Loving God,
we give you thanksfor our Founder Théophile Verbist,
his first companions and all those
who followed him during these 160 years of our CICM history.
Like our Founder,
many laid down their lives for the sake of the Mission.
Even today, you send us to proclaim and live
this challenging Good News in a changing world.
Send your Holy Spirit into our hearts
as a seal on Jesus’ Mission for us today.
So that this time of preparation for the 16th General Chapter
may be for us a time of joyful hope and daring creativity.
May we welcome this Chapter as a gift
and a commitment to continue Jesus’ Mission.
Make us faithful to our charism of first evangelization
and loving attention to the poor
and those at the peripheries of society.
May the hospitality of the heart of the Virgin Mary,
Mother of the Church and Mother of the Mission,
in whom Your boundless love became flesh,
become the outstanding quality of all our confreres worldwide.
Thus, Jesus will dwell in us as in her Immaculate Heart. Amen.
