Father Charlie Banks OMI
Provincial of the Southern Province USA

Summary of Main Presentation

David Ulrich and I were trying to get out of Houston, and we couldn't rent a car and ended up leaving Houston at 1.30am to get here. So that was the extent of your provincial's wild night...

I will skip the first bit of the talk because all of you here know my background.

My thoughts on restructuring. At first, I was dead against it. Then when I was vicar-provincial, I saw how difficult it was to get motivated formators and vocation recruiters. Then I began to see that this restructuring was imperative for the sake of the mission.  I see it as being connected with the interior, with the heart and soul of each Oblate, that unless it is about our deep radical and ongoing conversion, our restructuring will be a failure. 10

I find the roots of this to lie in Unity and Spirituality.

As for unity, we must break down the walls and petty jealousies and our own cultural pride that have at times been downright scandalous amongst us as Oblates in the different provinces. There should no more be this mentality of "US versus THEM." 3

As for Spirituality, Saint Eugene said, we must be men of faith, and be like Mary, with an attitude of deep gratitude for what God has done through the Oblates in this land of ours. 10

My hopes are that we take seriously our consecration as religious. Though we work in parishes and so rightly can be called the "bishop' men," first of all, we are religious.

I hope that we can stop the game playing, that we can have a public sense of accountability, that we practice common prayer and real hospitality.

I also hope for a much greater mission impact on our youth. We need to invite them to join us, for, once we are disconnected with youth, we have no future. 7

There is also the multi-culturalism of our work, that those who were once minorities are now becoming majorities.

I believe that the new provincial needs to be a realist, to foster communication that is two-way, to delegate a whole variety of tasks to others, to get out there and be with the men at the grass roots, to listen and have a truck load of patience. And even if the Lord himself came down and was our first provincial for the first three or four years, there would still be lots of glitches. With the way the culture has changed in the USA over the last 25 years, something very vital has died, but it has not killed our hope. 5

When we reach our limits, there hope begins. We may have money in the bank but we are very poor, in debt, when it comes to having what attracts men to us.

We need to pray for the grace that will invigorate us with new life. Its like an Epiphany, a Resurrection and a Pentecost all rolled into one. That is what I see we need to be able to stand with the poor into the next millennium as their brothers in the Lord. 10

Additional Excerpts from Charlie Banks answers to one small group’s questions:

"I see the need for recruiting and for vocations, and would point to what we have tried here in regard to the youth pilgrimages, where we had 220 at our first and 300 this weekend, and they want more. We gave them talks on family life and sexuality and how to defend their faith against fundamentalism, etc and they tell us that they want more...." 4

"The first couple of years will be a time to settle into this, but we need to revitalize ourselves, come back to life through some means of clustering, and get out of our heads the crazy notion that vocations are the job of the vocations director alone. We all need to be finding in our work, suitable young men and inviting these young men to join us...."

Afternoon Session response to group concerns:

"I want to respond to the question of "How can we imprint the Oblate charism on American culture?" In the world of business, they say that the big thing is visibility. How our product is seen, how we are seen? I think we need to move towards establishing Oblate Mission Centers, and more. The American Church doesn’t know Saint Eugene. It sees him as a foreigner. Yet, when you look at how his own family unraveled, that he suffered through his parents divorce, then we can bring him much closer to the grass roots of people who have the same experience and whom we try to serve. His love for Mary, and his love for the Church, these sort of things stand out. If we can use some creative thinking and give it a twist, we can get this message out there.  In the past, we have been too humble in tooting our own horn, or too busy with our work with the poor that people don’t know the good things we have to share..." 10

"You ask "How can we better share our Oblate life with each other?" In our hearts, I believe we all feel and know that Oblates need Oblates. But that is a matter of our priorities, of the decisions we make. 3

We can either attend diocesan meetings or Oblate meetings. We have a decision of what meeting to go to. I think more than that, if we can’t be together in person, we can be with each other in prayer through our practice of Oraison, daily prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. I also think we need to be realists about this.  Some will never buy into what we want to do, but we should not let them hold us back from meeting with each other, supporting each other, building each other up..." 10

Final Words:

"Thanks to you all, and especially to the organizers here who prepared it for us."
-- Father Charlie Banks OMI

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