Convocation 2026
Looking to the Future of Our Mission
September 29, 2026

Tuesday’s Convocation sessions invited participants to turn their attention toward the future – both the future of the Oblate Congregation and the emerging directions for mission within OMI Lacombe Canada.

The day began with a virtual presentation from Fr. Luis Ignacio Rois Alonso, OMI, Superior General, who joined the Convocation from Rome. Addressing the question, “What is emerging for the future of the Congregation?”, Fr. Luis Ignacio offered several paths for reflection and discernment.

He spoke about the importance of returning to the essentials of the Oblate charism; walking synodally as a charismatic family; strengthening the quality of community life; ongoing discernment of our missionary life; and remaining faithful to our mission with and among the poor. He challenged participants to have the courage to move beyond familiar ways of doing things and to explore new forms of missionary collaboration and communion.

A particularly strong invitation was to consider what it means today to be missionaries not simply for the poor, but with the poor, placing those most abandoned at the centre of our lives, discernment, communities and actions.

SUPERIOR GENERAL’S PRESENTATION – PDF

Following the Superior General’s presentation, our facilitator, Fr. Gilles Mongeau, SJ, brought the conversation closer to home by inviting participants to revisit the December 2025 letter from Provincial, Fr. Andrzej Stendzina, OMI, Emerging Directions for New Ministries.

That letter shared the Provincial Council’s ongoing discernment about future ministries and emphasized an important guiding principle: community and mission belong together, and ministry is provincial rather than individual.

Participants reflected on the emerging priorities identified across the Province, including ministry with Indigenous Peoples and reconciliation, migrants and newcomers, people experiencing homelessness, young adults, and vocations.

Together, the two presentations provided a framework for the day’s discernment: listening to what is emerging across the wider Oblate Congregation while asking how those same calls might take shape here in OMI Lacombe Canada.

The conversations continued throughout the day as participants considered not simply what ministries we might undertake, but how we are being called to live our mission together into the future.