Rome, December 26, 2005

Dear participants at the 2006 National Oblate Youth Encounter,

Greetings from the Eternal City! Around World Youth Day 2005, I was happy to meet some of you here in Rome, when you visited the General House of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Thank you for coming! Before that, we also met in Hünfeld, Germany, at the world-wide meeting of the Oblate youth on their way to Cologne.

I was happy to hear about your 2006 annual youth camp where you now have gathered from all over Australia and I gladly send you this little message. St. Eugene de Mazenod had a heart for young people and he enjoyed spending time with them. Above all, he wanted to share with the young what was most dear to himself: his experience of Christ and the ways through which Christ can be alive in a believer’s heart. Through Jesus’ friendship, persons become more human, more Christian, and we really can become saints.

Dear friends, if on your journey as Oblate youth you experience that Christ is alive in you, be not afraid to share your discovery with others. We all must be missionaries! You know too well, how much there is need of believers witnessing to their faith. In my many travels as Superior General, I continually experience how people thirst for God, and I see how Oblates and their friends in 67 countries give witness to the life of God within us.

In 2008, many young Christians will be looking to Australia and some of them will make their way down-under. I am sure that Australia’s young Christians have a lot to offer to the world, and I do hope that the Oblate youth of your country will also make its own visible contribution. In the preparations for that event I pray that you will experience the life of Christ to the full.

United in prayer with you at your 2006 National Oblate Youth Encounter, I give you my best.

Yours in Christ and Mary Immaculate

Fr. Wilhelm Steckling, OMI
Superior General