The coming feast of Christmas will be for us the crowning of a year rich in events and prospectives, that are intelligible only in light of faith, a great deal of hope, and our own experience of the growth of the Kingdom among us. This was the year in which the declaration of the heroic virtues of Fr. Dehon occurred; in which we celebrated our XXth General Chapter with our beacon being "We the Congregation"; in which we returned to Ecuador where we had our first SCJ mission; in which we established a new presence in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and consolidated our presence in Slovakia; in which we made our first advances in formation both in the Philippines and in India; in which we celebrated the Golden Jubilee of the existence of a number of provinces and foundations; and in which we celebrate one hundred years of existence in the Congo.
This last celebration, in particular, is joined liturgically and chronologically with the mystery of the Incarnation and Birth of our Lord. In actual fact, the mission was entrusted to us by the Holy See on 25 March, 1897 and officially inaugurated on 25 December that same year at the Midnight Mass; the following 25 March its first two baptisms were entered into the baptismal registry. Such coincidences are, indeed, happy yet providential because they are centered around the mystery of the "Word made flesh who dwells among us" and "whose glory we have beheld" (Jo. 1:14) today. The Word made man; made the life and history of a people with all the flavor, the color, the originality and the limitations of a very particular culture.
To be more specific, in the Congo the instruments of this Incarnation of the Word were Bishop Grison and the more than 400 missionaries from a variety of provinces who associated themselves with the Here I come (Ecce venio) of Jesus, oftentimes giving up their very lives, accepting countless difficulties, but believing even when there was no hope. In fact, this has been a mission which has endured a great deal, which only faith and a passion for announcing the Good News have able to sustain.
In time a number of other congregations of religious men and women have become associates of our missionaries. In addition, one has to add the thousands of Congolese men and women who became the 'dwelling place' of this Word and who were, or are, in turn living stones of the local church, built and traveled in the history of this people. All of these taken together constitute a countless set of witnesses as to what took place throughout the 100 years of evangelization that we celebrate.
With God's help I will celebrate Midnight Mass close to the tomb of Bishop Grison at Saint Gabriel on the banks of the Congo River, in the very place where the great faith adventure began and which sealed the road the Congregation took. I will be together with our fellow-religious in the Congo, in union with the local church of Kisangani, and with the participation of a number of SCJ provincials.
All of you, my fellow religious, and you, members of the Dehonian Family, are invited to unite yourselves to this event, wherever in the world you happen to be, so as to welcome the Lord who comes to dwell among us.
This grace-filled occasion will awaken certain sentiments and attitudes that motivated Fr. Dehon to obtain and to sustain this mission. These sentiments and attitudes are at the root of this and of many other works of the Congregation, and Bishop Grison in writing about that 1897 Christmas Mass summarized them in these words: "The white people, moved by the sight of the object of their attention and their far off homeland listened thoughtfully; and the black people... with their eyes wide open, did not know what to think; but, I was thinking about them" (Le Règne, 1911, pg. 369).
Who can say whether taking to heart all human situations isn't the secret and the motivation required for the self-giving called for by the evangelizing mission, as it was in the intention of the Father "who so loved the world as to give us only Son" (Jo. 3:16) and to give him to us in this particular way.
May this year's Christmas stimulate in us the desire to "think about others", to set the Dehonian Family along the path of evangelization, in particular along the path of the mission beyond our borders -- without fear or calculation! May 1998 evolve under the banner of the transforming and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, as the Church itself wishes to live in preparation for the Jubilee Year 2000.
My final wish is that the theme and motto of peace as proposed by the Holy Father for the coming year: "From the justice that each individual practices comes forth peace for everyone" become a reality for all of us. The practice of justice, sought after and offered to others, makes the mystery of the Incarnation touch us and is an integral part of our Dehonian mission, whatever our vocation in life.
In the name of the entire general curia, and in my own name, I pray that Christmas be for you a time in which the Word finds a dwelling place and a hearing among us, and allows our lives and our activities to make 1998 a happy year for all humanity.