Like many of you each morning at the end of Morning Prayer, I read a bit of St. Gaspar’s wisdom from the “Our Daily Companion” calendar. Contained in the pages of the calendar are a treasure trove of sayings from our founder. One of my favorite quotations is, “Unlike statues, missionaries are not motionless. They serve wherever God wills to call them.” This imagery that St. Gaspar uses speaks to me. We are not statues. We are not motionless. I can relate to this each time I look at the odometer of my car. In my ministry I seem to always be on the go. And the same can be said for all of my fellow Missionaries. Going from the church, to the parish hall, out on a sick call, to visit a grieving family, we are also on the move. Going where God calls us.
Today this bit of wisdom from Gaspar resonates with me on another level as well. Not only are we personally not statues and motionless, but we as a Congregation are not statues and motionless. We must go where God wills to call us. That is what the New Creation process is about. Listening to the call of God. Hearing the cry of the blood and responding. Over the past year we have discerned that God is calling both the Kansas City and Cincinnati Provinces into a new creation in the United States. This call is the same call that Saint Gaspar heard in 1815 and his response ushered into the world a new creation, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. Gaspar wasn’t a statue. Gaspar wasn’t motionless.
On this Feast of St. Gaspar, let us follow in his footsteps and boldly respond to God’s invitation to be made anew so that we can more faithfully respond to the signs of the time and the cry of the blood.
St. Gaspar, pray for us.
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The V. Rev. Jeffrey Kirch, C.PP.S., is the provincial director of the Cincinnati Province. Previously, he served as the secretary general of the worldwide Congregation and was also in ministry at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind., of which he is an alumnus.