There are priests and Brothers who mobilize, join their efforts and consecrate their lives to the oblates congregation in order to serve God’s love and to testify to it. They take part in Jesus’ mission and answer to the appeal of the Church.

They preach the Gospel to the poor, the forsaken, the humbled and the sick for them to know and live in God’s love and Justice. They are also sent to preach the peace of Christ to the whole world.

The OMI Congregation members made 4 vows: CHASTITY, POVERTY, OBEISANCE and PERSEVERANCE. Their lives are based on prayer and service. They live their service with hope and joy. There are also fraternity and sharing with others that they fulfil on Christ’s name.

When Eugène De Mazenod gathered the priests interested in his mission at the Carmel’s in Aix, he exhorted them to serve the poor, the peasant nobody cared for and only then the town dwellers. Afterward, they ended up preaching the Gospel to the whole wide world. He explained 2 deep objectives to them: “I am sent to carry the good news to the poor”. Now they know”. Eugène and his companions have not failed their discipline and they preferred saving poor people’s souls instead of displaying inside cathedrals.

Eugène DE MAZENOD could talk like Paul: “All I want to know is Jesus crucified”. During the 19^th Century, consecrating oneself to Jesus crucified was not an easy deal. One had to offer an image of the Christ crucified to save the poor. Eugène knew that Eternal Life could be reached only through Christ death and resurrection.

The oblates belong firstly to Christ. The Christ has touched Eugène and he heard His Appeal to abandon everything to follow Him. He then abandoned his wealth, his family, his freedom and all materiel goods to follow Jesus, to live Jesus’ life and to take part in His mission. He understood why he had to preach, especially to the poor.

Virgin Mary is the patroness of the Congregation. They live with simplicity and dedicate themselves to the Saviour and to His work.

The Virgin Mary’s willingness to receive the Christ and to offer Him to the world, He who is hope, has convinced the oblates on the Church’s faith and their own faith.

Eugène, like all province people, felt a simple but strong love for Virgin Mary they used to call “our good Mother”.

When Pope Leon XII has recognized the Congregation, Eugène wrote to father Tempier: “Don’t you think that carrying the name of oblates of Mary translates well our carrying God’s Word?”

For Father Eugène, Mary is above all the Saviour’s Mother: “the one who gave us life and gave salvation to the world”. The oblates revere the Virgin as the Saviour’s mother and the Mother of all men: “she the woman who gave birth to all of us through Spirit by her love for the Man of God”. She is the mother of Pardon, the Saviour’s mother: this is what the oblates wish to contemplate while following father De Mazenod, when caring for the poor and when serving the Church.

They chose her as mother and confide to her the sorrows and the joys of their mission of preaching Jesus Christ as the only Saviour to the world.

As Apostle John, they received as mother the Virgin Immaculate at the moment they accepted to follow the Christ. She has always been present in their lives and has also shared the sorrow and joys brought by their missionaries’ status. As for them, they strive to love her and to make her known

The oblates belong to the Church. For Eugène, the Church and Jesus Christ are one. To Love Jesus, the Pope and the Bishop means to love the Church. The real salvation for the poor, self completion and real joy can be found only within the Church, near God’s people.

The oblates belong to the poor. They are conscious of the world’s poverty and suffer too. The poor they care for are: the unloved young people, the jobless, the sick, the prisoners, the immigrants, the victims of injustice, those who do not know the Christ or have forgotten him, the political and economical refugees… Often, the oblates hear Christ’s appeal through the poor. The oblates love them in a particular way, thus their eagerness to preach the greatness and the respect those poor people can find in Jesus Christ.