As we Claretians celebrate the anniversary of the foundation of our congregation on the 16 July, let us call to mind the Life and Mission of our Founder who in his life  never lost a moment’s time and hence always kept himself busy either studying, praying, preaching or conferring the Sacraments (Aut. 647). If our congregation has grown and spread in 65 countries in 5 continents, we can be sure that the words of our Founder “My spirit goes to the whole world” are truly becoming a reality.

If the Charism began with the life and mission of St. Claret has grown as a legacy, it is relevant even today and the Spirit of God is leading us to a future with a purpose. Therefore let us be open personally and collectively to the Spirit leading and guiding us. For this what we need is a deep interiority and determination to work accordingly. In our Founder we can find one who lived, moved and found his very being united with the Divine and who searched in truth and sincerity God’s plan for him and carried out that plan according to the spirit of Jesus (Lk 4: 16-22). As a prophet of his time he stood uncompromisingly for justice and equality, but was misunderstood and criticized and many spoke calumnies against him. Yet he stood with determination and courage trusting in the divine. As our Founder did in his days, we need to go against many secular tendencies of our time and radically commit ourselves for the mission of the Church to build up an eternal and universal kingdom of God, a kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love and peace where righteousness will be at home:  Means, rather than taking our vocation as an easy job for comfortable living we need to commit ourselves to work for the glory of God and good of all humankind.

Father Claret as a mystic and man of action could blend together the contemplative and active dimension of Christian spirituality very well. Living a life of prayer and deep interiority he could accomplish a lot about which when asked by a friend he commented: “I am just a horn, someone else does the blowing” (Aut. 639).

As Indian Claretians, the life and works of Fr. Franz Xavier Dirnberger has to be an inspiration for us. Here let me share an experience in the novitiate. Almost at the end of our novitiate on an ordinary summer day afternoon, Fr. Dirnberger noticed a little cloud in the sky and expecting rain he asked us novices to do an urgent work. It was to clean the canals from different corners of our property leading to a pond, in order to collect the rain water. It was a difficult work because the canal was very narrow and full of thorny weeds. As I was doing the work and sweating Fr. Dirnberger came near and saw me rubbing off the sweat from my forehead and commented: “You are sweating, we need to sweat a liter a day”. Though his words sounded harsh then, immediately the thought came to my mind, ‘here is Fr. Dirnberger a man who works like a machine when he takes tools in hand’. Though Fr. Dirnberger did not have good knowledge of English and formative psychology, the two Latin words he used to repeat often (Ora et Labora) were very inspiring in my vocational journey.

Overcoming the temptation to find shelter in a comfort zone of laziness, prejudices and selfish search for pleasures, let us imitate Fr. Dirnberger in his spirit of joyful simplicity, prayer and hard work; those very qualities we find in our Founder in a greater degree. 

Fr. Jose Kattath CMF