Page 203 - Reflections on St. Joseph

Precisely in the year 1921, the first General Chapter of the Congregation sanctioned the work
of laity with the Congregation, erecting the Pious Association of Oblate Cooperators. In the
month of March of 1922, the Joseph newsletter, in its first year of existence, asked: “Who are
the Oblate Cooperators?” And it explained: “In every well ordered army one part advances in
combat and the other attends to the provisions. And so in this young Oblate army, while the
Religious of the Congregation of St. Joseph making the whole world their country will not spare
themselves from fatigue in working for the salvation of souls, the Oblate Cooperators
encourage, prayer and assist even materially the efforts of the former”.

This was a vision, one can say, very pre-conciliar, but it did much good in the past decades.
Today, with the help of the Second Vatican Council, it is possible to take a step forward and
consider the Oblate Lay Collaborators not any more as “troops for provisions”, but as equally
dedicated, each one in his proper role, in proclaiming the Gospel and, more in particular, in
caring for and forming youth: in oratories, schools, associations, and in all the forms of
apostolate proper to the Congregation.

The Council has emphasized the dignity and necessity of the lay apostolate in the Church,
affirming that lay associations are “a sign of the communion and unity of the Church in Christ”
(AA, 18). " On the other hand”, explains the Apostolic Exhoration Christifideles laici, “in a
secularized world, above all, the various group forms of the apostolate can represent for many
a precious help for the Christian life in remaining faithful to the demands of the gospel and to
the commitment to the Church's mission and the apostolate” (n .29).

As far as us as a Congregation, it was the grace of the beatification of Bishop Joseph Marello
which has reopened an interest in knowing his spirituality and of participating more closely in
the work of the Oblates in the world.

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Reflections on st. joseph