the South of the United States. Then in the 50’s we began parish work among the Puerto Rican people both on the Island of Puerto Rico and in the States. Then in the 60’s we initiated various apostolates in California. And in the latter part of the 70’s the first Missionary Servants arrived in Mexico and now we have followed God’s Spirit to Costa Rica and Columbia.
The Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity feel called to respond to the needs of God’s People, which are many, be it in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central and South America or wherever the Spirit leads us to touch the needs of His People.
We hope to count on more and more people who have a missionary heart and, feeling the same call as we, want to give generously of themselves for the good of their brothers and sisters and for the Glory of God.
The Cenacle Spirit is:
- a Christlike spirit of "faith working through love" (Gal 5:6).
- a Gospel spirit following the uncompromising message of the Gospels calling us to excercise our prophetic role as witness to truth
- a prayerful spirit recognizing that only a spiritual person can lead an apostolic life, and that we cannot be spiritual without prayer
- an apostolic spirit which finds its perfection in zeal, living lives of self-sacrifice, of patience, of self-denial consecrated to the service of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Christ calls us to follow him with liberty of spirit and to share in his emptying of self for others (Phil 2:7). He was celibate and poor (Mt 8:20; Lk 9:58) and obedient until death (Phil 2:8). We freely vow chastity, poverty, and obedience as a personal response in faith to God whose love the Holy Spirit has poured out in our hearts (Rom 5:5).
Chastity:
We imitate the single-hearted
love of Jesus who gave himself for us as an offering to God (Eph 5:1). Our
gift of self in consecrated chastity should liberate our hearts to love and to
be loved by all those given us in community and ministry. Our chastity
should find expression in a warm and selfless love of others.
By the vow of chastity, we promise to remain celibate and to lead lives of perfect continence for the love of God and for the sake of the kingdom (Mt 19:22). By accepting the gift of celibacy, we express our preferential love of the Lord Jesus.
Poverty:
We
imitate the poverty of Jesus who for our sake "made himself poor though he
was rich, so that we might become rich through his poverty" (2 Cor
8:9). The virtue of poverty inspires us to be totally dependent upon the
providence of God, to be subject to the common law of labor, to heed the cry of
the poor and to live simply, holding all things in common.
By the vow of evangelical poverty, we renounce our right to dispose of and to use anything that has material value without permission.
Obedience:
We
imitate the obedience of Jesus, who "humbled himself, obediently
accepting even death, death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). The virtue
of obedience is grounded in faith and love, generosity and forgetfulness
of self. Our obedience should be humble and of the heart, simple and
entire, constant and strong in everything.
By the vow of obedience, we pledge to obey those persons who exercise authority in everything that pertains to the observance of the Constitution and the integrity of our religious profession. We are to obey the Holy Father in virtue of our vow of obedience and to show him particular loyalty.
