Mother Maria del Carmen Hidalgo de Caviedes, our Foundress, explained to us the positive and universal end of our mission in the Church:

“Oblation is always understood in a positive sense. That’s fine. However, we have to bear in mind a theological concept here, which is, every oblation, every sacrifice, starts from a principle of reparation. Christ the Priest, Christ the Redeemer, has to repair an offence committed against the Father; and He does it by His own oblation. This is reparation.

Therefore, when we consider sanctification in an exclusively positive sense, we have to penetrate very deeply into Christ’s Heart to discover, to understand, why this is so.

Adopting this attitude has a sense of delicacy, of valuation of Priesthood in its immense greatness. We have to penetrate deep into the Heart of Christ to reach this insight there, immersed in Him. It is not with our understanding,but by participation in Him, that we get to know what a priest is.

Priest: a mortal creature subject to passions, faults, misery, with human pettiness; but, by participating in the Priesthood of Christ, he is made “another He”. A new character is imprinted in his soul. The priest is ontologically holy, because he participates in the Priesthood of Christ: Unique, Holy and Eternal. This is so.

The Oblate, then, finds herself embedded, united, linked and related to that Priesthood. Due to her specific mission rogo et sanctifico pro eis, when she offers and gives her life for them, she has to sink into admiration for the priest, because, as a participant of the Priesthood of Christ, he is another Christ. The Oblate has to see beyond the possible sin of the priest, to consider in him only the greatness of the priesthood of Christ. Therefore, we do not think in a reparation sense (although we know that, to be holy, we must stop being sinners), but, by giving our life for them, we focus the spirit on what the priest is by the Mystery of Salvation, and on the higher degree of holiness he, as a creature, can reach.

This is to free the soul from the enemy that, some time, thought imagination or an impression, could be morbidly rummaging about in something less perfect of the priest. We must think the priest is another Christ. And Christ taught us to see it like this at the Last Supper, while the betrayal of Judas was still present (The one who dips with me into the dish, he is). However, in his priestly prayer (prayer that gives us life), He said, Father, I pray for them… for the ones you have given me, because they are yours… Oh Holy Father! Keep them in your name that you have given me…I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one… None of them was lost, except the son of destruction, thus fulfilling the Scriptures (Jn 17). It seems as if He sidestepped and veiled the name,although he had his heart bleeding, not only for Judas, but also for those who would later follow him; but he didn’t want to lay his eyes on it. By explaining what he wants from the priest, what the priest is, in this sublime prayer, He prays and offers himself, rogo et sanctifico meipsum… sanctifica eos in veritate. Sanctify them in the Truth! (Jn 17:19)

The Oblate has to sink into this abyss of the Priestly Love of Christ, who loved them to the end (Jn 13:1). She has to be offered in that same oblation – His–, that must continue to live in us. She must share His feelings when he says: Father, I consecrate myself for them, I pray for them, leaving aside everything that could be possible faults in those who would follow Judas´ gesture.

Christ knew you have to stop being a sinner in order to be holy. He is the Redeemer, and His oblation bears a reparative seal. However, when his Heart explodes in this intimate, matchless way, Sanctify them in truth!, there, in the depth of Christ´s Heart, full of love to the priest, eager for holiness, desiring to give his life, to consummate his oblation for them, he draws a veil on the negative side and overflows with what he craves from them. May they be one, as You and I, O Father, we are… Consecrate them in truth.

We have to penetrate there, to the depth of Christ´s Heart, because this same heartbeat, rogo et sanctífico pro eis, wants to continue living in us. Entering into His Heart is necessary to live the oblation in a positive sense and not have a confused idea, thinking we remain in a position that is not true, not theological. No. We know that every sacrifice starts from a reparation principle. Nevertheless, we must know why we place ourselves in this positive gaze of their sanctification, losing all negative sense of reparation: Because Christ, in his love towards them, is hurt by setting the eyes on something negative.

Now I want to give another explanation on this aspect of sanctification and not reparation.

This is the spirit that the Oblate must maintain and feed. But living the pro eis, we have to give Christ wide, total capacity. We have to be conscious that we are just a wrap, nothing else, of His pro eis. He takes our capacity and continues His rogo et sanctifico, thus making us be prayer and oblation in the Church. In that prayer, He, living in us, can give our soul a painful touch, a participation of something that has his heart in grief. We cannot and should not avoid this. The spirit that encourages the Oblate, where she sets her eyes, what keeps her in alert, must always be the holiness of them in a positive sense. […]

However, if in a prayer of confidence with Christ –in that intimate posture which the Oblate must always have (the austerity of faith intensifies it)–, lending the soul nothing but the capacity for His prayer, He wants to give that painful touch, that inexpressible news, which is a squeeze of the soul and heart, with the certainty that it is Christ in bitterness, in agony, in anxiety of holiness for them, this cannot be rejected. The soul must humbly remain in offering, in pain, with deep gratitude.

This phrase, in a positive sense, is normally the attitude, view, spirit that animates the Congregation. However, I thought that I should show you another aspect that not always, but at some time or circumstance, God, absolute owner, can give us. Because it is true that Christ´s Heart bleeds many times because of the lack of love from them. We cannot stand on that, as a way to get inspired to pray more sensitively. That would be not to understand His delicacy towards them. But if He makes us enter the intimate enclosure of a prayer of confidence, of closeness, which it is not due to our thought nor to our sensitiveness, but it is the soul with God alone, it is Christ who gives us the participation of His Heart in that pain, we must open our soul and live that experience like a treasure, with a weight of immense responsibility. May the soul remain like gripped, not reflecting on some thought or anything, but adhered to that intimate participation, immersed in the Heart of Christ.

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Universal

Universal sense. The pro eis (for them) would be small, very small, if it stayed in a pro eo (for him). That prayer of Christ, that heartbeat of Christ that gives us life, has the total universality of the Heart of Christ. It is God who has the whole future in mind. He sees until the last priest of future times. Universal, unlimited, infinite Pro eis. It is for everyone who participates in the Priesthood of Christ, even not knowing him, where he is and how he is. Priests and priesthood aspirants of any place, through all times, regular and secular clergy: they all participate in the Priesthood of Christ. And it is Christ the Priest, his heartbeat, that gives us life; life that has expression in his Priestly Prayer.

The effects of our prayer do not happen where we are. The fruit of that deep prayer does not have to be collected nearby, but where God wants it to happen. And, perhaps, the oblation of an entire Community is bearing fruit in America or in Africa, where that Eternal, universal Plan of God, that Heart of Christ the Priest, sees that it is more necessary and He wants to make it fruitful there. It does not really matter. Universality keeps us in faith, the more dark and deep, the more strong and firm.

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