A gift to share

Every year, on February 2nd, the Church celebrates the Day of Consecrated Life. There are many different paths to respond to God with one's life. He, Father and Creator, has always wanted to share His Life with our humanity in His Son Jesus, the infinitely beloved.
We Secular Scalabrinian Missionaries, in the joy of belonging to the Scalabrinian Family, live our specific secular consecration in the world of migrants, walking in the footsteps of Jesus along the path of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
In our history, with the offering of our lives to God, the mission of sharing this gift, received from God and recognized by the Church, is growing.
We experience a deep gratitude for the charism that has led us—since 1961—to enter the history of migrations to live in the manner of “salt and leaven” according to the Gospel. Indeed, as we live in environments and contexts of the world, diversified by the presence of migrants from multiple backgrounds and cultures, we share our lives seeking to grasp the “hidden treasure” in the plural reality of migrations. On this path, we can value, through everyday relationships, the sacrifice of migrants and the new possibilities that the exodus matures along the way, making room for the providence of God's Love.
In the spirituality of incarnation of Blessed Giovanni Battista Scalabrini (1839-1905), we also perceive a “secular” dimension in his particular attention to the emerging realities of Italian emigration of his time. It was marked by dramatic separations and risks, especially during overseas journeys. G.B. Scalabrini was attentive to intervene at various levels: human, religious, social, political, while he knew how to grasp with faith the hope inherent in the ongoing transformations. He foresaw a new universal and united humanity that, despite the separations and sufferings of migration, could be realized by God's providence, while the eyes and hearts of many people widened beyond their partial plans and national origins. In fact, G.B. Scalabrini understood that, through the events that transform history, “a much broader, much more important and sublime work is being prepared, that is, the union in God of all men.”
Yesterday and today, the presence of migrants requires us to base our relationships on the universal gift of providence and the Love of God, who created us in His image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). Our humanity, from the very beginning, has been called to participate in the human-divine Life of the Son of God: Jesus, who in the mystery of his incarnation shares with us his very filial Life in the divine Trinitarian communion.
We are all sent on a great mission to personally and together fulfill God's surprising plan, as we open ourselves to the divine life of communion among differences, in which that deep and broad design of peace that the Holy Spirit is accomplishing can flourish in every season, not without our human participation and the contribution of each one in their diversity. But by which way?
The human-divine Way is before us in the incarnation of the very filial Life of Jesus who, crucified and risen, opens the way for us toward the desired goal: the union in God of all peoples in one people, the union of all families in one family. An exciting vision that fascinated Blessed G.B. Scalabrini himself and moved his exceptional creativity in the love of God and man.
Read more (Magazine On the Roads of the Exodus)