One Family

The family, the fundamental cell and principal structure for envisioning human and Christian relationships, is indispensable and central for understanding and living our charisma.

The models of reference are: the Family of the Holy Trinity, the family of Nazareth, Jesus and his own, the universal and particular Church, and the family founded through Christian marriage. Our religious Family, with its particular manner, is inspired by these models.

In our case, the ties of flesh and blood are not those that founded our family relationships but something stronger: The Merciful Love of the Lord that we received us as children, that we fraternally share among us and manifest towards all people.

At the same time as we must learn from the Church to be a family, in the evangelical sense, through our charisma we want to be increasingly a family that makes the Merciful Love visible in the world.

Our religious family wants to incarnate this communion, by emphasizing the experience of “being one family,” of “all being one,” as Jesus wanted us to be (cf. Jn 17:21)

We are “one family” because we have the same charisma transmitted by the same Mother.Thefoundation of our family is rooted in the vocation to live and bear witness to the Merciful Love, which constitutes the “foundational charisma.” “God is a kindhearted Father, who seeks in every possible way to comfort, help and make his children happy, and who pursues and looks for them with untiring love, as if He could not be happy without them” (M. Esperanza). We are called to receive, keep, deepen and develop this gift in the Church and in the world.

We are “one family” because we have the same spirituality. The spirituality of Merciful Love is centered on the entire commitment to the Father (obedience) and to friends and enemies (mercy). In this sense, our spirituality is a priestly spirituality (self-offering in obedience: cf. Heb 10:6ff.), and it is a charitablespirituality: these two aspects must be closely united and concentrate on the same mission: the priests and the poor.

We are “one family” because we have one unique mission. In order to reach the priests, those who suffer, the families and the working world, and so that we may bring the same message of Merciful Love, there is a need for both union and for the diversification that has led to the creation  of the six forms of membership in our Family.