We are grateful to God for the founding of our congregation. As birthday is important to us, so also is the birthday of the congregation for all of us Claretians. 172 years before, St. Claret and the other 5 priests of the diocese came together to found the congregation. Our founder St. Anthony Mary Claret as he started the congregation on July 16, 1849, said “Today we begin a great work”. Even though our founder said that they begin a great work, it was a humble beginning with six of them. What made the congregation grow and spread to different continents is the Holy Spirit that animated and motivated St. Claret to begin this great work.

“Your rod and your staff give me courage” (Ps 22:4): the first sermon of Fr. Claret on the foundation day was based on this. When he founded the congregation on the Feast of the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, to instil in the co-founders and also in the future Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the need to the devotion and confidence we need to place in the Holy Cross and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Priests whom the Lord had given the same spirit that motivated St. Claret. Any new beginning can last only when all those who are part of the venture take up the same ideals for which the venture was started by the founders. Our congregation could sustain and grow because the founder and co-founders and all those who joined the congregation stuck to the same vision and aim. “The aim of our Congregation is to seek in all things the glory of God, the sanctification of our members and the salvation of people throughout the world, in keeping with our missionary charism in the Church” (CC. 2).

On this day, we need to remember the purpose for which St. Claret and the Co-founders started the congregation. As St. Claret found that he alone could not give the good news to all people who were thirsting for the Word, he called together those who shared the same spirit. So we can say, the congregation was started to take care of a need that was prevalent at the time of Claret and something which is still prevalent in today’s world: the need to give Word to the world. First and foremost, this is the work that we, Claretians, need to do. Our Charism to be Servants of the Word rightly summarizes this aim of the congregation. We also need to realize that the Congregation was started not much for its members, but for others. The congregation, coming together of priests with the same spirit, was mostly to respond to the need of others. Others were the focus, members of the congregation had to keep others, those whom we are called to serve, and that is the focus of our ministry. So at no moment, being an apostolic congregation, its members became a priority, but always the priority was others, those who needed the Word, those who had to be served. 

?Today as we celebrate the 172nd anniversary of the founding of the congregation, what we need to do is to go back to the original spirit for which the congregation was started. Our focus needs to be those who are to be served by us, those people who thirst for the Word of God and we need to make use of all the means possible to address the needs of people which are urgent, using timely and effective? means. From self-centeredness, we need to move towards other-centeredness. From being in the centre of activities, we need to move towards the peripheries. For these, pastoral vibrancy and missionary commitment are necessary. Also, only when there is a vibrant community that is faithful to the precepts of the congregation, where the members jointly fulfil the mission entrusted to the community, we can say that we are true to the aim for which the congregation was founded. Let this anniversary challenge us to be authentic Claretians, Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 

A very blessed Foundation Day to every one of you. May our Mother and her Immaculate Heart, and St. Anthony Mary Claret, our founder intercede for us. 

Fr. Sabu George Koottarappallil, CMF

Provincial Superior