At his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus became ever more profoundly aware of his mission: to be the Beloved Son, the Suffering Servant who would bring knowledge of salvation to all. With this deepened consciousness of his personal vocation and call, Jesus enters into the solitude of the desert. There he encounters his Father; and this encounter clarifies, strengthens, gives direction and ever increasing power to this calling.
In a similar way, we too enter into this encounter with the living God, keenly aware of our vocation, of the call we have received to be part of the Missionary Cenacle Family. Through our time in solitude with Jesus we pray that we too might come to an ever deeper, newer, richer, fuller appreciation, understanding and love of this personal, missionary call. It is who we are, who we have become through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Grace We Seek:
A more profound love
of our Missionary Cenacle vocation.
Reflection Material
A. From the Rule of Life
1. Our Lord had very much at heart the creating of a spirit, a missionary spirit, an evangelical burning that would sweep over the whole world. He came to cast a fire on the earth, and he willed that it would be enkindled (Luke 12:49). The Holy Spirit has enkindled this fire in our hearts. This is our heritage: an apostolic spirit, a Gospel spirit, a Catholic spirit. The Missionary Cenacle spirit is charity, charity aflame.
B. From the Word of God
The fire of God’s impassioned love – Luke 12:49-53
The fire of God’s love for his oppressed people – Exod. 3:1-6
God’s impassioned love is a gift – Rom. 5:5-21
This impassioned love inspires intimacy with God and empowers us for mission –Rom. 8:31-39
C. From Father Thomas Augustine Judge, C.M.
1. Conference to Missionary Cenacle Family – Pentecost Meeting (May 31, 1924)
Our Lord on many occasions betrayed what was in His Divine Heart, what was in His adorable mind. He informs us that He came to cast a fire on the earth and He willed that it should be enkindled. He had very much at heart the creating of a spirit, a missionary spirit, an evangelical burning that would sweep over this world. He put no limitation on His message; His message was for all peoples, for all times and for all places.
To safeguard that message, to insure its delivery, our Lord taught and enfibred into the hearts of His followers His own blessed adorable spirit. He protected that spirit with evangelical virtues. He made much of sacrifice. He declared that one condition of discipleship was the taking up of the cross. He promised the most extraordinary recompense to those who exhausted themselves for His sake. He reversed all the maxims of human wisdom when He said, “He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me shall find it.” (Matt. 10:39); meaning that He would pour life and health and spirit and vigor into those who would forget themselves for His sake, into those who would become indifferent to the pangs of hunger, into those who would become unmindful of disease; whereas He would take life from those who considered ease, comfort and extension of life at the expense of His interests.
He promised hundredfolds of reward to those who would work and labor and toil in His name; in fact, our Lord encouraged his followers, and those who would follow His followers, by promising them that they “shall shine as stars for all eternity,” (cf. Dan. 12:3) that they would be beacons in every conceivable way. The best thing in His giving He promised to those who would teach in His Holy Name. He just heaped curse upon curse upon those who would scandalize a child, and blessing upon blessing upon those who would edify a child.
We are the inheritors of all those promises. What organization seems to bid fair to take them more than yourselves, the Cenacle. There is a Cenacle spirit, (but) the Cenacle spirit is only the Catholic spirit. There is no progress in Church affairs, it matters not how generous the people may be, how great basilicas architects may plan or how much they may dream of beautifying the houses of God: bishops may publish pastorals, synods may meet, but if there be not a Catholic spirit, it will be of no use.
The Catholic spirit is the fire the Lord came to cast upon the earth. It is the burning of the Sacred Heart. It is zeal. Zeal is the white heat of charity. . . .
All through the Gospels we find our Lord using souls as His instruments for good. The great Mystery of the Incarnation, at the beginning of His life in this world, bears witness to the fact that the human agent may participate in divine work.
It is His will, understand, that this fire should scatter, that it should scatter through you and you may thank God for this grace, for your selection. It should give you, certainly, a holy joy and tremendous pleasure to think that you have been so chosen by the Almighty, that his Holy Spirit is to burn in you for others, and to be communicated through you to others.
How is this to be done? You are to inspire others to this Cenacle spirit. There is no problem about the extension of the Missionary Cenacle. The only problem is to keep in your heart the Cenacle spirit. The program and methods of the Missionary Cenacle are all worked out; you have your rules (you have) those different works, the preventive work, reclamation work, and so on. The great problem is this: being right with the Cenacle spirit.
What is the Cenacle spirit? What is our Lord’s spirit? What is the apostolic spirit? What is the missionary spirit? What is this faith that works by charity? That is the Cenacle spirit. It is no spirit invented in modern times. It is no spirit produced by new methods of efficiency. It is a gospel spirit. It is charity, charity aflame. It is the breathing of the Holy Spirit. It is the sweet odor of Jesus Christ. This is your vocation: first of all you are called to reservoir that spirit in your own lives, that your own heart may be aflame with it; and secondly, you are to spread it; that is your mission.
The Cenacle spirit came from the Holy Spirit. Isn’t that a beautiful thing! When with purity of intention, with no other purpose than the thought of God, zeal for religion and its interests, love of the Church and a wish to do something for souls when, I say, we are so actuated, when the personal, as far as we can do so, is eliminated, when we place ourselves in the presence of God and invoke the Holy Spirit, and when all this happens as now during Pentecost week, on the eve of Trinity Sunday, I like to believe that it is God blessing us. I see in this the hand-writing of God on the wall in our favor. I see in this the loveliness of God in grouping us together, that He wants to bless us, that He wants to use us.
It is the loveliest of Pentecostal exercises. The liturgy of the Church is replete with prayer to the Holy Spirit and here is a body that for years and years has had a special devotion to the Holy Spirit, that is committed to spread devotion to the Holy Spirit, that is known to the Church as the Missionary Cenacle. We have reason, then, to believe that the Holy Spirit wants to bless us. This blessing is going to be ours if we will have this zeal toward the Cenacle spirit. [MF:8477-79]
Missionary Cenacle Spirituality 